Results 1 to 20 of 20
  1. #1

    Phase VII -- NCAA Tournament, Raleigh Subregion

    The NCAA tournament opens with Duke playing Mercer at 12:15pm Friday and one of Massachusetts/Iowa/Tennessee on Sunday. We already have a Duke/Mercer pre-game thread, so I'm going to concentrate on the more global issues, rather than specifics of the particular opponents Duke will face.

    So here goes:

    1. Health

    I hear what people have been saying that it's silly to make "Health" our #1 bullet point in these phase posts, but (a) Duke has dealt with late-season health issues in each of the last three seasons; and (b) I sure as he!! ain't gonna be the guy who jinxes us. So, health is first. Deal with it.

    That said, Duke appears relatively healthy right now. I knocked on wood as I typed that.

    2. Who bars our path to the Final Four?

    In recent NCAA tournaments, Duke has made a bad habit of playing the teams it was supposed to play (for example, last year as a #2 seed we played the #15, the #7, the #3, and the #1, just like the committee drew it up). Unfortunately, that's not good if you want to make the Final Four. In the 29 years since the tournament went to 64 teams, 2-seeds have played a "chalk" path (though not necessarily getting all the way through it) a total of 43 times, and only four (4) of those 2-seeds made the Final Four, a success percentage of 9.3%. A total of 73 2-seeds faced at least one upset winner in the tournament, and 21 of those 2-seeds made the Final Four, a success percentage of 28.8%, meaning 2-seeds have been more than 3x more likely to make the Final Four if they play an upset winner somewhere along the way.

    Expanding that stat to 2-, 3-, 4-, and 5- seeds, in the aggregate they've played their expected path 281 times and made the Final Four only nine (9) of those times (3.2%). Those seeds have played at least one upset winner 183 times and made the Final Four 49 of those (26.8%).

    If you're interested in the above analysis, I wrote a detailed article on the subject which may be found here.

    The idea of playing a lower seed than we're supposed to may be a two-edged sword for Duke in this particular region, however, since according to Pomeroy, both Iowa and Tennessee are better than UMass, and Louisville is better than Wichita State. Still, since Duke hasn't won a "chalk" path since 1992, this may be something worth keeping tabs on.

    3. Will Coach K bring back the line changes?

    The short answer is probably not. Coach K historically has shortened his rotation in the NCAA tournament (not necessarily counting the first game), and there's no reason to think this year will be different. That said, there are several players whose minutes will be worth monitoring. Foremost among them is Andre Dawkins, but since he currently has his own thread I'm not going to say much about that here. Also, the minutes of Quinn Cook (also has his own thread) and Marshall Plumlee (whose playing time has been discussed ad nauseam this season) are worth watching. And I know there are some people clamoring for more Matt Jones, but it's hard to envision him playing more than token minutes in this tournament.

    4. The Point

    We have three players who have gotten substantial minutes at point guard. This could be concerning, because at least at Duke it's almost always very clear who our point guard is. The only years I can remember during Coach K's tenure here in which the PG responsibilities blurred were 2012 (an ominous precedent) and maybe 2009 (when we had a late-season changing-of-the-(point)-guard.

    All three of this year's PGs bring different strengths to the table. Quinn Cook is the best "pure" PG and seems to run the offense most smoothly. Rasheed Sulaimon has the best slashing ability and is the strongest on-ball defender. Tyler Thornton brings experience and toughness, and rarely makes mistakes, although he doesn't appear to bring the offense to life all that much either.

    The ideal would be if one of these guys grabbed the mantle and ran with it, but more likely is we'll see different combinations based on opponent and Coach K's hunches.

    5. Shooting

    In our first six games this season, Duke shot 55% from the field. We also had really awful defense. Since Coach K was forced to make defensive-minded lineup changes starting with the Alabama game, Duke has shot only 44.5% from the field. Just our three-point shooting was 44.7% in those first six games, and even after the lineup changes we continued to shoot well from three-land for the next 17 games (41.1%). But something seemed to happen against Maryland and since then, in our last ten games, we've only shot 32.1% from the three-mosphere. It would be nice if we can get back up in the 40s for the NCAA tournament.

