Duke women's hoops

[godukerocks]

With a loss at Vandy, we're now 5-2; equaling the loss total of last year. Thoughts on the start of the season?

Haven't been able to watch them a lot, but from what I can tell, they just aren't clicking on offense.

[Bluedawg]

With a loss at Vandy, we're now 5-2; equaling the loss total of last year. Thoughts on the start of the season?

Haven't been able to watch them a lot, but from what I can tell, they just aren't clicking on offense.

I'm not concerned. You can't compare last year to this year due to the coaching change and the loss of two key player.

They are learning a new system and bringing in three fantastic players. They will be fine!

[hughgs]

I'm not concerned. You can't compare last year to this year due to the coaching change and the loss of two key player.

They are learning a new system and bringing in three fantastic players. They will be fine!

Abby and Nish weren't 100% for the UConn game and Nish didn't play against Vandy. Those two are arguably the offense stars of the team.

[Bluedawg]

Abby and Nish weren't 100% for the UConn game and Nish didn't play against Vandy. Those two are arguably the offense stars of the team.

Agreed and this is why I'm not worried. the up side is that other women are getting a chance to play while they get back to 100% again. This can only make them stronger as a team!

[jimsumner]

Also, keep in mind that they have been on the road practically the entire season.

[chrishoke]

Team appears to be unhappy... something may be wrong

I don't know if any of this is true but I watched the game last night and the team played and looked like some of this could be true. I'm very worried.

[CameronBlue]

Okay I hate the "post-count is proportional to credibility" sliding scale of truthiness that long-time posters like to brandish whenever a newbie comes along with something strongly critical of Duke. But almost every poster here knows someone who works inside of Cameron. It hardly places you among the inner circle of the omniscient. (I'm on a first name basis with at least 10 folks who work the concession stands during the men's games and their remarks about how much pizza I eat are getting a little tiresome.)
Pavy may be dead on with his/her assessment but you know, I'd kindof like to hear it from Robc before I buy into it. Rob posted on DWHOOPS several months ago that he had some misgivings about CoachP before choosing to remain officially neutral in service to his journalistic ethics. But I REALLY hope Rob comes along to clarify this rumor before it gets out of hand.

[bludev03]

I'm not RobC and can't speak for the the growing dissatisfaction within the program. But I did watch the second half on cstv, and here are my observations:

a) Duke is a lot WORSE than I could have ever believed. The passion and fire of Duke Women's basketball is GONE! It's not there! The chest bumps, the fist pumps, the screams, the "get that ish outta here!" & the "in yo face!" attitudes are GONE! Nobody tries to take charges! Nobody coming together at the foul line or huddles...it's just not there! Nobody is diving on the floor, hustling after loose balls. At about 5:30, Joy Cheek stood a little inside the foul line, and watched the ball go out, under Vandy's basket. Had she dived on the floor after it, she coulda saved it. At worse, Vandy woulda gotten the ball back (which they did anyway).

b) Conditioning is horrible! Duke got smoked up and down the floor on transition d, leavin vandy to have 1 on 1, 1 on 2, opportunities; as a result, Duke fouled a lot. Previously, you could count on Duke getting down there and at least making an effort to take the charge. Maryland, Tenn, Rut, and UNC will have a field day...

c) Leadership is lacking. No one had a "take charge" attitude or tried to pick everybody up. P didnt do a thing to stop Vandy's run at the end of the game, call timeouts, etc

d) Post Defense is HORRIBLE! There was no reason why Vandy shoulda gotten as many offensive rebounds and second and third chance opportunities as they did. Also the post players had absolutely ZERO help rotation on the post, didnt double, and slapped at the ball way too much! This is absouletly inexcusable when you have 6'5" Black, 6'5" Thomas, 6'2 Cheek, 6'2" Gay. Their only inside threat was Liz Sherwood, and she's about 6'4" 275. They coulda fronted her, trapped her, or anything to make it difficult for her.

e) Offensive! Where is the offense??? I saw the entire second half and i didnt see a single offensive set play ran! I wanna know what kind of offense they are running?

f) Game IQ! I KNOW G had taught these girls to be smarter, but geezus! A freshman (yes, what the world was P having a freshman takin the ball out? that's another topic) inbound the ball from under the team's basket, and BOUNCE pass the ball inside to a post player - only to have the ball intercepted by a Vandy player! Where are the ball fakes?? I saw two flat out picks by Vandy, that coulda been avoided had the Duke players used a simple BALL fake! Also, Duke no longer traps the opponent after they get a defensive rebound.

g) Minutes! Every stopped play, P had subs in and out. You cant establish a flow or get players used to playing together like this! I'm sorry but Em and Mitch bring NOTHING to the table. It's not fair to JT to have Em and Mitch running the point, then when the game is close or ur losing, to have JT running the point and expecting her to save the day.

