MBB: Duke 76, St Johns 69 Post Game Thread

[Hancock 4 Duke]

Discuss the game here. Maybe this could start the Famous Duke Winning Run?

[FireOgilvie]

Sloppy, but I think it was an important game to get us some confidence before continuing in the ACC schedule.

Our defense wasn't great; we gave up 43 in the second half and SJ shot a ridiculous 54% for the game.

[Oriole Way]

Thank God K finally decided to actually play Elliot Williams and Miles Plumlee.

I can't believe posters on this board kept defending K's refusal to play those two because they weren't productive in extremely limited minutes without any leeway to make mistakes.

[doctorhook]

They shot 54% since almost all their baskets were from 10 feet in. We need to get tougher mentally, lousy free throw shooting down the stretch, not getting enough loose balls, rebounds. Doc

[geraldsneighbor]

I thought the defense played well the first 35 minutes of the game. Once Duke opened up a 13 point lead late they sort of started lacking on defense not trying to foul.

Williams was impressive on both sides of the ball.
Thomas' pass ahead to Elliot was shweeeet.
Gerald and Kyle did the usual.
Scheyer looked good but missing 3 late free throws makes you wonder if he can handle play as much PG as he did tonight.

[beach rev]

Not quite sure how to feel. I like the W; I like most of what I saw from Eliot; I like Plumlee's increased PT. Conversely, Paulus and Smith seem to be struggling still. Any info on Singler?

[RelativeWays]

Solid performance most of the night, nearly disastrous finish (considering Kyle's ankle, it could still be disastrous). This wasn't really the game I was hoping for,I mean, it almost was. EWill and Miles had good minutes, mostly solid contributions all around but still bad lapses and no killer instinct. Its going to take a great performance against Wake to convince me this team can make it far in March.

[HDB]

Thoughts on the game:

1) Offense seemed more fluid than in recent games.

2) Defense was mediocre --- too many easy shots.

3) What the heck is going on with Nolan? Looks totally lost.

[pamtar]

Thank God K finally decided to actually play Elliot Williams and Miles Plumlee.

I can't believe posters on this board kept defending K's refusal to play those two because they weren't productive in extremely limited minutes without any leeway to make mistakes.

I owe you an apology. Although I never posted anything to the contrary, I thought your idea of running Scheyer at point was, shall we say, not good.

Good call, even if it was only for a little while. :)

[roywhite]

Good win, though the last 3-4 minutes was not pretty.

Good job by Scheyer directing the offense. Solid games from Singler, Thomas, and Henderson. Very good game from Elliot Williams.

Glad to see some new approaches.

[KShip21]

Honestly, this game did not make me rest any easier than I was before tonight. Besides getting a W, Elliot looking better and hopefully gaining some more confidence, we did not play very well. If this was an ACC opponent we may have been looking at a loss. Just my opinion. At least it's a win and hopefully the guys build off of it with big ballgames coming up

[DUKIECB]

Well obviously it wasn't the most pleasing game I've ever watched Duke play. However, there were some bright spots. Elliot Williams played a great game in my opinion. The focus was to re-establish the defensive intensity and Elliot really led the charge.
I think we let up in the last five minutes or it could have been a little more comfortable margin. With that being said though, one thing K seemed to be concerned about is the team's lack of killer instinct. This certainly didn't do anything to change anybody's mind in that reguard.
I think it's make it or break it time for this team. With Wake at home Sunday, a couple of tough but winable games on the road, FSU at home and the holes on the road, it's time to show your hand.
I think with everything that has happened in the last few weeks, overall I was expecting better tonight. Can they step it up for the final leg of the regular season? I guess we will see.

[TwoDukeTattoos]

...twisted his ankle during his last foul. I'm not sure if it's serious. Does anyon have any news?

[grossbus]

"Honestly, this game did not make me rest any easier than I was before tonight."

ditto. not encouraged at all, despite playing time for email and plumlee.

entirely possible we could not win a game the remainder of the season.

when we lost to wake there, i was eager for the replay. not now.

[BlueintheFace]

E-Will and Plumlee showed promise against a poor basketball team, but defensively they are still a year away. E-will's on ball defense was spectacular at times, but both freshmen got lost on rotations and seemed to get in the way for a few offensive sets/iso plays. Promising signs though.

Nolan continued to struggle and Paulus was invisible

God, I hope Kyle is okay

Jon didn't turn the ball over and handled point very well

G had a few go in and out and still needs to do better to get uncontested shots, but good game generally.

The Scrimmage is over and it is time for the second season to begin. I am interested to see if some of the lineups we saw tonight will be used against a far superior Wake team...

AND LT plays ANOTHER great game. The kid plays with more visible emotion than anybody else on the floor. Keep it up Lance.

[DevilCastDownfromDurham]

Thank God K finally decided to actually play Elliot Williams and Miles Plumlee.

I can't believe posters on this board kept defending K's refusal to play those two because they weren't productive in extremely limited minutes without any leeway to make mistakes.

Agree completely. Email was the difference out there tonight. His scoring was great (and energized the team) and he had some HUGE rebounds. His grab at the end was the closest thing to clutch that the team showed tonight. He probably shouldn't be starting many games, but he darned sure looks ready to contribute.

Plumlee also looked good. He's still making some freshman mistakes, but he has the athleticism to cover many of those up. On O he's a garbage man and not much more, but that's true of all our post guys. I'm not sure what Z is doing better than him right now.

Also big ups to Lance. He's playing much more within himself and his attitude is so important for the team. It's a shame we don't have a burly 5 that would allow Lance to slide over to the 4 as a backup for Kyle (or even move Kyle to the 3 at times).

A rough game at times, but we needed a W and got one. Here's hoping we can build on this and take it to Wake Forest.

[geraldsneighbor]

...twisted his ankle during his last foul. I'm not sure if it's serious. Does anyon have any news?

I imagine K will address it with Bob in their post game chat. He looked fine on the bench. If it was a knee I would be much more concerned. Thankfully, it doesn't appear to be that. I think he just landed awkwardly. Hopefully it is as big of an issue as G's wrist injury was vs. Clemson.

[Duke79UNLV77]

I'm certainly not satisfied. Zero outings from Paulus, Smith, and Zoubek. Nice shooting from Kyle, and good contributions from Thomas, Williams, and Plumlee.

I certainly expected a bigger margin, and we have a ways to go, but St. John's has been competitive more than I would have guessed.

Virginia Tech 67-81 L
Miami (FL) 56-70 L
Connecticut 55-67 L
Cincinnati 60-71 L
Louisville 47-60 L
Cincinnati 61-71 L
Marquette 59-73 L

[roywhite]

I think we got St. John's best shot. They were playing at home, against Duke, on national television, and really, really wanted this game. Every single point, even in the last 30 seconds, was important to them. And they had a fairly good plan---attack Duke with the dribble drive, get the ball close to the basket, and take good shots.

So I don't dismiss the quality of the opponent tonight.

[should_be_working]

Nice to get a win - seems like its been forever. Still though, if we play like this against the likes of Wake or UNC, it won't end in a win. I thought the defense was good for the most part, but the offense looked lost at times. I'm glad to see plum and elliot with some playing time, with which i thought they made the best of. I thought jon did a good job at point - it was nice to see a guard drive and dish. We obviously need to play better this weekend or we'll have another loss.

I'd like to see us play a 2-3 zone to try to combat our inability to contain the dribble. I seem to remember us playing a 2-3 from time to time last season with nice results, not sure why we've forgotten about it.

[jipops]

While there certainly were some positives to take away from this, #1 we won, there is one gigantic negative. If this brand of defense shows up in Cameron on Sunday, we're going to get smoked. St. Johns got in the lane practically at will and was almost always at the front of the rim. Maybe the idea was to defend the 3pt shot but not a very encouraging performance overall on the defensive front.

[HDB]

While there certainly were some positives to take away from this, #1 we won, there is one gigantic negative. If this brand of defense shows up in Cameron on Sunday, we're going to get smoked. St. Johns got in the lane practically at will and was almost always at the front of the rim. Maybe the idea was to defend the 3pt shot but not a very encouraging performance overall on the defensive front.

I agree completely. Look at St. John's resume. They are a horrible offensive team and we let them shoot close to 55% and it would have been better had they not missed more than a few layups.

Offensively I thought we were pretty efficient tonight -- we shot north of 50% from the floor for the first time in quite a while.

[Saratoga2]

I had recommended that coach K start the lineup that he actually used. It was the lineup one or two others also thought should be tried. Scheyer is good with the ball at point and seldom makes a poor play or pass. Williams has the advantage or length and quickness and played good defense for most of the game, without a lot of mistakes. He also adds a dimension of slashing ability and tonight, he only took good opportunities to score and forced nothing. Thomas also has been playing better. Good and effective starting lineup.

The area where this lineup is weakest is internal defense and rebounding. Plumlee could be a partial answer in that area, since he had both good offensive and rebouding plays. Clearly, he fouls too much but at least one of the three fouls he got was a marginal call. Zoubek was a step slow and we didn't see McClure tonight. Don't know what was wrong on that front.

The new lineup appears to be as follows:

1. Singler
2. Henderson
3. Scheyer
4. Williams
5. Thomas

With
1. Smith
2. Plumlee
3. McClure when ready
4. Paulus
5. Zoubek

It will be interesting to see what lineups are used against Wake.

[KandG]

I loved the effort and general production of EWill, Lance Thomas and Plumlee. The defense looked good in the first half, less so in the second half. Overall, I liked how we communicated and helped on defense for much of the game, but we allowed a little too much penetration toward the end.

Kyle's fourth foul was really poor -- against a better opponent, such a lapse could have cost us the game. I know things happen quickly in a situation like that, but I expect him to have better presence of mind as the key player on the team. I'm sure he's beating himself up about the play...just hope his ankle is OK.

Nolan is about as lost as any player I've seen with his level of talent. The turnover he had against full court pressure helped keep St. John's in the game until the bitter end...he did precisely what you're not supposed to do in that situation (dribble into the heart of the pressure and force a pass weakly out of it).

Lots of good signs overall, and I was waiting for Williams to have his breakout game. Hope he can continue to contribute with the schedule ratcheting up dramatically in difficulty the rest of the season.

[devildownunder]

I thought the defense played well the first 35 minutes of the game. Once Duke opened up a 13 point lead late they sort of started lacking on defense not trying to foul.

Williams was impressive on both sides of the ball.
Thomas' pass ahead to Elliot was shweeeet.
Gerald and Kyle did the usual.
Scheyer looked good but missing 3 late free throws makes you wonder if he can handle play as much PG as he did tonight.


St John's was up over 50% pretty much the whole game. That's not good defense, BUT there were some real positives here. K took the opportunity to see what he might get out of some guys toward the end of the rotation, so now he has a better idea of potential options down the stretch. Also, Scheyer did some scoring. As we all know, that needs to keep happening. Also, on the face of the numbers, Lance appeared to have another strong game (at least in scoring). Can anyone who got to watch the game confirm that?

[dukefanSD]

I think we would have really been better on defense if McClure was healthy. Hopefully he'll be recovered by Sunday. I was hoping for a blowout, but I'll take the win. I was a little encouraged by the performances by Lance and Elliot. Let's go Duke!!!

[TwoDukeTattoos]

I've said all year, just put Williams on the floor and see what they can do! Acclimate them in real game situations! Even thought neither were superstars, I was glad to see them out there gaining some valuable PT!

Williams played 32 minutes

Plumlee played 12 minutes

Once again, Duke won the battle of the boards.

Duke shot 54% and 43% but FT were only 69%.

Concerns: Singler and G played 40 minutes each. Ouch.

All in all, I'm not concerned with the wierdness of the game or the lack of flow or the ineffiecient closing. Obviously, Coach K was doing some major tinkering, so this game was bound to be somewhat ugly. And still we won, on the road. AND WITHOUT MCCLURE!

Go Duke.

[DukeDevilDeb]

"Honestly, this game did not make me rest any easier than I was before tonight."

ditto. not encouraged at all, despite playing time for email and plumlee.

entirely possible we could not win a game the remainder of the season.

when we lost to wake there, i was eager for the replay. not now.

... and agonize over Wake on Sunday? This was a good win. Williams and Plumlee made contributions. K just said that he needs to get some of his best players playing at peak levels again...

Yes, we let up in the last 5 minutes and missed some free throws. Were we ever really threatened? Note also that we didn't have Dave to play defense and rebound... he has the flu (and let's just pray that it doesn't spread through the team!!!!).