    Interestingly, our downward slide in three-point shooting has been accompanied by an upswing in our two-point shooting. From Alabama to the first Syracuse game we shot 46.8% on two-point shots, and in our last twelve games we've shot 51.2% on two-pointers.

    A lot of that increase is due to Jabari Parker making more of his two-pointers. From Alabama to the first Syracuse game he took 30.7% of our team's two-point shots and made 45.3% of them. In our last twelve games he's taken 34.9% of our two-point shots and made 54.1%. However, our other players have also shot better from short range in the last twelve games, going from 47.4% to 49.6%.

    Best of both worlds would obviously be to continue shooting well from two while regaining our touch from three and still playing at least a little bit of defense. We'll have to wait and see on that one.

    6. Defense

    Our D was pretty bad the first six games of the season. After Coach K made the defense-oriented lineup changes against Alabama our D was decent to good all the way through the Virginia Tech game in late February, with just a couple lapses (Notre Dame, Clemson). Starting with the Wake Forest loss on March 5, our defense has once again been somewhat atrocious. It's not clear exactly what's gone wrong the past two weeks, but obviously we have to fix it.

    7. Rebounding

    In the beginning of the season, a lot of folks fretted about our potential lack of defensive rebounding. For the first 16 games of the season, Duke confounded the fretters, collecting an outstanding 71.3% of available defensive rebounding, which if it had continued would have been by far the best Duke defensive rebounding performance since they started separating offensive and defensive rebounds on the stat sheet. At the same time, however, our offensive rebounding was somewhat anemic (29.8%, the 2nd-worst offensive rebounding performance since they started keeping the stat).

    In our 17th game, against Virginia, Coach K instituted what we now call the "line changes," and since that time, our rebounding has reversed. In our last 18 games, we've collected only 65.4% of defensive rebounds, but our offensive rebounding has been a very impressive 39.5%. How concerned should we be about the defensive rebounding decline? How happy about the turnaround on the offensive boards?

    Well, for what it's worth the 2nd half rebounding stats are more of a traditional Duke spread. In other words, most Duke teams have been poor at defensive rebounding and good at offensive rebounding. In fact, our 2nd half DR% of 65.4% is better than every Duke team from 1990 to 2006 (except the 2002 team, which managed 65.9%). Presumably, it won't hurt us this year any more than it hurt us in the past.

    As far as offensive rebounding goes, the increase could be a good sign. I posted this earlier in the season, but when Duke is really good at offensive rebounding we've had a lot of NCAAT success. Here are the ten best offensive rebounding teams since 1987:

    1999: 44.3% (3rd in the country)
    1990: 40.9%
    2010: 40.6% (6th)
    1988: 40.5%
    1998: 39.7% (39th)
    1992: 39.5%
    2004: 39.2% (16th)
    1996: 38.3%
    1991: 38.0%
    1994: 38.0%

    Eight of the ten teams on this list made the Final Four (including three of our four national champions). Only one team on the list didn't at least make the Elite Eight. And the 1986 team almost certainly would have been on this list if they'd kept the stat then, so really this covers 9 of our 11 Final Four teams with only one false positive. The fact that our second half offensive rebounding percentage falls right in the middle of this list is obviously no guarantee of success, but it might make us feel at least a little better.

    8. Leadership

    Much has been made at DBR and elsewhere about Duke lacking a leader. Most Duke teams have at least one senior who is one of our best players and is the obvious choice to lead the team. This season, our seniors are not among our best players and our best players are relatively new to the program.

    Is leadership necessary? It sure doesn't hurt. And if we lack it this season it might help explain our seeming inconsistency over the course of the season and our apparent inability to reach our "ceiling."

    Does it have to be a senior? I'd say no. The way Jabari took charge of things in the second UNC game, it seemed we were on the right track. And maybe we still are. It's certainly something to watch as the NCAA tournament unfolds.

