Can't wait until November.
No roadkill was cooked in the making of this thread.
Can't wait until November.
Whoever on these boards was doing a hex obviously did it to the wrong team! For a while I didn't thing we would score 20 points in the second half. We were stuck on 12 points for a long, long time. As the Brooklyn Doggers fans would say wait until next year.
I never thought it was possible for all of our shooters to go cold in one day - it happened and life now sucks. This years team was a tease, showing us how good they could be all season long and then not resembling that team when it counted the most. Major dissapointment. I don't even want to see the final statistics of our shooting woes today - as it will be too painful. I hope next year brings better luck and more consistancy. That's it, if i continue i won't be able to stop.
We really need to develop another type of offense for when the threes stop falling. And we REALLY need to work on rebounding, thats where we lost. Too many 2nd chances for WVU. I think they need to get a cannon and fire basketballs at Zoub and Lance. Either they catch them or they get bruised chests. Elliot Williams may help some of our guard issues, I doubt Olek Czyz will help that much with rebounding.
my question is this? why wasn't mclure on alexander the ENTIRE game... he practically shut him down in the first half...
That is the worst I've seen a Duke team play in recent memory. Why Henderson didn't try to take over when Singler was in foul trouble and Nelson clearly wasn't himself is beyond me. Our offense - if you can call it that - seemed to consist of a bunch of guys parked outside the 3pt line and one guy doing lots of dribbling around. I know, I know...some of the missed 3's were good shots that just didn't fall. But...cheese and rice, when you're 0-12 I'd like to have seen us drive the ball more and at least try to get something going to the hoop rather than ending up 0-13...then 0-14...then...UGH!!!
And the FT shooting in the 2nd half was atrocious. I'm sorry, but this one leaves a really, really bad taste in my mouth about the season. So much promise and then...oy!
ok here's more. Rebounding, passing, defence, all of that gets thrown out the window if we can't shoot, and today we couldn't hit for nothing. Simple as that - don't make points, don't win period.
This loss reminds of Clemsons last night, in fact it is eerily similar. Clemson came out hot, but fell in love with thier jump shot. Villanova led by Scottie Reynolds revved up the defense, scored easy baskets, made free throws, and that opened them up for the 3ball and they converted. WVU played the Villanova role today. Clemson could not get back on track.
Though I have to say this has been a positive season. This team has exceeded my expectations and we just peaked at the wrong time.
Congratulation to DeMarcus on a fantastic career.
Not sure what the answer is on offense but that was embarresing. I mean really, D-1 athletes that can't make shots, the decline and fall has begun.
Gibbons meet Duke...
No D, nobody that has true NBA starpower, zero post-presence, a point guard that is a short shooting guard, nobody that can finish around the basket and a coaching staff made up of all guards that are riding history.
Look, it's not like somebody just played their butts off and beat is in a fluke, cause that happens. However, there is a major trend going that when we get the March over the last 4-5 years, we've tanked in a major way, we've got no legs, we play scared and we no longer intimidae people at all. Those days are gone. If I see Duke in my bracket, I am excited because they are an easy out.
It's reality now.
Interesting. The West Virginia players just admitted that Coach Huggins emphasized how easy it would be to offensive rebound against Duke and they definitely came into the game with a mindset that they could/would pop us hard in that area. I just found it enlightening to hear the players mention how Huggins emphasized this to them yesterday.
Gary
I was hoping that this year's approach would influence how the tournament games were managed, but I have been quite disappointed. When we switched to zone against UVa--and basically thereby shut down Sean Singletary and the entire Cavalier offense--I hoped I would see more such creative responses. Alas, when WVU went with their three-guard approach and generally smaller team, we remained insistent upon matching them position-for-position, and with exhausted players as well. No zone? No Zoubek in the second half? We certainly could have used the rebounding.
For all the hype about K's "trying new things" creativity method this season, the end result in the tournaments (ACC included) was more of the same. Granted, I know they are sick, and that's a difficult thing to overcome, but it's even more difficult when you're only utilizing 7 or 8 players in what was at one point a 9 or 10-man rotation. At least next November everyone will be older.
Blecch. Go Arkansas.
Most of the time, we tend to be very careful of the players and coaches, knowing how hard they try out there. That is a reasonable approach because they are kids after all and they defiinitely are trying their very best. After this game though, being the last for the year, it is worthwhile to say what is on our minds, not that much will change as a result. That will be my approach and my thoughts are as follows:
1. Scheyer is clearly the best playmaker on the team, and one of the two best players overall. When he handles the ball and passes, good things happen. All too often today, he was in the corner and not touching the ball while Paulus did the playmaking. Paulus is a decent point guard but a better shooting guard and should have focussed on that role tonight. Paulus brings the ball up court well and should still perform that function.
2. Nelson had another poor game, and it was his many mistakes and inabilities to finish with the ball that let our lead evaporate and to some degree let their lead grow. It has been our plight during so much of the latter part of the year. The starters have been unable to get much done and get us behind or lose the lead when we are ahead. This is bound to give the other team heart as it seemed to today in the second half.