But so many of us were asking Coach K and the staff to do something to shake or wake the team up...and they did! I think this is great. I'd love to say that this will jumpstart the team as did having Duhon start and Nate come off the bench in 2001, but I'm not an idiot. I feel more optimistic about having a chance to beat Wake at home than i have for the last two weeks.

YAY DEVILS!

[Kedsy]

I had recommended that coach K start the lineup that he actually used. It was the lineup one or two others also thought should be tried. Scheyer is good with the ball at point and seldom makes a poor play or pass. Williams has the advantage or length and quickness and played good defense for most of the game, without a lot of mistakes. He also adds a dimension of slashing ability and tonight, he only took good opportunities to score and forced nothing. Thomas also has been playing better. Good and effective starting lineup.

The area where this lineup is weakest is internal defense and rebounding. Plumlee could be a partial answer in that area, since he had both good offensive and rebouding plays. Clearly, he fouls too much but at least one of the three fouls he got was a marginal call. Zoubek was a step slow and we didn't see McClure tonight. Don't know what was wrong on that front.


I'm not convinced K will use this lineup in ACC games. Elliot made some good plays, but IMO many of the defensive breakdowns can be laid on his not-yet-fundamentally-sound shoulders. He'll get there, and I like him getting some minutes, but if we want our defense to get back to where it was I think we need Nolan and Brian playing with confidence and getting good minutes. We need Nolan to pressure the ball and Brian to bother the inside shooters. Unless Elliot starts improving dramatically on defense over the next few games, which I suppose is possible. Bobby Knight seemed to think Elliot is the answer and he knows more than I do.

McClure reportedly had the flu.

[RelativeWays]

I completely disagree with everything you say here. Duke this season was at its best with Nolan playing strong, confident PG minutes. He needs to get back the confidence/swagger, and I think he will, hopefully this year, if not then next year.



I don't understand the point of this sort of negativity.

Some here seem to think that me saying Nolan won't make it as our PG means that Nolan won't be a good player for us. Not so, I think he has a great athletic ability to be a good scoring guard for us, more like the other good wing players that we have had, and have now. But from what I've seen this year I don't see him as our PG for the future. Ideally he'd be the starting two so we'd have more flexibility at 3.
Look, people have equated the starting PG at Duke with being the QB at Ntre Dame, its that kind of position, and you have to play smart, you have to play hard, and you have to play 100% sure you're better than the guy in front of you. Every Duke PG I've seen play during my 20 plus years as a fan has had save maybe Jeff Caple but he sure as hell tried. Wojo may have been our least athletic PG in a long time but I'd take his grit, determination and swagger over GPS shooting or Nolan's athleticism right now. I might be wrong about Nolan but I'm not sure he has the mindset to be a PG, I think he's more of a 2 guard, he seems to play more natural at the 2. I think you need to have a particular mindset as a PG, particularly a Duke PG. Greg, well Greg's a senior and I was really hoping his senior year would prove the doubters and naysayers wrong....He still has a few games left to go go out in a blaze of glory. Hopefully this articulates my views a little better.

[COYS]

Concerns: Singler and G played 40 minutes each. Ouch.


Go Duke.

These stats cannot be completely accurate. I know for a fact that both G and Singler sat out for a few portions of the game. G wasn't out much, but Singler got a breather in the first half and then was out for a bit with foul trouble in the second.

[Sixthman]

We learned nothing from this game. We switched up the lineup a little and got the same result. Poor second half defense, inability to close out strong (in this case against a weak team), inability to stop guard penetration, and high shooting percentage for the other team. If we had not been playing a poor team (conceding that St. John's played well for St. John's) we would have lost. Williams looked better than recent outings, but was it Williams or the competition? For all the enthusiasm from some posters about Williams and Plumlee (have no idea where this comes from) tonight, you have to admit that, to a certain extent, this playing time (and success) came at the expense of Smith and Paulus (who, if anything, were worse tonight than recent outings). For Duke to step it up, we need to add something to the mix. We need to get fifteen to twenty-five great minutes a night from a couple of people other than John, Kyle and G. Thomas is encouraging, the potential of Williams is encouraging, but we will need a fundamentally different performance to win even three of the next five games. Here's to winning all five.

[bgibbs1001]

Great to see Elliot and Miles play, it's about time. Problem tonite as it seems to be from time to time is stall ball. K should let them play and cut out the stall ball.

[Oriole Way]

I owe you an apology. Although I never posted anything to the contrary, I thought your idea of running Scheyer at point was, shall we say, not good.

Good call, even if it was only for a little while. :)

No apology necessary, but I appreciate it anyway. I just love discussing meaningful strategy which this team can employ with fellow informed fans . For the record, I think Scheyer should take over as the PG until Nolan Smith gets out of his funk - if he ever does.

I don't think K is above criticism despite the fact he is one of the best coaches ever, and we are dealing with incomplete information (not witnessing practices, or really knowing how the team really works behind closed doors). But as a fan that can identify good (and bad) basketball when he sees it, I think K has mismanaged his rotation this season. As such, I was happy he made several adjustments for which I have been pleading for several games (Scheyer at the point, more minutes for Williams and Plumlee, less minutes for Paulus).

Our defense left a lot to be desired, but if Williams doesn't play tonight, I'm fairly sure we would have lost yet again. I think the key to this team is fixing the offense. Obviously, our defense is broken as well, but I actually think this team is tougher to beat when our offense is optimal. It allows us to set up our defense after scores, and most importantly, it allows us to play with a lead instead of constantly trying to come from behind. This team is not built to make big comebacks late in games because of its offensive ineptitude.

St. John's is mediocre, so it's difficult to feel too good about this win. But I can't tell you how relieved I am that K made some adjustments, and that both Williams and Plumlee were able to show what they are capable of doing. It gives me some hope for the rest of the season, and especially for next year.

[Newton_14]

Throwing out the last 5 minutes where we killed our momentum ourselves, this was an overall good start back towards being a winning team.

The defense, while not great, was better. More communication, better movement with the switching, and better help defense that led to several charges taken. Especially in the first half and the first 12 or so minutes in the 2nd half. I thought most of the defensive lapses in the 2nd half came after we took the air out of the ball. We would miss shots at the end of the clock and end up on our heels trying to defend runouts.

With the infusion of new players that played alot of minutes, offensive chemistry took a bit of hit, but still the scoring was very balanced and there were alot of positives on the offensive end to build on heading down the stretch. One heck of a pass from Lance.

I thought both Eliot and Miles gained a ton of confidence tonight, and I greatly hope they can build on that.

This team has good players. 2 very special players in Gerald and Kyle, and alot of good players around them for support. They need to reduce the mental mistakes, gain back confidence in themselves, and have the good players that are struggling to get back on their game. Just making smart decisions and fundamental plays will help them greatly. If they can do those things and pull this thing together (and I believe they can) good things will happen.

[CDu]

St John's was up over 50% pretty much the whole game. That's not good defense, BUT there were some real positives here. K took the opportunity to see what he might get out of some guys toward the end of the rotation, so now he has a better idea of potential options down the stretch. Also, Scheyer did some scoring. As we all know, that needs to keep happening. Also, on the face of the numbers, Lance appeared to have another strong game (at least in scoring). Can anyone who got to watch the game confirm that?

Thomas had a very solid game. He hit a 15 foot jumper. He had a pump-fake-drive-dunk. He made a couple of layups in traffic. Granted, St John's isn't overwhelming in the paint, but it was a nice performance from Thomas.

With Williams getting the start, Scheyer got a lot of run at PG. It was interesting. He attacked the basket and made a couple of nice passes. He's obviously a work in progress there, but I think it's worth a longer look.

The defense wasn't bad. We did force a lot of turnovers. But we had trouble with dribble penetration (again), and St John's got quite a few layups.

[jipops]

And still we won, on the road. AND WITHOUT MCCLURE!

Go Duke.

The fact that McClure was out, maybe that hurt the D?:) That's how I'm going to get myself to sleep tonight.

Also looks like a pg by committee now. Though Scheyer has been bringing it up and initiating offense a lot this season, both G and Kyle were in that act as well tonight. K seems to be searching for answers. I did love to see Jon driving to the hoop tonight.

[roywhite]

Given Elliot's progress so far this year, and that he didn't play at all in the last 2 (3?) games, he did a terrific job. He may have some shortcomings in totally understanding the entire team defense, but he has the tools to be a very good defender.

He is in the mix now.

I have a feeling that Jon will be seeing more time at the point. Greg, Nolan, and Elliot will battle for time; we would hope they all play well, but as Coach Knight indicated, it's good to have some options.

[dukelifer]

I only saw the last five minutes and Duke did not play very well. But it was a bit of an ugly game- but before people think that DUuke should have won by 30- St Johns has been pretty good at home. When they played Conn at home, Conn only beat them by 12. But Duke D is still a concern. From playing some of the best D we have seen in a while to now letting the other team shoot over 50% in the second half for four straight games is really just a puzzle. It is Duke's D that needs to come back for early season form. Just hard to figure out what is really the problem here. This has to be killing K.

[kaufmjo]

I said this in the post thread but just got home from MSG. What a weird backdrop for a nationally televised game - the stadium was 3/4 empty with 2 minutes to go and the most crowd noise came during the towell toss at timeouts

Very weak Duke fan presence there as well. Was I the only one feeling this way?

Kinda a sloppy game with a lot of JV plays and turnovers on both sides. Williams had some nice moves especially the spin move. Scheyer cant seem to drive and pull up for a shot, he has to lean into his man and it usually results in a miss or a difficult shot.

Still too many threes out of this team. Really wish they would have tried some inside game against a cleary inferior team

[jv001]

The new lineup seem to shake things up some. Williams played good on the ball D. Plumlee had some good plays and should get better with more mins. Tonight I thought the stall ball did more harm than good. I know Coach K was looking for a win anyway he could get one, but it seem to disrupt the flow of the game. We missed some open passes into the lane, we missed some FT's at the end of the game(even Jon). Speaking of Jon, he ran the team very well. Greg got few mins and I think this shows you play D for Coach K or you sit. Nolan still looks like he's playing with no confidence or he's injured. Brian showed he cannot guard a man away from the basket. Even with all the negatives, I am pleased with the win and am looking forward to seeing how we play against Wake. This will probably be the biggest game of the year for us and I hope we come to play. Let's pray that Kyle is ok. Go Duke!

[mgtr]

I liked the starting lineup. I believe that if McClure had been available for 12-15 minutes, we would have won more easily. Plumlee is clearly a work in progress, but he is as effective as Zoubek (and also prone to fouls). I think that Greg and Nolan are just afraid to make decsions. Then when do, they make poor ones. Time for a little Coach K magic.
A number of posters have cried for a shake up in the lineup, and we got it. I am optimistic about the rest of the season.

[DukieBoy]

I saw parts of the game as I was at a pizza party, but the game was on the tv. But from what I saw and read,

I'm encouraged by how well E-Will played. This is the type of game he needed. One that builds his confidence and one that shows Coach K has faith in him. Now if only Nolan and/or Greg could have the same type of game

Lance Thomas's dunk in the second half was niiiiiiice.

I think we had the feeling that since it was St. Johns, we didn't need to bring our "A" game. Plus, having lost 3 of the last 4, we didn't have that Duke swagger. However, this was a huge confidence win for us. I think we will be plenty ready for the Wake game Sunday. We know what happened before and with the game being at CIS, we will be pumped up.

[roywhite]

Seeing Jon miss some foul shots at the end reminded a little of Grant Hill when he played point guard (against LSU, for one) when Hurley was injured. Grant looked more fatigued at the end of the game at PG than at his normal position; it's a mental strain, particularly if you've played another position most of the time.

But PG seems to work to some of Jon's strengths; he recognizes situations, is very steady, can drive, and can draw contact and get to the line.

I'd call the Jon to PG part of tonight's changes a definite success.

[Oriole Way]

Seeing Jon miss some foul shots at the end reminded a little of Grant Hill when he played point guard (against LSU, for one) when Hurley was injured. Grant looked more fatigued at the end of the game at PG than at his normal position; it's a mental strain, particularly if you've played another position most of the time.

But PG seems to work to some of Jon's strengths; he recognizes situations, is very steady, can drive, and can draw contact and get to the line.

I'd call the Jon to PG part of tonight's changes a definite success.

One of the reasons we had a lead at all was because of Jon's great floor game and the way he handled the offense. He's a much better player when he's driving to the basket than he is just taking 3's.

