It looks like Henderson is back in form!
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Bob Green
It looks like Henderson is back in form!
From SMO in the pre-game thread:
1. A 30+ point win... 16 points, never more than 20.I'll be satisfied with nothing short of the following:
2. Less than 8 Duke turnovers.... 12 turnovers
3. At least 50% of our points in the paint... 17 of 33 made field goals were either layups or dunks, plus a hook-shot by Singler, means 36 of 86 points (41.8%)
4. 15+ minutes from Taylor King regardless of how he plays... one minute in the first half, two minutes at the end of the game
5. 10+ minutes from Zoubek (please note, Brian must "look like a basketball player" during these minutes for them to count)... 16 minutes, he looked pretty solid to me.
6. A double double from Kyle Singler... 15 points, 7 rebounds
7. Zero turnovers from Gregg (sic) Paulus... Just the one errant pass in the first half
8. At least 3 nice mid-range jumpers from Henderson... One, at 15:39 of the 2nd half
9. Fewer than 15 points from Singletary... 18 points, 6 in the last 8 minutes after Duke had pulled away.
10. No inappropriate cheers from the UVA fans... not that I heard.
11. 18+ minutes from Nolan Smith... Only 9 minutes and Scheyer ran the point for a few possessions.
12. 2+ points from David McClure... No points in five minutes.
13. 100% FT shooting from Demarcus Nelson... 2 for 5
14. No less than 8pts and 5 boards from Lance Thomas... 1 point, 1 rebound
15. 2 nice drives and at least 2 threes from Jon Scheyer, along with at least 50% shooting from the floor... Only had the two sweet rebound baskets, shot 3 of 5 from the floor.
16. Someone exhibiting substantial "toughness" (e.g. stitches, taking a hard foul, sticking up for teammates)... Does the foul on LT count?
17. At least a little zone to mix them up!... Substantial periods of zone in both halves!!
18. No stall-ball!... Slowed down the offense with ~7 minutes to go, but didn't "stall" (hold the ball near midcourt for 20+ seconds) until 4 minutes left and an 81-64 lead.
Close on a number of them, but gotta grade strictly: just 4 of 18 goals met. I guess that means this game was a terrible performance that might as well count as a loss...
The team I believe is progressing nicely the past few games and will be ready for the 'holes come Sat! I really like our position as an underdog at least in terms of the rankings coming into this stretch in March. Lets hope for a long stretch ending in April on a monday.
I guess the point of the above is a) we don't have to be perfect, and b) we have a lot of weapons, some of which will be loaded in each game.
Duke basketball is officially back!!
I feel sorry for the holes. Let the 3 day heart attack begin!!!
LGD!! GTHC,GHH!
Duke has balance scoring and continues to have low turnovers with Henderson, Nelson, Paulus, Scheyer and Singler. Paulus has especially picked up his game the last two weeks and Henderson is back in form.
Our top 5 got reasonable support from Thomas, Zoubek and Smith. Too bad Zoubek picked up 2 quick fouls. Until that time, I thought he created problems for Virginia inside and rebounded fairly well.
This was a must win and the team responded. Our inside defense continues to be weak though and may be an issue against Hansbrough, with Lawson feeding him.
If someone had predicted early on that we would be 26 and 3 at this stage of the season I would have thought they were being wildly optimistic.
We are playing a lot of zone and Zoubek got double digit minutes. This must have been the perfect game...
I keed, I keed
Duke played very well tonight- businesslike and poised for most of the game. They limited mistakes early and managed a very good opening 10 minutes by Singletary and the Hoos. But Duke took control because they mixed in the zone (maybe testing it for UNC?) and got UVa out of their groove. Duke almost gave UVa life in the middle of the second half after going up 19- but Virginia was dead tired at the end of the game. 3 games in 5 days with 2 on the road will wear out any team. Duke took care of business and it will be a big game on Saturday- it doesn't get any better than this. UNC will try to play the underdog role- but make no mistake- Duke will be the hunter and should respond accordingly.
As has been remarked by me and others, we appear to be in better condition than most of our opponents. I thought this was particularly evident tonight: Mikalauskas in particular looked pitiful for much of the game and even Singletary was breathing hard early in the game. A the end, Virginia did try a full court press to counter stall ball. But I doubt if they could have kept it up for more than a possession or two.
Of course, the fact that Virginia had played 3 games in 5 days might have contributed to their physical effort tonight!
There have been past comments on this board that Scheyer can be weak on D. The job he did on Singletary on some defensive sequences should change that opinion if it hasn't been changed already. Scheyer moves his feet and uses his length as well as anyone.
I absolutely loved our ball movement tonight. Calling orange obviously opened the game up for us. As has already been pointed out in another thread, not so sure that will work out the same against other foes, namely the pale shade of blue our guys play this weekend.
Over this season, Scheyer has established himself as a good and highly motivated defender. More than anyone else (except maybe Gerald), Scheyer has worked and worked and we saw evidence of that tonight in his defense of Sean Singletary. But Jon has played great defense for a while... and with it, I think we have a great chance Saturday and after.
Go, Ozzie. I LOVE how you think!
DukeDevilDeb