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  1. #61
    Join Date
    Feb 2007
    Location
    Raleigh, NC

    VCU could be this year's George Mason

    I have a family member who has been way into VCU and talking them up all season.

    Don't know if they're FF material but these guys can definitely make noise. They have 3 very reliable guards that don't turn it over that much. Pellot-Rosa can really shoot. There isn't much scoring past their guards but they definitely have enough to knock us off. Their experience gives them a large advantage as well.

    If we get back to the D we played earlier in the season we'll be fine in the 1st round. If not, we'll just have next season to look forward to.

  2. #62
    Quote Originally Posted by coblue View Post
    They play fast and hard and will attack. Their coach is a Donovan protege.
    According to Ken Pomeroy, VCU averages 65 possessions a game, the same number as...Duke.

    While the VCU guards do present cause for concern, the pace of play should not be an issue.

  3. #63
    Join Date
    Feb 2007
    I'd be very surprised if VCU can knock off Duke. I expect Duke to go to a 4-guard lineup for the tournament, and since VCU is guard-oriented, Duke's guards just have to be better than VCU's guards for the victory. I would hope that would be the case at least 9 out of 10 times.

  4. #64
    Join Date
    Feb 2007
    Location
    Washington, D.C.

    VCU doesn't shoot many 3s

    According to Pomeroy. They actually rank 234th in the country in attempting 3s, but shoot them well (40%, 18th in the country).

    Defensively, they seem to give up a high shooting percentage both from 2 and 3, but force a fair number of turnovers.

    These statistics suggest to me that we really need to avoid turning the ball over (sound familiar) and to limit dribble penetration (also familiar?)

    They beat George Mason 3 times, with scores roughly comparable to our defeat of George Mason. Only top 50 team they played was Xavier, I think.

    Pomeroy's server must be overloaded! It's really slow right now.

  5. #65

    wow...im pretty happy

    about the draw, i jsut dont get it, when we are #1, we always seem to get hard draws

  6. #66

    gerald and marty to the rescue

    team should get a lift by the return of GH, and IF marty is allowed, by his energy and offensive penetration and overall hustle.

  7. #67
    Join Date
    Feb 2007
    we could not have asked for a better draw. a 6 seed with a very winnable first round game and a very over-rated and vulnerable 3 in pitt. compare that to throwing texas at unc for the 3rd round. texas is beter than all the other 4s, 3s and 2s except for maybe ucla. if unc gets by them, then they have gtown waiting for them with hibbert who can handle their bigs and green who can shred them. then if they get by gtown, they get to deal with oden and company.

    why is florida the #1 #1 and not in the south?

  8. #68
    Join Date
    Mar 2007
    Location
    Roanoke, Va
    I believe VCU can be a tough game for Duke; they are fast, scrappy and not intimidated easily. They lost to Xavier by three and Toledo by one, both in November. They finished the season by beating Drexel twice and splitting with ODU. They should not be looked past; that would be a mistake.

  9. #69
    Join Date
    Feb 2007
    i completely agree about the scheduling and have been saying it for the past few years. scheduling the butlers, valpos, gms and kent sts at home does not, contrary to what k says, prepare the team for the ncaas. play them on the road and that will be much better preparation. k gets a pass this year because the team was young. hopefully we get some real ooc road games on the schedule for next year so it's our guys aren't shell shocked when they hit their first hostile crowd in january. playing in msg and the meadowlands is basically playing at home because the crowd is 90% duke. however, our nov/dec schedule sure was better than uconn's...

  10. #70
    Duke has had quite a run of getting to the tournament with a high seed and getting opponents that the fans could "look past." However, I don't think that the Duke coaching staff has ever looked past any opponent. Being a lower-seeded team, the opponent is going to be better; "looking past" is not a problem I see Duke having.

    That said, there are not many teams in the lower half of the South bracket that Duke fans could look at and say "Oh no!" When Duke has played its lockdown defense, they've shown they can play with teams like Pittsburgh and UCLA. Then again, when Duke shows its porous defense like against UNC and NCSU in the past week, we see a team that is certainly capable of dropping the first round game against an efficient offensive team.

    Duke will probably play the four-guard offense, due to matchups on defense against VCU. This is also good for Duke's offense, and I think having Henderon and Nelson on the court at the same time will be too much for VCU's poor defense. Despite the quick guards, VCU isn't a fast-paced team, and I think Duke should exploit this, pushing the pace. If they combine that with lock down defense, Duke could go to a solid victory.

  11. #71

    ill take it

    if we lose this one, i will be very dissapointed

  12. #72
    Join Date
    Feb 2007
    Quote Originally Posted by devildownunder View Post
    Players don't develop until they see a need to do so. Blowing out Columbia, Georgia Southern and UNC-Greensboro in consecutive games at home doesn't make them see anything.


    We play big games in MSG or the Meadowlands every year because that's what K wants to do. Scheduling is almost entirely up to him. Yes, someone on the other side has to say yes but if K wants to go play somebody real, in their house, the opportunity is always there. Lute Olsen has been trying to bait K into picking up their series again for years. He won't do it. And as for the mid-majors K loves to bring into Cameron these days, if K wanted to play one of those games on Venus, the other team's AD would book flights on the space shuttle. He is in complete control of exactly where or when he plays any of those teams. And the only place he plays any of them in CIS. I do not think this does anything really for our team's development. RPI points, yes, but not development.