I will gladly take a fatigued Scheyer with a lead than a fresher Scheyer with Duke losing. That won't always be the case, but I think Scheyer at the point will help lead us to wins, and will be a positive difference-maker for our offense that will outweigh the negative repercussions .

[roywhite]

Singler sat when he got his fourth foul and also fouled out of the game. Check your numbers

http://www.goduke.com/ViewArticle.dbml?DB_OEM_ID=4200&ATCLID=3674016

Yeah, the minutes were pretty well distributed (considering the absence of McClure). I hate to see Nolan with 21 minutes and not much to show for it.

[jv001]

Seeing Jon miss some foul shots at the end reminded a little of Grant Hill when he played point guard (against LSU, for one) when Hurley was injured. Grant looked more fatigued at the end of the game at PG than at his normal position; it's a mental strain, particularly if you've played another position most of the time.

But PG seems to work to some of Jon's strengths; he recognizes situations, is very steady, can drive, and can draw contact and get to the line.

I'd call the Jon to PG part of tonight's changes a definite success.

Big success. With his height Jon can see over most guards and can make passes that Greg and Nolan cannot make. I like his ability to get into the lane and draw fouls. This type of offense is necessary since we don't have a low post presence. You can tell that fatigue is affecting Jon and Kyle's freethrow shooting. But like you I think it's mental fatigue and not anything physical. Beat Wake and Go Duke!

[chrisheery]

I liked seeing him play PG. I think he should bring the ball up with Nolan in the game and let Nolan play 2 guard. Hendo 3, Singler 4, Plumlee/Zoub/Lance 5. Gives us Nolan on D without his lack of PG mentality on offense. Essentially, let Nolan play the way Williams did tonight. He's a better team defender and would probably play much better without the pressure of being the primary ball handler.

It wasn't pretty tonight, but to get better, teams usually have to struggle for a bit. We seemed to be content with the minor victories we had won early in the season and didn't want to shake things up even though it seemed obvious we weren't built to win tough games as we were composed. Tonight, I think this team took its first step towards actually improving.

I just hope the confidence a few players got from this game and rest others got is enough to make everything click together.

[BlueintheFace]

Kyle was 4-5 from beyond the arc.... not too shabby

[geraldsneighbor]

St John's was up over 50% pretty much the whole game. That's not good defense, BUT there were some real positives here. K took the opportunity to see what he might get out of some guys toward the end of the rotation, so now he has a better idea of potential options down the stretch. Also, Scheyer did some scoring. As we all know, that needs to keep happening. Also, on the face of the numbers, Lance appeared to have another strong game (at least in scoring). Can anyone who got to watch the game confirm that?

The defense also forced 18 turnovers...

[DukeCO2009]

I've been saying for weeks that Elliot and Miles deserve big minutes, and they both showed tonight why they can be solid contributors to the team. EWill is simply a fantastic basketball player. He needs to get rid of his yips before he can make full use of his potential, and I think he went a long way toward doing just that tonight; that three was HUGE for his confidence. Miles made use of the two stints he played. He really seems to have a knack for the game--the way he slipped to the basket when Nolan hit him is as much a "feel" play as anything else. In the second half, he came in and played admirable defense against a guard that he got switched into playing; IIRC he ended the possession with a stuff of a jumper.

Aside from the play of the freshmen, I was also once again impressed by Lance. Zoubek doesn't make that shot-fake-drive-one-handed-dunk move, nor does he hit the jumper from the top of the key. I said earlier in the season that Lance is our X-factor, and I'll stand by my claim. Production from him is crucial to our success. I was also pleased to see G and especially Scheyer attack the rim and get to the stripe.

As far as the negatives go, I can't help but worry about Nolan. Not sure what's up with him; he looks totally lost out there. Greg looked a bit miffed to ride as much pine as he did, but he played confidently when he was in the game. Our defense was also quite pedestrian, which could prove to be a huge issue against the Wake juggernaut.

All in all, I'm quite happy with the way this game turned out. While certainly not a dominant win, we got to see a new starting lineup that I think could be quite effective against quicker teams. I'm cautiously optimistic heading into the Wake game.

[arnie]

We learned nothing from this game. We switched up the lineup a little and got the same result. Poor second half defense, inability to close out strong (in this case against a weak team), inability to stop guard penetration, and high shooting percentage for the other team. If we had not been playing a poor team (conceding that St. John's played well for St. John's) we would have lost. Williams looked better than recent outings, but was it Williams or the competition? For all the enthusiasm from some posters about Williams and Plumlee (have no idea where this comes from) tonight, you have to admit that, to a certain extent, this playing time (and success) came at the expense of Smith and Paulus (who, if anything, were worse tonight than recent outings). For Duke to step it up, we need to add something to the mix. We need to get fifteen to twenty-five great minutes a night from a couple of people other than John, Kyle and G. Thomas is encouraging, the potential of Williams is encouraging, but we will need a fundamentally different performance to win even three of the next five games. Here's to winning all five.


You have no idea where the enthusiasm from posters about Williams and Plumlee comes from?? Have you watched the play from our other guards and Z lately?? I think its great that he played both substantial minutes and hope it continues. Greg has had his chances, and frankly he's come up short most of the year and Nolan has struggled for at least 5-6 games. Z just can't keep up in our style of defense. Here's hoping K plays the freshman more and more.

[Johnny Jungle]

I think we got St. John's best shot. They were playing at home, against Duke, on national television, and really, really wanted this game. Every single point, even in the last 30 seconds, was important to them. And they had a fairly good plan---attack Duke with the dribble drive, get the ball close to the basket, and take good shots.

So I don't dismiss the quality of the opponent tonight.

This is a St. John's M.O..not that great but fights. We have major droughts and let teams go on big runs and we tend to lose big but play hard to the buzzer. Usually teams keep playing hard with us and blow us out but tonight Duke let us stay around and go on runs. I was really unimpressed with your defense and it definitely needs a lot of work. Everyone looked soft and you let us drive, drive, drive.

Also lets be honest...this wasn't a St. John's home game lol. I guarantee the fans were 65/35 in favor of Duke and Duke fans were probably much louder than St. John's. Also this isn't our first or last nationally televised game so I think this had little to do with anything.

Just my very unbiased opinion but I think your defense is much softer than advertised. I thought this years Duke team was supposed to be "tougher" than last years. I don't see this team going far into the tourney this year. Also please don't take my opinion as "Duke bashing" either because I have a lot of respect for your program and the hospitality of this site as my 2nd year visiting for our annual matchup.

[devildownunder]

The defense also forced 18 turnovers...

Yeah, the box score I read says the same thing. It also says we limited St. John's to just 3 attempts from 3pt range.

[Johnny Jungle]

You definitely need to play Williams a lot more. He is going to be a player. I've also always felt Paulas has been overrated as he doesn't really do anything particularly well.

One guy who I'm really surprised who hasn't gotten more burn for you is Lance Thomas. The kid has good athletic ability much better than other guys on your team, he grabs a ton of offensive boards(my favorite stat for big men), and he is really efficient scoring the ball. Also how has that kid not added size in 3 years? Do you not have a weight room in Cameron?

[Ima Facultiwyfe]

We really, really needed McClure. And if you're going to ask Jon to point, you gotta give him a break someplace. It wears a guy out trying to do it ALL.....that is be a point guard and a shooting guard at the same time. No wonder he missed some freethrows.

That's just what I think, but I'm just somebody's grandmother.:o

Love, Ima

PS. Bobby Knight is the first commentator who has taught me anything since Al McGuire. (But, he still has to stop calling us the Dukes!):rolleyes:

[Johnny Jungle]

Also what did you guys think of St. John's? Any players stand out to you? Think they could make a move in the Big East next season? Curious to hear an unbiased opinion.

[devildownunder]

You definitely need to play Williams a lot more. He is going to be a player. I've also always felt Paulas has been overrated as he doesn't really do anything particularly well.

One guy who I'm really surprised who hasn't gotten more burn for you is Lance Thomas. The kid has good athletic ability much better than other guys on your team, he grabs a ton of offensive boards(my favorite stat for big men), and he is really efficient scoring the ball. Also how has that kid not added size in 3 years? Do you not have a weight room in Cameron?

Some guys can pack on muscle, some can't. Maybe someone with more proxy than I do can tell you more.

[jv001]

Also what did you guys think of St. John's? Any players stand out to you? Think they could make a move in the Big East next season? Curious to hear an unbiased opinion.

Kennedy is a good player and I was impressed by your hard play till the horn sounded. Things could be looking up. Go Duke!

[Virginian]

I think we have to throw out the last six minutes when we ask ourselves what kind of game we played. We were up 15 when we went into the "prevent defense" and slopped our way through to the end, giving up twice as many points as we scored, which included missing half our free throws in that period. if we had made the percentage of free throws the last couple of minutes that you would expect from Singler, Scheyer, etc., we'd have coasted to an easy victory.

But up until that point, Williams, Singler, Henderson, Thomas and Scheyer had good games and we held St. J. to a reasonable number of points (until their "run" at the end). Plumlee had some good minutes; Paulus and Zoubek did not. Nolan looked good on defense (very active and hard nosed as usual) but wasn't a factor offensively (no surprise given his limited number of minutes).

It was an okay win, not a great one, but that's what we needed.

But we'll have to see what comes of the lineup changes we saw tonight. Who knows what K will come up with for the Wake game!

[DevilCastDownfromDurham]

Just my very unbiased opinion but I think your defense is much softer than advertised. I thought this years Duke team was supposed to be "tougher" than last years.

Please don't confuse the D you saw tonight with the D we were playing for much of the season and has gone M.I.A. When people were praising our D it was praiseworthy (holding opponents to around 50ppg). Now it's absent and people aren't praising it any more.

This is my own take, but I think Nolan is letting the things he can't do (be a PG) get in the way of the things he can (spearhead our D). I think the staff may want to consider sitting down with Nolan, apologizing for putting him in such a tough spot (asking a guy who's never been a PG to take over on this stage), and redefining his role.

This team would be much improved if Nolan could be what Dockery was his Sr season: a stopper in the backcourt who occasionally gives us opportunistic threes. If he can also break down D at times with drives, that's a great bonus. If he eventually finds himself seeing the court and making good passes, even better. But for now Nolan needs to see himself as a success doing the things he can do, not a failure for trying to do things he can't (yet). I'd take a Billy King/Jackie Manuel-type player on this team any day and I think K would as well.

[Bob Green]

Also what did you guys think of St. John's? Any players stand out to you? Think they could make a move in the Big East next season? Curious to hear an unbiased opinion.

Coach Knight had plenty of positive comments on Kennedy so I'll defer to his opinion. St. John's could clearly make a move in the Big East next year as they are a young team that started five sophomores tonight.

[moonpie23]

there was good and bad....it seemed that ewill gave us some flashes of yet-to-come.....I thought he wanted to TRY to take over the game, but was more worried about making mistakes than showing his fire..

plum served up some fire also.....i liked that.
..

the bad? i won't name names (smith-zoubs) but with all the change-ups going on, we can't make too much of those negatives...we've all seen positives from both those guys..

oh yeah POINT!!! McClure = GLUE.... we missed him tonight..

so who do we face sunday night? the WAKE that lost to Ga Tech? the wake that lost to STATE? the wake that beat unc?


or the wake that played us dead even and caught us on the final play?


should be very interesting...

[Uncle Drew]

You definitely need to play Williams a lot more. He is going to be a player. I've also always felt Paulas has been overrated as he doesn't really do anything particularly well.

One guy who I'm really surprised who hasn't gotten more burn for you is Lance Thomas. The kid has good athletic ability much better than other guys on your team, he grabs a ton of offensive boards(my favorite stat for big men), and he is really efficient scoring the ball. Also how has that kid not added size in 3 years? Do you not have a weight room in Cameron?

Yeah Duke has state of the art facilities with trainers and nutritionists out the wazoo. If anyone has wanted to see Zoubek and Thomas bulk up since they arrived at Duke it's me. But I also know all to well how hard it is for some of us to gain weight. Yeah, I can hear it now. Someone is saying, "I wish I had your problem", as they cram the entire Twinkie in their mouth and wash it down with chocolate milkshake. But a lot of it has to do with bone strcuture as to whether you can or can not gain weight. I've been wirey all my life and at points in my life when I worked out regularly I was 7% body fat and could flex any part of my body that wasn't bone or organs. Some of us just get to a point where we peak and it is VERY difficult to add mass to our frame. That's one of the many dangers of steroids, they will allow you to go past that "peak" and add mass. But when your frame is not designed to be carrying that much solid weight around it can lead to stress of bones, joints and ligaments.

