MBB: Duke vs. Wake Forest (Mar 5, 7pm, ESPN2) Pre-Game and In-Game Thread

[JBDuke]

Put your pre-game and in-game thoughts here.

[dukelifer]

Put your pre-game and in-game thoughts here.

I expect early rust. Wake fans will be pumped and thus Wake will make it a game for a half. Hopefully Duke gets back to hitting threes.

[CDu]

Wake Forest is in a tailspin right now. They've lost 8 of their last 9, including 4 of their last 5 at home. Those home losses include losses to GT and BC. They're reeling.

We will be well-rested and should win this by 10+. Maybe not immediately, but this game should not be close down the stretch.

As for Wake's team, they have a talented but inconsistent guard (Miller-McIntyre) and a talented big man who seems to enjoy playing against the better teams (Thomas). McKie is another threat due to his athleticism, but he won't have an edge in size like he often does. Cavanaugh is a very poor man's version of Ryan Kelly.

They have just two guys who shoot well from 3pt range (Williams and Jones). But they are a really bad offensive team and not that good defensively either.

They upset UNC back in early January and they recently beat Clemson. But aside from that, they've done nothing to suggest that they should threaten us.

I want to see a well-rested Duke team come out, hit some early threes, and build a comfortable cushion against an inferior opponent. I'm hoping that our recent cold stretch offensively was due to fatigue from a grueling stretch of the schedule. If we hit our 3s at even a reasonable clip, I don't think Wake can stay with us.

[jv001]

Senior night for Wake's Travis McKie and Coron Williams, a grad student transfer from Robert Morris. The Deacons usually play Duke tough at home and I expect it to be a hard fought game. The Deacs are coming off a tough loss to BC. I think they will be focused on winning this game for the two seniors. Codi-McIntyre-Miller leads the team in scoring at 13.3 ppg. His FG% is .43% but he only makes .212% of this threes. The best three point shooter is Coron Williams who makes .370% of his 3s. The other senior, McKie averages 11.1 ppg (.435% FG) and makes .327% of his 3s. The leading rebounder is Devon Thomas at 7.7rpg. Adala Moto averages 5.2 rpg, however he suffered a knee injury in the first half in the BC game, but he came back to play 11 minutes in the 2nd half. BC coach Steve Donahue in his post game presser said that Wake spreads you out and runs an efficient offense. He said they had a hard time playing man to man against Wake's offense. BC out rebounded Wake by 15 and shot 34 foul shots in the 2nd half. If the Blue Devils can stop dribble penetration, they should come out on top. If Duke's going to foul, then Thomas(51%) and CMM(65%) are the worse free throw shooters. Don't foul Coron Williams(83%) or Travis McKie(80%). I hope Duke doesn't take Wake lightly. I hope the Devils come out hot and keep the Deacs from getting early confidence. GoDuke!

[slower]

I'm hoping that our recent cold stretch offensively was due to fatigue from a grueling stretch of the schedule.

Haven't you heard? These are college kids - they never get tired. At least, that's what so many around here are fond of arguing.

[BlueDevilBrowns]

The Deacons usually play Duke tough at home and I expect it to be a hard fought game.

I think they will be focused on winning this game for the two seniors. I hope the Devils come out hot and keep the Deacs from getting early confidence. GoDuke!

Agreed. This is Wake's "Super Bowl" as they have nothing else to play for. The key is Duke coming out HOT from the start and taking control early. If this stays close with 10 minutes left, I'll be nervous.

Individually, I'm looking for improvement from Cook in his quickness and decision making(this would tell me his struggles were more due to injury issues than mental lapses) and a better shooting stroke from Dawkins(compared to recent games).

I would imagine the bench will be shorter(8 men) with Jones, Hairston, and Semi seeing extended(if any) time only if we're up a bunch in the 2nd half.

This is Duke's dress rehearsal for Post-Season play, let's hope the intensity is ramped up!

GO DUKE!

[Troublemaker]

Things I'm hoping to see:

• Good 3-pt shooting from us
• Quinn and Andre playing well off the bench, a point of emphasis for Coach K in his previous postgame presser. Especially Quinn. He's sort of the key to the season right now (although the key always seems to change as one player goes into a slump as another comes out of it). It's tough to imagine Duke doing big things without Quinn playing well in 25 min/gm. Sheed's emergence as a PG alternative just means we don't need Quinn for 35 min/gm.
• Jabari getting the ball inside and scoring more efficiently than he did against VaTech when he got the ball inside. Often, Jabari will have 6'6" Adala-Moto guarding him. Punish that.
• Avoid foul trouble. This one is sort of icing on top, but the one thing Wake does well is relentless drive the ball to draw fouls. They are the best ACC team in FTRate, and they shot 32 FTs in the previous meeting in Cameron. If we can defend their drives well without fouling them, then I would consider that to be an overachievement from us and a huge sign of progress defensively when you can take away an opponent's strength.

[TruBlu]

If we have several days in a row off: We will be rusty.

