Phase II 2014-15 MBB (Elon through Wofford) - Crowdsource Request

[luvdahops]

We currently have 4 guys averaging 10.0 ppg or better, and 7 averaging 7 ppg or better.

Our K-coached Final Four teams have performed thusly:

2010: 3 guys over 10 ppg; 3 guys over 7 ppg
2004: 5 guys over 10 ppg; 6 guys over 7 ppg
2001: 5 guys over 10 ppg; 6 guys over 7 ppg
1999: 4 guys over 10 ppg; 6 guys over 7 ppg
1994: 4 guys over 10 ppg; 6 guys over 7 ppg
1992: 5 guys over 10 ppg; 5 guys over 7 ppg
1991: 5 guys over 10 ppg; 6 guys over 7 ppg
1990: 4 guys over 10 ppg; 5 guys over 7 ppg
1989: 3 guys over 10 ppg; 7 guys over 7 ppg
1988: 3 guys over 10 ppg; 5 guys over 7 ppg
1986: 3 guys over 10 ppg; 3 guys over 7 ppg

Will be curious to see if our production continues to be spread out as much as it was in '89...though our leading scorer that year was pouring in 22.6 a game.

I expect we'll see 4-5 in double figures (current 4 plus potentially Sheed or, less likely, Amile). I think we'll see 6 for sure and possibly 7 at 7ppg or better, depending on Matt's PT and production. 7 at 7ppg or better probably results in only 4 in double figures though.

[Ultrarunner]

Would add the following:

-Improved defensive rebounding. IMHO, this is Jahlil's biggest area for improvement the balance of the year. His rpg numbers have arguably been a little disappointing thus far, particularly on the defensive end. Amile is rebounding well overall, but also much better on the offensive end, relatively speaking. Wisconsin kept themselves in the game last night by pounding the offensive boards. I hope this doesn't become a recurring theme when we play bigger teams.

-Can Rasheed evolve into the "6th starter" that many had him penciled in for? He has played pretty well thus far in a fairly limited role (especially last night), but I believe he is capable of more (perhaps around 10 ppg and 3 apg in ~25 mpg).

Not sure I agree with Wisconsin pounding the boards. They actually garnered (28.6%) a smaller percentage of ORebs than they usually do (30.6%).

[Ultrarunner]

I'm hoping to see the defensive communication get better with the freshmen. Amile has been a terrific quarterback, directing traffic. The returning guards have all been playing good D. Tyus is learning quickly from them, especially on not holding back. Last night, he made a greater commitment to being an intense defender. And sitting on the bench, Grayson has shown some signs of being the kind of defender down the road that really pisses people off.

Justise gets it on defense and moves his feet so well. Jah? Not so much, not yet but he's been a big upgrade from last year. Plumlee continues to be a good solid defender and above average offensive rebounder. Marshall alters a lot of shots, just be being in the right place. He's starting to show signs of Zoub's ability to recover quickly, too. Semi isn't there yet. As a group, they're behind the guards but learning fast.

If this team can learn to swarm the opposing offenses on a regular basis, they can be very, very good.

The thing that they collectively don't do well is defend the free throw line. Our opponents are shooting at 75.9 percent clip and we rank in the 300's on KenPom. Not sure how you scheme that since we clearly seem to be wearing teams out.

[COYS]

We seem to have more players with killer instinct than we've had in the recent past.
Can we build on that and develop either a Laettner like get up big and keep 'em down ( the 5 to 8 to 12 to 18... to 30 and beyond lead) gameplay and crush the hope out of opponents? Or can we build the "refuse to lose" mentality/persona that the 2010 team had?

I'd just really like to see the Duke mystique firmly established where it is over before it begins, and other teams are afraid to play us. I think this team is capable of developing that reputation.

To quote Conan the Barbarian answering the all important question of what is best in life:
Crush your enemies, see them driven before you, and hear the lamentations of their women.

