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  1. #1

    We lost to a better team last Sunday

    I'm finally ready to trust the eye test and reject the biases that have clouded me stemming from a combination of branding, seeding and dork polls.

    South Carolina was simply a better overall basketball team than Duke this year and they had the best player on the court in Sindarius Thornwell. This loss was nothing like VCU, Lehigh or Mercer.

    I can finally rest in peace over this season and am looking forward to next year. Go Duke!!

  2. #2
    With SC's run to the final four, this season was somewhat salvaged in my mind. We lost to the hottest team in the country. It wasn't a 2nd round loss to a team that was blown out in the next round.

    The SC team that beat us would've likely taken out all but a few 1-4 seeds in a second round home game.

    If us Duke fans would've said SC outplayed their record without going on to a FF, we would've been accused of making excuses. By next year, I bet this loss will get lumped in with the others though.

  3. #3

    AH

    I would agree that South Carolina is playing very well right now.

    Lehigh also had the best player.

    SoCal

  4. #4
    Join Date
    Mar 2008
    Location
    raleigh
    Go cocks!!!!!!
    "One POSSIBLE future. From your point of view... I don't know tech stuff.".... Kyle Reese

  5. #5
    Quote Originally Posted by DukeTrinity11 View Post
    I'm finally ready to trust the eye test and reject the biases that have clouded me stemming from a combination of branding, seeding and dork polls.

    South Carolina was simply a better overall basketball team than Duke this year and they had the best player on the court in Sindarius Thornwell. This loss was nothing like VCU, Lehigh or Mercer.

    I can finally rest in peace over this season and am looking forward to next year. Go Duke!!
    Duke lost to a very hot team. Nice run by them - but we all know what is in store next year.

  6. #6
    Quote Originally Posted by SoCalDukeFan View Post
    I would agree that South Carolina is playing very well right now.

    Lehigh also had the best player.

    SoCal
    I suspect the guy who was our best player for most of the year was sick for the game against south carolina but who knows. Playing them in south carolina was a factor; I think we probably would have beaten them in the Garden.

    Their biggest strength is the consistency of their intensity throughout a game. They simply wear you down; they also don't seem to scare easily. I guess that lack of fear comes from seeing the scariest coach on any level every day during practice.

    I also partially blame Kyrie Irving for this loss. IIRC, the last time we faced Martin he was at KSU and Kyrie dismantled his best player.

  7. #7
    Quote Originally Posted by dukelifer View Post
    Duke lost to a very hot team. Nice run by them - but we all know what is in store next year.
    is it the same thing that was in store for Oregon?

  8. #8
    Join Date
    Feb 2007
    For me, the distinction of whether SC is better or not doesn't matter. As a program, Duke needs to control what it can control, which is how good a team Duke is. And it doesn't seem like Duke was a top-10 team this season based on -- as I've written before -- kenpom, the ACC being overrated, and a 6-man rotation that contained neither a true PG or true C.

    Whether Duke was the #15 team that lost to the #25 team, or whether Duke was the #15 team that lost to the #10 team (or whatever), doesn't really matter to me. The program needs to produce a better team.

    Now, that said, I am still proud of this team for the ACC championship run and for beating UNC twice (and also for the things we take for granted like going to class and not getting into trouble off the court). Not every Duke team wins a conference championship or beats UNC twice, so I do try to appreciate the teams that do. Like many Duke fans, I like to re-watch old games every now and then, and this team definitely produced some games that will get inserted into the rotation. For that, I am grateful.

  9. #9
    Join Date
    Jan 2014
    Location
    Thomasville, NC
    Not going to say they were the better team all year. They were when it counted though.
    The biggest issues we had were lack of a true point guard, the lack of development by our bigs, and so much time lost to injury by several players. This in itself kept our team from getting familiar with each other in a given lineup, and eventually led to our elimination. Hopefully, these issues can be fixed.

  10. #10
    Join Date
    Jun 2008
    Location
    Winston Salem, NC

    Better Team?

    I don't know if SC was better than us, but I will say that SC was a better defensive team by far. I will say our offense was better than their offense. Put both together, I guess it makes this SC team better than us. I'm really glad to see the Gamecocks win games after defeating us. Would they have beaten us on a real neutral court? We'll never know. One thing for sure, the team that had the best chance of defeating the Uncheats, lost to them. That team is the Duke University Blue Devils. We have their number and they know it, ha ha GoDuke!

  11. #11
    Join Date
    Dec 2011
    Location
    Albemarle, North Carolina

    Uh no.

    We didn't lose to a team that was even close to as good as Duke. We lost to a good team that had played better than us that day and with a style that frustrated our guys.
    "The greatest enemy of knowledge is not ignorance, it is the illusion of knowledge" -Stephen Hawking

  12. #12
    Join Date
    Apr 2010
    Location
    Arlington, VA
    Quote Originally Posted by Troublemaker View Post
    For me, the distinction of whether SC is better or not doesn't matter. As a program, Duke needs to control what it can control, which is how good a team Duke is. And it doesn't seem like Duke was a top-10 team this season based on -- as I've written before -- kenpom, the ACC being overrated, and a 6-man rotation that contained neither a true PG or true C.

    Whether Duke was the #15 team that lost to the #25 team, or whether Duke was the #15 team that lost to the #10 team (or whatever), doesn't really matter to me. The program needs to produce a better team.

