Our Offense Beat Us Again!

[Dukefan4Life]

Once again we took way to many jump shots and three pointers! I dont know why we continue to shoot the majority of our shots from the outside,this is our biggest team ever and we still do not use our height! can someone please tell me why we went away from the zone????

[Dukefan4Life]

It was clear nolan could score at will and we didnt drive to the basket! too many jumpers and not enough inside was our downfall tonight. I love the heart of making a come back but we pretty much beat ourselves with not enough inside scoring

[94duke]

Once again we took way to many jump shots and three pointers! I dont know why we continue to shoot the majority of our shots from the outside,this is our biggest team ever and we still do not use our height! can someone please tell me why we went away from the zone????

I have to disagree. Our defense and MD's FG% beat us.

We were quite efficient (108.4) and we drove the ball a lot at the end. The drives didn't go in, and we didn't draw any fouls.

Our defense and MD's shooting added up to a MD efficiency of 117! You don't win too many games allowing that kind of efficiency!

[Devilsfan]

It was nice to see Andre hitting some shots again. It's been a long time coming.

[DukeGirl4ever]

I'm going to play Devil's Advocate so I'm sure I'll get a few beefs for this.....BUT....
THIS IS DUKE! We SHOOT a lot of 3's! That's what we do!

And, sure, our shots didn't drop at times, but I thought we got decent shots except for some of Jon's drives where he was stuffed. Our shots fell when we made our run late first half, beginning of the second half. If we made our foul shots and hit 1-2 more 3's, we would have had a different outcome.

I think our defense let us down. There is no way Maryland should score 79 points on us. Eric Hayes should never get in to the paint on us let alone score on several attempts!

[DukeGirl4ever]

I have to disagree. Our defense and MD's FG% beat us.

We were quite efficient (108.4) and we drove the ball a lot at the end. The drives didn't go in, and we didn't draw any fouls.

Our defense and MD's shooting added up to a MD efficiency of 117! You don't win too many games allowing that kind of efficiency!

You beat me to it! And I didn't have time to find statistical data, so glad to see it backs up my thinking!

[Kedsy]

Yes, it was our offense that allowed Maryland to shoot 50% from the field.

[Lord Ash]

Man.

All inside scoring is NOT the same.

A big getting points on putbacks is NOT the same thing as throwing him the ball and having him make a move to score. We are okay at the first type of scoring; we have not shown any ability at the second.

[GODUKEGO]

Maryland shoots 46% from three and 50% from the field. We shot 39% from the field and 62% from the foul line. Jon and Kyle a combined 34%. We can not win either of the next two tournaments shooting like that. Our field goal percentage over the last seven games is 36%. Regardless of what some have said here our defense is not going to carry us.

[94duke]

Maryland shoots 46% from three and 50% from the field. We shot 39% from the field and 62% from the foul line. Jon and Kyle a combined 34%. We can not win either of the next two tournaments shooting like that. Our field goal percentage over the last seven games is 36%. Regardless of what some have said here our defense is not going to carry us.

The point is that we can and have been winning with an average (or below average) FG%. The games we have lost are the ones we allow our opponent to shoot 50% from the field.

[duke09hms]

The point is that we can and have been winning with an average (or below average) FG%. The games we have lost are the ones we allow our opponent to shoot 50% from the field.

sure, of course we can win shooting 36% off of our defense, but our margin for error is SO low that some nights it's just not going to work out.

our offense and shooting % must go up for us to make a good tourney run, at least to the low/mid 40%s

[Underdog5]

... we had a stretch early in the second half where we got numerous 2nd and 3rd looks and didn't convert. We outplayed them for the first 5 minutes of the second but didn't separate at all due to failed conversions on the offensive glass. This has been a hallmark of this team for a while now we just didn't convert. Would love for us to suddenly be a different team with more offensive fluidity but I don't see it happening at this point.

Also, I didn't think our defense in the second half was horrible. The Terps made some REEAALLY tough shots on an inspired senior night. I mean I guess you can argue that if we played good D they would miss but that's not what I saw. Hayes finishing in traffic? Bowie hitting a step back 3 and pull up on the break? I mean I expect Vasquez to hit a few wild shots but even 2 of his drives were very well defended and he just hit a clutch runner with his eyes closed.

