Sage Grouse
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'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
Welcome to the Board. Two days. I disagree with your characterization of the run-to-the-title being easier for Duke in 1991 than in 1992. Well, to start with, we lost seven games in 1991 and got blown out by 22 by UNC in the ACC tournament. Moreover, the win over UNLV was close to miraculous.
In 1992 we lost two games, one at Wake with Hurley out and another at UNC by a couple of points. We roared through the ACC tournament. We had "the shot" -- but that was against a Kentucky team that was playing out of its mind. We had a clear lead against Indiana in the NCAA semis until the Hoosiers rallied in the last couple of minutes. Then we beat Michigan by 20 -- the biggest positive margin we have ever had in an NCAA final.
BTW, you and AtlDuke72 are looking at different sides of the coin with respect to the St. John's game in December 1991. You stressed the huge lead against a highly ranked team --AtlDuke72 emphasized the way we gave away 20 points of the lead by just clowning our way through the last ten minutes.
Kindly,
Sage
'BTW, I was there in 1963 when #4 Duke beat #6 West Virginia with Rod Thorn by 40 points, 111-71. I don't think we let up on the gas!'
Sage Grouse
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'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
Are we sure that this Duke team is uniquely inconsistent, though? I just think unless you're a great team, or unless you're playing a completely inept opponent (Pitt), your warts will usually show over the course of 40 minutes (but not necessarily all 40 minutes). I also think fans very easily grab onto the comforting explanations of focus, effort, or discipline. I mean, how many times over the years have we seen Wheat come on here after a UNC loss and bemoan that UNC had just played unfocused? I think plenty.
I'm with you. And yes, I would have been happy with the final score before the game started because I appreciate how hard it is to win ACC road games. So again yes, I'm appreciative of the win. But that still doesn't make me blind to how our offense - except for the first 2 minutes- really stalled in the 2nd half. In the final 10 minutes we had trouble even getting a shot off, going 2 for 9 I believe, and hadonly 1 assist and 4 turnovers. I know we were playing a slow down game but there is no reason for that to keep us from getting off good shots. But we ended up forcing up a lot of bad shots (while Grayson passed up a few good ones) in the second half and it didn't go well. Fortunately our rebounding and excellent free throw shooting saved us.
So yes I agree that building up the big lead in the first half was great and getting the win was great. That doesn't invalidate the concerns some of us have about how we have closed out this game and other games recently.
I think part of the reason people complain is that we have yet to really blow anyone (of any consequence) out. Pitt twice and Wake once are the only games that come close and those are two bad teams. It is easier to look past letting off the gas or having to claw back from a deficit against an overmatched team if you can look to dominant performances, but in our case getting down early or getting up and letting teams back into the game has been almost universal. We have dominant stretches but have yet to have a dominant game (against a decent P5 opponent). I think that is where the complaints come from.
But that's just it...Notre Dame was BAD when they were shorthanded (and it's the only game this year that would even be in the discussion). It's kind of a sliding scale (when the discussion is about reaction the focus is on perception, not metrics). Notre Dame was a solid beating of a bad opponent. Basically, perception-wise, the worse the opponent the larger the margin needs to be to "satisfy the masses" and the Notre Dame game is probably just this side of that line (big enough to be good, but so big as to burn it into memory).
An extreme example would be our 50+ point win against GT last year. Indiana/VT might be examples from 2015-16. Unsurprisingly in 2014-15 there were a ton: Wake Forest, Notre Dame, along with possibly BC and Clemson. Some of those margins are similar to Notre Dame this year and may have been bad teams, so what's the difference? Again, perception drives reaction and beating a bad team feels better than beating a team that is short-handed.
I think that at least partly explains some of the reaction we're getting.
Sage, to clarify, I meant the NCAA tournament run over all was easier in 91 - not the season - the six games of the tournament. Yes, the UNLV game was tight as heck in 91 in the semis, but I"m talking total body of work over six games...
In 1991, but Duke rolled through the first 4 rounds very easily, and then in the finals, even exhausted mentally and physically from UNLV, always kept control against Kansas.
There was nothing like the testy Seton Hall game in the 92 Sweet 16 and certainly nothing like the Kentucky game in the Regional Final in 92.
In 92, they trailed Indiana badly, rallied, took the lead, then almost lost the lead, in the semis. The final game against the Fab 5 was close until the last 6-7 minutes, when Duke looked like the team of December January again, which was by far the best team in the country.
Again, overall, the six game run in 1991 was far more comfortable than the six game run in 92. Over all...
So are we judging cred by time on this board? Dude, I've been a fan over 50 years. I started very young being very much a fan. But I was too young to live through the Vic Bubas success or football success during those years...just old enough to start caring when the losing really kicked in.
I stayed a Duke fan through loss after loss after loss in both football and basketball for many years before Coach Spurrier and Coach K gave me something to smile about. Much of that time I was also a sports writer and broadcaster, when people paid me for my opinions.
Look, I am very impressed by this board, and sorry I didn't find it until now. But I will not let my length of time on this board dictate my credibility. I was a Duke fan long before this board existed, long before the internet existed, and odds are I've been around Duke sports longer than the majority of posters here, purely based on demographics.
I'll not question anyone's cred here, but I'm not playing this noob game on my cred either.
Last edited by HereBeforeCoachK; 02-12-2018 at 08:59 PM. Reason: typos
Matt Jones was 2-3 on shots from the rim that game so...almost the exact same percentage (<40%). Not sure exactly what you're going for with that comment, but Matt was terrible - terrible - terrible going to the bucket that year. His 4-7 3PT that game is what kept us afloat against Gonzaga, not shots at the rim.
ETA: Dang, Troublemaker beat me there.
Nope. Matt was a career 37% shooter from three, and he had 6 other games during his career in which he hit as many threes (four) as he hit against Gonzaga.
Oh, I think we both know this isn't true.
But, look, you've not really said anything objectionable so far during this current run, imo. Continue to be a good poster, yes? That's all anyone asks of "newbies."
Besides having some of the most knowledgeable basketball fans around, this board also boasts some of the BIGGEST egos as well.
Carry on gentlemen with your testosterone challenge.
Carry on gentlemen with your testosterone challenge.
Right....I better go and take my pill