Duke MBB vs. Temple Post-Game Thread

[JBDuke]

Post your thoughts on the Temple game here.

[DBFAN]

We do not look good right now, and we seem to be regressing.

[jipops]

76% from the free throw line as a team. DeMarcus was 4-5.

4 guys in double figures.

Just pointing out some positives since I'm sure there will be plenty of negatives here.

[RelativeWays]

To be fair, there's not much you can do when someone like that Christmas kid hits basically every shot he takes....well you can shoot him I guess. This team is missing the confidence and cohesiveness it had before the break. I can't imagine that a 1pt loss to the then 10 team in the nation could really destroy that *looks at Clemson* okay it is possible.

[mgtr]

I was impressed by the game Dave McClure had. He is a great, great defender. Very smart.

[DBFAN]

This team is looking worse that last years team right now, Singler had disappeared and so has Scheyer (Sp?)

[mgtr]

Scheyer came through at the end of the game.

[RelativeWays]

This team is looking worse that last years team right now, Singler had disappeared and so has Scheyer (Sp?)

Singler had 15 Sunday and had 9 tonight in a pretty low scoring game, Scheyer also got 11 or 10 points in both games. What about Gerald...5 points? WTF?

[dukeisawesome]

Personally I haven't been too pumped up for the games since break either so I can't blame the team at this point, but I think the start of the ACC season will have them playing with a new vigor.

[Highlander]

76% from the free throw line as a team. DeMarcus was 4-5.

4 guys in double figures.

Just pointing out some positives since I'm sure there will be plenty of negatives here.

Another one - we won the game. We also managed to hold Temple in the 60s with two of our 9 man rotation on the bench, and only one player over 6'6". We won with small ball. It wasn't pretty, don't get me wrong, but I'll take an ugly win over a well played loss any day.

[Oriole Way]

It's beyond me how this team goes scoreless in the second half like clockwork. You can bank on a second half run by every single decent team we play - we went scoreless for EIGHT minutes tonight. Just disheartening and unbelievable.

If K can figure out how to avoid these offensive droughts, this team is an excellent, Final Four contender. But he hasn't, and I don't think he will this year, especially since foul trouble will always be an issue thanks to these ridiculous injuries.

Including last season, this has been the most frustrating Duke team to watch in a decade.

[yancem]

This team is looking worse that last years team right now, Singler had disappeared and so has Scheyer (Sp?)

Henderson has disappeared a little as well. I have to say that the free throw shooting was nice breath of fresh air.

[mgtr]

What happened to the big plays with Hendo and Nelson getting to the rim? I guess other teams have been watching tape. I miss those plays, though.

[Devilsfan]

This team is starting to look a lot like... last years edition. I hate the scoring droughts and the blocked shots around the basket. Thank goodness they played good defense and hustled. We look like a very good NIT team right now.

[beach rev]

I'm going to take a page from Jumbo and Ozzie's book and see this as a 'glass-half-full' game. With a shortened bench, we found a way to win (even with an ugly second half drought), and for the most part, Smith and King made strong contributions. McClure (once again) was the king of intangibles, and Demarcus' grittiness always impresses me. Sure, the match-up problems loom large (Clemson and Carolina concern me greatly), but I think tonight was a nice 'bounce-back' from what I thought was a pretty dismal outing against Cornell.

[Saratoga2]

To be fair, there's not much you can do when someone like that Christmas kid hits basically every shot he takes....well you can shoot him I guess. This team is missing the confidence and cohesiveness it had before the break. I can't imagine that a 1pt loss to the then 10 team in the nation could really destroy that *looks at Clemson* okay it is possible.

We can't sugar coat the fact that the team went on a long dry spell. The defense against us was active at that time, but we had absolutely no answer. I will be interested in Jumbo or someone with good knowlege pointing out why we lost the ability to score during that interval. The combinations during that time would be most interesting, and was it limited to one group, or was it several that failed to generate offense. I think it was Paulus, Nelson, Henderson, McClure and possibly Singler most of the time but am uncertain.

Some thoughts:

Nelson is really a valuable player, but I prefer someone else handling the ball and making the passes. He seems pretty marginal in that area. He did improve from the line tonight, a plus for the team.

King played pretty well. He is a little slow getting back but he has the size to contest around the basket and can rebound. Thats also a plus for the team since his scoring ability is what we normally think about.

Scheyer keeps doing the smart things. You can rely on him to generate offense and play hard nosed defense.

David McClure also had a nice game and scored a couple of times although his main contribution was defense and rebounding.

Singlar is a fine player both ways and was up against a real size disadvantage tonight but hung in there.

I didn't like the announcers tonight who kept on implying the refs gave Duke all the call.

[camion]

I really have trouble feeling bad about a double digit win when we have lost two players, essentially our center position, since the last game. We were in control the whole game, never threatened at all. It wasn't pretty, but it was a solid win.

Best news of the night was when they said that Zoubs is only out for one to three weeks. That's enough to make my night by itself.

[Flyers52]

Forget the all the aforementioned for a second. One thing that has stuck out from watching the game on tv, was the hustle at times. I can't get over the one play early in the 2nd half, when Singler came running to the defensive end, and dove in the path of a pass to a Temple player cutting to the basket, ultimately tipping the ball to a teammate ( i can't recall, Scheyer or Paulus maybe?), and sliding totally off screen. He then comes down to the offensive set, and makes a great swing pass to the open Paulus who missed a three---That right there is hustle and heart, and makes Singler one of my favorites on this years team.

Also later in the second half, while McClure was in, there was that period where Temple kept getting blocked around their basket- all started by Dave making a running block from behind Olmos.

I hate the somewhat low foul shooting percentage, and the foul trouble, and the short bench, and the shooting woes, and the woes of Henderson, Scheyer, and Singler, but we made up for it with our Hustle. Hopefully Lance and Zoub come back quick, and we can get into the flow of things to take on the ACC and the rest of the NCAA in the tourney.

[DBFAN]

The only thing posotive about tonight was that Clemson lost to UNCC, just goes to show you that UNC is not that great.

On a more depressing note, we looked awful tonight, and the last 3 games. I am really starting to wonder if Greg Paulus has some kind of attention problems, he seems to make the same mistakes over and over again. Singler is urning out not to be a great as we all thought. Dont get me wrong there were other problems tonight but these are the ones I have noticed the most over the last few games. Right now this team would not do so well on the tourney. I wished none of this were true. It seems like they are just intimidated by other teams, or they are just scared of messing up. Unfortunately with the way our recruiting is going it could be like this for the next several years. I just really feel like the Basketball program is going nowhere right now. I just do not understand how we can have so much talent, and continually play so bad.

[weezie]

Singler is urning out not to be a great as we all thought.

Baloney. Singler is as great and getting greater with every game. He's playing center up against bigger, much heavier and older players. He's growing into the Duke defense.
The refs seem to go temporarily blind whenever Henderson has the ball. All manner of fouling and jacking goes on but the stripers grow intrigued with their own fingernails. Duke takes tremendous physical abuse each time they play, the contact is wearing but they'll get smarter. I thought we played pretty good tonight for not having our inside guys out there.