MBB: Duke 64- Arizona State 53-- Post Game Thread

[MarkD83]

How about these stats?

Smith: 40 minutes
Singler: 40 minutes
Scheyer: 40 minutes

I hate to reignite the always-simmering depth/minute distribution debate, but I don't remember ever seeing three guys on the same team play an entire game before. Wonder how many times it'll happen this season?

I have not read the whole thread but I had to make a comment here.

Matchups always dictate minutes played. We have only 4 perimeter players this year and we were playign against a zone. That means I would have been surprised if these three did not get 35+ minutes each for this game. The only way they get less is if we saw lineups with only one of them and four bigs. Against a zone that won't work.

[ReformedAggie]

In the old Pac 10 we used to chant "AS WHO"... just saying. I hated this game and it took two Snickers and a bag of popcorn to get through it. Sometimes also I had to put a pillow in my mouth to keep from screaming. (Yes Dr. oral fixation issues.) If this is Duke, it's going be a short season.

[Faison1]

Did Daddy not hug Gotlieb enough when he was a child? Man, that guy is bitter!

My heart goes out to Jay-Will. I don't see that match-up continuing very much longer, seeing as how Jay is such a nice guy, and Doug is quite the opposite. Doug seems to bait Jay quite a bit, and Jay seems to agree with him a lot, from what limited time I watched.

As an aside, I was happy Duke won, but felt a bit empty afterwards. Kelly not playing, shortened bench, few answers down low, etc, etc, etc. Let's hope it was just a bad game...

[camion]

If this is the way every game is going to be,
if the big three are going to play 40 minutes in every game,
if we are see a slowdown and matchup zone in every game,
if Zoubek fouls out of every game,
if Singler is frustrated in every game,
if Kelly only plays five minutes in every game,
if we have trouble with high picks every game,
if Sheyer starts having turnovers in every game,
if our threes don't fall in every game,
if Miles Plumlee gets into foul trouble in every game,
if Andre Dawkins sees limited action in every game,
if Mason Plumlee is in street clothes for every game,
it's going to be a long season.

If the score ends up like this in every game we'll be undefeated national champions.

Folks, it's just one game. Every game is different and some will be better; some will be worse, but they'll all be different. Enjoy the season. I know I will.

[Wheat/"/"/"]

Happy Thanksgiving...

Both teams I saw last night looked weak with interior play.

Miles Plumlee is going to be a good player. A really good player. He just has a little ways to go...

Other than him, Duke struggles to get any above average play from the inside positions. The horses are just not there.

Scheyer was the best player on the floor, no question.

Smith was Duke's quickest player, but was hesitant to use his gift. Not sure why.

I liked Dawkin's focus and stroke. Very good, comfortable ealy season game for the freshman.

I have yet to see Mason Plumlee play, but we know 9 out of 10 freshmen would struggle to impact the big games that are on the horizon. He better be the second coming of Hansbrough if Duke thinks they will get past the sweet sixteen this year.

Those black socks are awful. Duke is not an exceptionally quick team, but those socks make the team look even slower. Somebody might want to reconsider that look...

[elvis14]

Got up this morning after watching Duke win a tough game last night. Just finished reading the post-games posts on here and frankly I'm more worried about you guys than I am about our favorite basketball team. We won the game! Our guys did NOT play poorly. Give some credit to ASU for playing well, please. We played well (not our best). We shot poorly missing lots of open 3's. We shoot a little better and we blowing this team out. Also, lets not forget that we used stall ball effectively to end any hope of an ASU comeback. This kept the game a little closer at the end. Just because we didn't blow out an unranked team doesn't mean we didn't play well. Looking at the numbers posted, our defense played pretty well. I really enjoyed watching our team get challenged, have some struggles (shooting, high pick and roll) and persevere. They played through and raised up to the challenge. That was good stuff and more fun to watch than another blowout over Peace or Merideth.

Exactly. It was hard watching Zoubek on both sides of the ball tonight. He did grab some nice rebounds, but I got nervous every time he tried to defend a player past the free throw line. He just doesn't have the foot speed to catch up, and I think Mason would do much better in that part of the game.

Lance was good on the defensive end, but I get equally nervous whenever he decides to put the ball on the floor.