This wasn't a bad loss just because of our offense. We fought hard against a ranked conference opponent on their senior night and came up a little short. This was not the NC State/GTown effort.

[jv001]

The point is that we can and have been winning with an average (or below average) FG%. The games we have lost are the ones we allow our opponent to shoot 50% from the field.

For the most part, Md.got most of their points on drives to the bucket. Hitting all kinds of Houdini(sp) shots or kicking out for 3s. What do you think we could have done to prevent that? We are what we are, not a good on the ball defending team. Nolan did a good job on Vasquez but on the switches he had an advantage. We went into the zone in the first half and stopped their mo. As far as I know we did not use it at all in the 2nd half. Go Duke!

[Dukefan4Life]

Thats my whole point! our FG% was low because we took too many high precentage shots! we had 0 post game tonight! Nolan was scoring at will when he would drive and he stopped! we MUST get a post game or drive to the basket for us to make a good run in the tournament!

[CameronCrazy'11]

Maryland shooting 50% from the floor and 46% from three beat us. The officiating certainly didn't help either.

[elvis14]

Each game is different. Some you can win with offense, some you win with defense. When an opponent is shooting 50%, you could look at it and think "the defense needs to step up" or you can think "UMd is hitting tough shots at home, we need to outscore them tonight". We have to outscore teams on the nights our defense isn't stopping them. This isn't just about the Md game, it's been on my mind for most of the season. In order to get through tournaments you need to be able to win both types of games.

Now, lets go take it out on UNC.

[OldSchool]

I thought our defense overall was actually GOOD except for the first eight minutes of the game, where we allowed 21 points.

Take away the last six points, which were free throws from our intentional end-of-game fouling, and Maryland has 73.

Now if we had contained them a little better when they came out to start the game with so much energy, Maryland's score would be in the 60s in this game.

In principle, we should be able to beat a team we hold to the 60s.

[Dukefan4Life]

Yeah for the life of me i dont know why we didnt try more zone in the second half!

[Kfanarmy]

low shooting percentage and opposing team shooting better than normal are related. Defensive rebounds allow the other team to get into their offense before the defense is set....

Duke should be able to beat MD even WITH their circus shots. What gave them the FG %, from 3 at least, was that on several possessions Duke defenders didn't get in the grill of the shooter. Defenders were fading back or standing 2-3 feet away while the opponent stepped back and hit a three. Sometimes they seem to lose focus and don't step in to funnel the offensive player to the defense or make them pass the ball.

On the post game thread I pointed out that in 10 road games Duke opponents are shooting 46%. I believe it is a result of poor offense in the first few minutes resulting in high % shots on the other end as the defense tries to settle down, combined with occassional lapses in on ball one-on-one defense.

[DurhamMatt]

I remember a game about a year ago against Vtech where our offense just went stagnent like forever.....and my father in law ( lifelong duke fan) said here we go again. I keep seeing this replayed in almost every road game, its like we keep jacking up 3's that don't go and were hoping they dont score.

[ice-9]

Yes, it was our offense that allowed Maryland to shoot 50% from the field.

I disagree with the premise of this thread, but in a way our offense DID allow Maryland to shoot well. Several shots clanged the rim and the rebound went long -- when the Twerps were able to get those rebounds it led to fast breaks that did result in high percentage baskets. This was our main downfall in the first half.

Typically, we survive low percentage shooting nights by out rebounding our opponents. Tonight we did not do that; rebounds were even at 34 a piece.

Add to that our below average foul shooting...

[Richard Berg]

I keep seeing this replayed in almost every road game, its like we keep jacking up 3's that don't go and were hoping they dont score.
60%+ of 3's don't go. Yet it's still one of the most efficient shots in college basketball, and in our particular repertoire. Better get used to it.