I'm not disagreeing with you, exactly, but it's worth noting that the 2010 team DID develop that persona, in my opinion. For one thing, that team played at such a slow pace that a 12 point lead was more akin to an 18 point lead, an 18 point lead was more like a 30 point lead, and when we actually had a 30 point lead (82-50, anyone?) it was like a 50 point lead (obviously, these numbers are arbitrary, but you get the point). Meanwhile, that team absolutely and relentlessly beat down WVU in the Final Four in one of the best played tournament games Duke has ever had. Kyle absolutely had a killer instinct (i still remember his freshman year when Duke let the game slip away late against UNC in Cameron. As UNC was standing around, dribbling out the last few seconds, Kyle walks up and pokes the ball away from . . . Danny Green, was it? He clearly was not satisfied with losing). Jon was as cool as they come. And Nolan was ready to take and make the big shots. They didn't strike fear into opposing teams the way previous teams did, but that was more the result of how Duke teams had finished over the past few years. Quite frankly, as WVU found out, they SHOULD have feared Duke.

Maybe I'm just overly fond of the 2010 team and think they are unfairly underrated in the pantheon of Tourney winners, but I think the primary difference between 2010's grind-it-out-to-win-no-matter-what mentality and the Laettner era's crush 'em mentality is the pace at which those teams played.

[CDu]

Thanks Troublemaker for providing the Phase post. And congrats on surviving your first one; I know how stressful and exhausting they can be!

Things I'm looking for in this phase:

1. Is Jefferson's jumpshot for real? In the past two games, Jefferson has knocked down - I think - three 15-18 ft jumpshots. Were they just aberrant cases of opportunity, or has he really expanded his range such that we can expect him to shoot that shot a reasonable percentage (if open)? I'm hopeful it's the latter. If it is, our offense could reach an even higher gear, as that's one more thing defenses will have to consider. We're already loaded offensively at the other 4 spots (well, except for the 8-12 mpg that Plumlee plays, but you get the idea), and Jefferson is a very crafty scorer slinking along the baseline and slashing down the lane. If he can also hit that open jumper, there is just no "easy out" for a defense anymore.

2. Sulaimon finding his role. The Wisconsin game was almost a perfect game from him. He wasn't flawless, but for the most part he was doing all the right things. He was confident off the dribble. He only drove into the teeth of the defense once or twice, instead choosing to pull up at about 10-12 feet and use his mid-range floater (which he is pretty good at). He didn't force it. And he tried hard defensively. My only complaint was that he fell prey to the classic Duke blunder: he slapped the floor and then was immediately burned on defense for a bucket by his man (I feel like, since 2001, 90% of our floor slaps have immediately resulted in easy buckets against us). But aside from that faux pas, Sulaimon looked really good. It seems that Sulaimon's ideal role on this team is the sixth man lead guard role. He isn't being asked to facilitate, and he isn't being asked to play off another better offensive player. When he's in, his primary offensive role seems to be finding a way to get his best shot. Hopefully last night's game did wonders for his confidence, and I'd like to see him build on that against the weaker comp we have before ACC play.

3. Has Matt Jones really turned the page and found his offensive game? If so, man are we going to be tough. He is shooting amazingly well in a small sample of shot attempts so far, but if he's a 40% 3pt shooter and a capable scorer off the dribble, then we are really at a wealth of riches offensively. And he is probably our best perimeter defender (even better than Winslow, who is our best overall defender due to his ability to also defend PFs). So if he can be a useful weapon offensively, his role is only going to grow.

There are other things I'd like to see, but I don't think this is the phase to draw conclusions on: will Tyus Jones continue to be a maestro running the offense against tough opponents? Is Cook's hot start for real, or will he have his February fade again? Can Okafor find his rhythm against quality bigs? Our opponents are just too weak to answer these questions for now.

[luvdahops]

Not sure I agree with Wisconsin pounding the boards. They actually garnered (28.6%) a smaller percentage of ORebs than they usually do (30.6%).

