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JBDuke
03-05-2014, 09:07 PM
Put your post-game comments here.

Remember, no venting or player/coach bashing allowed.

hurleyfor3
03-05-2014, 09:07 PM
We barfed in the gutter.

CLW
03-05-2014, 09:08 PM
no heart no effort on d. it is what it is at this point. they make the 3 tough out they don't they simply cannot stop anyone from scoring. too much variance from this duke team to be considered a legit title contender. they might make a little run or they could get beat in the 1st round.

RaiderDevil
03-05-2014, 09:08 PM
This may sound like I'm bashing, but these teams we've had the last few years just seem to have no leadership on the court. So frustrating to watch.

UrinalCake
03-05-2014, 09:08 PM
Familiar story - long scoring droughts where we don't move the ball or get it inside and then miss open threes. Turnovers and long rebounds lead to runouts. Guys playing through foul trouble and thus playing matador defense, allowing our opponents to look much better than they really are.

slower
03-05-2014, 09:09 PM
We barfed in the gutter.

And then got barfed on, while laying unconscious in the gutter.

As I said in a previous thread, this team will break your heart.

Duke79UNLV77
03-05-2014, 09:09 PM
We played horribly, and there's no excuse for losing to Wake, but let's not pretend that officiating hasn't been a factor.

moonpie23
03-05-2014, 09:09 PM
changes the sheets......turn the exhaust fan on....

:(

CameronDuke
03-05-2014, 09:09 PM
I wish I could say our deficiencies all appear basketball skill related and while to a certain extent they do appear that way, it is disheartening to watch this team play with no heart, toughness, or fight.

summerwind03
03-05-2014, 09:09 PM
Well, that was unpleasant. No idea how we look so lost out there all of a sudden. That is all on us.

18258
03-05-2014, 09:09 PM
better forget this game quickly, I don't understand why Parker doesn't get any touches late

Dukeface88
03-05-2014, 09:09 PM
We barfed in the gutter.

Must be a good barfing gutter. This is what, the fourth or fifth time we've used it this season?

geraldsneighbor
03-05-2014, 09:09 PM
Worst Duke loss I can remember. Worst than Lehigh. Wake is a bad bad team, and to allow a 17-0 run with the game on the line is as embarrassing as it gets.

Dukehky
03-05-2014, 09:10 PM
Late game situations when things get tight, especially when we have a lead, the whole team just kinda has a collective brain fart. String together a couple of bad decisions, and this kind of thing happens.

ScreechTDX1847
03-05-2014, 09:10 PM
Hard to be optimistic moving forward. If we don't win an ACC title or NCAA championship we are looking at a season with at least 9 losses. Pretty bad by our standards. No doubt Tyus Jones gets the nod next year. Quinn gas almost been a liability in the last 4 weeks. He cannot play strong with the ball.

CR9
03-05-2014, 09:10 PM
First 15 second-half minutes: 23 points
Last 5 second-half minutes: 23 points.

And typically, they made their last 20 aught free throws. Just wow.

GDuke_03
03-05-2014, 09:11 PM
Seems like every single game has a five minute scoring drought. Frustrating.

duke09hms
03-05-2014, 09:11 PM
We played horribly, and there's no excuse for losing to Wake, but let's not pretend that officiating hasn't been a factor.

nope, we lost because we played horribly

hurleyfor3
03-05-2014, 09:12 PM
Must be a good barfing gutter. This is what, the fourth or fifth time we've used it this season?

Less than a week old (http://forums.dukebasketballreport.com/forums/showthread.php?33260-Carolina-72-Kentucky-67&p=709780#post709780), but came with good timing.

gurufrisbee
03-05-2014, 09:12 PM
I"d just really like to go back to losing because the other team played better. This crap where we get called for twice as many fouls is getting old.

MaxAMillion
03-05-2014, 09:12 PM
The team doesn't appear to have much leadership or toughness. That is why they struggle to handle adversity. Funny,the teams in 2008 and 2009 suffered from some of the same problems. Of course a lot of those struggles went away in 2010. I really don't see how anything improves between now and the NCAA tournament.

rsvman
03-05-2014, 09:12 PM
Kinda hard to win when you get out scored 23-6 over he last five minutes or so.

I can't figure what has happened to our shooting.

I think Dawkins deserved more burn tonight.

dbowen
03-05-2014, 09:12 PM
Hard to be optimistic moving forward. If we don't win an ACC title or NCAA championship we are looking at a season with at least 9 losses. Pretty bad by our standards. No doubt Tyus Jones gets the nod next year. Quinn gas almost been a liability in the last 4 weeks. He cannot play strong with the ball.

Agreed. Let's hope so, because all he has done in the past few weeks is pound the ball into the ground and pass around the perimeter.

snewman92
03-05-2014, 09:12 PM
Here would be my top 3:

--better decision-making by whoever is running the point
--quicker help-side defense
--more dribble penetration

I know folks are having a hard time finding an upside to this one--me, too. But I like what I saw from MP3 tonight and the fire from Jabari. I should hope we come out with an edge against the Holes.

geraldsneighbor
03-05-2014, 09:12 PM
I like Quinn, but that play before the end of the first half epitomized the night and his last 4 weeks.

OldSchool
03-05-2014, 09:12 PM
I wouldn't say it was lack of effort. Just a game with too many dumb mistakes. At times we have been able to bail ourselves out of dumb basketball with decent three-point shooting, but not tonight.

As an aside, it occurred to me listening to the announcers that I have never seen Laphonso Ellis and Greybeard in the same place at the same time.

wgl1228
03-05-2014, 09:13 PM
Why do we jack up 3's with a lead and the best player in the country does not get the ball at the most important juncture of the game?

FerryFor50
03-05-2014, 09:13 PM
I can't decide if this loss is worse than the ND loss. But it's close.

Neither team is in the top 351 in kenpom. They're both hovering around .500. I suppose this one is worse because it's come later in the year. Trap game perhaps?

Wake hung in there, but Duke had the game in the bag before Jabari picked up his 4th "foul" after Cavanaugh dropped like a sniper hit him while guarding the post. Didn't realize Jabari had such power!

The story of this game was bad defense and WFU shooting 34 free throws to Duke's 18. I don't recall Wake going inside that much more than Duke, but whatever. Most of the 3s came late in the game when they had to play catch up. Before that, they were working it inside and driving.

Hopefully they get it together for the UNC game. But a 2 seed in the ACC tourny is now a long shot and forget about a 1 seed in the NCAAs unless they win the ACC tourny and other teams falter.

dalmatians98
03-05-2014, 09:14 PM
Expect to see a lot more 2-3 zone Saturday night -- and for the rest of post season play.

ChillinDuke
03-05-2014, 09:14 PM
Inexplicable at times. We had a whole week.

I have no idea what brings out the scoring droughts late in the second halves of these games. Just no idea.

Certainly frustrating to see players like Parker, Hood, and Sulaimon unable to just carry games as a collective. That's high level talent, and they just disappeared late in the game.

Sigh. 1 seed is gone now. Win out for a 2, I reckon.

- Chillin

cbnaylor
03-05-2014, 09:14 PM
I felt there were times when they played with heart. This team just doesn't do well when they go on a cold streak near the end of ball games. Reminded me of the lost that we had earlier in the year to ND. Instead of playing team ball, we try to play one on one ball and make stupid decisions.

KandG
03-05-2014, 09:14 PM
I actually have some belief this team is capable of looking quite formidable in the tournament and making a good run. But it's going to require the flipping of a mental switch, because the talent is clearly there yet underachieves at such inopportune moments.

I know it's March, late in the season, long time off, etc. But the same problems that have reared their ugly head in other unsightly losses came up tonight. Wake looked like the more composed team, the team that wanted it more, etc. Duke had periods of solid execution followed by long stretches of abysmal flailing around. And the defense consistently got burned, allowed inside players to get too deep, moved glacially slow on rotations to the shooters, couldn't get offensive rebounds when they did force a miss, etc etc etc.

Foul trouble had nothing to do with officiating, and had everything to do with the team being slow to react and being unable to defend without fouling.