STAT SHEET ANALYSIS

Here are the stats that stick out for me:

Duke Assists to Fouls: 8 : 25

Duke FT Attempts: 11 ; Vandy FT Attempts: 30

Duke Assists to Turnover Ratio: 8: 24 (1 : 3) - For every pass that lead to a basket, Duke gave the ball away to Vandy 3 times

FINAL THOUGHTS

Injuries happen. Players aren't going to always be at 100%. Sometimes you miss shots. I understand all of that. However, not hustling, not playing w/ passion and fire, not working together is totally inexcusable.

I think it's totally P's fault. The girls cant help what their coach wants to run on O and D, and they cant help that P subs every stopped play. However, P clearly doesnt have the girls in top shape. The simple things on O and D (ie. rotations, traps, ball fakes, cuts, timing, etc) arent happening. They have no offense! The defense isnt nearly as sharp as it could be.

And let's not forget, this team was ranked #1 for most of last season. Yes, they lost Linds and Ali, but they have Chante back, plus a very talented freshman class. It seems that P has sucked the passion out of them by slowing them down and not letting them play free and loose.

As for the G and P comparison? G was left NOTHING to work with. Texas's success last yr and the yr before was built by all-universe Tiffany Jackson, who was the center (literally and figuratively) of EVERYTHING. She was their first, second, and third option. However, P landed into a gold mine - a team that was ranked #1 the majority of last yr, the return of Chante Black, and a top recruiting class, featuring 3 McD and WBCA All-Americans.

Liz Sherwood is far from AA caliber, and Vandy is far from FF potential. But Duke struggled immensely in defending and taking it to them on offense. This Duke team is light yrs behind Rutgers, Tenn, MD, and UNC.

This is not a flame...just one man's honest opinion...(still wishin for Jen Rizzo to come down from Hartford)

[dukelifer]

Lots of rumors, etc. A death-blow for Duke.

Wow- 7 games into the season and the team is deeply disillusioned and ready to transfer? You would think that the team would have a bit of an open mind. Also how do explain the gushing of Abby Waner in her recent diary postings

http://sports.espn.go.com/ncw/news/s...ediaries/index

Seems very odd that things went from fine to horrible in a very short time. I think we should wait for Abby's next post to find out what is going on.

[Bluedawg]

Rumors, rumors, more rumors. I know people who work inside Cameron, and this is what they are all saying.

As do I and this is news to me.

[Bluedawg]

Okay I hate the "post-count is proportional to credibility" sliding scale of truthiness that long-time posters like to brandish whenever a newbie comes along with something strongly critical of Duke. But almost every poster here knows someone who works inside of Cameron. It hardly places you among the inner circle of the omniscient. (I'm on a first name basis with at least 10 folks who work the concession stands during the men's games and their remarks about how much pizza I eat are getting a little tiresome.)
Pavy may be dead on with his/her assessment but you know, I'd kindof like to hear it from Robc before I buy into it. Rob posted on DWHOOPS several months ago that he had some misgivings about CoachP before choosing to remain officially neutral in service to his journalistic ethics. But I REALLY hope Rob comes along to clarify this rumor before it gets out of hand.

Actually, I'd rather hear what Jim Sumner or Bill Brill says [and yes i know Bill doesn't usually follow WBB] ...someone who did not go into this with a pre-conceived notion.

BTW...How much pizza do you eat?

[jimsumner]

I'm not sure I can add a whole lot but here goes.

As I pointed out earlier in the thread, this team has been on the road a long time. One home game. Denver, a couple of games in Tampa, three games in four days in the Virgin Islands, back to Nashville, another road game, home against Rutgers, then a pair of games in NYC.

That's a tough row to hoe for a team with everything clicking. But . . .

New coach learning her players.
Players learning their coach.
New assistants, same thing
Coach learning new league, with different style of play.
Replacing two key players, one of whom was a first-team A-A
Three freshmen
One key player returning from injury redshirt season
Two other key players missing games and practice because of injuries.

Under the circumstances, I'm not surprised there are some wobbles. In fact, I would be more suprised if the transition were seamless.

