MOTM: Duke vs. BC (Jan 27, 2011)

[JBDuke]

Who was Man of the Match in Duke's 84-68 win over BC?

[CLW]

Kelly's 1st half and Curry's 2nd half?


Voted for Curry as he really got on a roll late and that slacker Kelly finally missed a shot.

[ice-9]

One of the toughest MOTM decisions in a long time.

First, you have Nolan Smith, who led our Duke team not only in points (28 on 10-20 shooting) and assists (8 with only 1 turnover!) but also in terms of dictating pace and tone of offense. He was a leader in this game.

Then you have a Duke career high 20-point game for Seth Curry, who hit some amazing shots (5-7 from three point land) and had a good all around game with 2 offensive rebounds, 3 assists and 3 steals.

Of course there was Ryan Kelly, who other than Nolan was the only offensive weapon in the first half (overall 14 points on 6-9 shooting). More than that though was his dominant post defense; he was credited with 4 blocks but altered many more. In a game where BC was getting a lot of cuts, Ryan's post defense was key. He also corralled 4 rebounds.

Then there's Mason who is emerging as a rebounding machine with 12 rebounds, 3 offensive. If he only shot a better free throw percentage he would have ended up with a double double.

It's a really tough call among these four and among Nolan, Seth and Ryan especially.

[wsb3]

Nolan...I love Curry shooting the ball that way but Nolan was the man.

[timmy c]

Lots of good choices but I voted for Nolan. He had his game swagger going and the ball was in his hands whenever the offense needed a play.

[superdave]

When you talk about Nolan Smith you talk about a guy who is leading the ACC in both scoring and assists. You're talking about a guy who gets to the rim better than anyone in the nation. He can go right, he can go left, he can finish on the break, he can hit the mid range jumper or the 3 ball. Here's a guy who is the emotional leader of the defending NCAA champs. Here's a guy who I think sped up Boston College all night long so they could not play their pace. When you talk about Nolan Smith, you're talking about a player who knows he's the best player on the court night in and night out. He knows that and he plays that way.

Super "I'll stop now" Dave

[Ima Facultiwyfe]

My vote was for Nolan but, my heart was with Kyle. He's giving the team everything he's got in any way he can. If he hadn't come back this year, we wouldn't even have Nolan. Singler is iron.
Love, Ima

[loran16]

Curry. Really not sure why all the Nolan love. He performed good, but was very sloppy at times, often driving and then forcing bad shots rather than passing. 10-20 is not a great line guys.

Curry on the other hand, was dominant. Just great game.

Honorable mention to RK, for still being awesome, even if he missed a shot or two.

[rotogod00]

Gimme the man with 20 pts on only 9 shots

[Johnboy]

When you talk about Nolan Smith you talk about a guy who is leading the ACC in both scoring and assists. You're talking about a guy who gets to the rim better than anyone in the nation. He can go right, he can go left, he can finish on the break, he can hit the mid range jumper or the 3 ball. Here's a guy who is the emotional leader of the defending NCAA champs. Here's a guy who I think sped up Boston College all night long so they could not play their pace. When you talk about Nolan Smith, you're talking about a player who knows he's the best player on the court night in and night out. He knows that and he plays that way.

Super "I'll stop now" Dave

Why stop? I thought Seth was an absolute dagger; that Kyle had the quietest 14 points anyone has ever scored; that Kelly was a rock when we needed him and Mason was a rebounder and an inside presence all night (pretty outlet pass, too) - but the MOTM controlled the tempo, had 8 assists against just one TO and scored 28 himself.
Honestly, I wanted to vote for Seth with his great hustle on defense and his personal high score, but I just couldn't deny the excellence that was Nolan Smith tonight. He toyed with this game.

[ice-9]

10-20 is not a great line guys.

Uhh....really?!?

[mapei]

I couldn't agree more with the praise for Nolan tonight. I think some fans take him for granted, but he may be the best player in the country so far. Very key contributions tonight for the ever-improving Ryan and the streaky-but-hot-tonight Seth. But Nolan is the leader who makes it go, the leading scorer, the leading assist guy, and he had some great defensive plays as well.

Mason is a liability on offense but is becoming exceptional on defense. He and a number of others got burned tonight by moving over to help while exposing their man, but his rebounding and blocking ability are becoming exceptional.