[Sixthman]

You have no idea where the enthusiasm from posters about Williams and Plumlee comes from??

What I said was that I saw nothing to justify the comments of some posters regarding Plumee in the St. John's game. He had a different spot in the rotation, but nothing to suggest his role would or should expand going forward.

[roywhite]

Coach Knight had plenty of positive comments on Kennedy so I'll defer to his opinion. St. John's could clearly make a move in the Big East next year as they are a young team that started five sophomores tonight.

Kennedy was impressive; he was a high school teammate of DeJuan Blair at Pittsburgh Schenley, where they won a state championship in very impressive fashion. I'm surprised that the "crack ESPN research team" did not tip off Brent to talk about the Blair/Kennedy connection.

[Scorp4me]

Glad to see McClure appreciated for the glue he is.

Paulus has gone from three year starter to bench to hero starter and now gets 5 minutes? Yet I haven't heard a single disparagining comment from him. If you ask me the kid deserves a little more credit than he gets.

And while I'm at it the credit Smith gets is a bit confusing. As someone else posted the fact that Smith doesn't look like a good PG to some of us doesn't mean he isn't a good player for Duke. Yet everyone continues to clamor for him at point.

The moving of Scheyer to point seems to have been a good move tonight, hope it continues to be a good thing. As others have pointed ACC PG's are definately another animal entirely for him to play against. He's a savy player though and I think he might just be alright.

Williams definately took advantage of his time tonight. Definately deserves to be fighting for time with the other guards. Who knew you could actually improve in practice. From reading these boards I thought you had to have game time.

As I stated earlier we are very strong 2-4. At the point we have Scheyer, Smith, and Paulus trying it who have all proved to be better shooting guards. Inside our best option currently seems to be Thomas, who would probably play better out from under the basket.

We have alot of talented players. In fact it makes makes it appear as if we should do better than we should we have so many. We do not, however, have talented players at every position. There's no J Wiliams or Boozer out there. Heck there's not even a S Williams and a JJ to make Paulus look like the PG he was when he set the school record for freshman with 15 assist. Blame the coaches if you want, recruiting certainly is the cause. But that we have done as well as we have is quite impressive.

But don't get me wrong...I wish he had recruited another Williams and Boozer =)

[Johnny Jungle]

Kennedy was impressive; he was a high school teammate of DeJuan Blair at Pittsburgh Schenley, where they won a state championship in very impressive fashion. I'm surprised that the "crack ESPN research team" did not tip off Brent to talk about the Blair/Kennedy connection.

I was a little disappointed in general by the lack of preparation by Knight and Musburger. Certainly I expected a more Duke oriented broadcast but they didn't know one thing about anyone at St. John's. I didn't even here the rhetoric of notes provided by our SID.

At one point Knight went mute when talking about Quincy Roberts guarding Paulas because he didn't know his name and even hesitated to say his number(10).

What really upset me though is the backhanded comments on Sportscenter right before the game started about how bad St. John's was and how terrible of a game it was going to be to watch. I felt it was completely unnecessary since you are talking about amateur athletes not pros and if I was ESPN I wouldn't want my anchors discouraging people from watching a nationally televised game either. Also what made it even more hurtful was the fact it came from Brian Kenney who is a St. John's grad. :rolleyes:

[Johnny Jungle]

Yeah Duke has state of the art facilities with trainers and nutritionists out the wazoo. If anyone has wanted to see Zoubek and Thomas bulk up since they arrived at Duke it's me. But I also know all to well how hard it is for some of us to gain weight. Yeah, I can hear it now. Someone is saying, "I wish I had your problem", as they cram the entire Twinkie in their mouth and wash it down with chocolate milkshake. But a lot of it has to do with bone strcuture as to whether you can or can not gain weight. I've been wirey all my life and at points in my life when I worked out regularly I was 7% body fat and could flex any part of my body that wasn't bone or organs. Some of us just get to a point where we peak and it is VERY difficult to add mass to our frame. That's one of the many dangers of steroids, they will allow you to go past that "peak" and add mass. But when your frame is not designed to be carrying that much solid weight around it can lead to stress of bones, joints and ligaments.

I was being slightly sarcastic in my previous response ;)

Although I do think Thomas could add more to his frame and it would benefit him tremendously. Then again you might be right. Look at Tyrus Thomas the dude is still 215lbs soaking wet and is doing alright in the NBA.

[Gooch]

I'm a bit disappointed in the breakdown at the end, but I think it was my fault as I started composing my highly positive post with about 10 minutes to go in the game ("good win going away...great game by EW, etc."). Amazing the weauxfgods could find me even though I was watching on DVR.

I'm glad K shook up the line-up in this game...I feel like we could have gotten a better one-game result from the same line-up we've been playing for the whole season, but tonight we still got a win and got to see a number of different player combinations. I felt uncomfortable with the offensive pace in the first half, but I realize now it was just different than we've seen this season. Coach Knight said Scheyer had no turnovers in the first half...I do like him with the ball in his hands at the start of the offense.

It really is a pleasure to listen to Coach Knight with color commentary--I find myself really appreciating basketball. He seemed to think we played pretty well for most of the game, so I'll take his experienced opinion (and non-Duke-blue-blood) and go with it.

I'm really excited to see how we respond against Wake in front of the Crazies!

[DukeCO2009]

What I said was that I saw nothing to justify the comments of some posters regarding Plumee in the St. John's game. He had a different spot in the rotation, but nothing to suggest his role would or should expand going forward.

Seriously? Miles looked great out there tonight. Zoubek? Not so much. I think we would benefit hugely from giving Miles some of Brian's minutes just to see what he can do with them. He got caught guarding a wing player on switch and ended up not only sticking him, but stuffing his jumper. He made a really heady slip to the basket on the play when Nolan hit him for the layup. He hit the boards hard. What more do you want from the guy? Yeah, he had three fouls, but give the kid a break. Zoubek went 0/0 in 3 more minutes than it took Miles to go 4/3. You be the judge, but I think Miles needs to see some of Z's time.

[Lord Ash]

Enjoyable game. A few thoughts;

* Love Bob Knight. Between his sharp insights, acidic wit, and fantastic stories (the Cosell one was funny, interesting, and poignant all at once) he is just the best on TV. However... could he have called us "The Dukes" any more often?

* Anyone notice on that Singler drive about 2:20 into the second... as Email came over into the post, not only did Singler wave him off, but Paulus on the bench also waved him off?

* Very nice to see Elliot and Miles get some minutes. I have definitely been in the "Give the young guys minutes" camp, and while I realize some of it was because Dave was unavailable, I still think these minutes, regardless of the stats (good for Elliot, not as superb for Miles) will go a LONG way towards forging a stronger team in the future.

* Speaking of Elliot, it was very refreshing to see him out there early, make two quick blunders, and not get yanked. There is something to be said for allowing a young guy to get his mistakes in and still grow. In my own years in D1 sports and the pros, I've seen a lot of young guys who get the time grow past early fumbles and become important contributors, and I hope Elliot is moving that way because he can bring a lot to the table for our team.

* Speaking of Miles, despite his stats being underwhelming, it was nice to see some of his leaping ability, particularly on a block near the end where he went up for the fake, came back down, and got back up in time to block the shot.

* Loved seeing Jon at the point. Very funny timing, too; just earlier today around lunch I was talking with a fellow former Tent #1 guy and we were discussing next year, and I put forward the idea that Jon would take the primary point responsibilities while they moved Nolan more over to the 2. Considered posting about it, but figured a thread about next year might not be favorably looked upon... who knew it would actually be a thread about THIS year? Jon is just so smart with the ball, it actually seems like a no-brainer to put it in his hands. Plus his length and D are fantastic.

* Speaking of Jon, he and Gerald have a great connection out there. They look to each other a lot, both in play and after the whistle. Maybe a bit of a roommate connection, maybe a bit more. They really seem to enjoy each other.

* Speaking of Gerald; glad to hear someone else mention his carping to the refs on a missed call. He has a small tendency to do that that I have noticed previously; he really should ditch it. It hasn't really hurt us yet, but mentally it is just a flaw.

* Brian seems to be pretty deep in the bench, and unfortunately didn't show a lot of cause to get higher up. Wish he would just stay between his man and the basket and get those hands in the air.

* Loved seeing Chris Duhon in the house! And speaking of Chris and the house, I thought his crib as featured on Blue Planet was pretty understated. I guess a lot of these guys don't spend a lot of time home and so don't get it too lavish... and anyway, he is young, he has time:)

* That movie with Nick Cage and the end of the world is only PG-13? Maybe I am a post 9/11 softie, but just the commercials seemed R to me.

* Some very chippy play tonight; a lot of woofing. Kyle really got CREAMED on that one screen down low.

* Anyone else notice the girl behind the announcers in the first half. She was so happy to be on TV but trying SO hard not to make it obvious. She was a bit different than that kid a few games back who kept ducking his head into the shot while his dad kept pulling him back up and scolding him!

* Lance has become a lot more vocal, and I really like to see that. Heck of a dunk there too... and that pass from his tush; wowzers!

* Maybe the rest of this year will be a bit more enjoyable now that some of us have more realistic expectations, rather than over-the-moon type stuff?

* Lastly, I liked that we seemed a lot more patient on offense, looked to drive more, and stopped chucking up 3s. We had seemed to settle into a lazy offense during our recent slump, an offense that has made some Duke fans cringe over the years, where we simply toss up 3s. This team seems to feature a lot of good 3 point shooters, but the reality is we are not as good as we seem (or even COULD be) so it was nice to see us move away from that and try to score in a bit more of an old fashioned manner.

Good game, even if it got tight at the end. Let's keep it up.

[Devil07]

Although the D was not stellar tonight, I think that this game is a step in the right direction for us. Sure there were some kinks but this is the first time that this lineup has played together extensively in a game. I would expect that there would be some adjustments, but I do like its potential. I think that having Dave back would also help with some of the lapses in help defense and particularly with some rebounding concerns. Most of all though, I liked the way that we generally valued the ball tonight. In recent games ill advised shots and turnovers that lead to run-outs have just been momentum killers. You saw it tonight with Nolan's rushed jumper that lead to a St. John's layup. Having Jon out there allows us to control the pace of the game more and to cut down on the other team's easy baskets. I like the move.

But does anyone have any additional info on Kyle and Dave?? We're going to need both of them if we're going to be able to handle Wake's size.

[calltheobvious]

I came here expecting people to be kvetching about the last five minutes and the FG% defense. But I didn't expect the overall mood to be this somber. Duke needed a win desperately, and they got it on the road, with an entirely reconfigured rotation, without arguably their best defender.

Some things I liked and some mitigating circumstances/anomalies:

1) K and Williams working through turnovers on Duke's first two possessions. I was bracing myself for the quick hook there, but it says a lot about both men that Williams played through the tough start to have the kind of game he did.

2) Plumlee, despite a couple of bad fouls, had three boards in seven minutes, in addition to the nice up-and-under.

3) The patience and shot selection the offense displayed before trying to take the air out of the ball. Off the top of my head I remember only two bad shots all night. The team was 7/15 from deep, with virtually every one coming within the flow of the offense. Tonight's offensive performance was very solid overall, regardless of the competition.

4) G continues to play at a high level. Was anyone else unaware that he'd pushed himself over 75% from the line on the season? He was an outstanding 11/13 tonight, and he should have been something out of 17, since he was hit on the elbow on two first-half jumpers with no call. He's unlikely to be victimized again twice in the same game, as that's the type of play that will make the weekly training DVD for the ACC officiating staff.

5) Scheyer had zero turnovers in 37 minutes! To play as much point as he did tonight and put up that number is tremendous, again regardless of the competition. He was also 2-5 from 3, continuing an uptick in his perimeter shooting. As someone noted earlier, if he continues to play heavy minutes at the point, his FT-shooting is likely to fall off a little bit, but if plays 35 minutes and only turns it over a time or two, Duke makes a substantial gain on the exchange.

6) Singler was 5-6 from the field and 4-5 from three. I don't think he forced any shots, which is huge. He turned it over 5 times, including 2 really bad ones. That's not going to happen often. At all.

7) Lance Thomas is really finding himself. I think he's only going to get better this season.

