MBB: Duke 69, Louisville 78 Post-Game Thread

[Devilwin]

Yes, I probably will make some GIFs during Duke's bye week. I have a different take from you on the ball screen defense. In the middle twenty minutes of the game, Louisville burned us just as badly as FSU did, just in a different way because of the different technique we were using on ball screen defense, i.e. we hedged instead of iced today. When icing isn't performed correctly, you will have guards beating your big men inside the paint for layups and for short lobs, which is what occurred against FSU. When hedging (and the choreography behind it) isn't performed correctly, you will give up long passes to rolling big men running free, which is what occurred against Louisville. So even though Louisville didn't burn us with as many layups from guards, they were still burning us.

However, in the final 8 minutes or so of the game, I thought our choreography on ball-screen defense was better. Score-wise, the Cardinals kept us at arm's length by making some tough outside shots. If they had shot poorly, I thought we had a chance to make it an interesting game there.

I was encouraged that Harry looked more athletic down the stretch of the game. I thought Marques did a nice job hedging in his brief stint.

But we can't turn the ball over 18 times. Once again, I thought the offense was a slightly bigger culprit than the defense. I give the offense a D and I give the defense a C-.

Long-term, I still expect this team to get much better, and I still expect that I'll be able to read this thread later on in the season and laugh.

I swear I hope you do get to laugh at this..

[NashvilleDevil]

I swear I hope you do get to laugh at this..

I think we will be laughing at this and your posts in particular will be highlighted when Duke has another bad stretch in the future.

[Saratoga2]

I will take the opportunity to see some good coming from this loss. We are getting our starters and our young bigs some valuable experience against teams with large athletic and well coached players. Its hard to gauge how valuable this will be for Grayson, Luke, Jayson, Harry, Matt and Frank. I think it will show up later on since we will not face more difficult defensive teams than FSU and Louisville, especially on the road. My takeaways on the positive side

Grayson has become our playmaking leader and had a very good day against a really tough defense. He has handled the constant booing in stride. He appears fully healthy.
Luke continues to find ways to score despite being a focal point of the Louisville defense. he really had no opportunities for 3 point shots today but still got 17. His switching and defense is improving.
A lot of negatives in the thread regarding Jayson but I see a freshman who can score against a very good and aggressive defense and who got stuck in rebounding and blocking shots. He is already the most advanced freshman on the team and will learn from his mistakes. His upside is tremendous.
Harry had a good day and has offensive potential and is a good rebounder. The PT he is getting will get him in better shape. Like all or freshmen big men, he has a lot to learn and I presume this game today will further his development and understanding.
Matt preformed about as well as he is likely to do but perhaps a game like this can advance his leadership skill. He can become another coach on the floor along with Amile when he returns.
Frank was put under pressure constantly when he brought the ball up and was trying to make plays. While he was largely unsuccessful today, he will get a lot more coaching moments and perhaps will play smarter going forward.

I don't think either Chase or Marques did enough to feel they are more than backup players at this point, and DeLaurier is enough of a project that his value may not be felt until next season, but he does have potential.

I would think we have a solid starting team of Grayson, Luke, Jayson, Harry and Matt going forward with Amile taking a starting role back upon return and Frank coming off the bench and getting solid playing time. Chase and Marques will be needed but shouldn't be expected to contribute much more than big bodies and fouls to give. We are going to win a lot of games going forward, especially as Jayson figures how to channel his special talent and Harry becomes the player we had hoped for. We have the makings of a team that could make a deep run in March.

[gofurman]

totally disagree. With Amile, we probably don't suffer the weak play of Bolden or Jeter. This team was destroying fools with Amile in the lineup. Substituting an experienced leader with overwhelmed Fr. and an overwhelmed So. will cause big drop-off in productivity.