3. Our interior game is essentially non-existent. How many times did we score inside with either Thomas or Singler. Not many is the answer and our rebounding was poor as well. I know Zoubek looked bad with his traveling but seeing him sit on the bench the whole second half with 4 fouls on Thomas and Singler was a sorry sight. He looked unhappy but never got a chance to help.
4. Smith seemed to be a better option than Nelson again this afternoon, yet coach K played Nelson despite his obvious performance issues.
5. Thomas did not get a lot done and make errors of commission by creating offensive fouls at key times of the game. He hasn't yet got the thinking part of the game down
6. We really didn't have effective 3 point shooters down the stretch and should have other options when we go cold, which seemed to be every game of late. Paulus and Scheyer can hit a reasonable percentage and perhaps Smith but the others should refrain. King was touted as being a good 3 point shooter but his stats don't knock your eyes out.
I don't think our coaches did a heck of a lot to help the situation. Coach K stayed with Nelson when he obviously had a negative effect on the game. Maybe it was sentimental, letting a valiant and hardworking Nelson have his last game as a senior, but is put the rest of the team at a big disadvantage.
We had a good opportunity to win the game, if 1) Scheyer handled the ball, 2) we included a little more rebounding into the game, 3) we focussed on Henderson's ability and 4) saw a lot more of Smith, who might have given points. I think coach K hasn't done so well in the tournaments going with his apporach of a small mobile team and by sticking with players when they aren't performing. Do we think next year will be different. Only if the old dog can learn new tricks.
Hope we don't lose the bench sitters as a result.
I will also add that the offense we were running where Henderson would get the ball about 10 feet off the baseline on a quasi penetration to the elbow was basically just a wrinkle difference of what we ran in the last 2 minutes vs Pitt.
Stubbornness to change...
At the end of January, the sentiment of the board was that this team was as tough as nails coming back against MD in a hostile environment. It came back again against N.C. State and played a terrific game against UNC and won two more conference games before starting the slide. Even in the loss to Pitt., when it was said the team needed to toughen up, Duke was in the game until the end.
The end of the season losses are painful, but are compounded by the way we lost. Duke simply was not that competitive down the stretch again, and in losing big games such as UNC, Clemson, and WVA, was not in a position to win at crunch time.
I think it is more painful this year for me because initially moderate expectations were raised so high at mid season only to come crashing down again.
Time to move on.
So let's forget about preseason expectations. It doesn't matter to me as much whether we overachieved or underachieved so much as this:
We played perhaps our worst ball of the season. The past few years we seem to play our worst game of the season at the very end. We had 58 pts with a minute plus remaining today.
I'm calling this pressure. Duke seems to have zero fun out there. With the expections and all (of the program, not preseason), and all the focus on nothing but March for us, the shooting just fails at the end. I think this is what's really been our doom more so than tired legs in recent years. It might look the same (i.e. no shots seem to fall) but mental pressure is different, and it's just hard to imagine that many 20-year-olds out there with the toughness required to play for a team with the pressure of Duke in these situations. I couldn't. I'm pretty good a free throws and probably couldn't have made single one had I gone outside to try during this game. This is all also related a bit to my theory about being unable to play good motion offense in the final game of the season with such young teams. The pressure just seems too great. I so wish we could regain the feeling of being underdogs again.
I hope the upcoming explanation for the loss isn't (as advertised) isn't going to be the flu... Yeah, that sucks, but it didn't kill all of our shots today. As far as rough play, everyone knows it's coming come tourney time.
I feel 2% better now just for the rant. Thanks all.
[edit] One more comment. I want to agree with whoever has said that Scheyer has been one of our 2 best players. It was great bringing him off the bench when were winning...
For those who are pouring the negativity on today...it is understandable, but unproductive and emotional. Keep it together...we all will have to be ready on Monday to keep our cool when we go back to work and have to deal with our coworkers throwing this in our faces!
It is hard to believe that we could shoot as poorly as we did today. Especially because a lot of the looks were wide open. WVU did play okay defense...but we had looks. Just could not drop. Or we had the wrong guy shooting them (demarcus versus jon). I have no answer as to why this happened today.
Throw in the fact that we had every break go against us (falling 3 with zero on the shot clock, every conceivable loose ball landing in the other team's hands, refs who were not qualified for a big game time - the first foul on singler was the worst call i have seen since the non-call on the over the back on thursday), and we were fighting an uphill battle.
We played the best we could given the talent we had. Here is the one thing I have not seen many people mention on this board, but I find interesting given the weaknessess that our team had. How much better of a team are we this year with Josh McRoberts? Rebounding, help side defense,focal point on the interior on offense...he would have been huge for us this year. I was shocked when he left last year...and all during the season, kept wondering what our overachieving squad would look like with him on the team.