    And I'm not talking about scheduling like Tom Izzo did a few years back where you play the entire top 25. I'm just saying that, what if we went to Kent State instead of playing them at home this year. And then we also dropped the Temple series and replaced them with a true home-and-home series with, say, UCLA, Arizona or LSU (all of whom we used to visit regularly), well then I think this year's schedule would have been much better.
    At the same time, you have to weigh everything. A loss to a mid-major hurts, and will affect your seeding come tourney time -- i mean, look how much importance they place on OOC. So what's more valuable, when the ultimate goal is to win the NCAA? An extra "preparation" game or two, which could result in losses, which doesn't exactly help confidence, and will lower your ultimate NCAA seed? Or some wins that will help your seeding in the long run? I'd rather end up with a better seed, than a lower seed but have that "mental edge" from playing some mid-major 4 months ago.

    I agree, playing road games against good teams will help your team get better at playing on hostile courts...but at what cost?

  13. #73
    Join Date
    Feb 2007
    Location
    Washington, DC
    Quote Originally Posted by jipops View Post
    I have a family member who has been way into VCU and talking them up all season.

    Don't know if they're FF material but these guys can definitely make noise. They have 3 very reliable guards that don't turn it over that much. Pellot-Rosa can really shoot. There isn't much scoring past their guards but they definitely have enough to knock us off. Their experience gives them a large advantage as well.

    If we get back to the D we played earlier in the season we'll be fine in the 1st round. If not, we'll just have next season to look forward to.
    Last year's George Mason, otherwise known as George Mason, should have beaten them in their conference final. But in the 4th game in 4 days, they couldn't buy a basket in the last 8 minutes of the final.

    VCU is a good team that plays good fundamental ball. We shouldn't look passed them, but they are lot like teams we handled well earlier this season - Davidson, George Mason, Kent State, etc.

  14. #74
    Join Date
    Feb 2007
    Location
    Allawah, NSW Australia (near Sydney)
    Quote Originally Posted by dcarp23 View Post
    According to Ken Pomeroy, VCU averages 65 possessions a game, the same number as...Duke.

    While the VCU guards do present cause for concern, the pace of play should not be an issue.
    if they are as quick and guard oriented as we keep hearing, i think it makes sense for them to push tempo and pressure, so I think it's likely they'll want to play a little faster than we do.

  15. #75
    Join Date
    Feb 2007
    Location
    Los Angeles
    Quote Originally Posted by Duke15304 View Post
    about the draw, i jsut dont get it, when we are #1, we always seem to get hard draws
    I think that normally we look further into the bracket than we are at the moment. Our perception of this draw relates to the first 2 rounds, while in past years we'd be upset that we had both Kansas and UCLA in our bracket.

  16. #76
    Jay Bilas said that while VCU has strong guards, they don't have an much of an inside presence, and so the edge has to go to Duke. This was also pointed out by other posters earlier. He said that much of the mid-major discussions were about their guards, but he pointed out that George Mason, last year, while there was much talk about their guards, did have a good inside presence. And that's what took them to the Final Four. I hope Jay's observations are on-point on this VCU/Duke game...

  17. #77
    Join Date
    Feb 2007
    Quote Originally Posted by gep View Post
    Jay Bilas said that while VCU has strong guards, they don't have an much of an inside presence, and so the edge has to go to Duke. This was also pointed out by other posters earlier. He said that much of the mid-major discussions were about their guards, but he pointed out that George Mason, last year, while there was much talk about their guards, did have a good inside presence. And that's what took them to the Final Four. I hope Jay's observations are on-point on this VCU/Duke game...
    The more and more I think about this, the more and more excited I'm getting. We couldn't DREAM of a better 1st round matchup. We get a really good test for our frontcourt defense, and there is the REAL possibility for Josh to have a monster game against their weak frontcourt and finally have a real, bona-fide, break-out performance.

    It all depends on how we come out of the gate. We don't have to blow out VCU, but if we handle them easily and get some real momentum under this team, they're VERY capable of going on a little streak, I think.

  18. #78
    Join Date
    Feb 2007
    Location
    Norfolk, VA
    Quote Originally Posted by Tappan Zee Devil View Post
    Billy Thacker just said that VCU will be a dangerous challange for us!

    well?
    It is Billy Packer. Jim Thacker was his broadcast partner before Billy went national with CBS. This was back in the days of Pilot Life sponsoring the ACC Game of the Week. I know I'm nitpicking, but...

    Bob Green
    (Yokosuka, Japan)

  19. #79

    i think he was kidding

    just being a pain in the *** about how bad packer is but still nice to know about that, i didnt know who the play by play was back then

  20. #80
    This is interesting... I thought that the Billy "Thacker" was deliberate... kinda like all of the Hans, Hansbro, Hansblablah, etc stuff. Obviously, Jim Thacker was broadcasting well before I remember watching ACC hoops...

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