The box score I had access to didn't yield plus/minus numbers, but it sure seemed that Quinn Cook's number had to be atrocious, especially in the second half. His second half rushed dribble straight into two defenders, resulting in a turnover and Hood's fourth foul, was all too emblematic of his struggles this season. What a disappointment.

slower
03-05-2014, 09:15 PM
I can't decide if this loss is worse than the ND loss. But it's close.

Neither team is in the top 351 in kenpom. They're both hovering around .500. I suppose this one is worse because it's come later in the year. Trap game perhaps?

Wake hung in there, but Duke had the game in the bag before Jabari picked up his 4th "foul" after Cavanaugh dropped like a sniper hit him while guarding the post. Didn't realize Jabari had such power!

The story of this game was bad defense and WFU shooting 34 free throws to Duke's 18. I don't recall Wake going inside that much more than Duke, but whatever. Most of the 3s came late in the game when they had to play catch up. Before that, they were working it inside and driving.

Hopefully they get it together for the UNC game. But a 2 seed in the ACC tourny is now a long shot and forget about a 1 seed in the NCAAs unless they win the ACC tourny and other teams falter.

At this point, we'd better hope we don't get embarrassed on Saturday.

Highlander
03-05-2014, 09:15 PM
We blew a winnable game against an inferior opponent. Beginning and end of the game we were ice cold from the floor, which is becoming a trend. I had high hopes for our chances vs. Unc, but now I am less than confident we can pull it out.

1-2-2 and 1-3-1 seem to be our Achilles heel this year.

Dukeface88
03-05-2014, 09:16 PM
Trap game perhaps?


I'm pretty sure it stops counting as a trap after you step in it the first time.

FerryFor50
03-05-2014, 09:16 PM
Why do we jack up 3's with a lead and the best player in the country does not get the ball at the most important juncture of the game?

Because he left with 4 fouls at that juncture. Hard to throw it in to him without causing a turnover, since he's on the bench and all. Parker didn't check back in until around the 2-3 minute mark. By then, Wake had the lead and was on a roll.

RaiderDevil
03-05-2014, 09:16 PM
I think they get cocky with a 5 point lead. Start playing like they are up 20 and in control.

UrinalCake
03-05-2014, 09:16 PM
Why do we jack up 3's with a lead and the best player in the country does not get the ball at the most important juncture of the game?

Even when we made a half-hearted effort to get him the ball, our guards couldn't make a simple entry pass. He'd post up inside the zone and his defender would just hold his arm up and our guards would be flumoxxed. We either need to set some off-ball screens to get him open to receive the ball, or have him just come out beyond the three point line and get it. No excuse for how few touches he gets while we jack up threes.

House G
03-05-2014, 09:17 PM
There is a reason why guys like Kyrie Irving and Jabari Parker go to the NBA after one year. It mystifies me how Parker becomes Osama Bin Laden in the last few minutes of some of these games. The offense needs to run through him. I guarantee you Creighton runs their offense through McDermott. We hit the panic button and start jacking up threes. Like I've said before, I want to go down with the ball in his Parker's hands.

cruxer
03-05-2014, 09:17 PM
Unless there is a big change in consistency, I can't see us making a deep run at this point. We need Quinn to get his confidence back. We need to consistently get the ball inside against the zone and avoid hero ball. And we need to be able to post up without getting a cheap foul. Especially if it's Jabari's 4th. That foul sparked the wake run.

pfrduke
03-05-2014, 09:18 PM
We've had a closing issue in all our losses:

Kansas - 73-72 Duke with 5:00 to play, Kansas closes 22-11 down the stretch
Arizona - 49-49 with 10:00 to play, Arizona closes 23-17
Notre Dame - 60-53 Duke with 12:00 to play, Notre Dame closes 26-17 down the stretch
Clemson - 50-49 Duke with 10:00 to play, Clemson closes 23-9 down the stretch
Syracuse is a bit of an exception (although we did give up 37 points in the last 16 minutes)
Carolina - 60-58 Duke with 5:00 to play, Carolina closes 16-6 down the stretch
Wake - 63-55 Duke with under 6:00 to play, Wake closes 27-9 down the stretch.

Yeesh.

duke4ever19
03-05-2014, 09:18 PM
Foul calls had a ton to do with the result of this game.

When three (3!) of our starters are sitting in the first half with foul trouble, you know it isn't going to be a good day.

Remember that sudden turnaround where Duke was up by 6-7 points for several minutes and looking like they were about to put the game away? A 4th foul call on Parker happened just before, thus putting him on the bench, and Hood in the game (who also had 4 fouls).

PSurprise
03-05-2014, 09:19 PM
This team thinks the game is over after 30 minutes

dukelifer
03-05-2014, 09:20 PM
I was worried about this one- the layoff hurt. Now the question is whether this team can regroup and make a run. Unfortunately- this team has struggled in crunch time and that is a big concern in the tourney where all games are close. Not a whole lot you can say. This was a bad loss to a bad team. No sugar coating this one.

Dukehky
03-05-2014, 09:20 PM
Foul calls had a ton to do with the result of this game.

When three (3!) of our starters are sitting in the first half with foul trouble, you know it isn't going to be a good day.

Remember that sudden turnaround where Duke was up by 6-7 points for several minutes and looking like they were about to put the game away? A 4th foul call on Parker happened just before, thus putting him on the bench, and Hood in the game (who also had 4 fouls).

We pressured the ball like crazy against a team that can't shoot (still don't totally get it), and the officials went back to enforcing the new emphases on the rules which leads to, crazy high number of fouls and our bigs just weren't very good on help-side defense tonight. When we saw the nature of the calls, we should have adjusted, we didn't.

Huh?
03-05-2014, 09:20 PM
Another scoring drought and another game where no changes were even attempted to be made. Matt Jones plays great in the first half, no burn in the second. We're going to go on scoring droughts when our best player doesn't touch the ball and we have Cook and Thornton in the game dribbling back and forth at the top of the zone going nowhere.
Is K just out of it still?

mgtr
03-05-2014, 09:21 PM
One of the announcers made the very good point that with two stars, one or both of them should get a touch every time down.

jipops
03-05-2014, 09:22 PM
We've had a closing issue in all our losses:

Kansas - 73-72 Duke with 5:00 to play, Kansas closes 22-11 down the stretch
Arizona - 49-49 with 10:00 to play, Arizona closes 23-17
Notre Dame - 60-53 Duke with 12:00 to play, Notre Dame closes 26-17 down the stretch
Clemson - 50-49 Duke with 10:00 to play, Clemson closes 23-9 down the stretch
Syracuse is a bit of an exception (although we did give up 37 points in the last 16 minutes)
Carolina - 60-58 Duke with 5:00 to play, Carolina closes 16-6 down the stretch
Wake - 63-55 Duke with under 6:00 to play, Wake closes 27-9 down the stretch.

Yeesh.

There is definitely a pattern here. This team tends to fold very easily when on the ropes. Doesn't bode well at all.

trinity92
03-05-2014, 09:23 PM
Wow. This game bore a nauseating resemblance to a first or second round NCAA exit-- overmatched team gets up early and gets its confidence, then we're in a fight we didn't belong in. Got to hope this was a wake up call and we, um, wake the heck up.

cruxer
03-05-2014, 09:23 PM
Remember that sudden turnaround where Duke was up by 6-7 points for several minutes and looking like they were about to put the game away? A 4th foul call on Parker happened just before, thus putting him on the bench, and Hood in the game (who also had 4 fouls).

The 4th on Jabari was certainly suspect, but don't forget that Rodney got his 4th basically because of our lackadaisical play on the offensive end. I don't think we lost this game because of the zebras. Good teams play through bad officials. Especially teams that are playing far inferior teams. And Wake is inferior.

ChrisP
03-05-2014, 09:23 PM
I have no words. That was an awful loss to a bad team. Complete collapse down the stretch and terrible decision making on both ends of the floor. Ok, so I found a few words, I guess. In summary: UGH! :(

GDuke_03
03-05-2014, 09:24 PM
Sigh. 1 seed is gone now. Win out for a 2, I reckon.



