MBB: Duke 87, Pitt 52 Post-Game Thread

[Wander]

D was good for first 15 minutes. not as good after (especially last few minutes of first half), but we were playing a lot of subs.

Not sure our defensive tactics in those first 15 minutes would have worked against a decent team. Basically I think the positive thing to take out of the Pitt game is our post depth - K will never play those guys heavy minutes voluntarily, but it's nice to know our backups seem capable if foul trouble/injuries ever force his hand again.

[uh_no]

Not sure our defensive tactics in those first 15 minutes would have worked against a decent team. Basically I think the positive thing to take out of the Pitt game is our post depth - K will never play those guys heavy minutes voluntarily, but it's nice to know our backups seem capable if foul trouble/injuries ever force his hand again.

on the flip side, no reason carter and tricky tre should have picked up 4 fouls in that game.

[BandAlum83]

I was there. The former Oakland Zoo wasn’t exactly a zoo. Maybe they need Jamie Dixon back. My section had more than a few Duke fans, so the “overrated” chant got a few chuckles. It seems crazy to say, but Duke won by 35 and didn’t look all that impressive. They just got a lead and cruised with it. I liked the game from Gary Trent. Took what came to him and put up double figures.

I also heard some sort of Bagley chant on the TV, but couldn't quite make out what is was. There may have been more than one. Can you share what was being chanted?

[freshmanjs]

I also heard some sort of Bagley chant on the TV, but couldn't quite make out what is was. There may have been more than one. Can you share what was being chanted?

Bagley S*cks -- very creative!

[UrinalCake]

I may have missed it but did D look better or were they just missing shots? Unfortunately I was unable to watch

The D looked a little better. First and foremost, the players looked committed on the defensive end and were putting forth more effort. It felt similar to the Evansville game that followed the BC loss, which we won 104-40. Seemed clear to me that the coaches had been emphasizing the importance of defense, which K verbalized in the post-game press conference, and the bench players brought great energy which the starters feed off of.

Practically speaking, I thought we played the passing lanes well, creating turnovers and disrupting their ball movement. We did seem a bit handsy at times and picked up a couple fouls because of it, but it was a worthwhile tradeoff. Pitt didn't put us in a lot of pick and rolls, and they didn't dribble penetrate well. When they did make their run in the second half it was from getting our defense to switch/rotate and then finding the open man for a three, which is a common weakness. All in all, I'd say our defense improved but still has a long way to go.

[arnie]

Bagley S*cks -- very creative!

Good to see some opposing fan love directed away from Grayson.

[BandAlum83]

Bagley S*cks -- very creative!

And factually inaccurate.

[DukieInKansas]

Good to see some opposing fan love directed away from Grayson.

And nice to see him go right over to Bagley to talk when the chant started. Senior leadership from someone who has been there.

[kAzE]

And factually inaccurate.

I never heard chants supporting their own team. Not even "De-fense" or whatever their version of "let's go Duke" is. "Bagley s*cks" and "overrated" were the only thing I heard from the crowd at all, both of which were demonstrably false in that game. If you're winning against us, you get to chant "overrated," not when you're down by 40 . . .

I suppose there's no point in complaining further about the crowd, though. Their team is pretty bad.

[dukelifer]

Bagley S*cks -- very creative!

I think Bagley is overrated. I heard some Duke fan put him above Patrick Davidson. Come on the kid is good- but Davidson is a legend and man of steel.

[MrPoon]

I heard the chant on the TV and loved it. It’s like chanting, “We don’t know basketball! We don’t know basketball”. Bagley is better, with my limited knowlege of Pitt basketball, better than ANYONE who has played there (http://bleacherreport.com/articles/2...n-team-history).

But the chant befit their team, which was not good. It was nice to go deep into the bench and reward kids who work hard everyday to showcase their abilities. Funny enough, I thought it was a sloppy odd game offensively and we still just destroyed them. Left a lot at the line, GA still is in his funk, and Duval still struggles to pick his spots in the flow. I agree with an earlier poster (sorry can’t find it now) that GA is trying to be Nolan to this team who probably doesn’t need him to score 20+ to win. But I also think that has held him back lately. He still needs to be GA, a bat out of hell who embarrasses other teams and makes opposing fans boo and female fans swoon. Okay, maybe a little over the top but we need our D to improve, GA to get back to 70% of who we know he can be, and Duval to keep improving. The rest will take care of itself.

Lastly, I don’t take much on the D side from this game. Looked good but we’ve seen spurts before against inferior teams. Show me more this weekend and then make it happen in Miami. It’s there, they just need to do it!

[House P]

I think Bagley is overrated. I heard some Duke fan put him above Patrick Davidson. Come on the kid is good- but Davidson is a legend and man of steel.

Please keep in mind that Bagley is a Freshman. While Patrick Davidson had a solid Freshman year, he didn't really become a Duke legend until his Sophomore year when he joined Duke's ultra-exclusive "4-4-4 Club" (4 points, 4 rebounds, and 4 fouls in a single season).