If we don't have several days in a row off: Our legs are tired.

(Is this covered in Throatybeard's manifesto?)


Mainly, I did not like seeing this thread on page 2.

[grad_devil]

This has been the longest break between games. Ever. Feels almost like the off season.

As a fan, I got spoiled by the 5 games/11 days or whatever. I know it wasn't necessarily great for the players, but it seemed like I got to watch a game every other day. Well, more than "seemed like".

Looking forward to seeing our guys play Wake - need to shake the rust off early! I would love to see a breakout game defensively/offensively from Cook - we're going to need the good Quinn if we hope to make a serious run in the upcoming tournaments.

[Mike Corey]

Will be particularly interested in seeing what our rotation is like in this game.

Most specifically, I'm curious to see how much burn Marshall gets.

[moonpie23]

how many of our starters will be fouled out with 6 min to go?

[Kedsy]

Today marks the 7th day in a row in which Duke's men's team has not played a basketball game. Believe it or not, going back all the way to 1983-84, this is the first time we've had a 7 or more day layoff after January 1.

We have had several 6-day layoffs, though. If you're interested, I wrote an article at BDN about it.

[peterjswift]

I might be really late to the party with this question and expose my ignorance with scheduling, but why is there such a long break? Doesn't Coach K usually schedule a non-conference game in this void? Is it because there is a longer conference schedule than normal?


Since 2001, Duke's regular season record vs. Wake is: 15-5. All 5 losses were on the road, by an average of 8 points. Wake definitely plays Duke closer at home than they do in Cameron. The difference is actually staggering. Avg. margin for away games @ Wake is 4.2; avg margin for home games is 18.6 pts. So whoever said that WF plays Duke close at Wake is right. Worst loss @ Wake was by 14. Best win @ Wake was by 29.

Anyhow, not that the past years is any indication of tomorrow's game, but it is interesting how much closer the games are @ Wake over the same time period.

[peterjswift]

Today marks the 7th day in a row in which Duke's men's team has not played a basketball game. Believe it or not, going back all the way to 1983-84, this is the first time we've had a 7 or more day layoff after January 1.

We have had several 6-day layoffs, though. If you're interested, I wrote an article at BDN about it.

That was an interesting article. I think it would be more interesting to expand it to shooting percentages during those games. Sure Duke won them, but how well was the rust shaken off? Were they shooting okay? What about first half to second half comparisons for those games? But, that just satisfies the stat nerd in me...probably doesn't have much applicable purpose.

I think I'm with everyone else in that I hope Duke jumps out to an early lead so Duke can use this game to "practice" sets against another team. But given that it is an ACC game on a hostile court on Senior night, I think it will be a challenge and a blowout is very unlikely.

[CDu]

I might be really late to the party with this question and expose my ignorance with scheduling, but why is there such a long break? Doesn't Coach K usually schedule a non-conference game in this void? Is it because there is a longer conference schedule than normal?

The answer is yes: Duke used to always have a non-con game wedged in there. And on the rare cases in which we did schedule an "off-day", the schedule would simply work out that we'd have no more than a 6-day layoff.

With the introduction of the 18-game schedule and the introduction of the games on Mondays and removal of games on Thursdays, we now have the opportunity to see a longer layoff in between games.

[Troublemaker]

Today marks the 7th day in a row in which Duke's men's team has not played a basketball game. Believe it or not, going back all the way to 1983-84, this is the first time we've had a 7 or more day layoff after January 1.

We have had several 6-day layoffs, though. If you're interested, I wrote an article at BDN about it.

I agree with your conclusion (quoted below):

So what does it all mean leading into tomorrow’s game against Wake Forest? Probably not very much. But I’m leaning toward the side that says the non-opponent-related practice time and allowing our bruises and minor injuries to heal can only help Duke in the long run.

I know that NFL teams prefer their bye weeks to be later rather than earlier (although I haven't read a study demonstrating whether that really is an advantage or not.) I think the same logic applies here. A bye week, then a game to knock off any rust (I don't believe we're really going to be rusty anyway), then Carolina, then postseason play. Seems like a good sequence to me.

[Furniture]

Just bought some tickets! Do you think there will be many Duke fans there?
I would have thought so...

[g-money]

BUMP

Focus, people!

[g-money]

My personal hope for tomorrow's game is that Coach K has tuned up the offense a bit during the break. It would be great to see more ball movement for wide open threes or layups instead of contested mid-range jumpers.

Oh yeah, a win by 10+ points would be nice too. From a blood pressure perspective.

[Bob Green]

Current consensus has Duke favored by 12 points. On top of a win, a couple of things I hope to see tonight are:

1. The team focused for 40 minutes
2. Dawkins' shooting returning to form
3. Continued improvement from MPIII
4. Quinn Cook running the offense and distributing the basketball rather than jacking up 3-pointers

Bench production will be important in the upcoming tournaments so items 2, 3 and 4 are vital to our long term success.