MBB: Arizona 72, Duke 66 Post-Game Thread

[jv001]

Many thought on Duke's performance tonight. 1( good first half defense and offense. 2) 2nd half not so good defense and very poor offense. 3) Arizona is a very good team right now and maybe even better at the end of the season. 4) AZ has players that are good on offense and defense. 5) Rasheed is driving wildly to the basket and has only shot the midrange bank shot one time that I remember. He made it. Pull up Sheed and you won't get it blocked in your face. 6) Parker needs some rest in the 2nd half. He looked worn out. 7) We give up too much on offense when Tyler and Josh are in together. I believe they are ok if used not together. 8) Andre could have been valuable if he had been in and if Parker, Hood, Quinn and Sheed would dish the ball to him. 9) Amile needs a lot of work on his free throw shooting. Or should I say his free throwing. That form is not going to get him up to 60%. 10) I really believe Marshall could have done as well as Josh and Amile tonight. I never thought I would say that. 11) NEXT PLAY! GoDuke and beat unc!

[jcastranio]

I'm not as down on Josh as I have been. He does bring experience and a physical presence to the court. I just think that Tyler and Josh don't work as well together. And Josh? If they leave you open for the 15 footer, take it once in awhile. You are a Division 1 player.

[g-money]

A few random thoughts, echoing those of others in many cases:

- We need to distribute shots a little better. By my count, JP and RH combined for 61% of Duke's shots. That's not going to keep defenses honest.

- Coach's lineup decisions are a bit befuddling. I'm all for playing seniors that bleed royal blue, but by that logic Andre should be getting as much burn as TT and JH. (Here I assume that all three have relatively equal strengths and weaknesses).

- The refs appear to have already forgotten the early-season emphasis on limiting physical play. Oh well.

- This Arizona team is a good one, so we shouldn't hang our heads too much. But where this loss could hurt us down the road is in the quest for a #1 seed.

Coach K has his work cut out for him, but if anybody can come up with a way to make the best use of our players' talent, it's him.

[vick]

I don't get using the other team's ranking as a reason to justify the loss. I think a more realistic outlook is looking at it through the lens of games that we've under-performed. We've had a few. It doesn't make our opponents locks for the Final Four. If so, Vermont is a step off of the Elite 8. This also pretends that we weren't expected to be right there with these teams going into the season and the game. There is no good loss.

But we were right with Kansas and Arizona, both games were competitive into the last two minutes. I don't think it's a 'good loss' but losing two reasonably close games to top-5 teams doesn't portend any disaster (the Vermont performance was much worse).

[roywhite]

A few random thoughts, echoing those of others in many cases:

- We need to distribute shots a little better. By my count, JP and RH combined for 61% of Duke's shots. That's not going to keep defenses honest.

- Coach's lineup decisions are a bit befuddling. I'm all for playing seniors that bleed royal blue, but by that logic Andre should be getting as much burn as TT and JH. (Here I assume that all three have relatively equal strengths and weaknesses).

- The refs appear to have already forgotten the early-season emphasis on limiting physical play. Oh well.

- This Arizona team is a good one, so we shouldn't hang our heads too much. But where this loss could hurt us down the road is in the quest for a #1 seed.

Coach K has his work cut out for him, but if anybody can come up with a way to make the best use of our players' talent, it's him.

Good points.

This is a little bit different scenario for the team (and fans). We have become accustomed to seeing Duke playing as well or better than anybody in the country in November and December. We're just not there yet, but this can be a very good team by year end. Ideally, we'd like to have more size, but there is plenty of talent and I think the staff and players will build something impressive by late season.