8) Yes, the defFG% looks bad on the surface, but the 18 turnovers forced means that when adjusted for efficiency it's not nearly so bad. Further, the staff knew that there were going to be some growing pains with Williams playing so many minutes, and seem to have decided to try to clamp down on 3-pt opportunities for SJU--they only allowed three attempts. I just can't get that worked up about the defense given that the new line-up was made newer by McClure's absence.

I'm not blind to the struggles of Smith, Paulus, and Zoubek tonight, but I'm going to trust in those guys and their coaches for now, because there's just too much else to be energized about. Duke has a coach who has demonstrated some serious humility in making a voluntary--as opposed to 2001--decision to try something completely new in the last third of the season. That and a big chunk of the initial results are exciting, and I suspect the team feels the same way.

Let's enjoy the journey.

[gwwilburn]

Not the win I was looking for, but I am pleased. It seemed Duke realized that they had a comfortable lead fairly early in the second half (8 min left?) and put the game on cruise control. It kind of bit them in the end. This is a good building block towards the next couple of weeks. And remember. A huge (30 pt) win against St. John's after two straight losses did not cure all our ills last year, did it. We still have a ways to go.

[beltwayBD]

Loved seeing the Devils win tonight!

I had taught (Adjunct faculty) the previous three Wednesday, all ended up Duke losses (Wake, Clemson, Carolina). So I was overjoyed to get to see them play tonight.

1. Loved the minutes from E-Will. Great moves.

2. Loved the minutes from Lance. He still pump fakes too much though.

3. Loved the minutes from Miles. I'd definitely put him in the rotation over Zoub, though I like the guy. 4 pts, 3 rebounds, and 2 blocks in just 8 minutes.

4. Is there anything to the "Five Forward" (Knight) rotation? Fun to watch tonight.

5. We do so much better when we try to penetrate and draw the fouls (against less effective defense...). But when need to adapt better to a 2-3 zone that cuts off the penetration -- e.g., more movement inside the perimeter from Kyle, Gerald, and maybe Miles and Elliot as well.

6. Go Duke!

[Bluedog]

Overall, not a bad game, not a great game. We'll need to pick it up a level on the defensive end if we want to beat Wake on Sunday. Thoughts:

1.) I liked the starting lineup switch up, but I don't expect Coach K to keep it that way. But I'd like to see (along with most other posters, it seems), E-Will get more minutes and have Scheyer play more minutes at the point. It's nice having FOUR players on the court that can drive and create their own shot (E-Will, Scheyer, G, and Singler).

2.) Positive things from E-Will, Plumlee, and Thomas. But, let's be frank, St. John's isn't the most imposing opponent. I think E-Will is certainly ready on the offensive end (as long as he stays "under control" when driving; he seems to have a propensity to get charge calls a la early DeMarcus, but he avoided it in this game), but I still don't think his pressure D is nearly as good as some others, namely Nolan. While Nolan has been in a funk on the offensive end as of late with regards to shooting and turnovers, he certainly has the best on the ball defense on our team, and it's much better than E-Will's.

3.) We missed McClure's defense. I wasn't really enthused about our D, especially at the end when St. John's drived at will. The first half we did force a lot of turnovers, though, so that was nice to see. Hopefully, McClure gets better from his illness by Sunday. We need him against a much taller Wake team for D and rebounds.

4.) I thought the commentating team didn't have their best showing tonight. I like Coach Knight and Brent Musburger normally, but it seemed to be an off night. It sounded like Musburger was sick or something and showed no enthusiasm throughout the game. Knight also went off-topic more than I'd like, called us the Dukes, kept saying we have five forwards in the game when Scheyer and E-Will were in the game (can they really be considered forwards? Even saying G is a forward is a stretch, although I realize he is a G/F; maybe I misunderstood and he was just saying they were playing like a five forward lineup, not that they were actually considered forwards), and was kind of repetitive and almost too complimentary of us when I didn't think we deserved it. Musburger was too quiet and the team just sounded monotonous. Coach Knight had some nuggets of great insight, but compared to other broadcasts I've heard from him, it wasn't nearly as enjoyable for me. I still hope to see him do our future games though.

5.) The crowd sounded dead. Pro arenas never really have the aura of college ones. ;) It's nice to take a trip up to NYC though every year. I like it, but I'd like it more if St. John's was a stronger team.

I'm happy with the win. Saw lots of positive things, but I think we'll have to play much better down the stretch (esp on D) if we want to make some noise the rest of the season...

[bjornolf]

This game went about how I expected. I thought K would mess around with the lineups and play more guys and let some guys rest. I also thought he'd do a lot of tinkering, and let the freshmen play more. I wasn't sure about the Scheyer at PG experiment, but I wasn't surprised by it, considering the opponent. Because of these things, and the fight SJU has always shown, I also expected an ugly, sloppy game.

I thought the biggest success of the night was Scheyer at point. He ran the offense well and kept a good head on his shoulders. He drove the lane well and got to the line. He also didn't turn the ball over. However, these weren't ACC guards he was facing. We'll see if K continues this going forward, and how it works.

I thought Williams looked pretty good, but more in comparison to the guys he was replacing than in a vacuum. I liked his offense (except the two turnovers on Duke's first two possessions), and his rebounding. His athleticism is VERY encouraging. However, some of his defense was painful. He kept getting in guys' faces only to let them blow by him. And he had some trouble on switches and help. He'll learn, and this was a GREAT game to get him some tape to look at, but I don't know how much we'll use him in the next few games (maybe against Maryland). I might be wrong though, as I said, since he DID look a lot better than Smith and Paulus have the last few games.

Same with Plumlee. He is clearly a better option than Zoubek at this point. I love Z, but he's just too slow to have poor footwork, which he continues to exhibit. Plumlee is at least athletic enough to recover when he makes a mistake. He's a more natural scorer and uses his size better too. Against more athletic ACC post men that just use up Z, Plumlee will get fouls but will have a more positive impact, IMHO. In a limited role (bigger as he gains experience), I think he could be useful going forward. He could be a force in a year or two if we develop him properly. I think he could use a little more lower body strength, too.

Someone pointed out that we "held" St. John's to three shots behind the arc? That's because we played such tight (in a bad way) on the ball defense at the arc that they just drove by us and made layups all night long. I don't consider that a positive in this case. If we'd held them to 40% shooting and done that, I'd be happy. But they shot 54% for the game overall. They're NOT a good 3pt. shooting team (30.5% for the season). Only Horne takes a lot and hits over 33% (36%). They've shot 347 to our 510. Horne's taken about 10 more than our most prolific shooter from behind the arc at around 125 (we have Scheyer at 117 and Singler at 116), but their second most prolific outside shooter is about at the same level as our fourth (Henderson) at about 80. We did NOT need to play that tight at the arc tonight, except maybe on Horne. Yes, they only shot three from behind the arc, but that's mostly because our inside defense was porous to the drive. I think a lot of that was a split between McClure not being there and Williams' defensive troubles.

I thought Lance played a GREAT game for him. That fake to the dunk was just sweet when he posterized that guy, and that pass to Williams in the first half was incredible. Brett Favre would have been proud of that pass on his best day. He shot a high percentage and rebounded well too.

This game was what it was. I don't think it was overly encouraging, but I don't think it was anything to worry about either, especially without McClure. That guy is more important to this team than many of his fans even realize. JMHO.

I LOVED that we got the W though. We needed that, no matter the score. SJU played really tough, so it wasn't an automatic. I'll give them props for that. We definitely took their best shot. I thought they played better than in the other few games I've followed this year.

[Lord Ash]

Funny, in the conversation I had earlier today about next year and maybe playing Jon at point, we also discussed the fact that we might miss Dave McClure a lot more than we expect. Then again, we have a few big talented guys coming in who might pick up the slack a bit;)

[DU Band Prez 88]

Man, we look like we don't know how to win. Nolan has taken 3 steps back. We just appear to have zero confidence right now. The last 4 minutes were pathetic.

This team is an egg right now.

Come on, give me a break - an "egg"? Are you joking? Forget the lousy last 5 minutes, they won the game! Do you think that Duke was somehow bad tonight? OF COURSE the coaches are going to address the sloppy play during the last 5 minutes and defensive problems in practice before they play Wake on Sunday. Look out for a very sharp performance on both ends of the court and a big Duke win - they won't look like an "egg" then. Are you planning to even watch them?

[bjornolf]

I think he meant fragile, like psychologically, not weak or bad or soft.

[micah75]

4.) I thought the commentating team didn't have their best showing tonight. I like Coach Knight and Brent Musburger normally, but it seemed to be an off night. It sounded like Musburger was sick or something and showed no enthusiasm throughout the game. Knight also went off-topic more than I'd like, called us the Dukes, kept saying we have five forwards in the game when Scheyer and E-Will were in the game (can they really be considered forwards? Even saying G is a forward is a stretch, although I realize he is a G/F; maybe I misunderstood and he was just saying they were playing like a five forward lineup, not that they were actually considered forwards), and was kind of repetitive and almost too complimentary of us when I didn't think we deserved it. Musburger was too quiet and the team just sounded monotonous. Coach Knight had some nuggets of great insight, but compared to other broadcasts I've heard from him, it wasn't nearly as enjoyable for me. I still hope to see him do our future games though.

I seem to vaguely recall Coach Knight in a press conference maybe 15 some odd years ago chastising a reporter's question with the counter "What the $^#@ is a point guard?!" It appeared to me, at the time anyway, that he was so old-school that "point guard" was simply too avant-garde for him to use in regular conversation. Playmakers maybe, but not point guards. Anyway, I'm guessing that he considered the Duke players to be forwards due to their height, being 6'4" or taller?

Although they seemed to have an off-night and I agree about Brent's lack of gusto, one nugget I enjoyed hearing was about how Coach K shut down the ACC's POY John Roche in the NIT in 1969. I never knew that. Held him to only 7 (?) points in a 59-45 victory. Not bad.

[devildownunder]

That launched-full-court-while-falling-down pass from Thomas has to a leading contender for play of the year. Great job by Williams to make sure he finished it off properly, too.

I saw only highlights of this game but Thomas' confidence all of a sudden seems sky high. Let's hope that holds up this weekend, when the level of competition goes up.

[FireOgilvie]

I re-watched this game and broke it down and took notes, mostly focusing on defense. This is long, but try and bear with me, because I know what I'm talking about :D. Our offense was really solid throughout the game and we didn't take many "dumb" shots out of the offense. I also liked the fact that we didn't rely on 3 pointers.

Given that, I have to say that St. John's is really not a very good team on defense. They completely lack any intensity and they aren't particularly physical. There is a reason they've lost 13 of their last 16... and that reason is defense. They play at a slow pace, so I don't think it's particularly obvious (i.e. they don't give up 90 pts/game). Their offense was actually pretty good, especially in the 2nd half against us. They only had 4 out of their 18 TOs in the 2nd half.

I think Duke's guards were really good today on defense (Williams, Scheyer, and Smith). They were rarely/maybe never beaten on the outside off-the-dribble. The SJ's guards made almost zero attempt at driving against our guards, which was probably a good strategy. Instead, they waited for switches on players like Singler, Thomas, and Zoubek and really took advantage of that (blowing right by them). McClure could have been helpful for us today with his on-the-ball defense. Singler and Thomas were beaten multiple times on defensive switches, and neither one of them are very good at recovering (blocking the shot). It is in this case that our lack of a big man is very apparent.

I can't stress this enough, but when Singler and Thomas are on the floor together, we are incredibly vulnerable on defense. Thomas makes no attempt to defend the interior as a "center" (he just doesn't have the size, length, or strength), and instead Singler takes this role. This has been the case for almost the entire year, but Singler just can't stop men driving to the basket. He almost never makes contact, which is good because he doesn't want to foul, but it leaves us very susceptible to dribble penetration. Singler is not a shot-blocking threat on-the-ball, which basically means that anyone that can force their way into the interior (through defensive switches, which happens every single time) can have free reign in the interior. Wake, UNC, and Clemson used our weak interior defense to their advantage to beat us (UNC obviously with dribble penetration by Lawson).