This. Don't get discouraged - IF WE CAN HAVE AMILE. Amile can take 7+ points away from Louisville on rotation D and adds 7 to Dukes score. Do the math. Things don't occur in a vacuum. W Amile our tie in second half today could easily have been a 7 point lead? Maybe more. Should a team w so many OADs be that ordinary without Amile? Probably not. I agree. I too doubt the talent of Bolden etc as OAD. Not long term , but OAD??? that said I really believe we are top ten w Amile easily. Have to have Grayson. Luke. Amile. No Grayson. Lose to vt. Everyone playing ? Crush GT and beat BC (.first half w amile). No amile? Losses at fsu and Louisville due to horrible D inside. It's that simple. With Amile in we probably win today. Not sure v FSU in Tallahassee ?

On another side, maybe we have Bolden and Jackson next year which is nice. Look at Kennard. Best thing about Freshman?? They become sophomores

Pray for Amile's return. - are we sure he coming back ??? At least by February????

A positive? Good to have a week off now probably

[Devilwin]

I think we will be laughing at this and your posts in particular will be highlighted when Duke has another bad stretch in the future.

Meaning?

[gofurman]

totally disagree. With Amile, we probably don't suffer the weak play of Bolden or Jeter. This team was destroying fools with Amile in the lineup. Substituting an experienced leader with overwhelmed Fr. and an overwhelmed So. will cause big drop-off in productivity.

Plus w Amile it's not just D and more O points for us but the team has more confidence! We have all noted how the team at times seems hesitant to dish the ball to Jeter on the drive... Think how that changes w Amile .... Everything
Changes

[NashvilleDevil]

Meaning?

Meaning that this happens every year and every year posters get really negative about the team's prospects and Duke always ends up fine. Just like they did last year and the title year.

[kshepinthehouse]

I think two things hurt us today, both of which Amile can help with. I haven't checked the stats but it really seemed that we had very few offensive rebounds. As great a rebounder as Giles is it seems he doesn't get many offensively. Amile getting a few adds more to our point total.

We don't get easy baskets. When Amile is playing, you can dump it into him and get an easy two. Seems like we have to work really hard to get tough baskets without him.

[Monmouth77]

Looking for silver linings, I'd say that Louisville and FSU are two of the longest/tallest and best defensive teams we'll face all year. They neutralized our best weapons: overall team size and 3 point shooting. From a matchup standpoint, those two games on the road, seem like they could be our toughest tests all year, and they came at a bad time for the team's development. We now have two weeks straight where we play winnable games and don't have to travel further than Winston Salem. Now is the time to get it turned around, and I think we will.

[Devilwin]

Meaning that this happens every year and every year posters get really negative about the team's prospects and Duke always ends up fine. Just like they did last year and the title year.

You're right for the most part, but something just feels different, like we cannot get over the oncoming rush of injuries and Coach's surgery, and the distraction of Grayson Allen. Seems like we are always looking over our shoulder.

[DukeWarhead]

Just crazy that with all these great recruiting classes of late, we can't seem to win the ACC regular season, much less the ACC tourney. Pffffft. Sure, 2015 was awesome but this team isn't in that team's league. (not yet, and doubt it will ever be.)

[DBFAN]

So I posted my negative sky is falling post earlier, but I did notice some positive stuff too. First, they were able to compete a little longer today than FSU game. We should be fair about the fact that BOTH GAMES between FSU and UL were pretty close for the majority of the game, then the wheels came off. I imagine that each game they will compete a little more and more. So that tells me that the Physical conditioning and mental conditioning are getting better each time out. I would love for it to evolve quicker, but I will take what I can get. Right now this team just needs this week off, and a little home cooking. I really think Duke wins the next 3 games, but right now we just need the next one. It's hard sometimes to remember that as great of talents these kids are, they are still just kids. They say they don't pay attention to media but that's not possible. Right now I bet those players are more down on themselves than we think. They know what the expectations were and are, and they know they haven't been able to live up to them YET, but if they are competing longer that tells me that injuries may not be that much of an issue anymore, now it's simply the repetition of playing together. I truly believe that something will click for them in the next few games. The same thing happened with Zoubek and the entire season changed. I will be honest tho I am as perplexed as anyone about Bolden, but he may have/be taking longer to heal than the others. We saw him play healthy early in season and he looked pretty flipping good. He hasn't lost his skill set but his body isn't quite right yet which makes him panic a little and make bad decisions.