This was an ugly win, but it's not the end of the world. It's what happens when no one is shooting particularly well against a zone defense.

You are being too hard on Z and not hard enough on Lance. Z played pretty well in the second half.

I thought we were really late on defense on *many* plays. And, yeah, Duke seems really committed to having their bigs come out and flash to the perimeter. Wasn't working too well night, definitely won't work Friday.

I was a bit surprised at just how far out Z and MP1 were flashing out on the pick and roll. I think Miles will improve his timing with this and will help improve our defense against the high pick and roll. As much as I like Z, I think he may not be quick enough to consistently play that far away from the basket.

1. We had trouble dealing with the matchup zone in addition to being tight. Singler was having big trouble getting untracked. I didn't think he was squaring up on his shots in the first half.

4. Another game where Lance seemed to disappear out there. He did a few good things but I doubt he had a block and darn few rebounds. Without looking at the stats, it is hard to tell. Maybe Kelly would have done better, but the coach must not have thought that to be the case.

Singler came through with some important baskets late but this game is a good example of how we can win without one of the S's playing (or shooting) great. As for Lance, he had another one of those games where he just doesn't do enough to warrant getting PT. He doesn't rebound and there were a handful of times where his help defense wasn't there. I would have liked to see Ryan get more PT.

How about these stats?

Smith: 40 minutes
Singler: 40 minutes
Scheyer: 40 minutes

That's not good and I'm sorry but that's a mistake by K. Take Singler for example, getting him some rest in the first half may have helped him regroup a little (since he wasn't exactly tearing it up). With Andre playing so well, we can get Smith and Scheyer some rest. Sometimes in a tough game like this a minute or two on the bench to step back a bit and gather yourself (and rest) can be really useful.

I remember when Mason committed to Duke, his father said that he is not a back to the basket post player...has that changed ? I don't think that it has and Mason when he is ready will not be the answer in the post.

We don't need an "answer in post". We are solid in the post with MP1 and Z. I like where Z is at overall and MP1 is better than last year and now that he's actually getting playing time I expect him to continue to improve. We need Mason for his game, the positives he brings not the perceived negatives. We don't need a savior either. We are playing well, we have a guy like Mason waiting in the wings to contribute. Sweet. Imagine having some scoring and rebounding at the 4. That's going to be great.

I really want to beat UConn-victs. There a couple of teams I really hate to lose to (and one I just plain hate). UConnVicts is one of those teams. I do think we are going to have to shoot better to beat UConn but I have confidence that'll happen because a handful of the shots that we missed tonight were good open looks where the offense worked well and the shot didn't fall. Can't wait for Friday.

Happy Thanksgiving everyone!

[camion]

If this is the way every game is going to be,
if the big three are going to play 40 minutes in every game,
if we are see a slowdown and matchup zone in every game,
if Zoubek fouls out of every game,
if Singler is frustrated in every game,
if Kelly only plays five minutes in every game,
if we have trouble with the pick and roll in every game,
if Sheyer starts having turnovers in every game,
if our threes don't fall in every game,
if Miles Plumlee gets into foul trouble in every game,
if Andre Dawkins sees limited action in every game,
if Mason Plumlee is in street clothes in every game,
it's going to be a long season.

If the score ends up like this in every game we'll be undefeated national champions.

Folks, it's just one game. Some games will be better; some will be worse, but they'll all be different. Enjoy the season. I know I will.

And Happy Thanksgiving to all.

[RepoMan]

need a MOTM poll

[arnie]

Lance and Zoubek are nearly mid-way into their senior seasons and neither one has figured out how to put the ball in the basket. I'm hoping the Plumlees both play a lot more during the ACC season as their upside is huge compared to Thomas/Zoubek. Use Thomas and Zoubek as subs for their energy and defense.

I'm also concerned with the 3 - 40's last night, but K wanted to win the game and it worked. Hopefully as Dawkins and Mason progress, we can sub for the the 3 S's.

[Duke76]

don't know if this has been mentioned but since we are
so slow...it seems like we could play a little zone defense
to mix it up and see if that slows down teams. Didn't see it last
night, did we? K always starts out using new strategies and then backs away
as the season starts.