[Bluedevil114]

I was so impressed with Seth Curry tonight. Did not force anything. He was on fire and deadly. He hustled and dove on the floor and gave a great pass to Kelly for the dunk. In transition his three is deadly. Is Dawkins in the doghouse because of his defense? Or does Coach K just go with the hot hand and the other just sits. This would have been a game you would think we could go small and dribble and kick.

Great game by Kelly, Smith and Curry tonight.

Singler has got to figure out how to finish at the rim. I loved his dunk tonight in transition. Mason and Miles need to put up 500 free throws every day and figure it out. This could come back and haunt us in the tourney.

So a little negative. Love the hustle and sense of urgency tonight. Go Duke!!

[loran16]

Uhh....really?!?

Yes. Missing half your shots is a good performance in basketball. It is not a great performance.

[Acymetric]

Yes. Missing half your shots is a good performance in basketball. It is not a great performance.

What about when you also put up 8 assists with 1 T.O.? If you're only looking at shooting percentage then yes, vote for Seth. If you're looking at defense, rebounding, and overall contribution in addition to shooting/scoring there is certainly a case to be made for both guys (and Kelly?) but I think its still Nolan by a fair margin and it most certainly was a great performance from him.

[loran16]

What about when you also put up 8 assists with 1 T.O.? If you're only looking at shooting percentage then yes, vote for Seth. If you're looking at defense, rebounding, and overall contribution in addition to shooting/scoring there is certainly a case to be made for both guys (and Kelly?) but I think its still Nolan by a fair margin and it most certainly was a great performance from him.

I think the 1 turnover is misleading. As I was saying, it seemed to me that Nolan was at least a few times (without watching the game or not, I can't put forth an exact number, but i'd guess 5 or more times), Nolan would drive into the lane, jack up a bad shot and result in a one and done possession. Those don't count as turnovers. But they're awfully similar (except they don't lead to fast break points, which is why turnovers are worse than missed unrebounded shots).

Seth was dominant played great D, heck even had 2 offensive boards. He was the better man today.

Nolan needs to dial down the amount of shots he takes...if he did, he'd have a similar amount of points while the team would score more. Not that he's not pretty good performing as he did today....but he wasn't the best player.

[OldPhiKap]

Nolan, for all-around game and for doing it for 40. But mad props for Seth and Ryan, who both made big steps forward tonight.

[TampaDuke]

Yes. Missing half your shots is a good performance in basketball. It is not a great performance.

Well, 50% fg would put you in the top 30 in the NBA right now (and #7 amongst all NBA guards).

Not to take away from Curry's awesome game, but -- coming in to this game, if Curry were the one averaging 20.1 pts per game and Nolan averaging 7.6, would you still think Curry was MOTM?

[airowe]

Uhh....really?!?

Yeah, 50% shooting for a guard is really good.

My vote goes to Nolan. Even with the mistakes.

[loran16]

Well, 50% fg would put you in the top 30 in the NBA right now (and #7 amongst all NBA guards).

Not to take away from Curry's awesome game, but -- coming in to this game, if Curry were the one averaging 20.1 pts per game and Nolan averaging 7.6, would you still think Curry was MOTM?

If that was the case, Nolan wouldn't be taking 20 shots. Sorry, 28 points on 20 shots is NOT an impressive rate, especially when one other player (Seth) was key in building our insurmountable lead (Ryan was as well, to be fair).

[ice-9]

If that was the case, Nolan wouldn't be taking 20 shots. Sorry, 28 points on 20 shots is NOT an impressive rate, especially when one other player (Seth) was key in building our insurmountable lead (Ryan was as well, to be fair).

Hello.

1) When a team scores 84 points, you'll need more than one player to be "key in building our insurmountable lead." So, Seth and Ryan scoring shouldn't detract at all from Nolan scoring, because you need more than one.

2) As another poster pointed out, shooting 50% as a guard in the NBA would easily put you in the top 20. If that's not "great" then I don't know what is. I wish I have the stats for points per shot, but I'm guessing 1.4 is not too shabby.