[heyman25]

"Rasheed - the best part of his game is the drive and pull-up for the ten footer. Yet, he insists on either shooting the three or driving all the way to the hoop. It is not working. Use your whole game, buddy. We need it."
Lot of work to get this team in sync.
Poor decisions on offense got us in a hole in crunch time.Like the announcers said Duke needs a player other than Hood, Parker, or Cook to help the scoring load. That will not happen with Hairston and Thornton.At the moment Suleimon is not getting it done. I wish Dawkins could be the one.
I guess the staff doesn't think Plumlee, Murphy, or Oleyje are ready for primetime games.

[arnie]

Considering the rest of the ACC, I certainly hope so. Only 25 wins would be weak. Frustrated as I am, I still expect Duke to battle Syracuse for the ACC.

Would like to hope you're right and I'm wrong. But as many have opined, H and TT play huge minutes for this team. K knows his players and they're apparently deserving of their role. The team has a lower ceiling than most thought.

[CR9]

Marshall needs to play. Don't care about his lack of offense at this moment. We need his rebounding and defense. Same for Semi. Jabari and Hood need more rest throughout the game and Semi is the only 'like' player at the moment. Jones needs Sheed's minutes until Sheed gets over what seems like a mental block now. TT played well. Has done the past 2 games.

It's just frustrating, man. These are early-season marquee match-ups that Duke usually wins. Youth is biting them right now.

[dukelifer]

Much of what we hear is defense, defense. I agree that is important, but I believe the problem is offense. If we had scored 90 points tonight, we would have been fine -- Arizona wouldn't have, in my view. But when we have two or three non-scorers in the game, we limit ourselves. Tyler, Josh and Amile our good at what they do, but that doesn't include much scoring. I am not suggesting that we play like Loyola-Marymount of old, but scoring more points is a good thing.

Zona is fully capable of scoring points. Duke tried to outscore ECU and Vermont. This is the way tourney ball is played. You have to play half court. Duke needs a shooter. Dawkins or Jones could be that guy.

[uh_no]

I'm not as down on Josh as I have been. He does bring experience and a physical presence to the court. I just think that Tyler and Josh don't work as well together. And Josh? If they leave you open for the 15 footer, take it once in awhile. You are a Division 1 player.

there's a reason they leave him open from 15' out...and I think at least one person here has gone loopy seeing him take that shot.

if you're going to take it once in a while, you gotta make it once in a while, and taking jumpers simply isn't josh's game.

like zoubek, hairston has figured out what he can and can't do on the court, and has realized he is most effective not trying to do the things he can't do.

[CALVET]

I like TT and JH, in the right situations. But starting and playing so much is not the right situations IMO. Our offense suffers too much. I think it'd be easier for our offensive players to learn defense than out defensive players to learn offense.

I'd like to see the starting 5: Cook, Hood, Parker, Jefferson, Plumlee.

Yes, I said Plumlee. Maybe he only gets 20 mins, but I think it'd be a confidence booster for him. He's the missing piece inside. Go with that lineup. Make sure to get Sheed his 25-30 mins. And just teach them to play defense. Drill, drill, drill. Offense is still intact with that lineup. I actually really like Amile. One thing I don't understand about K sometimes, a player (like Amile and even Marahall) will play well and hold their own, and then he'll take them out for an extended period of time... I don't know, just makes no sense to me. But then again, I've won 0 championships. I just hope they figure this thing out. We're way too talented to be playing this poorly. Not used to 2 losses in November.

Totally concur. Every starter but Cook is playing out of position. Hairston is a great kid and a locker room leader, but I don't really understand what he can do at center that Marshall can't with a little infusion of confidence from PT. K's loyalty is admirable but this is exactly the scenario I feared.

[FireOgilvie]

As I see it, Hood is a liability on defense. His problem isn't on-ball defense, it's playing his man when someone else has the ball. He's almost always out of position, particularly down low. He's also become more of a black hole on offense (doesn't pass), although he could easily fix this. He had 5 assists against KU, and 3 in the last 3 games.

[jv001]

Would like to hope you're right and I'm wrong. But as many have opined, H and TT play huge minutes for this team. K knows his players and they're apparently deserving of their role. The team has a lower ceiling than most thought.