Less concerned about a seed than making it out of the first weekend. Those teams will be MUCH better than wake.

hurleyfor3
03-05-2014, 09:25 PM
Also, the Cuse and UVa home wins were closer than they needed to be, Boeheim's T's notwithstanding.

We put it on cruise control up 12 against unc. You can't do that in the NCAAs.

richardjackson199
03-05-2014, 09:25 PM
Wake looked like they wanted this win more than Duke. Plumlee continues to play well, and he really is filling a much needed void for this team. I love TT, but I think our team looks better with Dawkins on the floor. Dawkins isn't getting enough playing time against these zones in my opinion. He is our best zone buster, and he opens things up more inside for Parker and Hood. I love Thornton's attitude, but he is too limited offensively. It's not his fault, but our team goes into these several minute scoring droughts with him out there.
Huge game Saturday on our floor that we should win. Use this as a Wake up call. We really can beat any team in the country. We can, but we won't if we don't score efficiently. March is here, and each game going forward is more important. I want to see Dawkins raining 3's on Saturday.

Coballs
03-05-2014, 09:26 PM
I believe that's what you call a trap game.

Without question the most disappointing loss of the year. They hit #4 in the rankings, finally got a week of rest, have the UNC rematch at home Saturday night, essentially control their destiny for a #1 seed....and then give up a 17-0 run late to lose to Wake Forest!!! PAINFUL!!!

The turning point of this game clearly was Jabari's 4th, which was a horrible foul but the correct call. Up 5 with the ball we turn it over, Jabari goes to the bench, and all hell breaks loose.

This team has lost it's rhythm and flow on offense. The offense needs to run through Jabari, but for some reason it consists largely of Cook and Sulaimon jacking up 3's. Plain and simple, Jabari is not getting enough touches. He only took 11 shots tonight. That is far too few for a player of his caliber and the potential #1 pick in the NBA draft. But if the offense is going to come down to shooting 3's (they took 27 tonight) at least play Dawkins!

The lack of D is alarming, giving up 82 to a team with almost no big scorers. And, for whatever reason in these close games, most of the team ends up in foul trouble.

duke4ever19
03-05-2014, 09:27 PM
We pressured the ball like crazy against a team that can't shoot (still don't totally get it), and the officials went back to enforcing the new emphases on the rules which leads to, crazy high number of fouls and our bigs just weren't very good on help-side defense tonight. When we saw the nature of the calls, we should have adjusted, we didn't.

The "officials went back to enforcing"... I'm sorry, but this sounds like they had previously abandoned the new rules and then re-adopted them. If that is your point, then I totally agree.

There seems to be no consistency in the way fouls are called this season. It seems to be completely arbitrary.

GGLC
03-05-2014, 09:27 PM
Why is it so hard to figure out how to play against these zones? Our offense has looked pedestrian or worse for weeks and weeks, deceptive PPP numbers against Syracuse in the second game notwithstanding.

It's utterly baffling.

DBFAN
03-05-2014, 09:29 PM
I know I will offend some people for saying this but I think Tyler is such a liability on the offensive end that it just cripples our offense. He is such a small threat to score and in the zone he just passes it around the perimeter with no threat to break down the zone with the dribble. If we can't stop people on defense we may as well try to out score them and have Dawkins in there more.

The only Prob is when Cook came in, our lead dwindled. It happened every time. He can not make good decisions when under pressure.

CameronDuke
03-05-2014, 09:29 PM
After seeing Duke lose to Wake and Notre Dame, many on this board should stop whining about the unbalanced schedule in the ACC. Many were saying UVA only played the top 6 once and feasted on the league's bottom feeders but Duke has taken 2 L's to ND and Wake! Pitiful!

#1Duke
03-05-2014, 09:30 PM
What I saw in this game and what I have been seeing lately.

For some reason, we can't handle and our offense is not nearly as effective against the zone defense. I think there is primarily one reason for this..... our scores are much better at going man to man against a defender to score.

We foul to much. Don't blame the refs. We reach, slap,hold, and bump hard on many plays. Maybe to many of our guys are offense minded and are not strong defenders.

We panic. Instead of playing a calm controlled game, we start jacking up threes way to fast.

Can't understand why we don't go to Parker in the post. He is very difficult to stop.

This is a topic for another thread perhaps.....but, I think at times we have to many offensively minded players on the floor and they want to score, look good, and be the hero... to much hero ball.

pfrduke
03-05-2014, 09:31 PM
There is definitely a pattern here. This team tends to fold very easily when on the ropes. Doesn't bode well at all.

Two ways to look at it, I guess. All our losses were extremely winnable. Collectively, at the 5:00 mark of our 7 losses, we're -12. So, on average, the games we lose we are within 2 points with 5 to play. Those are essentially toss-ups. We've played awfully from that point on (-40), but I don't think there's any fundamental issue that dooms us to play more than a point a minute worse than our opponents in the last 5 minutes of a game.

superdave
03-05-2014, 09:32 PM
We've had a closing issue in all our losses:

Kansas - 73-72 Duke with 5:00 to play, Kansas closes 22-11 down the stretch
Arizona - 49-49 with 10:00 to play, Arizona closes 23-17
Notre Dame - 60-53 Duke with 12:00 to play, Notre Dame closes 26-17 down the stretch
Clemson - 50-49 Duke with 10:00 to play, Clemson closes 23-9 down the stretch
Syracuse is a bit of an exception (although we did give up 37 points in the last 16 minutes)
Carolina - 60-58 Duke with 5:00 to play, Carolina closes 16-6 down the stretch
Wake - 63-55 Duke with under 6:00 to play, Wake closes 27-9 down the stretch.

Yeesh.

Well, this is depressing. How do you go about addressing this? Do they lose steam or execute poorly?

I really liked the platoon substitutions. I thought it helped keep our energy level high and helped define a lot of roles. I would bring them back for the post-season. It ought to help us through foul trouble issues as well.

We also have not worked to get Andre shots. Tyler found him on one nice play. But that was really it. We need to look for Andre for opportunistic 3s after every offensive rebound and in transition. We also need to work to find him in the half-court with the drive-dish.

kshepinthehouse
03-05-2014, 09:32 PM
After seeing Duke lose to Wake and Notre Dame, many on this board should stop whining about the unbalanced schedule in the ACC. Many were saying UVA only played the top 6 once and feasted on the league's bottom feeders but Duke has taken 2 L's to ND and Wake! Pitiful!

Very embarrassing that they lose 8 of their last 9 games then beat us. Once you think this team had pushed their way to the top they come crashing back down, HARD!

BlueandWhite
03-05-2014, 09:32 PM
I can't decide if this loss is worse than the ND loss. But it's close.

Neither team is in the top 351 in kenpom. They're both hovering around .500. I suppose this one is worse because it's come later in the year. Trap game perhaps?

Wake hung in there, but Duke had the game in the bag before Jabari picked up his 4th "foul" after Cavanaugh dropped like a sniper hit him while guarding the post. Didn't realize Jabari had such power!

The story of this game was bad defense and WFU shooting 34 free throws to Duke's 18. I don't recall Wake going inside that much more than Duke, but whatever. Most of the 3s came late in the game when they had to play catch up. Before that, they were working it inside and driving.

Hopefully they get it together for the UNC game. But a 2 seed in the ACC tourny is now a long shot and forget about a 1 seed in the NCAAs unless they win the ACC tourny and other teams falter.

Agree that #1 issue was bad D -- crappy team effort on D in both halves.

Expecting a significantly improved effort vs the heels on Sat night.

As for NCAAs...concerned about another Lehigh or Belmont-type matchup & nail biter game in the 1st round as a 2 seed (most likely scenario unless they lose to unc and falter in ACCs) -- agree with many other posters that this team has lacked toughness and cohesivenesd, will be very surprised to see them get to round of 16, to be perfectly honest.