    9. Concentration/Focus and the "fourth quarter"

    All season long, Duke has had stretches when we seem to lose concentration or focus. In the beginning of games against poorer opponents, when we jump out to a big lead and, most distressingly, in the last 10 minutes of close games. The "fourth quarter woes" seem to all run from the same script: first the other team scores easily several possessions in a row and at the same time we struggle to get good looks on offense. Then it snowballs into panic on defense and "hero ball" on offense, and before you know it Kansas/Vermont/Arizona/Notre Dame/Clemson/Virginia/UNC/Wake Forest has gone on a big run and either won the game or made it perilously close.

    This is the elephant in the room. The one flaw that could end our season in any game. Will it happen again?

    Who knows. Presumably this is tied in with the leadership question. The good news is in games where the players knew they had to keep their concentration -- the two Syracuse games, the 2nd UNC game, the ACC championship -- this didn't really happen. We lost the first Syracuse game and the second Virginia game, but not because we let the opponent go on a big run. Hopefully the players know they have to focus every possession from here on in.

    10. Bringing it all together

    Duke has an extremely deep and talented roster this season. We do a lot of things at a very high level, and even things that aren't our best strengths we've done really well for periods. This question has been asked many times on the board, but can we bring everything together and excel at everything all at once? Will we do it during the NCAA tournament?

    I have no idea. The fact that we haven't clicked on all cylinders even once this season would suggest that bringing it all together now is unlikely. That said, if we do manage it, Duke is going to be awfully tough to beat.

    So here's hoping. Go Duke!

  2. #2
    Many of you will remember Carmelo Anthony carrying Syracuse to a national title in 2002-03. I am hopeful that Jabari's best is yet to come and that he goes off in this tournament. I truly believe he is a transcendent talent.

  3. #3

    Thanks Kedsy, Nice Work!

    I wonder how many points Carmelo got at the free throw line in his run to the championship?

  4. #4
    Join Date
    Feb 2008
    Location
    Lewisville, NC
    Quote Originally Posted by House G View Post
    Many of you will remember Carmelo Anthony carrying Syracuse to a national title in 2002-03. I am hopeful that Jabari's best is yet to come and that he goes off in this tournament. I truly believe he is a transcendent talent.
    Yeah, he could be the key man here; it doesn't happen often that a single star lifts his team to an NCAA title; just off the top of my head, we've got Carmelo and then back to Danny Manning with an otherwise ordinary Kansas team.

    If Duke gets by the first weekend and Jabari plays well, it's a pretty good bet that he will become one of the main talking points of the talking heads.

    Great job by Kedsy, by the way.

  5. #5
    Dev11's Avatar
    Dev11 is offline Commissioner of Statistics, DBR Podcast
    Join Date
    Dec 2009
    Location
    Boston
    Quote Originally Posted by roywhite View Post
    Yeah, he could be the key man here; it doesn't happen often that a single star lifts his team to an NCAA title; just off the top of my head, we've got Carmelo and then back to Danny Manning with an otherwise ordinary Kansas team.

    If Duke gets by the first weekend and Jabari plays well, it's a pretty good bet that he will become one of the main talking points of the talking heads.

    Great job by Kedsy, by the way.
    Kemba Walker was a huge part of a mediocre Connecticut team winning the title in 2011.

  6. #6
    Join Date
    Sep 2007
    Location
    Undisclosed
    Offensively, we go as far as Quinn takes us.

    Defensively, we go as far as fouls will allow.

  7. #7
    Join Date
    Mar 2014
    Location
    Wilson's Mills, NC
    Quote Originally Posted by OldPhiKap View Post
    Offensively, we go as far as Quinn takes us.

    Defensively, we go as far as fouls will allow.
    Agreed on Cook, I'll also add we need some solid secondary scoring from Sulaimon to win the region. With defenses most likely to be keyed in on Parker and Hood, I think Sulaimon could be the X-factor with his driving ability and athleticism.

    Duke has the offense when all parts are working in unison to lead us to the Final Four. My hope is we don't become over-reliant on Parker and Hood to carry us there.

  8. #8
    Join Date
    Feb 2007
    Location
    Steamboat Springs, CO

    Phase VI Redux

    Great Phase VII report, Kedsy. Good original research on shooting and rebounding. Those could stand be themselves as authoritative posts.