I cannot state with absolute certainty that Pavy's post is incorrect. Like, I said, I haven't seen the team in awhile.

But the few times I've talked to McCallie, she has come across as intelligent, articulate, and personable. Her players seemed to like her. Lots of talk about family, about her kids being part of the Duke family, about sharing and teammwork. I didn't hear any untoward screaming and yelling at the only practice, I attended. But it was a public practice. I'm not a master psychologist but I can sense tension, I can see bad body language, and I haven't seen anything like that.

I would point out at the sadistic schedule could and should account for the fatigue others have pointed out. Before the season the players indictated that they were working harder than ever on conditioning, especially strength work.

I'm pretty sure nobody at Duke is real happy about getting blown out by Uconn or losing at Vandy. Duke has a tough road game at Penn State followed by a home game against Rutgers, yes that Rutgers. So if there are any fissures, they should be exposed.

But it seems to me that either one of three things is the case. Either McCallie and the players are very good actors and were snowing everybody in the pre and early season, something has changed dramatically in the last ten days, or the critics have badly overstated or misstated the alleged problems.

I hope and expect that the third option is the correct one but we should know more soon. But I'm not inclined to start looking for ways to abandon ship this early in the voyage. Let's let the season progress and see what happens.

[Bluedawg]

I don't know if any of this is true but I watched the game last night and the team played and looked like some of this could be true. I'm very worried.

I'm not RobC and can't speak for the the growing dissatisfaction within the program.

But this is starting to sound like Barry Wilson all over again.

Deleted slanderous quote

Thank you, Joe Alleva.

It appears to me that everyone is building opinions based on hearsay, rumor, and innuendo.


I hope all of this is not just a disguised attempt to attack Joe Alleva. That’s getting old.

All I’m hearing is “I hear” and equating these “I hears” to fact. Before we start attacking a team lets try to get some actual facts and without knowing who is dong the "telling".

This type of posting wasn’t allowed in regards to the football team and it should not be allowed here.

[MulletMan]

You'll all note that I've just done some serious surgery to this thread. Rumor mongering will not be tolerated. The things I have deleted are rumors which appear to be totally unsubstatiated. Therfore, they have been removed... as has the slanderous insinuation about a coach.

Leave this garbage off the board... it will continue to be removed.

[Bluedawg]

Last edited by MulletMan : Today at 06:23 PM. Reason: Removed response to deleted post... sorry, Dawg!

Not a problem brother. Since you had deleted a post and then I quoted from it then it would have 1)nullified the affect of your deleting the post and 2)looked really weird for me to quote from something that wasn't there.

[Bluedawg]

I saw some of the women tonight at the NCAA Volleyball tournament and they seemed to be in good spirits

Good luck against Penn State on Sunday!

[dukemomLA]

Is this what I expected for the start of this season? No, of course not. But this is an awesome team with the right Coach for Duke... so give them some slack. Fatigue with their early schedule/travel = to be expected. Some bumps and grinds, adapting to a new coach and new style of play = to be expected. Some injuries hurting this early play = to be expected.

But come March, watch out. Do I agree that UConn & Tenn are the 'elite teams' this year with others a notch below? Yes -- for the moment. But I keep in mind that 'any team can beat any other team on a given day.'

And IMHO, DUKE will be one of those teams to have a chance to do that.

[merry]

I saw some of the women tonight at the NCAA Volleyball tournament and they seemed to be in good spirits

Good luck against Penn State on Sunday!

Bluedawg will you be at volleyball tonight? My husband was there last night and we'll both be there tonight, so if you're going let's meet up!

[Bluedawg]

Is this what I expected for the start of this season? No, of course not. But this is an awesome team with the right Coach for Duke... so give them some slack. Fatigue with their early schedule/travel = to be expected. Some bumps and grinds, adapting to a new coach and new style of play = to be expected. Some injuries hurting this early play = to be expected.

But come March, watch out. Do I agree that UConn & Tenn are the 'elite teams' this year with others a notch below? Yes -- for the moment. But I keep in mind that 'any team can beat any other team on a given day.'

And IMHO, DUKE will be one of those teams to have a chance to do that.

"adapting" is a term i've heard around Cameron. new coaches, new style of play/coaching, new expectations. It takes time.

[Bluedawg]

Bluedawg will you be at volleyball tonight? My husband was there last night and we'll both be there tonight, so if you're going let's meet up!

No, i can't be there tonight...my daughter is dancing and I'll be with her.

However, you can share your thoughts on my Volleyball thread.