[GODUKEGO]

sure, of course we can win shooting 36% off of our defense, but our margin for error is SO low that some nights it's just not going to work out.

our offense and shooting % must go up for us to make a good tourney run, at least to the low/mid 40%s

You are absolutely right, "some nights it's just not going to work out". In tournaments all it takes is one shooting night like this and we are done. As mentioned earlier, we are way to dependent on the outside shot. We were also last year. Mason had two great post ups resulting in 5-8 foot shots against Tulsa. We need more of that offensive. More getting the ball down low to Zoub. When Jon, Nolan and Kyle are hitting, we can beat anyone. When they are not, it makes for a long game.

[Richard Berg]

In tournaments all it takes is one shooting night like this and we are done.
Like what, exactly? Our EFG% was 47%. Subtract the desperation shots from the last 90 seconds (and frankly Jon's hurl with 0.8 in the first half -- by my tape we deserved more like 2 seconds) and we'd be above our season median. Then remember that "our season" being compared to == the best offensive statistics in the nation, and yesterday's numbers were against the #9 team (Pomeroy).

Yeah, I'm not seeing it.

[Memphis Devil]

While we did miss plenty of wide open three's, they were wide open. I would rather Jon, Nolan, or Kyle take these shots than force the ball into the paint for a highly contested shot especially considering the lack of offensive capabilities of our big men.

[DukieBoy]

I agree with what some others have said. We didn't lose this game, Maryland won it.

I mean, did you really think Vasquez was going to lose on his senior night? That lost shot of his just left me speechless.

It was MD's night. Nothing you can do about it.

Let's take some frustration out on UNC for our senior night tho

[ForeverBlowingBubbles]

Man.

All inside scoring is NOT the same.

A big getting points on putbacks is NOT the same thing as throwing him the ball and having him make a move to score. We are okay at the first type of scoring; we have not shown any ability at the second.

Agreed. It's kind of cool how good we are considering that Duke doesn't have a single post move.

[UrinalCake]

I would love to see Z look to go back up with the ball after he gets an offensive rebound. He's so passive that once he grabs the ball he doesn't even look towards the basket, he just turns and finds a guard to dish the ball back out to. Perhaps this is due to past occasions when he's turned the ball over by hanging on to it for too long, but with as well as he rebounds he should be getting a lot more points on putbacks. Early in the second half I actually thought we chose to shoot a lot of threes specifically because we were pretty confident that we could get the rebound.

Historically Duke has always had great shooters, but this year we do not. Our big three are above-average shooters, but none of them are great. We shouldn't be designing our offense around the three, even if the shots are wide open.

[Richard Berg]

I would love to see Z look to go back up with the ball after he gets an offensive rebound.

Zoubek shot 2/6, all four misses coming when he tried to do what you describe. I agree it's a good strategy in many cases, but there are many times when alternatives are better.

When position or traffic are jammed up, passing is just fine. I'd prefer that he find a cutter (which he's shown himself very capable of doing) -- his sheer size draws enough attention in the lane that someone moving without the ball is likely to get a free look. But our guards aren't always in position to make strategic cuts right as a rebound happens to bounce his way. Frankly, I don't want them to think this way! As tonight showed, transition defense is more important. And as previous games showed, OR->kickout->3FGA is perhaps our deadliest weapon.


We shouldn't be designing our offense around the three, even if the shots are wide open.
All structured offenses, by definition, are designed to generate open shots. I guess I don't catch your drift.

[UrinalCake]

Guess I should have been more specific... I would love to see Z look to go back up with the ball AND MAKE THE SHOT after he gets an offensive rebound :)

What I mean about the threes is that we should not go into every offensive posession with the mindset that our first goal is to shoot a three. Maybe this is not actually the case, but it sure seems that way sometimes.

[Kedsy]

I disagree with the premise of this thread, but in a way our offense DID allow Maryland to shoot well. Several shots clanged the rim and the rebound went long -- when the Twerps were able to get those rebounds it led to fast breaks that did result in high percentage baskets. This was our main downfall in the first half.

Typically, we survive low percentage shooting nights by out rebounding our opponents. Tonight we did not do that; rebounds were even at 34 a piece.

Add to that our below average foul shooting...


You are correct in everything you say. We also didn't get back on D quickly enough and had several defensive lapses, which I think contributed more to Maryland's high FG%.

To the originator of the thread, I know it's easier to focus on offensive woes, but for Duke the games really are won or lost on defense and rebounding.