    Here's my summary of Phase VI -- ACC Tournament:


    1. Health, as Usual. Let's all speak in whispers -- "good so far."

    2. Leadership? Is this now Jabari’s team, based on the leadership he showed against UNC? Jabari is showing leadership, but a bit handicapped by youth.

    3. Rotation? We've got eight guys in the rotation. Can we declare victory?

    4. Poise at the End of the Game? We survived against Clemson but lost at the end to a very seasoned UVa team. I attribute the UVa loss at the end to a dreadful foul situation not to lack of poise, but others feel differently.

    4.5 (per Kedsy) Point Guard Situation. As murky as ever, I am afraid, although I like out talent when they are playing well.

    5. Defense! I see improvement ... Hah! One step forward, but two steps back. We will have to be truly focused to succeed in the NCAAs.

    6. Marshall? In the rotation, just like we wanted.

    7. Balance? No balance against Virginia, as they shut down Rasheed and Cook. To win, we need a third scorer (or fourth!) to balance Jabari and Rodney.

    Again, great job, Kedsy!
    Sage Grouse

    ---------------------------------------
    'When I got on the bus for my first road game at Duke, I saw that every player was carrying textbooks or laptops. I coached in the SEC for 25 years, and I had never seen that before, not even once.' - David Cutcliffe to Duke alumni in Washington, DC, June 2013

  9. #9
    Join Date
    Feb 2007
    Location
    Norfolk, VA
    Quote Originally Posted by Kedsy View Post

    5. Shooting

    Best of both worlds would obviously be to continue shooting well from two while regaining our touch from three and still playing at least a little bit of defense. We'll have to wait and see on that one.
    Thanks for a great job on the Phase Post!

    I've previously stated in other post that I believe our defense struggles when our offense struggles. Fix the offense and the defense will be okay, not great, but good enough. In order to "fix" the offense, we must shoot better. Simplistic but true according to my vantage point from the sun room couch. However, the Virginia game showed us it isn't all about 3 PT FG % as volume of shots is an equally important factor. We shot 57.1% on 3s against Virginia and lost. Why? Because the Wahoos limited us to 14 attempts from the bonusphere.

    Duke is an extremely talented and deep team. If, and this is a big if, all the pieces perform well at the same time our Blue Devils will be a hard out in the NCAAT.
    Bob Green

  10. #10
    Quote Originally Posted by nyesq83 View Post
    I wonder how many points Carmelo got at the free throw line in his run to the championship?
    Not as many as you'd think. In his six tourney games, Carmelo shot a combined 17 for 27 from the line. Free throws thus accounted for only 14% of his 121 points.

  11. #11
    That we fade in games is a fact. Why we fade in games is conjecture.

    My take is we need more size inside (Marshall) and we need to think he can be fed the ball for a score now and again. Amile is the better player, but he can't handle big power forwards very well, so that is where Marshall can do his best work.We need Quinn to lead the PG position. We need to realize when Rasheed can contribute and when the defense is shutting him down. There are times when Andre can help us with his shooting. Both Jabari and Rodney need to play big minutes. I see little difference in the contribution of Tyler and Matt, although Matt is 3 inches taller. I would split their time and only use Tyler at PG when Quinn is tired. Silly fouls and turnovers need to be minimized. I see no plus in playing Josh at all unless we have a big lead and we are trying to ease the load on Jabari. All season long I would have liked to see Semi get time, but since he hasn't been given the opportunity it is hard to put him in during the tournament.

    Defense is key, substitution strategy is important. Will coach K go in that direction or will the short bench predominate and we fade down the stretch again.?

  12. #12
    Quote Originally Posted by Saratoga2 View Post
    That we fade in games is a fact. Why we fade in games is conjecture.

    My take is we need more size inside (Marshall) and we need to think he can be fed the ball for a score now and again. Amile is the better player, but he can't handle big power forwards very well, so that is where Marshall can do his best work.
    I'm not sure how much this would help. In many (most?) of our fourth quarter slides, the opponent went small during its big run.