3) There's a difference between shooting 2-4 vs. 10-20. In the latter, you are scoring on a volume significant enough that defenses should be keyed against you. Nolan scored 28 points on 10-20 shooting with the opponent knowing he was going to take that many shots. So it's one thing to shoot 2-4 on open jumpers, quite another to shoot 10-20 against defenses designed to limit you.

4) Nolan was often the only guy creating offensively on our team -- those 8 assists didn't come out of nowhere. Without him, our offense would've been stagnant. Without his penetration, defenses wouldn't have collapsed and our shooters wouldn't have been as open.

Sure, he made mistakes and sometimes missed the open man, but without his aggression, we wouldn't even have those opportunities. 28 points on 10-20 shooting as the lead scorer with an 8:1 assist-turnover ratio is DAMN good. Sorry if you disagree.

[magjayran]

The contributions of others are very nice but Nolan was the catalyst tonight. Right now, he's our superstar among stars.

[flyingdutchdevil]

Hello.

1) When a team scores 84 points, you'll need more than one player to be "key in building our insurmountable lead." So, Seth and Ryan scoring shouldn't detract at all from Nolan scoring, because you need more than one.

2) As another poster pointed out, shooting 50% as a guard in the NBA would easily put you in the top 20. If that's not "great" then I don't know what is. I wish I have the stats for points per shot, but I'm guessing 1.4 is not too shabby.

3) There's a difference between shooting 2-4 vs. 10-20. In the latter, you are scoring on a volume significant enough that defenses should be keyed against you. Nolan scored 28 points on 10-20 shooting with the opponent knowing he was going to take that many shots. So it's one thing to shoot 2-4 on open jumpers, quite another to shoot 10-20 against defenses designed to limit you.

4) Nolan was often the only guy creating offensively on our team -- those 8 assists didn't come out of nowhere. Without him, our offense would've been stagnant. Without his penetration, defenses wouldn't have collapsed and our shooters wouldn't have been as open.

Sure, he made mistakes and sometimes missed the open man, but without his aggression, we wouldn't even have those opportunities. 28 points on 10-20 shooting as the lead scorer with an 8:1 assist-turnover ratio is DAMN good. Sorry if you disagree.

Absolutely great analysis! A fair amount of Nolan's 8 assists went to Curry and Ryan. Would they have scored 20 and 14, respectively, without Nolan, who nearly demands a double-team nowadays? I would be very surprised if they did.

This was one of Nolan's best games at Duke. The fact that he nearly had a 30-10 game off 20 shots is incredible. More amazingly, as you said, he had 1 turnover! 1!

IMO, I think that Nolan is our most complete player since Jay Will. Wait, wait - let me explain. Nolan can shoot the 3, penetrate inside with either hand, and, most uniquely, has the best mid-range game in the ACC (and potentially the country). Not only is he leading the team in scoring, but he is also getting players involved as he has the most assists per game in the ACC. Furthermore, he is usually assigned to the best offensive guard on the opposing team. Limiting Reggie Jackson, the 2nd highest scorer in the ACC, to 3-11 for only 7 points is impressive. JJ was more complete offensively, but he didn't have the nearly lock-down defensive capabilities or ball-distributing capabilities that Nolan has.

[mgtr]

OK, we have a terrible problem. Tonight we didn't have our two seniors outplaying and outscoring everybody else on the floor - we also added two sophomores to the mix. Any night that we win and have a really tough time deciding on the MOTM is a great outcome in my view. So, three starters each played of their best games, the fourth starter (Kyle) did well by most standards, and the fifth did what he does.
So, I voted for Seth, but also wanted to vote for Kelly and especially for Nolan.
The only two downsides I saw were a) we didn't put them away in the second half when we were up by 20, and b) we didn't get much out of our bench.

[4decadedukie]

Having had the privilage of watching the game in person last night, Nolan gets my vote for inspiring clutch play as much as for any specific quantifiable achievements. He is a legitimate NPOY candidate.

[Ggallagher]

Even though I voted for Nolan in this pole (and did so based on "facts", I feel like Kyle's contribution is possibly being overlooked in this game.

My vote was "fact" based because for whatever strange reason, I decided to watch this game and "score" the players' contributions. On each offensive and defensive set, I looked for the "who" and "why" that particular set had a positive or negative contribution in Duke's effort.