[dukelifer]

don't know if this has been mentioned but since we are
so slow...it seems like we could play a little zone defense
to mix it up and see if that slows down teams. Didn't see it last
night, did we? K always starts out using new strategies and then backs away
as the season starts.

Duke has played zone and will play zone. The D was fine tonight after the first 5 minutes- the O was off. If the guards have a normal shooting night this is a 20 pt win. Lets face it- if Plumlee and Thomas hit those bunnies at the end- Duke wins by 15. Singler had an off night ( I hope) - he needs to start to play like JJ and take over. He did that only for a few minutes.

[BlueintheFace]

Not to be a nitpick, but the Plumlee who played tonight was the Eldest (i.e., the soph)

I am aware. That was the point of the comment.

[MarkD83]

Not to be a nitpick, but the Plumlee who played tonight was the Eldest (i.e., the soph)... I agree that he did make freshman mistakes. However, he also seems to be our only post player with potential for near-term development at the moment (Since we haven't seen Mason play yet).

Also, I think may be the sentiment is that if we don't have even one post player who can establish and hold position, then we are in trouble due to our thin (albeit talented) backcourt.

If you look at the picture ESPN showed in the begining Miles looked alot like Lance Thomas. In the earlier games Miles looked alot like Mason. When do you think ESPN will get the correct picture of Miles in their pregame lineups?

[moonpie23]

anytime we play a team that is unranked or we are favored over, somehow i think a lot of us (i'm guilty of it too) think we should be able to effortlessly put that team away, score at will and stop THEM from scoring.

ASU played a good game and gave us problems where they knew we WOULD have problems. give credit to them and give credit to our team for overcoming those problem and getting the win.


the other thing is sometimes in a tournament setting, fans look PAST the immediate team and project the level of play against the upcoming team. In this case after seeing uconn lay lsu out...


duke will have the experience of this game to draw from. Hopefully, the shooting will be better.

[_Gary]

I'm sure others have said this, so forgive me if I'm repeating stuff. I almost always read through the entire thread before posting, but this being Thanksgiving Day I've only got a few minutes.

There are always two ways to look at these type of games. If we admit that we were horrible from distance, especially in the 1st half, we can reason that normally we'd have had a better lead at halftime, blah, blah, blah. And that's true. We were pretty atrocious from the outside. Kyle had the worst shooting game I'm seen from him in a long time. In fact, he looked out of it (I thought he might have a touch of the flu or something) for much of the game. Jon was the only guy that seemed to have his stroke for much of the game.

We had tempo dictated to us for most of the night. I never like to see the other team force their "will" on us, but it happened tonight. It was also extremely distressing to see this team demonstrate that the template for beating Duke (at least the template used in recent NCAA losses) continues to hold true. Create the switch (which Duke is just bound and determined to do even when it involves a big that runs in cement) and then let your guard just dribble penetrate right past that big for an easy layup. Holy mackerel did we see that over and over and over. Very disheartening and my hope/belief is that when Mason comes back we'll be so much better with that particular weakness. But let's be honest, that's been the template that smaller, quicker teams have used against us time and time again to great success. Teams with solid ball handlers and decent outside shooters are not going to be as affected by our ball pressure and will continue to exploit that weakness in our basic defensive setup. Especially when someone like Z is playing up top.

On the other hand, I was screaming at our guys not to double down when they'd pass the ball into Boateng and Z was playing right behind him. That's where Z is a wall and we don't need doubles. And sure enough, every time we left that alone we'd prevent a score because there was just no way Boateng or the other bigs for ASU were going to score, back to the basket, with big Z looming behind them. So it's all about utilizing our strengths and unfortunately playing Z in a strong man to man where he's going to get caught up top on a switch just isn't going to work. Gotta find a way to stop that, because it's being utilized again and again and again.

Also thought they were a little stronger with the ball and their zone caused us plenty of problems during spots. But again, I think when we get Mason back things change for the better in a big way because of his athleticism and aggressiveness. You can't receive the ball as a big in that type of zone and just sit there with it like Z did a few times. And I'm not trying to get on Brian a bunch and I'm sorry if it sounds that way. But it was just so glaring where they were attacking when he was in the game.

Anyhow, hopefully we can come out much stronger, shooting better, and basically just playing a full 40 minutes like we did during stretches of the 2nd half.

Go Duke!