To all the people carping about how we can't win with such a low FG%, I think looking at "effective fg %" or offensive efficiency numbers are a much better way to look at things.

[jv001]

Our big 3 avg between 17-20 points per game and that is great. However it takes them many shots to get that average. That's ok as long as we're getting a lot of offensive rebounds. When we don't we're in a dog fight most games. Last night we ran into a buzz saw. Maryland threw up some tough shots that went in. Not bad defense on those shots. But what really hurt us was the long rebounds off missed 3s early in the game. I know that our transition defense was bad on those run outs, but sometimes it's hard to get back off those long rebounds. I saw some good things in this game. Andre hit a couple of 3s and that has to help his confidence. Nolan was able to drive the ball. After a good nights sleep, I'm not nearly as upset as I was about 1am this morning. Now let's beat the crap out of the tarholes. Go Duke!

[Kfanarmy]

To all the people carping about how we can't win with such a low FG%, I think looking at "effective fg %" or offensive efficiency numbers are a much better way to look at things. isn't effective FG% relative to the other team's FG%?

[greybeard]

Zoubek shot 2/6, all four misses coming when he tried to do what you describe. I agree it's a good strategy in many cases, but there are many times when alternatives are better.

When position or traffic are jammed up, passing is just fine. I'd prefer that he find a cutter (which he's shown himself very capable of doing) -- his sheer size draws enough attention in the lane that someone moving without the ball is likely to get a free look. But our guards aren't always in position to make strategic cuts right as a rebound happens to bounce his way. Frankly, I don't want them to think this way! As tonight showed, transition defense is more important. And as previous games showed, OR->kickout->3FGA is perhaps our deadliest weapon.


All structured offenses, by definition, are designed to generate open shots. I guess I don't catch your drift.

Look, Bilas reported that the coaches have decided to deploy the Bibs, Z in particular, as screen setters, offensive rebounders, and ball movers (occasionally). That's the list. If Z was literally forced to take certain shots, they were not ones that the offense was looking for.

Not to beat a dead horse, but I have said from the beginning that this team's failure to include in its offensive plan as a regular feature looking to get it to bigs (A in particular) with advantage with the expectation that they were to try to score would come back to bite in March. Well, what month is it?

I thought that both teams played terrifically. I thought that Gary won the day. I thought that the first half pressure was designed to tire legs and it did. I thought that Maryland's offensive execution, passing off the flex to cutting guards, and having the off guards penetrate from the side to the middle of the lane and pull up for jump shots was new and brilliant. I thought that the extra pass off the flex to a cutting guard for an easy layup (just because a lay up might be a reverse layup with the off hand does NOT make it difficult, and for an announcer to say otherwise is INDEFENSIBLE!).

So, in the end, I think that the failure to hurt Maryland inside off the pass was a difference-maker here.

Gary won the day. The players on both teams played and competed great! In the end, the across the lane move by G, which they went to late on cleverly timed clearouts, is unstoppable. He makes an unusual number of those from like 10 12 feet out. The second was NOT what he was looking for. He was looking for a bank. A lucky break. Great Game!

[greybeard]

Z doesn't go back up because unless he is right at the rim he is not supposed to. The pass Singler threw late in the game, from the right block over to Z on the left was pure despiration. Z had no angle. Z was forced to take one shot from near the baseline he never makes, no angle on the board, yet he leans to try to create one. This is a coaching issue.

Z never looks for an angle because that is not part of the offense. He did look for angles in the first Maryland game and the game plan was for him and others to attack the rim. He, Lance, Singler did and drew fouls and scored. Since then, Duke has relegated him to a screen setter/rebounder. He played terrifically last night in those rolls, and on defense.

Oh, on at least one, perhaps two of his put backs, he was literally being pulled backwards, once by his left arm, by a defender. 2 for 6 terribly misleading.

[94duke]

isn't effective FG% relative to the other team's FG%?

I believe it factors in 3-pointers, not opposing FG%.

[Kedsy]

isn't effective FG% relative to the other team's FG%?

No. It gives extra weight to three-point shots. In the Maryland game we shot 39% but our effective FG% was 47%. If you take away a couple of desperation three-pointers at the end of the game and Jon's heave at halftime, our effective FG% would be 49%.

