MBB: UNC-Chapel Hill 88, Duke 70, Post-Game Thread

[Chris Randolph]

I agree with you, but one more point I would like to make is:

Andre seems to bring energy to this team when makes shots and gets back in a defensive stance. He may get beat off the dribble from time to time. But we don't have any 'Elite" defenders that are taking his minutes.
His smile is infectious and is what this team needs when shots by others just aren't dropping. He needs a chance to succeed and thats not gonna happen with his rear end sittin on a foam padded Duke chair. I apologize for bringing it back up and I'll leave it at that.

The problem with this is the word "when." He should bring energy/effort from the get go. It should not be determined on whether or not he hits some shots or does some positive things elsewhere. His smile has nothing to do with the game of basketball

[OZ]

My guess is that was the rebound margin

Thanks... I tried to forget that!

[g-money]

1. We did that this past week in another thread
2. We already know what he does and does not bring to the table when he is in
3. We have no idea what goes on outside of the games that could effect his minutes

Let me address your points:

1. Yes, but that's why this is a discussion board. After a game in which 3-point baskets could really have helped us claw back, it's a legitimate question to ask.
2. You're right - he brings very good three point shooting and mediocre defense. But in the short amount of time he played tonight, I didn't see any major defensive blunders out of Andre. There was certainly nothing worse than the mistakes made by the rest of our guards.
3. True.

To me the way Coach K is handling Andre is reminiscent of the way he handled Miles last year - with a quick hook. On the surface I don't like this philosophy because it makes players too afraid to make mistakes. However, I must admit that I have no idea what is going on behind the scenes.

What I do know is that when Andre plays well, we usually win. As a result it seems to me he should be given more of a chance. Hopefully he'll get one next year when he's a senior.

[jipops]

My sense is that Duke's several runs in last 10 minutes were stopped more by Duke mistakes than Heel defense, but if that is uncharitable or sour grapes, I will accept constructive correction.

Yet excellent defense is quite often the cause of a team making dumb mistakes. Make no mistake, UNC played some great defense tonight. We didn't get the kind of looks we had in the Dean dome from the perimeter, not in the 1st half at least. That crazy run they went on in the beginning was mostly due to UNC's perimeter D and their ability to quickly recover inside. The defense they played during that sequence was as good as you'll see from anybody.

[uh_no]

uh no:
"I hope coach K posts a paper in the locker room this week that just says

42-22"


Enlighten me as to the meaning of this.

that was the rebound margin. I thought it might have been becuase we missed more shots but we missed 37...they missed 30

that's not 20 rebounds worth.

we need to close that gap.

[HateCarolina]

Does anyone have video or a still shot of Mason's monster, flying through the air, tomahawk dunk? That was one of my few "happy moments" from this game.

[OZ]

Obviously, we had some important guests in the house tonight.

A question for someone smarter than I on this subject... What kind of impact would a game like this have on a potential recruit?

[NYC Duke Fan]

Let me start off saying that in my opinion this is one of the finast coaching jobs that Coach K has done in quite some. He deserves to be coach of the year in the ACC and in the running for coach of the year in all of basketball, although that will not happen. He got the most out of this team...kudos to him.

That said, I just do not not think that this team is nearly as good as its ranking. If it gets a number 2 seed, which it probably will, it could be one of the weakest number 2 seeds. There is a possibility that they could lose in the first weekend of the NCAA tournament.

UNC is just much better than Duke, as are many, many teams, and I just do not understand why Duke has had so much trouble at home this year.

[stixof96]

You can't beat a good team like UNC by playing well for one half. Poor showing tonight.

[jv001]

that was the rebound margin. I thought it might have been becuase we missed more shots but we missed 37...they missed 30

that's not 20 rebounds worth.

we need to close that gap.

I agree that we need to close that gap. Our guards did not help out on that phase of the game tonight. I saw Curry fail to blockout a guard that either kept the ball alive or put the ball in the hoop. Against unc, everyone must rebound because they crash the boards and they have a terrific front line. GoDuke!

[hurleyfor3]

A question for someone smarter than I on this subject... What kind of impact would a game like this have on a potential recruit?

While our rival may have the edge in talent this year, and may have had a better game plan, we didn't quit.