My totally non-scientific system was that a player got one point for every assist, hustle play, completed "difficult" shot (yeah, kind of judgmental there), block-out, superior rebound effort, or steal, etc. they made.

Anytime a player committed a turnover, silly foul, forced a shot when there was a better alternate, stood around and watched on defense,etc., they lost a point.

So at the end of the game I had a tally for each player counting the total of their positive contributions throughout the (almost) forty minutes. I was watching on the internet - not TV - and actually missed some entire possessions when the feed locked up. And I also had a total for each player's negatives.

For whatever that's worth, Nolan only barely beat Kyle in my system, and they were both far ahead of Seth - who did really have an outstanding game. What was interesting up until the last few minutes is that I was having to figure out how I would vote in the pole if Kyle and Nolan ended up tied - which they almost did.

My final score for the two of them ended up being sixteen points for Nolan and fourteen for Kyle - but Kyle had absolutely NO NEGATIVES in his column. Nolan's final score was nineteen positives and three negatives for a net of sixteen. So I had decided that in the event of a tie, I would vote for Kyle because he had a clean slate on the negative side.

And like I said, I know I missed four or five sets during the game, so if someone saw Kyle do a no-no that I overlooked - that's my excuse - I didn't get to see it. Plus you just can't see everything anyway.

So while I have no doubt that everyone that loves watching this team play fully understands how valuable Kyle is to their success, I just wanted to take this one opportunity to stress his value based on my totally scientific and objective review of this one game.

I think it's interesting that had I ended up with a tie between Nolan and Kyle, and voted for Kyle per my "rules", I would have been one of only two (right now) viewers who supported him - and probably some of you would have been scratching your head wondering how Kyle got the vote over either Nolan or Seth who stood out more obviously in this game.

And in the end, "Good game to Kyle, Seth, Nolan, Ryan and Mason" who all scored nicely in my little experiment - but Nolan and Kyle beat the pack handily.

[devildeac]

Very interesting breakdown of the voting so far. Seth and Nolan with 67 each and Ryan and Kyle with 1 each. I had a real tough time with this vote but chose Seth for his career high and a really fine performance overall, especially his dive for the steal and assist to Ryan for the dunk. But, if you twist my arm, I was almost as equally impressed with Nolan's magic act behind his back in some traffic and getting the ball to Mason for his dunk (IIRC).

[wilson]

...I had a real tough time with this vote but chose Seth for his career high and a really fine performance overall...Continued nitpicking...this was not Seth's career high. His season average was 20.2 ppg during his freshman year.
His goduke.com bio (http://www.goduke.com/ViewArticle.dbml?SPSID=22727&SPID=1845&DB_OEM_ID=4200&ATCLID=204812443&Q_SEASON=2010) lists at least two 30-point performances in a Liberty uniform.

[CDu]

Continued nitpicking...this was not Seth's career high. His season average was 20.2 ppg during his freshman year.
His goduke.com bio (http://www.goduke.com/ViewArticle.dbml?SPSID=22727&SPID=1845&DB_OEM_ID=4200&ATCLID=204812443&Q_SEASON=2010) lists at least two 30-point performances in a Liberty uniform.

Yeah, I noted that in my post-game thread comments. Lazy work by the broadcast crew on that one. It's his season high and his career high in a Duke uniform, but it's not his career high.

[PADukeMom]

Sending love to my Nolan but I voted for Seth.

[elvis14]

I voted for Nolan, he was really good tonight. Just think if he would have gotten a few 'and 1' calls when he hit layups and got knocked down. Curry was great as was Kelly.

[Newton_14]

I went with Seth due to his breakout game. I noticed he was putting in a lot of work during pre-game on catching on the move and getting his shot up, and in the post-game interview he stated he had worked extra hard both before and after practice on being ready to shoot right after the catch. The hard work paid off so I gave him props for it.

Nolan was great. Really good floor game, scoring, defense, ball handling, etc etc. He is playing like a NPOY Candidate and definite 1st Team AP All American. I commented to a friend during the State game that Nolan is the best player in the country, and I am sticking with that.

Great team effort last night with all 9 contributing in one way or another. The bench, even without scoring, made good contributions. Their overall defense was good, and we were able to sustain a high level of play with those guys in the mix. Sign of quality depth.