FerryFor50
03-05-2014, 09:32 PM
After seeing Duke lose to Wake and Notre Dame, many on this board should stop whining about the unbalanced schedule in the ACC. Many were saying UVA only played the top 6 once and feasted on the league's bottom feeders but Duke has taken 2 L's to ND and Wake! Pitiful!

Well, Wake only played UVA once. So UVA only had to play one of the teams Duke lost to twice. Oh, and they didn't have to play UNC twice (you know, after UNC figured out they were good) or Syracuse twice (like, before Syracuse figured out they weren't that good).

So yea, the unbalanced schedule kinda sucks.

18258
03-05-2014, 09:32 PM
The only Prob is when Cook came in, our lead dwindled. It happened every time. He can not make good decisions when under pressure.
We have no trustworthy point guard at this point, I know a lot of folk think Sheed is a better option but he plays out of control at the point a lot

jipops
03-05-2014, 09:33 PM
When you're a small team that lacks any dependable guard play then it's really hard to beat anyone.

UrinalCake
03-05-2014, 09:34 PM
I feel like we should play our starters 10 minutes in the first half and the bench the other half, just to keep them out of foul trouble. I'm fairly confident we could have made it into the half tied or down by 5 or less. Then we can actually play the second half instead of everyone constantly having to worry about fouling.

Marshall played really well but he's at the point now where he actually has to pay attention to his fouls instead of just being overagressive every second, similar to how Tyler used to be.

I don't think the officiating cost us the game by any stretch of the imagination. Rather, it's how we take advantage (or don't) of the types of calls being made. When the same thing happens game after game, you have to believe it's not just bad officiating or a bad shooting night, it's actually a result of what we're doing.

FerryFor50
03-05-2014, 09:34 PM
Agree that #1 issue was bad D -- crappy team effort on D in both halves.

Expecting a significantly improved effort vs the heels on Sat night.

As for NCAAs...concerned about another Lehigh or Belmont-type matchup & nail biter game in the 1st round as a 2 seed (most likely scenario unless they lose to unc and falter in ACCs) -- agree with many other posters that this team has lacked toughness and cohesivenesd, will be very surprised to see them get to round of 16, to be perfectly honest.

I don't think toughness is a problem. I think missing shots during extended periods of the game is a problem. I think there is plenty of toughness on this Duke team.

hurleyfor3
03-05-2014, 09:35 PM
I feel like we should play our starters 10 minutes in the first half and the bench the other half, just to keep them out of foul trouble.

Weren't we doing just that for awhile? Weren't we beating teams better than Wake?

CameronDuke
03-05-2014, 09:35 PM
Well, Wake only played UVA once. So UVA only had to play one of the teams Duke lost to twice. Oh, and they didn't have to play UNC twice (you know, after UNC figured out they were good) or Syracuse twice (like, before Syracuse figured out they weren't that good).

So yea, the unbalanced schedule kinda sucks.

The other three top ACC teams besides UVA lost 6 combined games against the bottom six teams. UVa didn't lose any to them.

Also UVa and Duke played Clemson just once and UVa beat Clemson while Duke lost to Clemson.

UrinalCake
03-05-2014, 09:36 PM
We have no trustworthy point guard at this point, I know a lot of folk think Sheed is a better option but he plays out of control at the point a lot

Yeah, Sheed gets stripped way too often driving to the basket. Not sure if it's because he dribbles too high or because he telegraphs his moves or what, but I don't think he's the answer at point guard, he's just the best option we have right now.

FerryFor50
03-05-2014, 09:37 PM
The other three top ACC teams besides UVA lost 6 combined games against the bottom six teams. UVa didn't lose any to them.

UVA also doesn't get every team's best shot every game. Most of the year, they flew under the radar. I doubt most of the games even sold out... I'd have loved to see UVA play Duke, UNC and Syracuse twice. Or at least ONE of the top teams twice...

gofurman
03-05-2014, 09:38 PM
Here are my honest questions

1). Where the hell is the defense? Seriously, that was the worst last ten minute D by this Duke team all year, and that's saying something. Wake was INCREDIBLY efficient the final five or ten minutes on O. Looked like they were playing vs a high school defense. Someone please explain how we can have Thornton, Jones, suliamon on the perimeter and Hood and Parker length at the 3/4 and now plumlee as a rim protector and be THAT BAD at D? Please help me understand. We shouldn't need to score 80 to beat Wake. I couldn't care less about fouls. If D shows up AT ALL and holds wake to 65 Duke wins

2). WTH w Cook and the instant turnovers? Every time he got it I cringed and Wake would pressure him into a turnover. Dude is a junior. Without Cook we are relegated to Suliamon and Thonton to start the O. Suliamon has really improved at this but we need some help from Cook

3). PLEASE PLEASE go inside more. Most Every time Jabari touched within 5 feet of the goal good things happened. Why do we refuse to do that more? He can be unstoppable except by Duke refusing to give it to him or having him float the perimeter. Use hood and Dawkins and Rasheed to hit the threes. Keep Parker in the paint

Thoughts? Answers? Thanks in advance

cruxer
03-05-2014, 09:38 PM
Bet we don't see an 8 game layoff in conference next season. The early part of the first half was understandable due to rust, but that's a time we could have kept a bad team like wake from believing.

azzefkram
03-05-2014, 09:39 PM
Not the way I'd hoped we'd come out of the break. Nice games from Marshall and Jabari. Everyone else pretty much spit the bit (coaching included). Anything else I say wouldn't be very nice so I'll keep my peace.

CameronDuke
03-05-2014, 09:39 PM
UVA also doesn't get every team's best shot every game. Most of the year, they flew under the radar. I doubt most of the games even sold out... I'd have loved to see UVA play Duke, UNC and Syracuse twice. Or at least ONE of the top teams twice...

Is it UVa's fault that opposing coaches don't motivate them to give UVa their best shot? I don't think we got Wake or ND's best shot either I think we pissed the game away with 5 minutes left and couldn't score against an inferior team playing in a mediocre manner.

And the Joel was NOT sold out tonight.

Kjeffrey
03-05-2014, 09:39 PM
The officiating affected the game. We could not overcome our best players being on the bench. I thought in the first half we might have to forfeit because we wouldn't have enough players at the end. Seriously is this Wake team really capable of committing only 13 personal fouls, zone or no zone?

All that said that was a terrible loss and it leaves me with more questions than answers.
1. Why do some of the guards continue to pound the ball into the floor and run back and forth around the three point line?
2. Why are Andre and Matt not getting more playing time?
3. Why doesn't the coaching staff use timeouts when the other team is gaining momentum?
4. Why is Jabari Parker not getting the ball in key moments down the stretch?
5. Why would Hood commit his fourth foul in that situation? Yes, there was a bad offensive play by someone else to put him in that situation. However let the Wake player score. Those 2 points seem far less important than Hood's fourth foul.
6. Why can't we play against zone? We have seen it all year...
7. Why can't we hold the lead? It seems like the players get rattled and the result is close to all out panic.

Wheat/"/"/"
03-05-2014, 09:39 PM
We pressured the ball like crazy against a team that can't shoot (still don't totally get it), and the officials went back to enforcing the new emphases on the rules which leads to, crazy high number of fouls and our bigs just weren't very good on help-side defense tonight. When we saw the nature of the calls, we should have adjusted, we didn't.

Teams are driving to the rim on Duke because the guards are struggling to stop dribble penetration and Parker, Hood even Jefferson are undersized in the post and that draws fouls at a higher rate.

I think we saw tonight why I've been saying Plumlee is going to have to step up. Glad to see the announcers recognize that too.

91devil
03-05-2014, 09:39 PM
It has been well documented here, but this team does not handle adversity well. The negative body language of Quinn and Rasheed, which has been present all year (if not longer) spread tonight. Rodney looked very out of it and disappointed during the second half. I can't believe this hasn't been corrected at some point. C'mon boys, grow up! Turnovers happen. Shots don't go in. Get over it. Don't let it affect you the next time down the court.

This is not a good defensive team. They don't rotate well, they don't communicate well, they don't rebound well. We get in foul trouble because of our defensive flaws (not because of the referees). The foul trouble means we have to play some very odd line-up combinations, and this causes more match-up problems on defense. I'm not sure Coach knows what the rotation should be.