We have seen Josh and Tyler for 3+ years and I don't see them getting much better on the offensive end of the court. TT has good enough of a game to play an effective 20 mins, but not at the same time as Josh. Josh is a 6'7" center with no hops. He's smart and understands the game but he should not get over 10 mins on a top ten team. If I'm wrong, then I'm wrong on this being a top ten team. GoDuke!

[azzefkram]

I saw MANY more bad plays by Cook than TT tonight... the difference is that TT doesn't try to do things he knows he can't do.

You also saw many, many, many more good plays by Cook. You also saw Arizona not bothering to guard TT and Hairston. You also saw what 3 on 5 basketball looks like. Tyler is a really good role player who should be playing 10-15 minutes per game.

[dukelifer]

Good points.

This is a little bit different scenario for the team (and fans). We have become accustomed to seeing Duke playing as well or better than anybody in the country in November and December. We're just not there yet, but this can be a very good team by year end. Ideally, we'd like to have more size, but there is plenty of talent and I think the staff and players will build something impressive by late season.

And accustomed to everyone saying Duke is peaking too early and not playing enough guys. Duke is inexperienced and it showed in critical moments. Cook needs to be the most poised player on the court in crunch time and he is not right now.

[CR9]

As I see it, Hood is a liability on defense. His problem isn't on-ball defense, it's playing his man when someone else has the ball. He's almost always out of position, particularly down low. He's also become more of a black hole on offense (doesn't pass), although he could easily fix this. He had 5 assists against KU, and 3 in the last 3 games.

I was actually quite disappointed with Hood's lack of aggression against KU. Whilst 5 assists is nice, 8 and 5 isn't what you'd like, ideally, from your SF. I'd much prefer 20 and 2.

[rsvman]

Tough game to watch in the second half.

I would have liked to have seen more Andre Dawkins in the second half; if nothing else, why not bring him in when you're down 10-ish points with about two and a half minutes to go? He's a senior; he's been there before; he's hit some big shots in some big games for us in the past; he's not afraid of a big stage; and he's sitting right there on your bench. Put him in! Let him play!

Rasheed would be awe-inspiring if he were 4 inches taller, but he's not. Since he's probably not going to grow 4 inches in the next few months, he needs to pull up for the short jumper or the floater before he gets either completely under the basket or right next to a guy who is 5 or 6 inches taller than he is.


Still, not a terrible loss. A lot of stuff to work on. Most of the problems have been mentioned over and over again in this thread. I have to believe that if pretty much all the posters on this board saw the same problems, the coaching staff saw them, too.

[ncexnyc]

People were crying like babies after the Vermont game the other night, saying how terrible the D was. In fact it was so bad several people claimed they were actually embarrassed and that they were going to mark that game down as a loss. Coach K. then starts his two most experienced players, Tyler and Josh and suddenly the D looks a lot better. Of course now the naysayers are talking about us playing 3 on 5. Funny, I don't remember Lance or Brian being offensive juggernauts and that season turned out pretty well for us.

I have no misconception about the Bruise Brothers and their basketballs skills. I freely admit there are more physically gifted and more talented players on our bench, but until those kids learn where they are supposed to be on the court when playing D, their minutes will continue to be limited.

I love Amile and coined the nickname, "The Eel" for him last year, because he had a knack for scoring around the basket, however he is a true college 4. He doesn't have the size or bulk to do well against true college 5's.

[Dukehky]

Last time Dre, played in the Garden, he went for 28. It was obvious we weren't hitting 3's, and probably weren't going to start, but we needed them to loosen things up for the drivers: Insert Dawkins. Even if he doesn't hit, he's an immediate threat that has to be dealt with. What happened to those drives of Jefferson against Kansas? Guess that was an aberration.

[jipops]

Honestly, the 1 pt win vs. VT is still far far more disturbing than our 2 losses.

This was not a bad loss.