because of there personel and ours of course i would be upset if the season was over, and i understand vcu might be a tough matchup we should beat them easy
because of there personel and ours of course i would be upset if the season was over, and i understand vcu might be a tough matchup we should beat them easy
I like this draw. We should be able to keep our Sweet 16 streak alive. And if UCLA gets upset, maybe an Elite 8 appearance...
I don't think K's scheduling was necessarily bad. From another perspective, this was a very young team and if they started off with a bunch of losses, it would not have been good for the confidence of the team. Marquette was a wake-up call and it was pretty obvious after tough games against Air Force, Gonzaga, Indiana, etc. that this was not the same Duke team as in the past. I'm pretty sure the players were aware of this and not just the fans. I do agree we should go on the road a bit though as it seems we never play road games out of conference anymore.
Bwahahahahaha!
OK got me - but he can't get names right either
This may be an overreaction because in high school I lived 2 miles from vcu, but they are a dangerous first round matchup. If we don't come to play, we are done.
First of all-- because of our big name and TV, we often play teams on neutral courts. Look at the ACC/BIG 10 challenege-- we've often been in Chicago rather than a home court. And we play big names in Madison Square Garden etc.
But with more and more pre-season tournaments, and more random big name neutral site games, you just don't see big names going to true road games. It's not like every other big name out there played tons of great true road games.
True, if we played at Gonzaga, or at Illinois or something we might've been better prepared for ACC road games. BUT, with such a young team, K admitted that this was the most home weighed schedule in a long time (since the 50's i think).
Botton line, we had one of the toughest non-conference schedules in the nation, and in conference we played AT a 1 seed, two 4 seeds, one 5 seed, and one 7 seed. And you want our schedule to be harder?
You can look at our backloaded ACC schedule in a positive way and say that the early ACC games are easier and our time to develop.
It is the road part that bothers me most as well. These are freshmen and I think keeping them in front of their adoring fans for as long as possible and taking them on the road only when the league dictates that you must gives them a false sense of confidence. I do agree with you that you wouldn't want to give them a brutal start, like at Florida and Kansas this year, but they needed to go into a couple of truly hostile road gyms against some real competition early, so that they got a more realistic sense of where they were and where they needed to go. This team was not ready for conference play out of the gate this season, IMO, and I do fault K's scheduling for that to some extent.
Last edited by devildownunder; 03-11-2007 at 08:05 PM. Reason: because I'm captain typo today
Players don't develop until they see a need to do so. Blowing out Columbia, Georgia Southern and UNC-Greensboro in consecutive games at home doesn't make them see anything.
We play big games in MSG or the Meadowlands every year because that's what K wants to do. Scheduling is almost entirely up to him. Yes, someone on the other side has to say yes but if K wants to go play somebody real, in their house, the opportunity is always there. Lute Olsen has been trying to bait K into picking up their series again for years. He won't do it. And as for the mid-majors K loves to bring into Cameron these days, if K wanted to play one of those games on Venus, the other team's AD would book flights on the space shuttle. He is in complete control of exactly where or when he plays any of those teams. And the only place he plays any of them in CIS. I do not think this does anything really for our team's development. RPI points, yes, but not development.
And I'm not talking about scheduling like Tom Izzo did a few years back where you play the entire top 25. I'm just saying that, what if we went to Kent State instead of playing them at home this year. And then we also dropped the Temple series and replaced them with a true home-and-home series with, say, UCLA, Arizona or LSU (all of whom we used to visit regularly), well then I think this year's schedule would have been much better.
Last edited by devildownunder; 03-11-2007 at 07:52 PM. Reason: copy editing and added a line.
It's not unrealistic at all with this draw. How sweet would it be after this season to see the evil smurfs get upset again and actually have a game to watch in the second week(end?) while they sit at home.
OMG, it's almost too delicious to contemplate!
Although I have not seen them play- they appear to be guard oriented and three are seniors and shoot well from three. I don't think they have much of an inside game. Lately- we have been hurt by size- so while I expect a tough fight- McBob is a tough matchup for them. A lot will depend on how he plays.
Could be an interesting crowd with Terps fans there as well.
apparently, VCU has quick guards and shoots a lot of threes. I think the key to the game will be their 3pt shooting. I expect us to back off a bit at the outet so they can't penetrate as easily. But if they start hitting shots, K will have to tighten up the D, which will lead to blowbys, layups and foul trouble.
A good strategy to employ would be to identify their best shooter and put the best on-ball defender, probably DN, on him and play that guy tight. Tell everyone else to back off and hope they don't get red hot.
Offensively, it's probably a matter of patience and getting mcroberts to look to score.
Last edited by devildownunder; 03-11-2007 at 08:04 PM. Reason: tinkered a bit
They have alot of good guards.
Their two tallest guys are 6'7. Should be able to beat them inside all game long(IF McRoberts is playing like he did in the 2nd half against St.)
They have a 6'10 and a 6'8 guy but they play about as much as Zoubek does. So they are a non-factor.
Last edited by DukeBlood; 03-11-2007 at 08:05 PM. Reason: Correction
Having caught them on TV a couple of weekends, VCU CAN win this game.
They play fast and hard and will attack. Their coach is a Donovan protege.
It could be real frustrating or it could be a spring board game for the team.
Hopefully that would also mean fewer turnovers for us. Of course, none of this is all that tough to think of, so I wouldn't be surprised to see VCU press, or at the very least pressure and trap Paulus as hard as they can. That would help force tempo, too. But with time to prepare, hopefully we'd see our bigs flashing to the center court area regularly to break full-court pressure and produce easy baskets.