An even better way to look at it would be points per possession, which not only give extra weight to threes but also take offensive rebounding and free throws into account. I don't have those numbers handy for the Maryland game, but over the course of the season Duke is one of the best in the nation in this metric despite our sometimes low raw shooting percentage (and we are the best in the nation if you adjust for the quality of opposing defenses). Which means that if our defense plays well we should win whether or not we shoot for a low (unadjusted) percentage.

[Kfanarmy]

No. It gives extra weight to three-point shots. In the Maryland game we shot 39% but our effective FG% was 47%. If you take away a couple of desperation three-pointers at the end of the game and Jon's heave at halftime, our effective FG% would be 49%.

An even better way to look at it would be points per possession, which not only give extra weight to threes but also take offensive rebounding and free throws into account. I don't have those numbers handy for the Maryland game, but over the course of the season Duke is one of the best in the nation in this metric despite our sometimes low raw shooting percentage (and we are the best in the nation if you adjust for the quality of opposing defenses).

Sorry, I can be a bit criptic. My point is that the effective FG% is good or bad relative to the opponents FG%. Duke may have 47% effective FG%, but MD had 50% actual FG%, I'm guessing there effective FG% was mid 50s...when you shoot the 3 below average, it increases the opponents opportunity for beating your defense down the court...so even though the 3 may bump up your pts/shot, missing can do the same for the opponent. Hope that makes sense.

[RoyalBlue08]

I just don't understand this strange desire some Duke fans seem to have for "throwing the ball into the post". Have you seen our team? Our strengths are our defense, our perimeter players, and our rebounding ability. We don't have a single player who is going to scare anyone with his back to the basket in the low post. And if you aren't going to draw a double team in the post, then you better have a pretty good move to make this a high percentage play. On the other hand, we got three guys that are good outside shooters and big men that love to get all over the offensive boards to give them second chances. That is what makes us a very efficient offense. I think the suggestion that we would somehow win more games if you fed Z or the Plumlees the ball in the post repeatedly is without any merit whatsoever.

[Kfanarmy]

I just don't understand this strange desire some Duke fans seem to have for "throwing the ball into the post". Have you seen our team? Our strengths are our defense, our perimeter players, and our rebounding ability. We don't have a single player who is going to scare anyone with his back to the basket in the low post. And if you aren't going to draw a double team in the post, then you better have a pretty good move to make this a high percentage play. On the other hand, we got three guys that are good outside shooters and big men that love to get all over the offensive boards to give them second chances. That is what makes us a very efficient offense. I think the suggestion that we would somehow win more games if you fed Z or the Plumlees the ball in the post repeatedly is without any merit whatsoever.
I agree there aren't a lot of moves by Duke's big men, but there can be a lot gained by threatening from underneath, working to get the shot, then shooting or throwing it back out to the perimeter where someone has an actual advantage.

[DukeUsul]

You play with what you got. I don't know why people are obsessed with trying to feed Mason and Miles - two talented young men with still not-well-developed games. The more they are in, the less we have Zoubs and Lance in there and the poorer our defense and rebounding are. I don't think losing that defense and rebounding in the hopes that one of those guys will suddenly develop a consistent offensive move and ability to not turnover the ball is the right way to go. YMMV.

[UrinalCake]

In this particular game there were a couple times where missed threes led to long rebounds and fast break opportunities. In general though, I think missed threes are more like 50/50 in terms of who gets the rebound. Whereas missed twos tend to favor the defense since they're closer to the basket. So I disagree that shooting a lot of threes leads to a higher FG percentage for the opponent, though I understand that my argument doesn't have a lot of support after last night's game.

I don't think anybody is proposing we dump it to our big guys every single play, but if we at least did it a few times a game I think it would open things up. Even if they miss a shot, there is still value from that. Right now opposing teams know that they can totally play off of our big guys because there is zero chance they will shoot the ball.

[NSDukeFan]

60%+ of 3's don't go. Yet it's still one of the most efficient shots in college basketball, and in our particular repertoire. Better get used to it.
I'm pretty sure this is why coach K teams generally shoot the 3 well and defend it well.