If Marvin wants to achieve his lifelong dream of being compared to Patrick Davidson, he is going to have to play another season at Duke.



As for the Pitt game, I enjoyed getting the chance to watch Justin and Jack play significant minutes in the first half of an ACC game. Sure, Pitt was overmatched, but Justin and Jack played a combined 16 first half minutes and both entered the game before the 2nd TV timeout when Pitt still had a slight chance of making it a competitive game (KenPom's win probability graph estimates that Pitt still had a about a 2% chance of winning the game when Jack entered with 13:29 left in the the first half and Duke leading by 13).

Contrast this to the Evansville game, which was an ever bigger blowout against an even more overmatched opponent. Against Evansville, Justin only played 3 minutes in the 1st half and Jack didn't get in until Duke had a 55 point lead with 11:31 left in the 2nd half.

Both guys played well enough vs Pitt that I wouldn't be completely shocked to see at least one of them play a couple 1st half minutes against Wake.

[CDu]

So I have seen in a few comments that we still left too many open 3s last night. And while this is true, I'm going to post why I'm not concerned. Most of these open 3s were the result of a mistake by a guy who will in all likelihood not be playing meaningful minutes in March. See below for all the 3s until absolute garbage time.

[Note: this is not to say that the defense was fault-free last night and that our woes are passed. Just that - on this night - our rotation guys weren't responsible for too many lapses leading to open 3s]

The list of 3s:

Vrank went out too far on a high ball screen, got beat by the dribbler, causing Robinson to help. Open corner 3 Note: this was with multiple bench guys.

White overhelps down into a crowded lane from the perimeter, open wing 3 (missed).

Allen stops dribble penetration, doesn’t get out to a stepback 3 (missed).

Off a failed defensive rebound on a Pitt FT, our guards didn’t find a guy in the opposite corner for a 3 (missed).

Semi-open off a high screen, Bagley switched but didn’t contest too hard (missed).

Semi-open on a kickout from a driver to the wing (missed).

On an underneath inbounds play, O’Connell fails to get out to his man (missed) Note: this was with 4 bench guys and Duval on the floor.

On a high ball screen, Carter doesn’t drop far enough, letting a drive happen. Allen sees this and overplays from the weakside baseline, leaving his man open in the corner. Duval sees this and cheats down into the middle to poach a pass to the corner. The ball goes to the now-open man on the wing for a 3 (missed).

High ball screen, Bagley plays drop coverage. Pull-up 3 (missed). Note: this is the limitation of drop coverage. You protect against the drive, but it will allow pull-up 3s.

Semi-stepback 3 against Robinson sagging off Wilson-Frame (missed).

Transition 3. Bagley is tied up with Chukwuka on one end, long rebound, Bagley’s man gets downcourt quickly and is picked up by Robinson. Bagley doesn’t recognize the switch and is charging down the lane to his man, leaving Chukwuka wide open for a 3.

Dribbler goes down through the lane, then runs around a screen down low. Bagley expects Robinson to switch and chase the man out to the perimeter, but Robinson stays home on the screener. O’Connell closes out on the dribbler in the corner, leaving his man open for an open wing 3.

Pull-up 3. Defender is one step below the line, shooter crosses over 2 or 3 times and takes a shot one step beyond the line (missed).
In a 2-3 zone, Trent (one of the “3”) overplays a lateral pass and misses up top. Dribbler then swings the ball to the open man on the other side (missed). This is one of the risks of overplaying in the passing lanes.

Again in 2-3, Robinson overplays WAY too far out on the perimeter. He should give way to Duval (who is in position, with the ball still 10 fee from the 3pt line) and drop back as he leaves his corner WIDE open (missed).

Again in 2-3, Both Robinson and Goldwire collapse from the same side, leaving nobody defending the far side of the court (missed).

Again in 2-3, Robinson overplays WAY too far out on the perimeter. He should give way to Duval (who is in position, with the ball still 10 fee from the 3pt line) and drop back as he leaves his corner WIDE open (missed).

Transition dunk, missed, bounced right to a guy at the 3pt line (missed). Note: we’re in full-on garbage time now.

[CDu]

Having posted a long list of Pitt's 3pt attempts, I'll talk about our team. I really liked what we did with high ball screens. Basically, whenever Carter was in a high ball screen situation, he was told to stay below the free throw line (or "drop" coverage). This did two things: it let him not get beat off the dribble as easily, and it allowed our other help defenders to stay home on 3pt shooters (especially the corner 3). It appeared that we had the same philosophy for Vrank, but he didn't "drop" far enough. That resulted in an open corner 3 with Robinson helping. There are weaknesses of drop coverage, as Troublemaker has laid out really nicely in his GIF thread (NOTE: if you haven't checked it out, please do. You can even enjoy a friendly debate between him and me there . Aside from that banter, it's a really informative thread.) is that it will allow pull-up jumpers and 3s, as the helper on the screen is now well away from the ball. But that's a tradeoff I'm gladly willing to take to prevent layups and wide open corner 3s.