[elvis14]

Let's right this ship and the tone of this thread.

I got as down or as angry as I was going to get about halfway through the first half.

I appreciate the way our boys fought back.

I love Miles, and I am moved by the way Mason fought. Perhaps for Duke, perhaps for his brother, likely for both. Including Pops Plumlee's emotion at the end of the game, the entire Plumlee family showed you why Duke, and the privilege to be a fan of this program, are special things in this world. If you're looking for something positive to take away, look no further than Miles and Mason -- we saw Mason emerge from his recent doldrums, and maybe following tonight this team will finally hit on all cylinders the way that UNC, to their great credit, did tonight.

If you offered me at the beginning of this season that we would beat Carolina exactly once, I would have taken it against Door #2. That said, let's go out and win the ACC Tourney.

That's a great paragraph about the Plumlees Albert. The Mason we saw tonight is not the Mason that's been around for the last few games. That's a good sign!

[jv001]

Obviously, we had some important guests in the house tonight.

A question for someone smarter than I on this subject... What kind of impact would a game like this have on a potential recruit?

Maybe; "hey I can play defense that well", lol. GoDuke!

[uh_no]

Obviously, we had some important guests in the house tonight.

A question for someone smarter than I on this subject... What kind of impact would a game like this have on a potential recruit?

probably that I can come here and make a difference...that this team plays their butts off...brought the gap from 26 down to 11....

[cptnflash]

Not much to say, we just got beaten by a better team. UNC scored on their first 9 possessions, while we couldn't hit a shot early. Dug a massive hole right away and couldn't ever get out of it. I was proud of the way the guys fought in the second half, and we actually did have a chance to make it a game with about 5 minutes left. We were down 11 when Seth got a wide open look at a 3... and missed. Then we got a stop, Rivers got fouled, and missed the front end of a 1-and-1. If, instead of missing those shots, we make them (and Rivers' ensuing second free throw), suddenly it's a 2 possession game (i.e., UNC has a 6 point lead) with about 4 minutes left, we have all the momentum, and UNC has that "oh no, not again" feeling. That was our one chance to win. Unfortunately, Seth missed a shot he usually hits, and Rivers continued to struggle from the line. But the truth is that UNC deserved to win. They're the better team, and they played a great game tonight.

I hope we see them again next Sunday.

[vick]

For what it's worth, I think it's somewhat interesting to look at what difference was accounted for by teams shooting differently from their three point percentages (which is probably fairly random) and free throw percentages (which is almost certainly random). I did this on the fly, and might have made a mistake, but I get that Duke "lost" 9 points vs. UNC coming up essentially flat. This is actually probably an underestimation since it didn't include lost opportunities on one-and-ones, so the real difference was probably in the ~10 point range, which conforms with what it felt like to me watching, which is that if the shooting wasn't that bad, it would have been a high single-digits game. That's a problem, but not unsurmountable (although, a high-variance strategy does leave you more vulnerable to a early upset, on the other hand, it gives you more of a shot to beat a team like Kentucky).

UNC	3PM	3PA	FTA	FTM	3P%	FT%	Gain/(Loss) on 3	Gain/(Loss) on FT	Total Change
Zeller	0	0	1	1	0%	80%	0.0	0.2	0.2
Henson	0	0	3	4	0%	50%	0.0	1.0	1.0
Barnes	1	3	3	4	40%	73%	-0.6	0.1	-0.5
Bullock	2	6	0	0	39%	83%	-1.0	0.0	-1.0
Marshall	1	3	5	6	31%	70%	0.2	0.8	1.0
Watts	0	0	0	0	0%	40%	0.0	0.0	0.0
White	0	0	0	0	23%	44%	0.0	0.0	0.0
Hairston	0	1	0	0	28%	86%	-0.8	0.0	-0.8
McAdoo	0	0	0	0	0%	60%	0.0	0.0	0.0
Total	4	13	12	15			-2.2	2.1	-0.2
									