I would love to see Z look to go back up with the ball after he gets an offensive rebound. He's so passive that once he grabs the ball he doesn't even look towards the basket, he just turns and finds a guard to dish the ball back out to. Perhaps this is due to past occasions when he's turned the ball over by hanging on to it for too long, but with as well as he rebounds he should be getting a lot more points on putbacks. Early in the second half I actually thought we chose to shoot a lot of threes specifically because we were pretty confident that we could get the rebound.

Historically Duke has always had great shooters, but this year we do not. Our big three are above-average shooters, but none of them are great. We shouldn't be designing our offense around the three, even if the shots are wide open.

I think all of our bigs have been doing a pretty good job of passing out of the post when then haven't had an advantage, before or after a move. This is something I don't think the Plumlees did well early in the year. I was pretty happy with Zoubek's decision making last night (as I usually am.) He went back up a couple of times when he was near the basket, but when he got a rebound away from the basket in traffic, he passed it out.
As for our shooters, we have our big 3 guys shooting at least 38% from 3 (eFG% at least 57%), so unless we can get better than 57% shooting inside (only Zoubs?) than I think 3-point shooting should be a significant part of our offense.
The difficulty of course, is in a one possession scenario where you need a score, it may be better to get a 45% 2 pointer than a 38% 3. I'm not sure where the perfect balance is, but from an efficiency standpoint, our 3 point shooting is not hurting us and is contributing to our standing as the most efficient offense in the country.

[cptnflash]

Sorry, I can be a bit criptic. My point is that the effective FG% is good or bad relative to the opponents FG%. Duke may have 47% effective FG%, but MD had 50% actual FG%, I'm guessing there effective FG% was mid 50s...when you shoot the 3 below average, it increases the opponents opportunity for beating your defense down the court...so even though the 3 may bump up your pts/shot, missing can do the same for the opponent. Hope that makes sense.

Excellent guess! MD's eFG% was 55.4, and as others have already noted their offensive efficiency was 116.9. That's our third worst defensive performance of the year, albeit against one of the top ten offenses in the country. Make no mistake - MD's offense won this game. The amazing thing is that with better free throw shooting in the second half, we could have actually won in spite of how well MD played offensively.

Regarding the possibility of a correlation between us having a low 3-point shooting percentage in a particular game and our opponent's high offensive efficiency... it makes sense intuitively, but I'm not sure it holds up in the data. We've had four defensive outlier games this year: the losses to WIS, NCST, GTWN, and MD (the GT loss was an offense problem). In those four losses, we've shot 36.1% from 3 (30 of 83), compared to 39% for the season as a whole. Not a very big difference, certainly not enough to explain the dramatic difference in defensive efficiency in those four games relative to the rest of the season.

Regarding the tournament, I'll state the obvious - we will not win a game in which our opponent posts an offensive efficiency number of 116.9. Of course, neither will anyone else. I did a quick check of the top ten offensive teams in the country, and found only two games where a team has won despite allowing its opponent to score that many points per possession:

Villanove beat Marquette on January 9th despite allowing Marquette to post an offensive efficiency of 118.4

Cal beat Washington State on January 14th when even though WSU put up an offensive 121.8.

That's it. The other 26 times one of the 10 best offenses in the country has faced a team putting up these kind of numbers, they've lost. So the best offensive teams in the country are 2-26 when they allow their opponent to have the type of game MD had last night. Which brings me back to what I said before... MD's offense won the game.

[Kedsy]

Sorry, I can be a bit criptic. My point is that the effective FG% is good or bad relative to the opponents FG%. Duke may have 47% effective FG%, but MD had 50% actual FG%, I'm guessing there effective FG% was mid 50s...when you shoot the 3 below average, it increases the opponents opportunity for beating your defense down the court...so even though the 3 may bump up your pts/shot, missing can do the same for the opponent. Hope that makes sense.

Well, Maryland shot the three very well, which makes the 50% even worse (55% efg%). That's one reason why I said defense was the problem for us in this game and not offense. Having said that, even in this game effective fg% is a helpful metric. In overall shooting percentage, Maryland hit 50% of their shots while we hit 39%. Their edge in efg% was only 55% to 47%. Still an edge, but not as much as it appeared.