Wake came into this game playing very poorly. I imagined we might have a slow start because of the lay-off but that we'd shake it off after ten minutes or so. But the energy level never ramped up. Even with a crummy first thirty-five minutes, we could have gutted out a win. No energy and no concentration late.

geraldsneighbor
03-05-2014, 09:40 PM
Duke's Guard combo of Sheed, Tyler, and Quinn tonight combined for 10 TO's, 8 assists, 22 points, 8-24 FG, 4-16 3PT. That's not winning you a whole lot of games.

CR9
03-05-2014, 09:40 PM
No line changes, no W?

Duke76
03-05-2014, 09:41 PM
Well, this is depressing. How do you go about addressing this? Do they lose steam or execute poorly?

I really liked the platoon substitutions. I thought it helped keep our energy level high and helped define a lot of roles. I would bring them back for the post-season. It ought to help us through foul trouble issues as well.

We also have not worked to get Andre shots. Tyler found him on one nice play. But that was really it. We need to look for Andre for opportunistic 3s after every offensive rebound and in transition. We also need to work to find him in the half-court with the drive-dish.


Agree with all of the above very much...much more cohesion in working together..assistants need to bring it up again to K....but Andre really spreads the defense out and he certainly doesn't dribble dribble drive turn it over or get his shot blocks

wsb3
03-05-2014, 09:41 PM
We've had a closing issue in all our losses:

Kansas - 73-72 Duke with 5:00 to play, Kansas closes 22-11 down the stretch
Arizona - 49-49 with 10:00 to play, Arizona closes 23-17
Notre Dame - 60-53 Duke with 12:00 to play, Notre Dame closes 26-17 down the stretch
Clemson - 50-49 Duke with 10:00 to play, Clemson closes 23-9 down the stretch
Syracuse is a bit of an exception (although we did give up 37 points in the last 16 minutes)
Carolina - 60-58 Duke with 5:00 to play, Carolina closes 16-6 down the stretch
Wake - 63-55 Duke with under 6:00 to play, Wake closes 27-9 down the stretch.

Yeesh.

I was thinking about the games that we folded down the stretch and this is a great list but sadly even in a couple games we won like VA. we gave up i believe an 8-0 run down the stretch and we were lucky to win. This is a pattern & my confidence in this team to make a run is shot. I hope I am wrong.

Atldukie79
03-05-2014, 09:42 PM
Some thoughts:

We are 4-5 on the road in the ACC.
We struggle down the stretch in our losses.
We do not match the intensity that Wake and others have brought.

I sometimes wonder if we are a bunch of "too nice guys" who think they are "manufacturing" intensity...but find that it doesn't match the motivation of teams that want to kick Duke's butt.
We need one or several of these traits: the sob (Laettner) or the assassin (JJ) or the leader (Battier) or the thinker (Scheyer). The closest we have to a leader is Thornton, who does not have the skills to make it happen.
If we look rudderless in stormy situations, it is because we do not have leadership.

cruxer
03-05-2014, 09:42 PM
Those guard numbers are horrendous. That makes freezing out Hood and Parker at the end of the game all the more glaring.

weezie
03-05-2014, 09:43 PM
I'm just here lurking and sulking.

Dukeford
03-05-2014, 09:43 PM
Here are my honest questions

2). WTH w Cook and the instant turnovers? Every time he got it I cringed and Wake would pressure him into a turnover. Dude is a junior. Without Cook we are relegated to Suliamon and Thonton to start the O. Suliamon has really improved at this but we need some help from Cook

Thoughts? Answers? Thanks in advance

Sulaimon had as many turnovers as Cook did..........

dukelifer
03-05-2014, 09:43 PM
Two ways to look at it, I guess. All our losses were extremely winnable. Collectively, at the 5:00 mark of our 7 losses, we're -12. So, on average, the games we lose we are within 2 points with 5 to play. Those are essentially toss-ups. We've played awfully from that point on (-40), but I don't think there's any fundamental issue that dooms us to play more than a point a minute worse than our opponents in the last 5 minutes of a game.

The last five minutes is about mental toughness. No question that Duke has talent- but you have to make plays. This is a mental issue- panic- pressure - not sure - but great teams make plays in crunch time. This team does not have a closer- a guy who can take over. It is their flaw- and it is too late in the season to really expect a change. After UNC - they get another huge layoff. Only chance this team has is if they can shoot the three well for the next month. It could happen - but I am not hopeful.

gotoguy
03-05-2014, 09:44 PM
Why do we jack up 3's with a lead and the best player in the country does not get the ball at the most important juncture of the game?


That has been a consistent problem this year against zone defenses, getting the ball to Rodney and Jabari at the FT line or in the paint where they can score effectively. They went totally away from that near the end of the game and were either ineffective from the perimeter or when they tried to penetrate they turned the ball over (Sheed) or were blocked or passed ineffectively and thru the ball away(Quin). I also thought K should have put Jabari back in sooner though it was unlikely to matter since no one would pass him the ball. Bone headed point guard play and poor game planning let to our offensive collapse in the last 5 minutes. Yeccchhh.

gcashwell
03-05-2014, 09:44 PM
What does Tyler Thornton do better than Matt Jones?

Thornton had a bunch of assists to very few turnovers in the last few games.

UrinalCake
03-05-2014, 09:44 PM
We are 4-5 on the road in the ACC

Well the good news is that there are no more true road games left in the season.

FerryFor50
03-05-2014, 09:45 PM
Sulaimon had as many turnovers as Cook did..........

Sheed also had more assists than Cook did. And played 4 more minutes.

Not sure what is up with Cook. Hopefully he snaps out of it.

weezie
03-05-2014, 09:46 PM
Well the good news is that there are no more true road games left in the season.

Yep, this is true...in the regular season indeed. And at this rate, how long will the post season last?

gcashwell
03-05-2014, 09:46 PM
Teams are driving to the rim on Duke because the guards are struggling to stop dribble penetration and Parker, Hood even Jefferson are undersized in the post and that draws fouls at a higher rate.

I think we saw tonight why I've been saying Plumlee is going to have to step up. Glad to see the announcers recognize that too.

This is 100% correct. I think Plumlee is stepping up. May be too late..

FerryFor50
03-05-2014, 09:47 PM
The last five minutes is about mental toughness. No question that Duke has talent- but you have to make plays. This is a mental issue- panic- pressure - not sure - but great teams make plays in crunch time. This team does not have a closer- a guy who can take over. It is their flaw- and it is too late in the season to really expect a change. After UNC - they get another huge layoff. Only chance this team has is if they can shoot the three well for the next month. It could happen - but I am not hopeful.

Eh... I think it's more about hero ball than mental toughness. Every guy out there wants to hit the big shot. What they need to realize is that there are two primary offensive weapons - Hook and Parker. The rest of the team is a supporting cast and needs to understand their roles.

FerryFor50
03-05-2014, 09:48 PM
This is 100% correct. I think Plumlee is stepping up. May be too late..

Is it? Did the season end tonight? I seem to recall that there is at least ONE important game left this year... and some tournament thingy they play every year.

ChillinDuke
03-05-2014, 09:50 PM
What does Tyler Thornton do better than Matt Jones?

Aside from free throw shooting (83.3% vs 59.0%), 3pt shooting (47.1% vs 15.8%), overall shooting (45.3% to 31.9%), experience (4 yrs vs 1), and overall excellent hustle play (offense and defense vs mainly defense)?

Not much.

- Chillin

Huh?
03-05-2014, 09:50 PM
Hit threes.

Going back to last Wake game he's 7-24. Jones came in with a big reputation of being a shooter. IMO if he got the minutes Thornton does he would shoot better than 28%. It's tough to get 2 minutes a game and come in firing. So, I disagree.

FerryFor50
03-05-2014, 09:51 PM
Quinn deserves a spot on the pine. He is flat out Awful right now! Too many boneheaded turnovers and jacked up 3's from everywhere. I would rather see Matt Jones play vs. unc.