Their season average is likely padded from the early cupcakes they played. In any event, they had a 10-3 edge in ORBs on Wednesday. Along with a +2 on TO margin, that is 9 extra possessions, which is one way for a poorer shooting team to stay in a game.

[CDu]

Their season average is likely padded from the early cupcakes they played. In any event, they had a 10-3 edge in ORBs on Wednesday. Along with a +2 on TO margin, that is 9 extra possessions, which is one way for a poorer shooting team to stay in a game.

Part of that 10-3 discrepancy is due to the fact that they missed a lot more than we did. We only missed 16 FG attempts to their 32. So they had 16 more chances at offensive rebounds on their FG attempts. They wound up with an offensive rebound percentage of 28.6% to our 15%. Had we missed 32 FG instead of 16, we quite easily could have wound up with 7 or 8 offensive rebounds ourselves, making the apparent rebound disparity all but disappear.

Another part of that difference is that Wisconsin took a much higher percentage of their shots from the outside, which lead to more long rebounds and better opportunity to get offensive rebounds. This can be seen by the fact that 5 of their 8 individual offensive rebounds came from perimeter-oriented offensive players. Hayes (arguably their best interior rebounder) had just 1 offensive rebound and Kaminsky (their second-best rebounder) had just two offensive boards.

A 28.6% offensive rebound percentage for a team is pretty mediocre. So I don't think that I would say that they kept in the game via pounding the offensive boards. They weren't very noteworthy in getting offensive rebounds. Compare the 28.6% rebound percentage, for example, to the UNC/Iowa game. Both of those teams were up over 40% on offensive rebound percentage. Now THAT is pounding the offensive boards to create second-chance points.

If anything, I'd say the opposite that we were pretty bad at pounding the offensive glass (on the rare instances that we missed) but were quite solid at pounding the defensive glass.

[Kedsy]

Their season average is likely padded from the early cupcakes they played. In any event, they had a 10-3 edge in ORBs on Wednesday. Along with a +2 on TO margin, that is 9 extra possessions, which is one way for a poorer shooting team to stay in a game.

I don't think it's productive to compare one team's offensive rebounds against their opponent's offensive rebounds. Offensive rebounds should be compared to the opponent's defensive rebounds. On the defensive side, from 1987 (when they started keeping the offensive rebound stat) until 2006, Duke generally rebounded 60% to 65% of available opponent misses. In the past eight years Duke has improved its rebounding and has ranged between 66.2% and 69.6% (2007, our best defensive rebounding team in the K era). And that includes the early season games against cupcakes. So to rebound 71.4% of our opponent's misses against a team as good and as big as Wisconsin is actually a very positive achievement.

You can never keep a decent opponent off the o-boards entirely. Our defensive rebounding against Wisconsin was actually a strength, or at least better than we should have expected, rather than the weakness you appear to be portraying.

[superdave]

What is the perception of our communication on the defensive end so far? Are our guys calling out screens, switches and rotations? Are they able to read our opponents plans and yell it out?

That is not something I can hear via TV, so I am wondering what people have seen who have attended games, and what the coaches are saying about it.

Obviously this team is good defensively and has a chance to get much, much better. Is Amile really leading the D as has been suggested? Does it hurt that his minutes are lower than expected? When he is not in, who takes up the slack?

[luvdahops]

I don't think it's productive to compare one team's offensive rebounds against their opponent's offensive rebounds. Offensive rebounds should be compared to the opponent's defensive rebounds. On the defensive side, from 1987 (when they started keeping the offensive rebound stat) until 2006, Duke generally rebounded 60% to 65% of available opponent misses. In the past eight years Duke has improved its rebounding and has ranged between 66.2% and 69.6% (2007, our best defensive rebounding team in the K era). And that includes the early season games against cupcakes. So to rebound 71.4% of our opponent's misses against a team as good and as big as Wisconsin is actually a very positive achievement.

You can never keep a decent opponent off the o-boards entirely. Our defensive rebounding against Wisconsin was actually a strength, or at least better than we should have expected, rather than the weakness you appear to be portraying.