  13. #13
    Join Date
    Feb 2008
    Location
    20 Minutes From The Heaven That Is Cameron Indoor
    Quote Originally Posted by Saratoga2 View Post
    That we fade in games is a fact. Why we fade in games is conjecture.

    My take is we need more size inside (Marshall) and we need to think he can be fed the ball for a score now and again. Amile is the better player, but he can't handle big power forwards very well, so that is where Marshall can do his best work.We need Quinn to lead the PG position. We need to realize when Rasheed can contribute and when the defense is shutting him down. There are times when Andre can help us with his shooting. Both Jabari and Rodney need to play big minutes. I see little difference in the contribution of Tyler and Matt, although Matt is 3 inches taller. I would split their time and only use Tyler at PG when Quinn is tired. Silly fouls and turnovers need to be minimized. I see no plus in playing Josh at all unless we have a big lead and we are trying to ease the load on Jabari. All season long I would have liked to see Semi get time, but since he hasn't been given the opportunity it is hard to put him in during the tournament.

    Defense is key, substitution strategy is important. Will coach K go in that direction or will the short bench predominate and we fade down the stretch again.?
    I am sorry but I can't agree with the bold at all. I still find it hard to believe that so many people just don't see the value that kid brings. Maybe it's just me but I see a whole lot of difference in the contributions of Senior Captain Point Guard Tyler Thornton and Freshman Reserve Shooting Guard Matt Jones. I don't think the outcome would be good if Matt started at PG and was the tip of the spear on defense for the same amount of minutes Tyler is playing.

  14. #14
    Join Date
    Feb 2007
    Location
    Los Angeles
    Thanks for a great phase post Kedsy. It highlights the many areas of the game that have not been locked down and secured by this team, and which we don't know what we're going to get from game to game. The rotation, shooting, defensive rebounding, defense, leadership. All the teams have a couple of areas that are uncertainties, but my concern about this team is that we still have so many and it's just about the end of the season. Trying not to be too pessimistic, as I do believe that our team is capable of putting it together and beating anyone in the nation on a given day, but it just seems like an awful lot of these uncertainties are going to have to move in our direction in order to make a deep run.

  15. #15
    Quote Originally Posted by Newton_14 View Post
    I am sorry but I can't agree with the bold at all. I still find it hard to believe that so many people just don't see the value that kid brings. Maybe it's just me but I see a whole lot of difference in the contributions of Senior Captain Point Guard Tyler Thornton and Freshman Reserve Shooting Guard Matt Jones. I don't think the outcome would be good if Matt started at PG and was the tip of the spear on defense for the same amount of minutes Tyler is playing.
    This team's best basketball of the year came when Duke went to the "line change" substitution pattern, with Matt starting. Lots of things have changed since then, like Sulaimon playing much better now than then, Jabari virtually abandoning the 3pt shot and focusing on scoring in the paint, etc. Since Duke has virtually abandoned the line change strategy, i'm not sure that it would be a good idea to bring it back for the NCAAT, and K almost assuredly won't make it a prominent feature even if he uses it a couple of times. I really wish K hadn't abandoned such an effective strategy, but it is what it is, and this team will have to learn how to win withe deployments K goes with.

    It may be that outcomes with Matt starting would not be as good as with TT, if there is not a well-defined and accepted strategy along with it, but the evidence we have seen suggests that Matt starting for defensive purposes led to some good outcomes. Granted, some of the teams we played while using the line change substitutions extensively were not as good as most of the teams we'll see in the NCAAT. However, i hope to see K go to it at least once (is 2x too much to ask) in the 1st half, and once in the 2nd half.

  16. #16
    Quote Originally Posted by DukieInBrasil View Post
    This team's best basketball of the year came when Duke went to the "line change" substitution pattern, with Matt starting.
    The line change thing was sort of a motivational gimmick, and the value of gimmicks often wears out over time. Also, it was just for a few games. So while it's true we're 4-0 in games Matt started, we're also 4-0 in games Andre started. I don't think either of those stats mean very much.