Now, all is not lost. There was a reason why Duke had the best defense in the country up until ACC play, and that reason was the defensive presence of Brian Zoubek. Look at Z's plus/minus... it's the best on the team over 40 minutes, almost all due to his strong start against fairly weak competition. Tall/strong centers completely change the game. However, Z is obviously not achieving the same level of success against ACC opponents. This comes down to 2 factors - bigger/stronger big men and our style of defense. Z is not capable of guarding basically anyone outside of about 7 feet from the basket. He is too slow and gets beaten off-the-dribble or on a backdoor alley-oop (see Tyler Hansbrough). For some reason, Coach K chooses to use Zoubek as a regular defender in the Duke defense. He regularly guards his man 20 feet from the basket. This puts Zoubek in a position to fail. Z is fantastic at altering shots when he just stands in the paint with his arms outstretched and he rebounds at a very high rate. I know it sounds simplistic, but there is a reason why players like Hasheem Thabeet (who has very few actual basketball skills) can completely change the game. You can't teach size!!! Miles Plumlee is 6'10" with a long reach and fantastic athleticism. He's a better shot-blocker than Zoubek and can make up for mistakes with his athleticism. Yes, he makes silly freshman fouls, but like Zoubek, he can completely change the face of our defense given the right opportunity. A big center also improves the offense (it allows for easy points if the defense cheats off of your man and spreads the floor for penetration, which is huge for a slashing team like Duke).

Going forward, it is absolutely imperative that Coach K take advantage of the two big men he frequently keeps on the bench. The reason Duke struggled in the past few years was because of defense on both the point guard and interior. Both Plumlee and Zoubek have emerged as at least serviceable role players in the interior. I hope to see more of them in the future; Duke's success depends on it.

[Oriole Way]

Going forward, it is absolutely imperative that Coach K take advantage of the two big men he frequently keeps on the bench. The reason Duke struggled in the past few years was because of defense on both the point guard and interior. Both Plumlee and Zoubek have emerged as at least serviceable role players in the interior. I hope to see more of them in the future; Duke's success depends on it.

I agree with your points and observations, but you conveniently overlooked one of the biggest developments in this game: Scheyer playing point guard, and playing it effectively.

You and I disagreed strongly about Jon's ability to play the point a couple weeks ago. Do you still think he can't?

I am preparing a post which further clarifies my case for why Scheyer needs to play the point. Would be interested to hear if you've changed your stance.

[mgtr]

I re-watched this game and broke it down and took notes, mostly focusing on defense. This is long, but try and bear with me, because I know what I'm talking about :D. Our offense was really solid throughout the game and we didn't take many "dumb" shots out of the offense. I also liked the fact that we didn't rely on 3 pointers.

Given that, I have to say that St. John's is really not a very good team on defense. They completely lack any intensity and they aren't particularly physical. There is a reason they've lost 13 of their last 16... and that reason is defense. They play at a slow pace, so I don't think it's particularly obvious (i.e. they don't give up 90 pts/game). Their offense was actually pretty good, especially in the 2nd half against us. They only had 4 out of their 18 TOs in the 2nd half.

I think Duke's guards were really good today on defense (Williams, Scheyer, and Smith). They were rarely/maybe never beaten on the outside off-the-dribble. The SJ's guards made almost zero attempt at driving against our guards, which was probably a good strategy. Instead, they waited for switches on players like Singler, Thomas, and Zoubek and really took advantage of that (blowing right by them). McClure could have been helpful for us today with his on-the-ball defense. Singler and Thomas were beaten multiple times on defensive switches, and neither one of them are very good at recovering (blocking the shot). It is in this case that our lack of a big man is very apparent.

I can't stress this enough, but when Singler and Thomas are on the floor together, we are incredibly vulnerable on defense. Thomas makes no attempt to defend the interior as a "center" (he just doesn't have the size, length, or strength), and instead Singler takes this role. This has been the case for almost the entire year, but Singler just can't stop men driving to the basket. He almost never makes contact, which is good because he doesn't want to foul, but it leaves us very susceptible to dribble penetration. Singler is not a shot-blocking threat on-the-ball, which basically means that anyone that can force their way into the interior (through defensive switches, which happens every single time) can have free reign in the interior. Wake, UNC, and Clemson used our weak interior defense to their advantage to beat us (UNC obviously with dribble penetration by Lawson).

Now, all is not lost. There was a reason why Duke had the best defense in the country up until ACC play, and that reason was the defensive presence of Brian Zoubek. Look at Z's plus/minus... it's the best on the team over 40 minutes, almost all due to his strong start against fairly weak competition. Tall/strong centers completely change the game. However, Z is obviously not achieving the same level of success against ACC opponents. This comes down to 2 factors - bigger/stronger big men and our style of defense. Z is not capable of guarding basically anyone outside of about 7 feet from the basket. He is too slow and gets beaten off-the-dribble or on a backdoor alley-oop (see Tyler Hansbrough). For some reason, Coach K chooses to use Zoubek as a regular defender in the Duke defense. He regularly guards his man 20 feet from the basket. This puts Zoubek in a position to fail. Z is fantastic at altering shots when he just stands in the paint with his arms outstretched and he rebounds at a very high rate. I know it sounds simplistic, but there is a reason why players like Hasheem Thabeet (who has very few actual basketball skills) can completely change the game. You can't teach size!!! Miles Plumlee is 6'10" with a long reach and fantastic athleticism. He's a better shot-blocker than Zoubek and can make up for mistakes with his athleticism. Yes, he makes silly freshman fouls, but like Zoubek, he can completely change the face of our defense given the right opportunity. A big center also improves the offense (it allows for easy points if the defense cheats off of your man and spreads the floor for penetration, which is huge for a slashing team like Duke).

Going forward, it is absolutely imperative that Coach K take advantage of the two big men he frequently keeps on the bench. The reason Duke struggled in the past few years was because of defense on both the point guard and interior. Both Plumlee and Zoubek have emerged as at least serviceable role players in the interior. I hope to see more of them in the future; Duke's success depends on it.

You make some excellent points here, and I agree with most of them. I have posted earlier that I do not understand why when Zoubek comes in we don't switch to sort of zone or other junk defense which leaves Zoubek under the rim. He can disrupt things under the rim, but not if he is a "regular" defender (switching and ending up out of the paint).

[Delaware]

Coach K went about halfway towards the tact I suggested in the Fast and Loose thread.... and got some of the results. I still believe that something is physically wrong with Nolan or his confidence is shot and McClure was not available, but I think the way to commit and play the rest of the season is with Scheyer at the point most of the time and Paulus and Z not on the floor much at all... play long, quick, press, trap, run, have some fun.

[dukestheheat]

The goal for Duke coming in was to get a win; lesser goals were to get more guys playing time. We accomplished both and this had to be a new starting point for this team.

Though we beat a team that had, up until the game last night, lost their last 5 games, this can be a new beginning for Duke this year, I believe.

I will not read too much into this win for Duke, but I am so thrilled to see Plumlee and Williams out there! Also, we won the game versus a reeling team that had, up until last night, lost their last 5 games coming into the Duke game, by just 7 points. That margin of victory, at least to me, shows that Duke is looking for some serious answers that not only have to do with who plays for Duke at what time, but also for heart and effort.

We have Superman as coach and I trust in his ability to get us back to playing where we know we can play.

Let's go Duke!

dukestheheat.

[Uncle Drew]

You make some excellent points here, and I agree with most of them. I have posted earlier that I do not understand why when Zoubek comes in we don't switch to sort of zone or other junk defense which leaves Zoubek under the rim. He can disrupt things under the rim, but not if he is a "regular" defender (switching and ending up out of the paint).

Going back to Boozer and continuing with Shelden Duke has had the power forward / whomever is guarding the center try and "hedge" the point guard back out towards midcourt to disrupt opposing defenses. This idea worked fine for the most part because Boozer and Shelden were mobile enough to hedge and then retreat to pick up the center. I gotta agree with FireOgilvie that BZ is just not quick enough to hedge and then get back near the basket. It's not his fault he's not a world class sprinter and I have to agree with FireOgilvie using him to hedge is exploiting his weaknesses instead of using his strengths. BZ's presence out there is disruptive on defense and on offesnse in a half court set he has improved his passing and rebounding. Heck I'll even go one step further and say when he does get it in his mind to make an offensive move himself the shots don't look bad, they just don't fall with regularity.

Honestly a whole lot could be made out of the St Johns game, and a lot of us could be reading things into who played how much as the direction the team is going. I may be off my freakin' rocker, and that's a fairly safe assumption 90% of the time. But as perplexed as we were for answers after the Clemson, UNC and BC games I honestly think the coaching staff was too. (Though I'm not sure any of them especially Coach K would ever admit it.) I realize this was a Big East team and you respect every opponent, yada yada yada. But I can't help but think the game was looked at as a chance to try some ideas and players out in various roles against a lesser opponent. Sure the ending was sloppy / ugly. And players A, B & C didn't play as much, while players D, E & F could / should have been used in other more suitable roles. I just view the situation as a team slowly bleeding to death as the season wore on and Coach K was looking for some ways to help stop the bleeding. Frankly I've seen this team have good offensive games and be lax on D this season. And at the start of the year they were great on D but the offense didn't gush forth. Against Maryland I think we saw what this team could be if they put 40 minutes of offense and defense together. But right now I think the importance of a win, ANY win is more beneficial than the final score or which player did or didn't do whatever.

[Matches]

I loved the changes, thought they worked extremely well. The only "tweak" I'd suggest is having Paulus on the floor in endgame situations rather than Williams, as I think he'd provide better ballhandling/ FT shooting. Hopefully Dave will be back in there shortly, perhaps in place of Zoubek. Plumlee looked terrific for the backup center role - nothing too flashy but he contributed, gave a few fouls. Nice job all around. The score may not show it but usually it takes a new rotation awhile to gel. I think this configuration will get better and better as it plays more together.

[NSDukeFan]

Scheyer cant seem to drive and pull up for a shot, he has to lean into his man and it usually results in a miss or a difficult shot.


I think Scheyer leans into his man to draw contact as he is one of the best, if not the best, at getting to the line on the team. He is at his best when he is making moves towards the basket to compliment his shooting.

[whereinthehellami]

I haven't seen Duke struggle like this in awhile. ST. Johns is not good and they almost beat us. If we had played any ACC team, we would have lost.

St. Johns shot better than Duke did across the board. St. Johns is a poor shooting team. Duke's offense and defense is struggling. Duke got out rebounded by a smallish St. Johns team and Duke didn't have a player with more than 4 rebounds. I'm starting to think the collective makeup of this team is the problem.

I liked what Coach did with some of the reserves in this game but unfortunately its a little late in the season for this.

This is not going to be a pretty end to the season. I think Coach K needs to really go outside the box and give the starters a ton of rest and approach the end of the year with a clean slate with only one goal. Have fun. Screw the problems, screw the pressure, lets just go out and attack and have fun. Play a blue and white team. Don't work the reserves into the game like a surgeon, throw them into the game like a crazed Coach without a care in the world.

[MChambers]

And while I'm at it the credit Smith gets is a bit confusing. As someone else posted the fact that Smith doesn't look like a good PG to some of us doesn't mean he isn't a good player for Duke. Yet everyone continues to clamor for him at point.

When this team was playing very well in December and January, Smith was the main PG, and was playing wonderfully on defense and just fine on offense. He's not a traditional type of point guard, in that he doesn't necessarily start the offense or get a lot of assists, but he was good enough. On defense, however, he was doing a great job of pressuring the other team's point. Those of us who remember some of the great Duke teams remember ball pressure as the key. Paulus can't provide ball pressure. Scheyer is a good defender but is better suited for playing the other team's wing guards.

[blueprofessor]

I was a little disappointed in general by the lack of preparation by Knight and Musburger. Certainly I expected a more Duke oriented broadcast but they didn't know one thing about anyone at St. John's. I didn't even here the rhetoric of notes provided by our SID.

At one point Knight went mute when talking about Quincy Roberts guarding Paulas because he didn't know his name and even hesitated to say his number(10).

What really upset me though is the backhanded comments on Sportscenter right before the game started about how bad St. John's was and how terrible of a game it was going to be to watch. I felt it was completely unnecessary since you are talking about amateur athletes not pros and if I was ESPN I wouldn't want my anchors discouraging people from watching a nationally televised game either. Also what made it even more hurtful was the fact it came from Brian Kenney who is a St. John's grad. :rolleyes:

...was badmouthing Duke for playing the Johnnies.Same guy?
Best regards---Blueprofessor:cool::)

[Houston]

The goal for Duke coming in was to get a win; lesser goals were to get more guys playing time. We accomplished both and this had to be a new starting point for this team.

Though we beat a team that had, up until the game last night, lost their last 5 games, this can be a new beginning for Duke this year, I believe.