Duke	3PM	3PA	FTA	FTM	3P%	FT%	Gain/(Loss) on 3	Gain/(Loss) on FT	Total Change
Plumlee (Mi)	0	0	2	3	0%	63%	0.0	0.1	0.1
Kelly	0	5	0	0	43%	81%	-6.5	0.0	-6.5
Curry	3	5	3	4	39%	87%	3.1	-0.5	2.6
Thornton	2	3	0	0	37%	74%	2.7	0.0	2.7
Rivers	1	6	4	7	39%	65%	-4.1	-0.5	-4.6
Dawkins	0	1	0	0	41%	74%	-1.2	0.0	-1.2
Plumlee (Mas)	0	0	3	5	0%	51%	0.0	0.5	0.5
Hairston	0	0	0	0	0%	67%	0.0	0.0	0.0
Cook	0	1	0	2	41%	80%	-1.2	-1.6	-2.8
Total	6	21	12	21			-7.2	-2.0	-9.2

[jipops]

Let me start off saying that in my opinion this is one of the finast coaching jobs that Coach K has done in quite some. He deserves to be coach of the year in the ACC and in the running for coach of the year in all of basketball, although that will not happen. He got the most out of this team...kudos to him.

That said, I just do not not think that this team is nearly as good as its ranking. If it gets a number 2 seed, which it probably will, it could be one of the weakest number 2 seeds. There is a possibility that they could lose in the first weekend of the NCAA tournament.

UNC is just much better than Duke, as are many, many teams, and I just do not understand why Duke has had so much trouble at home this year.

I kind of agree and kind of don't. Really, K does this pretty much all the frikin' time! Yea, Duke has talent that other teams would be very envious of. But every single year K finds some way to compensate for the numerous existing weaknesses with good degree of success. We've seen college teams at the same level of this years' Duke team crumble for stretches of the season due to lack of athleticism, poor defensive positioning, lack of true pg, etc... Yet this team always managed to pick itself up after being down, and it wasn't down very much. Heck, even the 2007 team made the tournament and I think it is always discounted what an achievement that was. You will never see a Duke version of 2010 UNC on K's watch. That is a tribute to K's work.

[uh_no]

For what it's worth, I think it's somewhat interesting to look at what difference was accounted for by teams shooting differently from their three point percentages (which is probably fairly random) and free throw percentages (which is almost certainly random).

I did an analysis earlier this week, and as it turns out, there is actually less variance in our ability to score from three than there is from two, extraordinary shooting nights are much more likely to be bad than good.

It goes against conventional wisdom that we are actually more consistent shooting three pointers, but it means that game planning to shoot a lot of threes may actually be the way to go for this team.

[UrinalCake]

we actually did have a chance to make it a game with about 5 minutes left. We were down 11 when Seth got a wide open look at a 3... and missed. Then we got a stop, Rivers got fouled, and missed the front end of a 1-and-1. If, instead of missing those shots, we make them (and Rivers' ensuing second free throw), suddenly it's a 2 possession game...

Yeah, if you're going to come back from a 24-point hole, you have to play pretty much perfectly. At the same time we had that 11-point deficit, they showed a stat that we were 10-18 from the free throw line. Hit all of them and we're only down 3 (plus whatever we lost from missed one-and-ones).

Last year after the ACC tournament Bob Knight did an interview where he talked about the dramatic turnaround from Duke losing in Chapel Hill to dominating them a week later in the ACCT final. He said that UNC had spent a whole week having everyone tell them how great they were, while Duke had spent the week mad as hell and wanting to prove they were better than that. Here's hoping history repeats itself.

[gumbomoop]

Yet excellent defense is quite often the cause of a team making dumb mistakes. Make no mistake, UNC played some great defense tonight. We didn't get the kind of looks we had in the Dean dome from the perimeter, not in the 1st half at least. That crazy run they went on in the beginning was mostly due to UNC's perimeter D and their ability to quickly recover inside. The defense they played during that sequence was as good as you'll see from anybody.

I think we may be talking past each other. My post was about the last 10 minutes, whereas here you refer to first half.

We might even disagree about first half, as I agree with those posters who have noted that Duke got plenty of open looks in first half.

Actually what most impressed me about Heels, and depressed me about Devils, was their guards hitting O-boards, and our guards ball-watching. Mason and Miles were only slightly outrebounded by Zeller and Henson. But our perimeter guys - who must, must, must block out - didn't.