NCAAT: Duke/Albany Pregame and In-Game Thread (1215 EDT Fri On CBS)

[hurleyfor3]

discuss here

Game is Friday 3/22 at 12:15 PM Eastern on CBS. CBS will air the entire game regardless of score. With the 4 Networks carrying the games, all games will be shown from opening tip to final horn regardless of score. The days of cutting away from blowout games to switch to a closer game are now over thankfully!

[CR9]

No less than they deserve for not showing up against Maryland.

[RoyalBlue08]

Don't love our draw in terms of being in Loiusville's bracket, but the bottom half of the bracket seems reasonable. I know nothing about Albany, and I hope I never learn much about them!

[1 24 90]

Don't love our draw in terms of being in Loiusville's bracket, but the bottom half of the bracket seems reasonable. I know nothing about Albany, and I hope I never learn much about them!

Albany beat Vermont at Vermont to win their conference tourney. Little guy hit 2 3s in the last 2 minutes.

[JBDuke]

Remember, this thread is about our game with Albany. Discussions about the Midwest bracket, and Duke's seeding in it, belong in the Midwest Region Discussion thread.

[burnspbesq]

As long as Miles Thompson doesn't suit up, we'll be fine.

[pfrduke]

This is a much better matchup than Lehigh last year. Albany is probably the worst of the 15 seeds. Iona would have been trouble with Momo Jones, Gulf Coast is a plenty good team - besides beating Miami, they hung with us for a half. And Pacific scores out better in most of the ranking systems. Albany is small, they're not particularly deadly from outside (only two real shooters in Iati and Black), they don't play a unique style, etc. Knocking firmly on wood, and acknowledging everything that happened last year, etc., this should be a walk.

[hurleyfor3]

Albany is #167 Sagarin. VPI, the worst-ranked ACC team, ended up at #145. I can't call up Pomeroy right now.

[subzero02]

So, we are still waiting for time and station information

[pfrduke]

Albany is #167 Sagarin. VPI, the worst-ranked ACC team, ended up at #145. I can't call up Pomeroy right now.

Albany was around 145. Best win this season was clearly the 1-point win at Washington 4 months ago, otherwise, they beat a bunch of nobody. Only other power conference team they played was OSU, and they lost by 22.

[tbyers11]

Albany is #167 Sagarin. VPI, the worst-ranked ACC team, ended up at #145. I can't call up Pomeroy right now.

Albany is 147 in Pom. Other 15s are Iona (96), FGCU (126), and Pacific (121).

[Gewebe14]

What was Lehigh last year? (I know I know too soon)

[pfrduke]

What was Lehigh last year? (I know I know too soon)

In the 80s.

[davekay1971]

In addition to Albany being less good of a 15 seed as Lehigh, Duke is unquestionably a better 2 seed than we were last year. I don't think there's any rational argument to say otherwise. At first glance, I like our chances to win our 2 game mini-tournament.

[El_Diablo]

I can't call up Pomeroy right now.

Same here. The servers must be under a lot of strain right now!

[CLW]

I know this team is clearly better than last season but it will likely be several years before I consider any game a gimmie in the tourny.

[MarkD83]

Looking at the stats for Albany...

It looks like they play a 3 guard line up; Black, Iati, and Hooley (6'0", 5'10" and 6'4", respectively) with Black and Iati being the leading scorers.
The third leading scorer is Rowley who is 6'6", 230 lbs and he is their leading rebounder.
The next two players that get the most minutes are Puk and Metcalf at 6'10" and 6'9".
After that Gurrier and Johnson play 13 or 14 minutes a game and they are 6'4" and 6'6", respectively.

The simple analysis is who will they put on Ryan and can we defend the three (Black, Iati and Hooley shoot 38, 41 and 33%). They also have 5'9" DJ Evans who shoots 37% from the three point line and plays ~10 minutes a game.

One game at a time Duke.

[FerryFor50]

Albany is not a large team and doesn't seem to rebound very well. Also doesn't light it up from outside. I like Duke's chances for an easy 1st round game.

[NYBri]

We lose this game, it will be the biggest upset in Duke/NCAA history.

i don't see that coming from this group.

[Potato]

I was somewhat concerned playing Lehigh last year, but I think we should roll these guys by 20+. They're probably the worst 15 so as long as we just make 1/3 of our 3s I don't even think it'll be close.