I have a feeling you'll be back in a year or two saying the same about Matt Jones...

geraldsneighbor
03-05-2014, 09:52 PM
Going back to last Wake game he's 7-24. Jones came in with a big reputation of being a shooter. IMO if he got the minutes Thornton does he would shoot better than 28%. It's tough to get 2 minutes a game and come in firing. So, I disagree.

I like Jones, but he can't make a FT right now. He hasn't been the shooter he was hyped as. 9 for 22 since the Gardner Webb game.

arnie
03-05-2014, 09:53 PM
We've been extraordinarily healthy this year as opposed to recent history. Would have thought we'd trash the weaklings with all our talent. The team simply hasn't come together, and I agree it may be too late to fix this.

Kjeffrey
03-05-2014, 09:53 PM
Is Rodney Hood really the only post player who can make a shot from the free throw line? I remember a game earlier this year against the zone (maybe Syracuse in the Dome) in which Jefferson was highly effective when he got the ball in that part of the zone. And yet, it seems like Hood is the only who is being positioned there now. Am I missing something?

dukelifer
03-05-2014, 09:56 PM
Eh... I think it's more about hero ball than mental toughness. Every guy out there wants to hit the big shot. What they need to realize is that there are two primary offensive weapons - Hook and Parker. The rest of the team is a supporting cast and needs to understand their roles.

I was think the the toughness is a collective. You have to know who to go to and how to get them the ball. This is a team failure. But it has not been corrected and that is a big concern. A good team needs to understand how to get the ball to their best players in positions they can score.

Wheat/"/"/"
03-05-2014, 09:56 PM
This is 100% correct. I think Plumlee is stepping up. May be too late..

There's plenty of time left for Plumlee to settle in and give Duke some needed low post play. Tonight was just one game in the season, as disappointing as it may be for now.

He just needs to relax, take a deep breath and not overplay quite so much which leads him into foul trouble. He's a big kid and quick. Just play position defense and don't reach, attack the boards and clean up around the rim. Let his all ACC teammates Hood and Parker do the heavy lifting. He had a nice left handed move early in the game for a score. He has talent. Just needs for the game to slow down for him, and it will as he gets more experience.

gurufrisbee
03-05-2014, 09:57 PM
Add Tyler Cavanagh to the list.

Yes, you know the list of mild scoring, relatively low impact big men who plays Duke and blows up for a season/career high.

Seems like it happened all the time earlier this season - Vermont, East Carolina, Notre Dame, Clemson, etc., etc..

Coballs
03-05-2014, 09:57 PM
There is a reason why guys like Kyrie Irving and Jabari Parker go to the NBA after one year. It mystifies me how Parker becomes Osama Bin Laden in the last few minutes of some of these games. The offense needs to run through him. I guarantee you Creighton runs their offense through McDermott. We hit the panic button and start jacking up threes. Like I've said before, I want to go down with the ball in his Parker's hands.

I agree with you 100%. This team has several major issues (bad D, too many fouls, erratic guard play) but the biggest problem is that the offense does not run through Jabari nearly enough, especially with the game on the line. He might be the ACC POY, runner up for national POY, and the #1 overall selection in the NBA draft. But tonight he only took 11 shots. And in the UNC game and second game against Cuse, he didn't get nearly enough touches. He should be taking at least 15-20 shots every night out. He's a world class talent that has the ability to carry a team on his back, but instead it seems like he's more like just one cog in this out of sync offense.

cruxer
03-05-2014, 09:57 PM
Is Rodney Hood really the only post player who can make a shot from the free throw line? I remember a game earlier this year against the zone (maybe Syracuse in the Dome) in which Jefferson was highly effective when he got the ball in that part of the zone. And yet, it seems like Hood is the only who is being positioned there now. Am I missing something?

I think you need a triple threat guy flashing to the free throw line, preferably a guy with size. Our only options are Hood or Parker. For whatever reason we don't consistently exploit that against zone.

kshepinthehouse
03-05-2014, 09:59 PM
We need to get out in transition and push the ball every chance we get. When we did that tonight I thought we looked pretty good. Problem was we either chose to slow it down too much or didn't have many chances to push it.

ChillinDuke
03-05-2014, 10:01 PM
Is Rodney Hood really the only post player who can make a shot from the free throw line? I remember a game earlier this year against the zone (maybe Syracuse in the Dome) in which Jefferson was highly effective when he got the ball in that part of the zone. And yet, it seems like Hood is the only who is being positioned there now. Am I missing something?

Yes, you're missing that Rodney Hood is not a post player by any definition of the term, for one. Additionally, he is projected as a lottery pick on many draft boards.

My sense is you are calling for Amile Jefferson to be positioned at the free throw line when we face zones. So my questions would be (a) why do I want a post player there over a shooting/slashing wing and (b) why would I not want to run the offense through a lottery pick in that scenario?

Having Amile in that spot makes very little sense in comparison to Rodney Hood being positioned there.

- Chillin

Troublemaker
03-05-2014, 10:01 PM
Almost at a loss for words here. Clearly the worst, most inexplicable loss of the season because it's March (as opposed to early Jan vs ND, the only other candidate for "worst loss") and we should be better than this, especially after a week off. The offense turned the ball over and got middling to poor shots against Wake's 1-2-2 zone, the defense couldn't rebound against a team that's typically very poor at offensive rebounding, and our guys lost composure during Wake's 17-0 run down the stretch. I do believe a team is capable of giving a terrible performance and follow it immediately with a great performance the next game, so I still feel good about Saturday against UNC. But obviously any hopes for a 1 seed are dashed now.

FerryFor50
03-05-2014, 10:01 PM
Going back to last Wake game he's 7-24. Jones came in with a big reputation of being a shooter. IMO if he got the minutes Thornton does he would shoot better than 28%. It's tough to get 2 minutes a game and come in firing. So, I disagree.

I doubt it. Nothing I've seen from Jones (form, results, etc) suggests he'd hit more threes than Thornton.

And the whole team's been shooting pretty poorly from 3 the last few games.

Since the last Wake game...

Dawkins: 9-28 (32%)
Hood: 16-43 (37%)
Sulaimon: 12-33 (36%)
Cook: 16-44 (36%)
Parker: 5-16 (31%)

Thornton is at 29%. Definitely the lowest, but also takes many fewer shots per minute than anyone else.

tendev
03-05-2014, 10:03 PM
We simply can't defend man to man and stay out of foul trouble the way the game is being called. The refs were not bad in this game. Wake attacked our man to man and when you get into foul trouble you can't defend at all.

Marshall is good enough defensively and rebounding but his lack of offensive skills makes the game 4 on 5 offensively when he is in. When he is not in, we add offense but give up inside defense. I don't even know who Tyler Cavanaugh is but he had a career night tonight.

We get a lead and simply don't put them away. Make mental errors, don't get a rebound, make a foul or turn the ball over. On the road you have to put the home team away so the crowd is not a factor. To state the obvious, this team has not done that.

We need a better Quinn Cook. He has lost his confidence. That turnover/steal at the end of the first half was telling.

Finally, as for leadership etc., the best players on this team are young and don't really know how to lead. The older players probably don't feel that they are good enough to lead. Hence the vacuum. This leads to panic at crunch time and bad decisions and ultimately losses in games that we could have won.

Well, whatever ... on to UNC. I hope we throttle them.

dukelifer
03-05-2014, 10:04 PM
I doubt it. Nothing I've seen from Jones (form, results, etc) suggests he'd hit more threes than Thornton.

And the whole team's been shooting pretty poorly from 3 the last few games.

Since the last Wake game...

Dawkins: 9-28 (32%)
Hood: 16-43 (37%)
Sulaimon: 12-33 (36%)
Cook: 16-44 (36%)
Parker: 5-16 (31%)

Thornton is at 29%. Definitely the lowest, but also takes many fewer shots per minute than anyone else.

Very concerning. The only way to win in the post season is to play D like there is no tomorrow. K has got his work cut out for him.

devilnfla
03-05-2014, 10:05 PM
Any word on Coach K? Just saw where he didn't speak to the media due to feeling light headed and dizziness.

dukelifer
03-05-2014, 10:06 PM
Any word on Coach K? Just saw where he didn't speak to the media due to feeling light headed and dizziness.