  17. #17
    Quote Originally Posted by Kedsy View Post

    4. The Point

    We have three players who have gotten substantial minutes at point guard. This could be concerning, because at least at Duke it's almost always very clear who our point guard is. The only years I can remember during Coach K's tenure here in which the PG responsibilities blurred were 2012 (an ominous precedent) and maybe 2009 (when we had a late-season changing-of-the-(point)-guard.

    All three of this year's PGs bring different strengths to the table. Quinn Cook is the best "pure" PG and seems to run the offense most smoothly. Rasheed Sulaimon has the best slashing ability and is the strongest on-ball defender. Tyler Thornton brings experience and toughness, and rarely makes mistakes, although he doesn't appear to bring the offense to life all that much either.

    The ideal would be if one of these guys grabbed the mantle and ran with it, but more likely is we'll see different combinations based on opponent and Coach K's hunches.
    Excellent post. So, of course, I'm going to quibble with one small comment. IIRC, the point guard responsibilities were blurred in 2001 until Duhon won the starting spot. Even then, J-Dub was not quite your typical 2.

    Sadly, neither Chris Duhon nor Jason Williams will be suiting up for Duke this spring. (Does anyone miss the Williams/Boozer pick and roll action as the minutes are winding down as much as me?)

  18. #18
    Quote Originally Posted by Kedsy View Post
    The line change thing was sort of a motivational gimmick, and the value of gimmicks often wears out over time. Also, it was just for a few games. So while it's true we're 4-0 in games Matt started, we're also 4-0 in games Andre started. I don't think either of those stats mean very much.
    That may be true, but i would argue that motivation and sustained inspired play throughout the game has been one of this team's biggest challenges. If it takes a gimmick to keep the team motivated then use it. It does not appear that the motivation gained by the "gimmick" lasted after the "gimmick" was abandoned.
    Now, whether the difference in play was due to Matt starting, the quality of the opponents we played, natural variation, or to the "gimmick" itself, i suppose we'll never know.

  19. #19
    Join Date
    Oct 2007
    Location
    new york

    Oxygen

    Quote Originally Posted by tommy View Post
    Thanks for a great phase post Kedsy. It highlights the many areas of the game that have not been locked down and secured by this team, and which we don't know what we're going to get from game to game. The rotation, shooting, defensive rebounding, defense, leadership. All the teams have a couple of areas that are uncertainties, but my concern about this team is that we still have so many and it's just about the end of the season. Trying not to be too pessimistic, as I do believe that our team is capable of putting it together and beating anyone in the nation on a given day, but it just seems like an awful lot of these uncertainties are going to have to move in our direction in order to make a deep run.
    Alas, this. A really confounding team and it is asking a lot for it to come together in the last three weeks in a way it hasn't all season. As troubling as the fourth quarter problem -- which, to me is the most troubling aspect of the year -- is the idea that we never go out and destroy anyone. Florida seems to do it every game. Arizona and Louisville have regularly done it (Arizona less so of late). If I saw a dominating monster every now and then, I'd feel better about our chances of winning 4, 5, or 6 games.That said, we've got tons of talent and two superstars, and where there's oxygen, there's hope. Go Duke.

  20. #20
    Seems as good a place as any to link this article about Rasheed and his up and down season.

    Here's to hoping all our boys find their way out of their slumps in the next few weeks.

Similar Threads

  1. Phase VII - 2nd Weekend of the NCAA Tournament (2012-13)
    By superdave in forum Elizabeth King Forum
    Replies: 20
    Last Post: 03-27-2013, 02:07 PM
  2. Phase VI – First weekend of the NCAA Tournament
    By CDu in forum Elizabeth King Forum
    Replies: 45
    Last Post: 03-27-2013, 06:49 AM
  3. Phase V -- The ACC Tournament
    By sagegrouse in forum Elizabeth King Forum
    Replies: 48
    Last Post: 03-15-2013, 11:01 PM
  4. 2014 NCAA Tournament in Raleigh
    By jimsumner in forum Elizabeth King Forum
    Replies: 4
    Last Post: 11-12-2012, 10:42 PM

Posting Permissions

  • You may not post new threads
  • You may not post replies
  • You may not post attachments
  • You may not edit your posts
  •