Points conceded to both you and CDu on this. I do stand by my view that defensive rebounding is arguably Jahlil's most obvious weakness to date though. And something I believe he is capable of doing a much better job on.

[Kedsy]

I do stand by my view that defensive rebounding is arguably Jahlil's most obvious weakness to date though. And something I believe he is capable of doing a much better job on.

I agree on both these points.

[ACCBBallFan]

Don't want to spoil your party, but, barring injury, it looks like the rotation is set at 8, and I wouldn't be surprised to see a few games (or many games) where MP3 plays less than 8 minutes.

Grayson and Semi are important for the future of Duke basketball, but a) Grayson has 4 players in front of him who are either more talented or more poised and b) the "Winslow Experiment" at the 4 is clearly working and hence minimizing Semi's value.

Not directed soley at you, but so many people over value PT vs. cupcaks an undervalue both:

1. learning that occurs daily playing against Duke's first unit that is best competition they will face all year (since they will not play vs UK even if first 8 does)

2. how much their effort at practice helps Duke's starting 5 on both ends oof the floor for example 3 point defense vs. MP3 and 4-shooters: Semi, Matt, Sheed and Grayson.

[CDu]

Points conceded to both you and CDu on this. I do stand by my view that defensive rebounding is arguably Jahlil's most obvious weakness to date though. And something I believe he is capable of doing a much better job on.

I would say the most glaring weakness is hi FT%. But it is true that he hasn't been nearly as dominant on the defensive glass as I would have thought coming in. I might not refer to it as an obvious weakness though. His defensive rebound % isn't terrible. But it is definitely not a strength. And it is certainly more improvable than his shooting.

[Kedsy]

His defensive rebound % isn't terrible. But it is definitely not a strength. And it is certainly more improvable than his shooting.

His DR% is currently 16.8% -- according to statsheet that ranks him 34th in the ACC right now among qualifiers. That's pretty pedestrian for a starting center, especially for a good one.

I don't know what statsheet uses as a minimum requirement, but it doesn't count guys like Marshall Plumlee, so 34th is pretty far down there.

[ACCBBallFan]

...

2. Sulaimon finding his role. The Wisconsin game was almost a perfect game from him. He wasn't flawless, but for the most part he was doing all the right things. He was confident off the dribble. He only drove into the teeth of the defense once or twice, instead choosing to pull up at about 10-12 feet and use his mid-range floater (which he is pretty good at). He didn't force it. ...

Frank the Tank Kamnsky says they may have ended up in his teeth, but that was not his teeth that Sheed drove into. That was painful to watch in so many ways, but nice "assist" to set up Thunder Dunk by MP3.

[ACCBBallFan]

His DR% is currently 16.8% -- according to statsheet that ranks him 34th in the ACC right now among qualifiers. That's pretty pedestrian for a starting center, especially for a good one.

I don't know what statsheet uses as a minimum requirement, but it doesn't count guys like Marshall Plumlee, so 34th is pretty far down there.

Amile is #10 and Justise is # 40.