Now that is very concerning.

DevilYouthCoach
03-05-2014, 10:06 PM
That's how the color commentator summed it up and I agree. Wake Forest was totally psyched to win this game and they never gave an inch. Sure, they don't have nearly the talent that we have, but talent is negated by crazy adrenaline fed energy. How many offensive rebounds and second chance points did they have? How many double team steals did they make? How many times did they make us miss easy shots? Or block our lay-ups?

Plus, Duke played really dumb at times. The foul that Parker committed to get his fourth was one of the most immature moves I have seen him make all year. I think the Wake Forest kid just got into Parker's head and he reacted badly, and the WF kid acted it out beautifully. Jabari got called for the foul and we lost our only dependable scorer until the game was essentially over. (Personally I think Coach K was keeping him out as a teaching point). It was sad to see.

But really, this is why sports are so enjoyable. On any given day, the less talented underdog can win. I remember when Duke used to be the underdog -- the regional final against Alonzo Mourning? Or the upset of UNLV? Now that we are full of stars and lottery picks, we tend to start getting a bit too casual in the second half. We lose concentration, lose focus, and once lost, it's almost impossible to regain. Hence a 17-0 run late in the game, just when it seems to be ours.... Just can't ever let up! You snooze, you lose!

Chicago 1995
03-05-2014, 10:07 PM
There is a reason why guys like Kyrie Irving and Jabari Parker go to the NBA after one year. It mystifies me how Parker becomes Osama Bin Laden in the last few minutes of some of these games. The offense needs to run through him. I guarantee you Creighton runs their offense through McDermott. We hit the panic button and start jacking up threes. Like I've said before, I want to go down with the ball in his Parker's hands.

Completely agree.

Want to take Jabari out of the game? Play a 2-3 or 1-3-1 against us and Jabari's stationed in the corner and goes minutes without a touch.

And it ha to be by design, because it has been like this for weeks.

How a team with two lottery picks, including the second best offensive player in CBB, can be reduced to looking like a junior high team on O with a mediocre zone is just astonishing.

Troublemaker
03-05-2014, 10:08 PM
Any word on Coach K? Just saw where he didn't speak to the media due to feeling light headed and dizziness.

Per Laura Keeley, Wojo (who filled in postgame) said Coach K is expected to recover fully. Coach K also walked out of Joel under his own power. Sounds like he should be okay.

FerryFor50
03-05-2014, 10:09 PM
Completely agree.

Want to take Jabari out of the game? Play a 2-3 or 1-3-1 against us and Jabari's stationed in the corner and goes minutes without a touch.

And it ha to be by design, because it has been like this for weeks.

How a team with two lottery picks, including the second best offensive player in CBB, can be reduced to looking like a junior high team on O with a mediocre zone is just astonishing.

Yea, not a fan of sticking Parker in the corner. Have him run baseline. High-low passes with Hood. But keeping him in the corner is playing 4 on 5.

FerryFor50
03-05-2014, 10:10 PM
Per Laura Keeley, Wojo (who filled in postgame) said Coach K is expected to recover fully. Coach K also walked out of Joel under his own power. Sounds like he should be okay.

Probably came down with a case of sheer disbelief that they lost to Wake.

Kjeffrey
03-05-2014, 10:10 PM
Yes, you're missing that Rodney Hood is not a post player by any definition of the term, for one. Additionally, he is projected as a lottery pick on many draft boards.

My sense is you are calling for Amile Jefferson to be positioned at the free throw line when we face zones. So my questions would be (a) why do I want a post player there over a shooting/slashing wing and (b) why would I not want to run the offense through a lottery pick in that scenario?

Having Amile in that spot makes very little sense in comparison to Rodney Hood being positioned there.

- Chillin

I am not calling for Amile Jefferson to be there. I am simply wondering why the coaching staff is using no one there except Rodney Hood. Last time I checked there was another pretty good player on the roster who might be able to handle that assignment. And, yes, I know he is also not really a post player but given that there is not a single post player in this team I would think other options could be explored besides Hood.

FerryFor50
03-05-2014, 10:13 PM
I am not calling for Amile Jefferson to be there. I am simply wondering why the coaching staff is using no one there except Rodney Hood. Last time I checked there was another pretty good player on the roster who might be able to handle that assignment. And, yes, I know he is also not really a post player but given that there is not a single post player in this team I would think other options could be explored besides Hood.

He's in the high post. Not the low post. Hood is there because he's money from there. Parker could play high post, and does when Amile is in and playing low post. But Parker isn't as automatic with the jumper from that spot. I rarely see Hood in the low post.

It's the perfect way to beat the zone - attack the middle and force the zone to move towards the middle and open up shooters or cutters. They just don't do it very consistently in some games... not coincidentally, those are the games they tend to lose.

Clay Feet POF
03-05-2014, 10:14 PM
Quoting Vince L “What the Hell’s going out, out there?” What a feeble effort. Maybe we should have stayed with the Line Changes UNTIL they didn’t work There is way too much talent on the bench to have these results.

I’m looking forward to read other posters as to what went wrong.

dukelifer
03-05-2014, 10:14 PM
Per Laura Keeley, Wojo (who filled in postgame) said Coach K is expected to recover fully. Coach K also walked out of Joel under his own power. Sounds like he should be okay.

Recover from what? This is a 67 year old man- you never know. Hopefully he is fine but I doubt that he had a full workup. I do recall this happening before though.

Newton_14
03-05-2014, 10:15 PM
Why is it so hard to figure out how to play against these zones? Our offense has looked pedestrian or worse for weeks and weeks, deceptive PPP numbers against Syracuse in the second game notwithstanding.

It's utterly baffling.
We are not making the best use of our strengths on offense. Either as a team nor as individuals. You have to get the ball to a kid's hands in the places where he is most effective. We are not doing that often enough for either Jabari or Rodney, and hardly at all for the role players. Which is baffling considering we have the best Head Coach and overall staff on the planet.

One example for one role player. We ran exactly one good play tonight to free Andre for a 3 and he drained it. It was the only time in the game we made an effort to get him a good look. All of his other 3 attempts were on his own in a catch and shoot with the defense not having to rotate. (Not counting the desperation attempts in the last 2 minutes. Those are meaningless to me) All of those were misses. Close but not quite center enough to go in. One rattled out. Same thing for Tyler. He is deadly in a catch and shoot (after making the defense scramble) and we got him zero attempts tonight in his wheelhouse.

The other thing is the new starting lineup. It has made us better with perimeter defense, but much worse offensively. Quinn is not effective off the bench. He has lost his mojo. Now that is partly on him because a player of his caliber should be mentally strong enough to play well in either scenario, but the evidence has shown he is not effective in his current role (BC game notwithstanding). He needs to start and play 25 minutes or so. Not the 35mpg like early on but 25+ in my humble opinion.

I only get this frustrated when we lose a game to an inferior opponent, especially when we had the game in hand with 5 to go. We should have closed it out, even with the foul trouble.

The only good thing is, we had to win Saturday either way to be in the 2 or 3 seed slot. That hasn't changed. We win and Cuse loses, we are the 2. We win and Cuse wins we are the 3.

I feel they bounce back and get the win Saturday, but they have to play more like the team we saw in that stretch that began with the UVA game than the team since the unc game.

Next Play

NYBri
03-05-2014, 10:15 PM
Why do we jack up 3's with a lead and the best player in the country does not get the ball at the most important juncture of the game?

Or if you're going to hoist up a ton of threes, why have the best three point shooter in the conference with his butt on the bench?

FerryFor50
03-05-2014, 10:18 PM
The only good thing is, we had to win Saturday either way to be in the 2 or 3 seed slot. That hasn't changed. We win and Cuse loses, we are the 2. We win and Cuse wins we are the 3.