I will not read too much into this win for Duke, but I am so thrilled to see Plumlee and Williams out there! Also, we won the game versus a reeling team that had, up until last night, lost their last 5 games coming into the Duke game, by just 7 points. That margin of victory, at least to me, shows that Duke is looking for some serious answers that not only have to do with who plays for Duke at what time, but also for heart and effort.

We have Superman as coach and I trust in his ability to get us back to playing where we know we can play.

Let's go Duke!

dukestheheat.

Nice post! I will also take the view that the glass is half full. I applaud the new rotation. I like the renewed focus on defense. Congrats to JS for making a seamless transition to the point. EW and MP add athleticism and aggressiveness. Game experience will help us in March.

The final score is a little deceiving. If Duke had not gone into the delay, the margin of victory would have been a lot greater. I remember some great Duke teams having some inconsistent results with the delay game.

GP3 deserves a ton of credit for the way he has handled adversity this season! I am really looking forward to Sunday's game! Go Duke!

[Matches]

The final score is a little deceiving. If Duke had not gone into the delay, the margin of victory would have been a lot greater. I remember some great Duke teams having some inconsistent results with the delay game.



I'd love to see Paulus become our version of Mariano Rivera. IMO he runs the stallball better than anyone else on the team. Can you imagine if we'd get to about the 6-7 minute mark, with a 14-15 point lead, and here comes Paulus into the game? He'd be like our Angel of Death.

[miramar]

One of Duke's negative trends the last few years is that there always seem to be guys who go into a funk towards the end of the year. For example, IIRC, Shavlik, Dockery, and Melchioni didn't score in their final games in a Duke uniform (Shavlik in 2005 and the other two in 2006, I believe), and the team really needed their offensive contributions.

Last night Paulus, Smith, and Zoubek did not score in a combined 30 minutes of basketball, so in that sense history is repeating itself. The big difference is that for the first time in years, Duke had someone on the bench to make up for it as Williams and Plumlee shot 7/8 from the field and combined for 15 points.

There have been a lot of negative comments on the defense, but without McClure and with some new combinations, I think they did fine. In many ways this seemed to be a December game, with Duke trying out different combinations, but obviously something needed to change.

[KShip21]

You know, after sleeping on it. I feel a lot better this morning then I did lastnight when I posted. Yes Nolan has been an absolute ghost lately with a slight exception against the holes. Yes the D has been lacking in recent weeks. I think we missed DMac more than we think we did last night.

But now I'm looking at it this way.....great minutes from EWill lastnight, Lance is playing with a fire under his a** which we desperately need from that position, Jon seems to be coming out of his slump, and last night we found a longer and more athletic line up which I feel pretty comfortable with right now(we'll see how it works against ACC opponents).

We have been playing pretty bad basketball the last 6-7 games, and with the exception of the Clemson debacle, we have been in a position to win every single game.

The pieces missing right now...Nolan/PG and the D will hopefully improve and work themselves out. Its not like they've been non existent all year, and we're still trying to accomplish these things for the first time. We've been at that level, especially the D, for most of the year. Its much easier to get them back then it is to still be striving to ever reach that point.

With that said, the players and coaches need to figure out what needs to be done to get back to where we were. I have confidence our guys can get it done between now and March.

[quickgtp]

I haven't seen Duke struggle like this in awhile. ST. Johns is not good and they almost beat us. If we had played any ACC team, we would have lost.

St. Johns shot better than Duke did across the board. St. Johns is a poor shooting team. Duke's offense and defense is struggling. Duke got out rebounded by a smallish St. Johns team and Duke didn't have a player with more than 4 rebounds. I'm starting to think the collective makeup of this team is the problem.

I liked what Coach did with some of the reserves in this game but unfortunately its a little late in the season for this.

This is not going to be a pretty end to the season. I think Coach K needs to really go outside the box and give the starters a ton of rest and approach the end of the year with a clean slate with only one goal. Have fun. Screw the problems, screw the pressure, lets just go out and attack and have fun. Play a blue and white team. Don't work the reserves into the game like a surgeon, throw them into the game like a crazed Coach without a care in the world.

I really hope you are being sarcastic in this thread. That game was NEVER in question.

[DukiesPA]

I haven't seen Duke struggle like this in awhile. ST. Johns is not good and they almost beat us. If we had played any ACC team, we would have lost.

St. Johns shot better than Duke did across the board. St. Johns is a poor shooting team. Duke's offense and defense is struggling. Duke got out rebounded by a smallish St. Johns team and Duke didn't have a player with more than 4 rebounds. I'm starting to think the collective makeup of this team is the problem.

I liked what Coach did with some of the reserves in this game but unfortunately its a little late in the season for this.

This is not going to be a pretty end to the season. I think Coach K needs to really go outside the box and give the starters a ton of rest and approach the end of the year with a clean slate with only one goal. Have fun. Screw the problems, screw the pressure, lets just go out and attack and have fun. Play a blue and white team. Don't work the reserves into the game like a surgeon, throw them into the game like a crazed Coach without a care in the world.

I certainly agree that it might have been a rough ACC game, but for much of the game it was about a 15-point difference. With as little as about 57 seconds left it was still a 10-point lead. While the last few minutes were brutal, it wasn't as tight of a game as many feel.

Was great getting young guys some minutes. EW looked sharp and tough.

What does concern me, however, is that just about 10 days ago K made the declaration that Paulus "became our leader today". Annointing him was a huge morale boost for him and the team, only to see him benched (has he ever played five minutes in his Duke career?) when things don't go according to plan. I know it's a lot easier to be loyal (or whatever you want to call it) when you're winning and playing good ball, but Roy down the road has faced constant criticism this year about all the unproductive minutes Frasor's been getting. Roy stayed supportive of him throughout and kept sending him back out and how's that rewarded? With a few big shots when they needed it against us.

I'm not sure Scheyer's going to be the long-term answer handling the ball and running the offense (yes, 0 TO's but only 3 assists) against quality ACC teams like Wake on Sunday (SJ's is only 3-13 in their past 16), so Paulus is going to be needed to come up big at some point down the road. I think he's got a much different mental makeup than Nolan -- let's hope this benching doesn't have the same effect on GP, kill his confidence, and come back to bite us at some point.

[NashvilleDevil]

I agree that this new lineup, if they stick with it, will take awhile to gel but if it does then I think this team will be tough to beat the rest of the way.

Although it is true we got outrebounded it was by 1 rebound and St. John's did not miss many shots for Duke to have the opportunity to rebound.

[whereinthehellami]

I really hope you are being sarcastic in this thread. That game was NEVER in question.

I'm not being sarcastic. St. Johns is a bad team. As in they are not good. Duke won by 7 and struggled throughout the game. This was the chance for a statement game. Blow the doors off the opponent game. That didn't happen. and its not like it was because Duke was resting its top players and playing the bench. Duke only had 6 guys get over 10 minutes of burn. 3 guys went over 30 MPG with WF coming in on Sunday, a short turnaround.

[DukieInKansas]

I've noticed that Zoubek tends to get a bit far from the basket when defending. He can't always move as fast as needed to recover from being out there. During the first half I believe, it looked like Z was trying to switch with Singler so that he could be closer to the basket and not as far out of position. It appeared to me, that Singler ignored him. Did anyone else see that or was I imagining it?

I think Singler is a great player, but every once in a while, it seems like he forgets he has a team mates out there. I think he is so intent on doing everything possible to make Duke win that he forgets to include the rest of the team. (Example - the charge called against him in the 2nd half when there were two Dukies right there to take the pass.)

[BlueintheFace]

I haven't seen Duke struggle like this in awhile. ST. Johns is not good and they almost beat us. If we had played any ACC team, we would have lost.

St. Johns shot better than Duke did across the board. St. Johns is a poor shooting team. Duke's offense and defense is struggling. Duke got out rebounded by a smallish St. Johns team and Duke didn't have a player with more than 4 rebounds. I'm starting to think the collective makeup of this team is the problem.

I liked what Coach did with some of the reserves in this game but unfortunately its a little late in the season for this.


The collective makeup of this team is a problem? For Who?

http://www.dukebasketballreport.com/forums/showthread.php?t=14479

[bjornolf]

I'm responding those to who were talking about Z and hedging on screens.

As someone who knows the rules of basketball pretty well but doesn't know much at all about strategy beyond the basics, I have noted before on this board Z's tendency to get exposed when he's brought out past the foul line. My question would be, instead of hedging on the high screen, would it be more effective if he warned the defender getting screened, then RETREATED toward the foul line on the side that the ballhandler will come off the screen? If the handler comes off the screen down the lane, he could continue to retreat, keeping the ball in front of him, setting himself up to take the charge, make the block, or at least give the help defense time to react. With a two plus step headstart, he should be able to stay ahead of the ball handler. If the handler comes off the screen and backs, the screened defender will have time to recover and Z can pick up his man. If the handler comes of the screen and picks up his dribble to shoot, Z would only be a few feet away and with his size could at least get a hand in his face. Would this work with Z?

From a linebacker's perspective which is all ABOUT position on the field, I think that not only does he lack the speed to recover on the high hedge, but he also seems to hedge MORE than most, getting himself out of position even for a faster player. He get's like four feet past the three point line, moving AWAY from the basket, bending down to the guard's level, often even taking a swipe at the ball from a bad body position. Even if he does hedge, I think he should just get a little beyond the 3pt line (maybe even straddle it), turn at a 45 degree angle and spread himself tall and wide, use that wingspan and keeping contact with the screener. The defender can go around behind him and catch the ball handler as he tries to drive, and if the ball handler goes to shoot, Z could just throw his arms UP and try to block it, or at least make the shot more difficult. Instead, he tries to make an athletic step out that goes WAY too far, making his momentum go AWAY from the basket while making himself SMALLER and easier to get around and see around for the ball handler to pass to the now cutting big man. He should use his strength and size to make himself a wall rather than try to hop out their and pretend to be a guard which will NEVER work for him. Just my thought as a former linebacker (this reminds me a LOT of the play where a linebacker has to fake a blitz and drop back into coverage...if he goes TOO far, he can't recover and make the play and the receiver can go far. If he doesn't go far enough, he doesn't force the protection to react to him, and his teammates get blocked.)

Now you smarter guys can tell me where I'm wrong here. ;)

[HDB]

Now, all is not lost. There was a reason why Duke had the best defense in the country up until ACC play, and that reason was the defensive presence of Brian Zoubek. Look at Z's plus/minus... it's the best on the team over 40 minutes, almost all due to his strong start against fairly weak competition. Tall/strong centers completely change the game. However, Z is obviously not achieving the same level of success against ACC opponents. This comes down to 2 factors - bigger/stronger big men and our style of defense. Z is not capable of guarding basically anyone outside of about 7 feet from the basket. He is too slow and gets beaten off-the-dribble or on a backdoor alley-oop (see Tyler Hansbrough). For some reason, Coach K chooses to use Zoubek as a regular defender in the Duke defense. He regularly guards his man 20 feet from the basket. This puts Zoubek in a position to fail. Z is fantastic at altering shots when he just stands in the paint with his arms outstretched and he rebounds at a very high rate. I know it sounds simplistic, but there is a reason why players like Hasheem Thabeet (who has very few actual basketball skills) can completely change the game. You can't teach size!!! Miles Plumlee is 6'10" with a long reach and fantastic athleticism. He's a better shot-blocker than Zoubek and can make up for mistakes with his athleticism. Yes, he makes silly freshman fouls, but like Zoubek, he can completely change the face of our defense given the right opportunity. A big center also improves the offense (it allows for easy points if the defense cheats off of your man and spreads the floor for penetration, which is huge for a slashing team like Duke).

Going forward, it is absolutely imperative that Coach K take advantage of the two big men he frequently keeps on the bench. The reason Duke struggled in the past few years was because of defense on both the point guard and interior. Both Plumlee and Zoubek have emerged as at least serviceable role players in the interior. I hope to see more of them in the future; Duke's success depends on it.


I agree with your sentiment particularly with regards to Z. We're not putting him in a position to succeed. However, I'm also realistic that there is almost NO CHANCE that K would shift to a zone with Z in the game (which would seem to make sense to this novice). Given that, I think it's better for K to keep him on the pine.

[MChambers]

I'm responding those to who were talking about Z and hedging on screens.