[dukestheheat]

Folks, the mediocre play in much of the game tonight was due to mental lapses, not athletic inferiority to ASU.

Indeed, in my opinion Nolan, Kyle and Miles are really elite level athletes among D1 basketball players. (As I type this that play of Miles's when he ran after an ASU player, rejected his shot from behind and then ducked his head as he went flying under the rim comes to mind.)

It seemed to me like three-quarters of the team was just playing in a daze for some reason tonight, particularly on the defensive side. Not recognizing what ASU was trying to run, not getting into the right position quickly enough, not rotating quickly enough.

And all of the dumb, silly fouls by our bigs! The problems we had tonight start and end in the mental space.

And that will determine how we do against UConn, not how we would fare in a decathlon against those guys. If we come out to play razor-sharp mentally, we win. If our guys are in a tryptophan hangover, we will be caught out in silly fouls and with our heads turned the wrong way on perimeter flashes as UConn strolls to the hoop.

This post is spot-on; I do feel that we got the mojo back about halfway through the second half and turned it around.

K will use this as a major motivator for the team, and as a result I do expect to see a much more energetic, focused Duke team play on Friday.

dukestheheat.

[roywhite]

http://sports.espn.go.com/ncb/recap?gameId=293290150

In regard to heavy criticism of the Duke defense, here is what the coaches had to say:

"I thought defensively after the first 5 minutes was the key to the ballgame," Duke coach Mike Krzyzewski said.

"I thought their defensive effort, especially in the second half, was terrific," Arizona State coach Herb Sendek said. "Nothing came easy for us. Everything was challenged."

[MarkD83]

Woof.

Ryan Kelly... plays 5 minutes?

Miles Plumlee... plays 17 minutes?

S, S & S play 40 minutes... against ASU... in NOVEMBER?

Sure Miles was in some foul trouble, but he could have easily gotten 5-10 more minutes. And I strongly disagree that we should not have looked to the post more. Especially in the 2nd half, Miles was consistently getting good position on his defender and presenting passers with a target... they just never even looked at him. It's like S/S/S aren't used to having an offensive post option, so they don't even think about it. Perhaps if Kelly had played more, we would have seen some more post entry passes, which leads me to:

I just fail to comprehend how Kelly and MP1 play a combined 22 minutes in this game, while at the same time we fail to give any of the big 3 a single breather. If we're trying to prove our doubters correct and peak early due to drained players and a low ceiling, then that's the way to go. However, if we want to build a dangerous team that exploits its strengths, we NEED them to be major factors. It's November, and they've both been very effective so far.

I just hope this is some kind of test or coaching strategy and not a recurring theme. As much as an *** as Gottlieb was tonight, I have to agree with him to some extent - I just don't understand some of the things we did tonight.

Toward the end of the game there was a play (maybe two) where Nolan flashed to the paint and received a pass behind the front line in the zone. he then drove to the basket. If Duke had been doing that all night and the guy flashing to the lane was Kelly or Singler, there may have been more high/low dump downs for layups. I think when Coach K sees the tape he may realize that against the zone he needs to do more of that.

[Kishiznit]

Interesting to see how short the bench has gotten this early in the season. It would have been interesting to at least see what OC could have done in last night's environment for a few minutes. The fact is we're better suited to play a more trapping zone than pressing man to man because of speed. These kids will wear down early if he's not careful.

[05/18/2005]

Here are some of my quick thoughts
-nolan can drive pretty much at will. Not that he finished poorly, but he can still finish a little bit better
- miles picked up at least 2 silly reach fouls. He really showed his athleticism when he had to duck to avoid hitting his head on the rim. Still needs to be more involved on offense
- singler had an off night , not much more to say about him
- scheyer played very well, hit that big three to end the half. Also, he had some great drives where he passed to a big for an easy layup
- zoubek shouldnt play much when mason returns(i know that they play different spots), but used situationally. I cringe every time he went out during that pick and roll because he couldnt get back fast enough. Also, he had way more than his fair share of bricks where he just through it up and it nearly broke the backboard.
- kelly didnt play enough for much insight
-dawkins i thought provided a great offensive spark off of the bench. Would really like to have him play more.
- thomas hasnt really improved much over his four years at all
-mason is needed to help with big man foul trouble