    Now, that said, I am still proud of this team for the ACC championship run and for beating UNC twice (and also for the things we take for granted like going to class and not getting into trouble off the court). Not every Duke team wins a conference championship or beats UNC twice, so I do try to appreciate the teams that do. Like many Duke fans, I like to re-watch old games every now and then, and this team definitely produced some games that will get inserted into the rotation. For that, I am grateful.
    This all makes sense, and agreed if we want to see Duke advancing far into the tournament, the program has to produce a better, or at least deeper, team than it did this year. All that being said, I agree with the OP that it feels a little better to have lost to a team that is on a roll than it did to lose to one-hit wonder teams. And eventually it may make the players feel better, too, though I don't suspect it does right now--may even make them feel worse, as they can imagine their own path to the Final Four had they advanced out of the first weekend.

    Now I am kind of liking the idea (perhaps fantastic) that South Carolina meets, and defeats, UNC in the final. That might at least cause a few Tarheel fans to hesitate before arguing that this year's UNC team was clearly better than this year's Duke team.

  13. #13
    Join Date
    Apr 2013
    Location
    Athens, GA
    Quote Originally Posted by eddiehaskell View Post
    With SC's run to the final four, this season was somewhat salvaged in my mind. We lost to the hottest team in the country. It wasn't a 2nd round loss to a team that was blown out in the next round.

    The SC team that beat us would've likely taken out all but a few 1-4 seeds in a second round home game.

    If us Duke fans would've said SC outplayed their record without going on to a FF, we would've been accused of making excuses. By next year, I bet this loss will get lumped in with the others though.
    Agree with your post, but I can't wrap my mind around the fact that South Carolina was 3-6 in their last 9 games prior to the start of the NCAAT.

  14. #14
    Quote Originally Posted by DukeTrinity11 View Post
    I'm finally ready to trust the eye test and reject the biases that have clouded me stemming from a combination of branding, seeding and dork polls.

    South Carolina was simply a better overall basketball team than Duke this year and they had the best player on the court in Sindarius Thornwell. This loss was nothing like VCU, Lehigh or Mercer.

    I can finally rest in peace over this season and am looking forward to next year. Go Duke!!
    Nope. Sindarius Thornwell, as overlooked and good as he is, is never the best player on a basketball court that also has Jayson Tatum on it.
    Whatever the hell "it" is, Jabari found it.

    -Roy "Ole Huck" Williams

  15. #15
    Join Date
    Apr 2010
    Location
    Arlington, VA
    Quote Originally Posted by Dukehky View Post
    Nope. Sindarius Thornwell, as overlooked and good as he is, is never the best player on a basketball court that also has Jayson Tatum on it.
    Fair enough--but just as people in this thread are distinguishing between being a better team and being a team that is playing better, I think we might make the same distinction for Thornwell and Tatum in this game. Tatum had 15 points on 50% shooting (including 1 of 2 from the foul line), 3 rebounds, 1 assist, 5 turnovers, and 5 fouls in 34 minutes; Thornwell had 24 points on 43% shooting from the field and 75% (9 of 12) from the free throw line, 6 rebounds, 5 assists, 3 turnovers, a steal, and 1 personal foul in 36 minutes. A pretty good performance from Tatum, but not his best--and I would say not as good as Thornwell's in that particular game.

  16. #16
    Mc Donalds All Americans, and 5 star recruits are mainly senior high school players around 18 years old playing against opponents of varying ages, size, and abilities. When they start playing in college they come up against players who are often older and, having a few years of unlimited food and strength coaching, are bigger and better than they were in H.S. It means that the thinner 5 stars may get pushed around a bit. I think we see that in our Duke teams. The "one and done" teams can be pushed around. We need some size with experience in order to excel. How to get there, I wish I knee.

  17. #17
    Join Date
    Dec 2010
    Location
    Carolina Beach
    Quote Originally Posted by 53n206 View Post
    Mc Donalds All Americans, and 5 star recruits are mainly senior high school players around 18 years old playing against opponents of varying ages, size, and abilities. When they start playing in college they come up against players who are often older and, having a few years of unlimited food and strength coaching, are bigger and better than they were in H.S. It means that the thinner 5 stars may get pushed around a bit. I think we see that in our Duke teams. The "one and done" teams can be pushed around. We need some size with experience in order to excel. How to get there, I wish I knee.
    The difference in age, strength, maturity, (while we have more talent) we have seen play out not in our favor. Throw in a red shirt year & we have 18, 19 year old OAD playing against 22-23 year old grown men. At that stage of life 4 years is a huge difference.

    Despite never seeing Mercer playing a game when I read how many seniors played in the rotation I had a bad, bad, feeling.

  18. #18
    Join Date
    Apr 2013
    Location
    Athens, GA
    Quote Originally Posted by wsb3 View Post
    The difference in age, strength, maturity, (while we have more talent) we have seen play out not in our favor. Throw in a red shirt year & we have 18, 19 year old OAD playing against 22-23 year old grown men. At that stage of life 4 years is a huge difference.

    Despite never seeing Mercer playing a game when I read how many seniors played in the rotation I had a bad, bad, feeling.
    Oregon's Dylan Ennis is 25: hope he and the Ducks can take it to the heels.

  19. #19
    IMO, S.C. played the best D we faced all season. Clearly, ACC 2017 D was not as great as many "experts" claimed.

    IMO, Duke had much more talent than S.C. However, S.C. played much better team ball. Coach Martin got the most out of his players. I'm not sure Coach K did.

  20. #20
    Join Date
    Dec 2010
    Location
    Carolina Beach

    D

    Typically after the first weekend & Duke sadly not still in the tourney I tend to be outside more & let college basketball go...while hoping like heck the Heels lose to somebody... Come on Oregon..

    I did watch SC-Fla. yesterday. We can debate whether they are better than us...though no doubt on that day they were better but they play Defense like Duke teams of old. Still blows my mind that we lost a game to a team that shot 7-35 in one half..

    I think they will beat the Zags... & I won't be shocked if they cut down the nets. That defense will keep them in games & they have a senior that brings back fond memories of what college basketball use to be.

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