As someone who knows the rules of basketball pretty well but doesn't know much at all about strategy beyond the basics, I have noted before on this board Z's tendency to get exposed when he's brought out past the foul line. My question would be, instead of hedging on the high screen, would it be more effective if he warned the defender getting screened, then RETREATED toward the foul line on the side that the ballhandler will come off the screen? If the handler comes off the screen down the lane, he could continue to retreat, keeping the ball in front of him, setting himself up to take the charge, make the block, or at least give the help defense time to react. With a two plus step headstart, he should be able to stay ahead of the ball handler. If the handler comes off the screen and backs, the screened defender will have time to recover and Z can pick up his man. If the handler comes of the screen and picks up his dribble to shoot, Z would only be a few feet away and with his size could at least get a hand in his face. Would this work with Z?

From a linebacker's perspective which is all ABOUT position on the field, I think that not only does he lack the speed to recover on the high hedge, but he also seems to hedge MORE than most, getting himself out of position even for a faster player. He get's like four feet past the three point line, moving AWAY from the basket, bending down to the guard's level, often even taking a swipe at the ball from a bad body position. Even if he does hedge, I think he should just get a little beyond the 3pt line (maybe even straddle it), turn at a 45 degree angle and spread himself tall and wide, use that wingspan and keeping contact with the screener. The defender can go around behind him and catch the ball handler as he tries to drive, and if the ball handler goes to shoot, Z could just throw his arms UP and try to block it, or at least make the shot more difficult. Instead, he tries to make an athletic step out that goes WAY too far, making his momentum go AWAY from the basket while making himself SMALLER and easier to get around and see around for the ball handler to pass to the now cutting big man. He should use his strength and size to make himself a wall rather than try to hop out their and pretend to be a guard which will NEVER work for him. Just my thought as a former linebacker (this reminds me a LOT of the play where a linebacker has to fake a blitz and drop back into coverage...if he goes TOO far, he can't recover and make the play and the receiver can go far. If he doesn't go far enough, he doesn't force the protection to react to him, and his teammates get blocked.)

Now you smarter guys can tell me where I'm wrong here. ;)

I agree with this. Obviously, you give something up, like ball pressure. You also give the player with the ball an open jumper, but I think it is a worthwhile tradeoff.

I think I remember Zoubs doing exactly what you propose against Xavier, but I could be wrong.

Before the season, I mused about whether K could adjust his defensive strategy to use Zoubs more effectively. (At least, I think I did -- can't find the posting right now.) I don't think K has been very successful with this, unfortunately.

[quickgtp]

I'm not being sarcastic. St. Johns is a bad team. As in they are not good. Duke won by 7 and struggled throughout the game. This was the chance for a statement game. Blow the doors off the opponent game. That didn't happen. and its not like it was because Duke was resting its top players and playing the bench. Duke only had 6 guys get over 10 minutes of burn. 3 guys went over 30 MPG with WF coming in on Sunday, a short turnaround.

St John's is not good? Thats a bit harsh, IMO. Remember they play in a great conference and get to face ALOT of quality teams. They played UCONN close at home until the later parts of the game. They played Pitt tough, at Pitt, until the later part of the game. We were in complete control from about 10 minutes left in the first half until Kyle and Miles both got into foul trouble. Then K, knowing that issue, slowed the game down to run clock. We got complacent and let them back in.

To me that was a quality win, against a Big East team, in a Big East arena.

[CDu]

I'm responding those to who were talking about Z and hedging on screens.

As someone who knows the rules of basketball pretty well but doesn't know much at all about strategy beyond the basics, I have noted before on this board Z's tendency to get exposed when he's brought out past the foul line. My question would be, instead of hedging on the high screen, would it be more effective if he warned the defender getting screened, then RETREATED toward the foul line on the side that the ballhandler will come off the screen? ... Would this work with Z?

From a linebacker's perspective which is all ABOUT position on the field, I think that not only does he lack the speed to recover on the high hedge, but he also seems to hedge MORE than most, getting himself out of position even for a faster player.

Now you smarter guys can tell me where I'm wrong here. ;)

There are tradeoffs to both approaches. If you hedge, you run the risk of getting beaten off the dribble by quicker players. If you don't hedge, you give up an open three. Coach K's defensive philosophy has been to prevent the three and rely on help defense (if necessary) on dribble penetration.

So, Coach K COULD change the defense when Zoubek is in, or he can just run the risk that Zoubek gets exploited off the dribble. We seem to have chosen the latter. It's probably part of why Zoubek doesn't get extended minutes and his playing time varies from game to game - Coach K is trying to minimize the situations in which Zoubek can be exploited like that.

For what it's worth, I don't think Zoubek hedges out further or more than the other Duke bigs. For example, Thomas hedges all the way to half court. It's just that people don't notice Thomas as much because he's quick enough to recover.

[COYS]

St John's is not good? Thats a bit harsh, IMO. Remember they play in a great conference and get to face ALOT of quality teams. They played UCONN close at home until the later parts of the game. They played Pitt tough, at Pitt, until the later part of the game. We were in complete control from about 10 minutes left in the first half until Kyle and Miles both got into foul trouble. Then K, knowing that issue, slowed the game down to run clock. We got complacent and let them back in.

To me that was a quality win, against a Big East team, in a Big East arena.

I agree wth quick on this one. WITHAI, if you watched the game you couldn't realistically have been concerned that we were going to lose, even in the last 2 minutes when we made a few boneheaded plays. The game, especially after Singler got his 4th foul, was played at a snails pace, intentionally. While obviously we can debate the pros and cons of slowing the game down, the effect of that choice was to create fewer possessions for both teams. Thus, the 13 point lead we had for most of that time was effectively larger because St. Johns had only limited possessions to get back into it. The very end of the game was moderately interesting because of some truly horrible free throw shooting, few really bad fouls from our guys, and some good plays by a desperate Red Storm team. Say what you want about the margin, but Duke thoroughly outplayed St. Johns using primarily an entirely different lineup and without one of our top defensive stoppers in McClure. ESPN didn't even bother to cover the last three minutes of the game on SportsCenter, which means EVEN ESPN isn't trying to spin this as some sort of near escape by Duke. It's true it was far from a perfect game, but really the only stat that was bad for us was giving up +50% from the field. Otherwise, we matched them on the boards, won the turnover battle, hit more threes, shot far more freethrows, and attacked the basket far more consistently. With better free throw shooting and a smarter final 3 minutes, this would have easily been a 20 + point win. I'm not trying to sugarcoat some of the serious concerns this team has, but I just don't see how anyone could call the game last night a disaster.

[ncexnyc]

A nice win, despite the misleading final score.

Another game where we talk positively about Lance. It seems he's returned to the level of play, which he displayed at the start of the season and had us thinking he had turned the corner. I love the fact he is taking and making the mid-range jumper.

Ewill getting significant playing time and making something of it. He could be the long defender at the guard position we needed to replace Nelson.

Some solid playing time for Mr Plumlee. He's just more mobile than Brian. With more experience he should cut down on those dumb fouls.

Nice to see Kyle's stretch of steady shooting continue. He seems to be out of the funk he was in.

Jon running the point. You know Jumbo is loving that and will be happy to tell each and everyone of us how much the kid means to this team.:D

G steady as a rock and continues to provide us with those baskets that make you wonder just how good can he be.

Greg, Brian, and Nolan just need to keep plugging away. There is still plenty of time for each of them to find their game and shine for this team.

Best wishes to Dave and a speedy recovery from the bug that bit him yesterday.

Kudos to Coach K and his staff for coming up with something new.

[Kfanarmy]

I think Coach K used this game to tinker a bit, and see what some different lineups and position changes offered...I am not reading anything into it for implications of what he will do against Wake, rather I think it provided him information of what he might do against different opponents. St John's offered an opportunity against a pretty strong team to do a bit of tinkering without too great a risk to the W-L record.

[accfanfrom1970]

How would this new lineup matchup against Wake? I fear getting pounded on the boards....

[jv001]

How would this new lineup matchup against Wake? I fear getting pounded on the boards....

I fear that as well. Not because of Elliot, but because Lance while playing well is not a very good rebounder. That leaves rebounding up to Kyle & Gerald. Lance has trouble holding on to the bb and at times get's stripped. I would like to see Miles get some mins in this game because I believe he can help on the boards. Go Duke!

[Cormac]

I fear that as well. Not because of Elliot, but because Lance while playing well is not a very good rebounder. That leaves rebounding up to Kyle & Gerald. Lance has trouble holding on to the bb and at times get's stripped. I would like to see Miles get some mins in this game because I believe he can help on the boards. Go Duke!

And don't forget that McClure should be back as well. He may not be tall for his position, but he just finds a way!

[jv001]

And don't forget that McClure should be back as well. He may not be tall for his position, but he just finds a way!

Yeh Dave slipped my mind(what's left of it). He's one heck of a rebounder, especially on the offensive boards. Go Duke!

[bjornolf]

In reference to Knight calling us the Dukes, when I first started dating my wife, she lived down near Harrisonburg VA, which is where James Madison University is. They are also the Dukes. When my wife would tell people I went to Duke, they would say, "Hey, JMU's a great school!" I always got a kick out of that.

[Chitowndevil]

I hope no one will take this as undue negativity, but I find the stats from last night's game extremely concerning. St. John's rates 154th in the country in offensive efficiency (per kenpom.com). They rank 239th in the country in effective FG% (like FG% but giving extra weight to made 3s). Last night their eFG% was 56%, their third highest figure on the season, behind only their wins against Cornell and Rutgers.

Conversely, Duke's defensive efficiency last night was their 6th worst of the season. Of the 5 games it ranked ahead of, four were losses and one was the win vs. Rhode Island in November. Four out of the five opponents in those games are also ranked in the top 30 in nationally in offensive efficiency.

Yes, I can point to some good things I saw last night. But the overall game stats are emphatically NOT among them.

[bjornolf]

There are tradeoffs to both approaches. If you hedge, you run the risk of getting beaten off the dribble by quicker players. If you don't hedge, you give up an open three. Coach K's defensive philosophy has been to prevent the three and rely on help defense (if necessary) on dribble penetration.

I don't know if he'd really be giving up an open three. If his "hedge" is to stand the three point line and make himself WIDE, then he'd be in position to try to block the shot on a guard. Even if he retreats a LITTLE, he'd still be in position to at least get a hand up. He's a LOT taller than most of these guys, and has a pretty large wingspan. I would think he could at least alter shots. He needs to start using his size instead of trying to use athleticism that he just doesn't have. Just a thought. Depending on the player, we might be better off giving up open threes anyway.

[FireOgilvie]

I agree with your points and observations, but you conveniently overlooked one of the biggest developments in this game: Scheyer playing point guard, and playing it effectively.

You and I disagreed strongly about Jon's ability to play the point a couple weeks ago. Do you still think he can't?

I am preparing a post which further clarifies my case for why Scheyer needs to play the point. Would be interested to hear if you've changed your stance.

I didn't overlook Scheyer/E-Will, there just wasn't much new info to add. St. John's put absolutely no pressure on Scheyer when he was bringing the ball up the court. He had one man meet him halfway between halfcourt and the 3 pt line, but even then it was usually just weak pressure. I noted St. John's seemed to lack intensity on defense and that they never attempted to drive on the guards on offense. Nolan, who played PG when he was in the game with Scheyer, had zero turnovers (I believe) bringing the ball up the court as well... his turnovers came on a bad pass from Zoubek to Nolan in the interior, a questionable offensive foul, and something else I don't remember.

Based off this one game, Scheyer's PG play was adequate, but it certainly wasn't season-changing... he didn't "create" or even penetrate more than Nolan would have. Scheyer had 1 assist... lower than what he averages at SG. He's perfectly capable of dribbling the ball up to halfcourt with no one around him; that was never an issue. The issues come on his ability to defend the quickest players (he can't, that is what E-Will is in for - guarding Boothe yesterday), his ability to handle the ball under intense pressure from a tough defender (this is yet to be seen), his ability to break the press of a team like Clemson (haven't seen it yet), and his ability to be as effective as he was as a shooting guard while playing the PG position (he's doing well through 1 game). Scheyer was perfectly fine against St. John's... but it wasn't a real test for him. I will reserve judgment on the move after the Wake game. That is when the first true test will come.

Some people pointed out that Scheyer averages a lot of assists and relatively few TOs, so he is more of a point guard than Nolan. I just want to note that even against a very weak defensive team Scheyer never "created" like people were pining for both Paulus and Nolan to do. I think this is because Scheyer is not comfortable handling the ball while facing the basket against pressure. Also, I feel like the point guard position is about risk and reward (turnovers and assists). Scheyer is very conservative; he plays like all he wants to do is not make a mistake; hence, 1 assist, 0 TOs. I hope he can develop his ballhandling enough to use some of his playmaking ability at PG.