[OZ]

Capels audition not going well. This sucks. Most disappointing team in a while, so far.

After ONE week and THREE games, you really think this is on Capel?

[kAzE]

I'm not sure why there's THIS much negativity in this thread . . . we lost by single digits on the road without Coach K and Amile Jefferson, and they shot much better from 3 than they usually do. It's okay . . . . just relax . . . this is not what we will look like in a month. If Louisville doesn't hit 2 of those long bombs, it's a 1 point game with less than a minute. We were missing our two most important team leaders. I think it's a bit silly to have expected this Duke team to win this particular game.

That said, our defensive effort was still very lacking. Communication on ball screen needs to improve, and I think that particularly will improve immensely if and when Amile returns.

The other major problem from this contest was the turnovers. Louisville took 59 shots to our 47. Many of those extra possessions came off our sloppy ball handling and decision making. A good example was the inbounds steal that led to an easy Louisville layup. They had 3 guys back pressing and we had only one guy in the back court to receive the inbound. That just can't happen. These are just bad mental mistakes. Grayson putting up 3 assists to 6 turnovers is not going to win us many games. We can't have only 29 points combined outside of him and Luke. Even though Grayson himself had some nice scoring numbers, he has to get the other guys involved in order for us to win games, and that starts with taking care of the ball.

This was probably the best defense we will face this year, with all due respect to Virginia. It's not surprising that we had one of our worst offensive showings. The freshmen simply need to get better, and they will. We have an entire week to get better before the Miami game. Hopefully Amile gets healthy in the next 7 days, and hopefully everyone has some great practices. I'm not that concerned over this Louisville game, but it will definitely be disappointing if we don't show some progress against Miami with an entire week to prepare and improve.

[Spanarkel]

I think two things hurt us today, both of which Amile can help with. I haven't checked the stats but it really seemed that we had very few offensive rebounds. As great a rebounder as Giles is it seems he doesn't get many offensively. Amile getting a few adds more to our point total.
We don't get easy baskets. When Amile is playing, you can dump it into him and get an easy two. Seems like we have to work really hard to get tough baskets without him.

Counting today's game, HG has 16 OR in 93 minutes and MJ has 42 in 477 minutes. I feel that Harry is on the verge of bustin' loose for the Devils.

[DukeWarhead]

After ONE week and THREE games, you really think this is on Capel?

You really think the head coach has no bearing on the last three games? Duke hasn't played well in the past 5 of 6 halves. So no, Capel's audition isn't going well This far, but let's hope it gets better. Coaches are judged by wins and losses.

[weezie]

One other thought- Tatum is expecting superstar calls and then whining when it doesn't come.
He'd benefit from a "Hurley video".

Yeah, but I might disagree a tad when obvious calls are overlooked. Then again, we get all the calls so what's the beef?

[Bob Green]

I think two things hurt us today, both of which Amile can help with. I haven't checked the stats but it really seemed that we had very few offensive rebounds. As great a rebounder as Giles is it seems he doesn't get many offensively. Amile getting a few adds more to our point total.

We don't get easy baskets. When Amile is playing, you can dump it into him and get an easy two. Seems like we have to work really hard to get tough baskets without him.

http://www.cbssports.com/collegebask...14_DUKE@LVILLE

Giles had six rebounds today with three being offensive.

[DukeWarhead]

At least Grayson didn't trip anybody. So there's that...

[budwom]

One other thought- Tatum is expecting superstar calls and then whining when it doesn't come.
He'd benefit from a "Hurley video".

I was thinking the same thing. He needs to change his mind set a bit...