Wow, lots of new names to get used to

ACC Leaders - Defensive Rebound Percentage
Rank Value Player-ACConly Yr Ht Wt Gms Team
01 35.96 Devin Thomas Jr 6-9 255 8 Wake Forest
02 28.65 Mike Tobey Jr 6-11 253 8 Virginia
03 27.77 Derrick Randall Sr 6-9 240 7 Pittsburgh
04 24.63 Kennedy Meeks So 6-9 290 7 North Carolina
05 24.24 Pat Connaughton Sr 6-5 218 8 Notre Dame
06 23.61 Zach Auguste Jr 6-10 242 8 Notre Dame
07 23.59 Robert Sampson Sr 6-8 224 7 Georgia Tech
08 23.51 Boris Bojanovsky Jr 7-3 240 7 Florida State
09 22.47 Tonye Jekiri Jr 7-0 244 8 Miami (FL)
10 22.29 Amile Jefferson Jr 6-9 215 8 Duke
11 22.22 Dennis Clifford Jr 7-1 250 6 Boston College
12 22.15 Kyle Washington So 6-9 230 7 NC State
13 22.0 Lennard Freeman So 6-8 245 7 NC State
14 21.87 Abdul-Malik Abu Fr 6-8 235 7 NC State
16 20.87 Darion Atkins Sr 6-8 234 8 Virginia
17 20.37 B.J. Johnson So 6-7 185 6 Syracuse
18 19.99 Joey van Zegeren Jr 6-10 235 7 Virginia Tech
19 19.91 Jaron BlossomgamSo 6-7 215 7 Clemson
20 18.95 Demarco Cox Sr 6-8 276 7 Georgia Tech
20 17.74 Damonte Dodd So 6-11 245 8 Maryland
21 18.82 Rakeem Christma Sr 6-9 250 7 Syracuse
22 18.7 Charles Mitchell Jr 6-8 269 7 Georgia Tech
23 17.03 Jake Layman Jr 6-9 205 8 Maryland
24 18.0 Omar Sherman Fr 6-8 260 8 Miami (FL)
25 17.83 Brice Johnson Jr 6-9 228 7 North Carolina
26 17.76 Konstantin Mitogl Fr 6-10 225 8 Wake Forest
27 17.75 Anthony Gill Jr 6-8 230 8 Virginia
29 17.33 Landry Nnoko Jr 6-10 255 7 Clemson
30 17.13 Chris McCullough Fr 6-10 220 7 Syracuse
31 16.93 Sheldon McClella Jr 6-5 206 8 Miami (FL)
32 16.89 Patrick Heckman Sr 6-6 210 6 Boston College
33 16.84 Cornelius Hudson Fr 6-6 180 8 Wake Forest
34 16.8 Jahlil Okafor Fr 6-11 270 8 Duke
35 16.66 Montay Brandon Jr 6-8 225 7 Florida State
36 16.45 Theo Pinson Fr 6-6 195 7 North Carolina
37 15.07 Michael Young So 6-9 235 7 Pittsburgh
39 14.87 Jamel Artis So 6-7 220 7 Pittsburgh
40 14.54 Justise Winslow Fr 6-6 225 8 Duke

[azzefkram]

... My only complaint was that he fell prey to the classic Duke blunder: he slapped the floor and then was immediately burned on defense for a bucket by his man (I feel like, since 2001, 90% of our floor slaps have immediately resulted in easy buckets against us)...

I thought it was never get involved in a land war in Asia.

[ACCBBallFan]

That application still had MD in ACC and L-ville in AAC.

After I adjusted for that and set an arbitrary cut off of top 50 and number in top 50 ACC Rebounders by team is:

5 Louisville
5 Virginia
5 Wake Forest

4 Florida State
4 NC State

3 Duke
3 Georgia Tech
3 Miami (FL)
3 North Carolina
3 Pittsburgh
3 Syracuse
3 Virginia Tech

2 Boston College
2 Clemson
2 Notre Dame
--
50

Did you notice the disparity between #1 and #2?

01 35.96 Devin Thomas Jr 6-9 255 8 Wake Forest
02 28.65 Mike Tobey Jr 6-11 253 8 Virginia

If instead the limit is set as top 40, Duke fares as well as anyone except Lville, as most ACC tams have 3

4 Louisville

3 Duke
3 Georgia Tech
3 Miami (FL)
3 North Carolina
3 NC State
3 Pittsburgh
3 Syracuse
3 Virginia
3 Wake Forest

2 Boston College
2 Clemson
2 Florida State
2 Notre Dame

1 Virginia Tech

[CDu]

So that list definitely does include some scrubs racking up stats in garbage time. But I do stand corrected: Okafor's DReb% is very mediocre. And also something he should definitely work on along with FT shooting.

[ACCBBallFan]

NC State has 3 in the top 20, all three in the 11-20 range

Notre Dame (both in top 10 also), UVA (one in top 10) and GA Tech (one in top 10) each had two in top 20 and every other ACC team one.