Over the course of the season, Duke has been very good at three point defense. We shoot 39% from three while our opponents shoot 27%, and since we take a lot more three pointers as well, we make more than twice as many as our opponents. Our overall shooting percentage is 44% compared to 40.6% for our opponents, but our overall effective shooting percentage is 50.5% compared to our opponents' 44%. Thus our overall mediocre shooting percentage is misleading. And when you add in that we're one of the best offensive rebounding teams in the country, it should demonstrate that those who say we can't win shooting at these low percentages are incorrect.

[Kedsy]

That's it. The other 26 times one of the 10 best offenses in the country has faced a team putting up these kind of numbers, they've lost. So the best offensive teams in the country are 2-26 when they allow their opponent to have the type of game MD had last night. Which brings me back to what I said before... MD's offense won the game.

This is very cool analysis. Thanks.

To me, the question becomes whether Maryland's offense won the game, or Duke's defense lost it. I would suggest the latter, or perhaps a combination of the two.

[duke4life32182]

Our offense looked good to me. I think we should of stuck with the zone. Why? Because Maryland loves to run the flex offense. Having someone with length at the top (mainly Lance) was really working. Would of kept Lance out of foul trouble as well. The only time I thought the offense let us down was at the end. Nolan should of kept doing his thing. Oh well. You can't win them all.

[Richard Berg]

That's it. The other 26 times one of the 10 best offenses in the country has faced a team putting up these kind of numbers, they've lost. So the best offensive teams in the country are 2-26 when they allow their opponent to have the type of game MD had last night. Which brings me back to what I said before... MD's offense won the game.
Well reasoned and factually supported. Thank you.

Now if we were to actually break down why we allowed 116.9...I'm going to do something unusual and blame Scheyer's off-the-ball denial. Usually this is one of our D's strongest assets. (just ask Wayne Ellington) However, it's risky against some types of O, including the flex. By my eye, the majority of Eric Hayes' cuts to the hoop came when Jon was guarding him. Hayes has become a magnificent spot-up guy (37% on 3-pointers last year => 46% this year) so disrupting his catch-and-shoot game is a genuine concern. But that doesn't always mean you can cheat into the passing lanes. It depends on what's happening around you.

As others have noted over the season, we don't apply as much ball pressure as in years past. Danger factor #1. Obvious example: anyone who tried to stay in front of Lawson, yielding enough ground that entries to Hansbrough became easy. Meanwhile, Maryland shares the ball well; in particular, many guys with the physical stature to see over the defense also have good vision. Danger factor #2. See: Jeff Green (6'9") getting 7 assists in Georgetown's classic upset of the unbeaten '06 juggernaut. Or several NCSU games that were far closer than they needed to be thanks to Ilian Evtimov's high post play. GV isn't that tall but he does share this advantage, and he's far from their only good passer.

Bottom line, for Jon & the coaches to allow so many interior cuts is unacceptable. I agree with greybeard that we were outcoached -- at least as far as X's and O's. (I don't think there's much more we could've done about rest. Scheyer got a blow in the first half after his 2nd foul. Kyle doesn't need it. Nolan might've benefited, but once LT and Z got into foul trouble and Nolan had the hottest hand, we had no choice but to stay small.) I understand why we ditched the 1-2-2 in the second half once fouls & Z's finger were less of a concern, but I still think something like matchup-zone would've worked better. It's difficult to do right, no doubt, but our starting 5 communicate extremely well. It wasn't switching or hedging or mental lapses that led to high-% buckets for Hayes and Bowie; it was strategy.

Ironically, when Scheyer was caught defending GV 1:1 after switches, I thought he did a terrific job. Many of GV's ugliest misses came when forcing a tough shot over Jon. In the end his height advantage over Nolan ended up being a bigger factor than quickness. Vasquez is like Scheyer in more ways than we give either one of them credit for, using size and craftiness as his primary weapons, then sticking with every play to the bitter end. (pound for pound he's a better O-rebounder than UMD's bigs, in my opinion. and he clearly drew shooting fouls better than either of our guards did yesterday)