Aside from Carter and Vrank, the play was generally to switch on high ball screens. This is because basically everyone else was considered mobile enough to stay with a perimeter guy. And for the most part, we didn't have troubles with it. Though, again, this was a REALLY bad Pitt team. So the results are going to be misleading.

That being said, I think it is a strategy that can work. We don't need to be UVa defensively to win. We just need to be average defensively. And I think this defense can be average.

We also played a lot of zone later in the second half. It's hard to take much away from that, though, as it was played mostly by guys who aren't going to play when we are healthy.

We did get beaten a couple of times for backdoor cuts, though again those were usually guys who weren't going to be in in key games. Allen did get caught napping once.

The other thing that seemed quite evident was that we were overplaying lateral perimeter passes. We did get a few steals this way. But we also misjudged a few times and gave up easy scores as a result. If we are going to cheat those lanes, we have to recover when we miss. Also, we had a few such attempts in the 2-3 zone by Robinson, which didn't go well. But, again, Robinson isn't likely to be playing once Bolden and DeLaurier return, so I'm less concerned about that.

All in all, I was hoping to see a consistent strategy, and one that showed signs that it could be effective. In that sense, last night was a complete success. Saturday will provide a bit tougher test, so it will be nice to see what happens with our new defense against a functional offense.

[Mike Corey]

Arising from my lurking to say this is a really wonderful and happy thread of good analysis, and I thank you all for it.

This continues to be the most impressive array of individually talented offensive basketball players I can remember at Duke.

The rest is coming along, game by game.

[Kedsy]

So I have seen in a few comments that we still left too many open 3s last night. And while this is true, I'm going to post why I'm not concerned. Most of these open 3s were the result of a mistake by a guy who will in all likelihood not be playing meaningful minutes in March. See below for all the 3s until absolute garbage time.

Thanks for taking the time to perform this analysis. Assuming the mistakes made by the bench guys wouldn't also have been made by the starters, after reading your analysis I agree it wasn't as bad as it looked. I also agree that I'd rather give up pull up three attempts than catch-and-shoot three attempts.

It's a work-in-progress. Hopefully we'll see more advancement against Wake and Miami, and then even more going forward.

[CDu]

Thanks for taking the time to perform this analysis. Assuming the mistakes made by the bench guys wouldn't also have been made by the starters, after reading your analysis I agree it wasn't as bad as it looked. I also agree that I'd rather give up pull up three attempts than catch-and-shoot three attempts.

It's a work-in-progress. Hopefully we'll see more advancement against Wake and Miami, and then even more going forward.

Yeah, it's definitely not a "we're in the clear" situation. It's certainly possible that the starters would have made similar mistakes. And we still haven't seen what Bolden and DeLaurier will do once they return. But at least there were fewer (not none, but fewer) mistakes caused by our starters than there were in previous games. And the fact that the starters didn't account for most of these mistakes makes me believe that they at least got some of the message.

I think the change in strategy for Carter is a big step in the right direction. He has consistently looked REALLY uncomfortable when defending more than 15 feet from the basket. So allowing him to drop off screens should be a big plus. He'll still give up some buckets/fouls to better drivers, but it shouldn't be as blatantly rough as it was in the FSU and State games. And hopefully that helps others not feeling the need to help off as much.

[Devilwin]

All in all, good effort by the team, but I think we should have won by more. Pitt is a terrible basketball team this year. And we need to work on those free throws!

[uh_no]

All in all, good effort by the team, but I think we should have won by more. Pitt is a terrible basketball team this year. And we need to work on those free throws!

While one would always want that, but really? in a game where justin robinson is our 6th man? and jack white gets 13 minutes? and we only won by 35?

There are certainly take aways from this game, but i don't think the smallness of the final margin is one of them.

[Billy Dat]

I was there. The former Oakland Zoo wasn’t exactly a zoo. Maybe they need Jamie Dixon back.

I think if those shirts had said, "Pitt is lit AF!" instead of just "Pitt is lit", the atmosphere would have been more Zoo-like.

I think the change in strategy for Carter is a big step in the right direction. He has consistently looked REALLY uncomfortable when defending more than 15 feet from the basket. So allowing him to drop off screens should be a big plus. He'll still give up some buckets/fouls to better drivers, but it shouldn't be as blatantly rough as it was in the FSU and State games. And hopefully that helps others not feeling the need to help off as much.

He tends to "chest" the guy he's defending, which is an easy foul call, and he consistently brings his arms down when he should just tall up. Wendell being smarter about his fouling is a quality measure I am keeping an eye on. In general, I feel like we have the tendency to commit our fouls in clusters that not only cause the usual issues (player has to be careful, opponent is in the bonus early) but also sap momentum.