Actually, Syracuse wins a 3 way tie breaker (UNC at 13-5, Syracuse 13-5 and Duke 13-5). So Duke's best seeding would be 3.

http://forums.dukebasketballreport.com/forums/showthread.php?33305-ACC-Tournament-Seedings&p=711217#post711217

pfrduke
03-05-2014, 10:19 PM
The only good thing is, we had to win Saturday either way to be in the 2 or 3 seed slot. That hasn't changed. We win and Cuse loses, we are the 2. We win and Cuse wins we are the 3.

This is not quite right. If we win and Cuse loses, we're all (with UNC) 13-5, and Cuse has the 3-way tiebreaker.

Karl Beem
03-05-2014, 10:20 PM
Completely agree.

Want to take Jabari out of the game? Play a 2-3 or 1-3-1 against us and Jabari's stationed in the corner and goes minutes without a touch.

And it ha to be by design, because it has been like this for weeks.

How a team with two lottery picks, including the second best offensive player in CBB, can be reduced to looking like a junior high team on O with a mediocre zone is just astonishing.

Easy, spend the 1st half not attacking it with JP and Hood. Then in the 2nd half Jabari and Hood get in foul trouble.

Kjeffrey
03-05-2014, 10:21 PM
I think you need a triple threat guy flashing to the free throw line, preferably a guy with size. Our only options are Hood or Parker. For whatever reason we don't consistently exploit that against zone.

You bring up a great point about that player needing versatility. It would certainly explain why Jefferson and Plumlee aren't used more often. However, it would seem Parker would more than adequately provide the triple threat.

pretpret
03-05-2014, 10:24 PM
This team has too much talent to not make some noise in the post season. Its March and the time for rebuilding confidence or finding new roles is over. We can and should win without Cook playing a major role. He is a great player who is not playing great. In many programs if your starting PG is in a tailspin, your season is pretty much over. I don't think its true for us, especially not this year.

I hope to see the coaching staff focus on the core group of Tyler, Rasheed, Dawkins, Jabari, Hood, Jefferson, and Plumlee. By limiting Cook, I think we can get Dawkins out there more. He has shown flashes - including tonight. We know he can shoot 3s but he can score with those short drive and flips or get fouled. As has been said, we may not see man-to-man defense again this year. Dawkins is a key part of attacking the zone; free throw line pass to Hood is just too predictable at this point. Needless to say, a couple zone busting threes early will open things up for Jabari to operate.

I think bad offense is now hurting our defense as opposed to the other way around. The 4th foul on Hood tonight is a perfect example. Long threes with long rebounds so often lead to fast breaks or quick half court sets for the other team. No wonder we're in foul trouble every game lately. Its so frustrating to watch this team struggle against the zone with predictable ball movement and uninspired attacking moves; doubly so because of the fire power we've got. IMO, an over emphasis on defense is now taking a toll. Offense wins championships!

If we befuddle UNC with an imaginative OFFENSIVE plan against the 1-3-1, I have a feeling the rebounding and defense will be there.

Kjeffrey
03-05-2014, 10:26 PM
He's in the high post. Not the low post. Hood is there because he's money from there. Parker could play high post, and does when Amile is in and playing low post. But Parker isn't as automatic with the jumper from that spot. I rarely see Hood in the low post.

It's the perfect way to beat the zone - attack the middle and force the zone to move towards the middle and open up shooters or cutters. They just don't do it very consistently in some games... not coincidentally, those are the games they tend to lose.

I think you hit the nail on the head. I would just like to see them attack the zone this way more often. It just seems like they pass the ball around too much while ignoring the middle.

FerryFor50
03-05-2014, 10:27 PM
I think you hit the nail on the head. I would just like to see them attack the zone this way more often. It just seems like they pass the ball around too much while ignoring the middle.

A lot of teams fall into that same trap. That's why teams play zone.

Another good way to beat a zone? Hit your open threes.

ChillinDuke
03-05-2014, 10:28 PM
I'm as disheartened as the rest of us after a loss like that.

And I'm going to breach a topic that may get me hammered, so I'll tread carefully. Ish.

But I feel strongly about this one...

This is the worst season I can remember out of Coach K. Not calling for anything ridiculous. Not making any outlandish comments on the matter. Just disappointed in the product on the court. If we give the man credit for some of his clearly wondrous coaching accomplishments over the years, I think it's fair to criticize shortfalls and, to me, this season qualifies.

I voiced it after the ND loss, or whatever loss it was where K had the post game presser where he said, "I got knocked back..." And I'll unfortunately voice it again now. We knew about his brother, and I can of course understand the impact that can have on someone, let alone in the middle of a basketball season. Yet now we're more than 2 months removed from that, with just about the deepest team I can remember, perhaps the most versatile team I can remember, and we still have serious questions about this team heading toward the ACC Tourney.

I mean we have everything I think any of us could have wanted: a top-3 draft pick/NPOY level player; a lottery pick/slashing athletic wing player; a combo guard who can shoot, drive, and dish; a veteran PG who can shoot, distribute, and control the ball; a quintessential glue guy veteran captain; a dead-eye 3pt shooter; a true 7-footer with promise; a long, smooth PF who can rebound very well and score reasonably well; youth off the bench. Yet here we are, suffering a devastating loss to a mediocre (at best) team with a week off to prepare in our second-to-last conference game of the year.

With that said, we still have a solid team that can make a run. And I will be here cheering various body parts off through thick and thin. So no, the year is not over. The sky is not falling. But the sun is beginning to set on this season, and I find myself asking, "Where has the day gone?"

Sincerely,
- A very frustrated Chillin

CameronDuke
03-05-2014, 10:30 PM
@laurakeeley: More Wojo on K: "He pours his heart and soul into everything that he does. His team not necessarily responding certainly can hit hard."

It appears the dizziness and light headedness Coach K experienced may have been the result of him reacting to Duke's total ineptitude to play together, play tough, fight, and play with heart. It appears it hit him very hard.

Do any of our guys have girlfriends that could maybe suit up? We played like a bunch of Sally's and Alice's tonight and that simply is sickening to our head coach and to me.

I can take missing shots or the occasional turnover and such when you're playing with spirit, purpose, and competing. But to totally melt down, back down, go into a shell, and show no fight down the stretch when the going gets tough is pathetic. These guys need a little more "John Wayne" in them. Show some fire! JP showed fire twice tonight in the second half but we need more emotion and drive from everyone! I know we have some cowboy somewhere deep down inside us now let's see it!

FerryFor50
03-05-2014, 10:33 PM
I'm as disheartened as the rest of us after a loss like that.

And I'm going to breach a topic that may get me hammered, so I'll tread carefully. Ish.

But I feel strongly about this one...

This is the worst season I can remember out of Coach K. Not calling for anything ridiculous. Not making any outlandish comments on the matter. Just disappointed in the product on the court. If we give the man credit for some of his clearly wondrous coaching accomplishments over the years, I think it's fair to criticize shortfalls and, to me, this season qualifies.

I voiced it after the ND loss, or whatever loss it was where K had the post game presser where he said, "I got knocked back..." And I'll unfortunately voice it again now. We knew about his brother, and I can of course understand the impact that can have on someone, let alone in the middle of a basketball season. Yet now we're more than 2 months removed from that, with just about the deepest team I can remember, perhaps the most versatile team I can remember, and we still have serious questions about this team heading toward the ACC Tourney.

I mean we have everything I think any of us could have wanted: a top-3 draft pick/NPOY level player; a lottery pick/slashing athletic wing player; a combo guard who can shoot, drive, and dish; a veteran PG who can shoot, distribute, and control the ball; a quintessential glue guy veteran captain; a dead-eye 3pt shooter; a true 7-footer with promise; a long, smooth PF who can rebound very well and score reasonably well; youth off the bench. Yet here we are, suffering a devastating loss to a mediocre (at best) team with a week off to prepare in our second-to-last conference game of the year.

With that said, we still have a solid team that can make a run. And I will be here cheering various body parts off through thick and thin. So no, the year is not over. The sky is not falling. But the sun is beginning to set on this season, and I find myself asking, "Where has the day gone?"

Sincerely,
- A very frustrated Chillin

Duke had a player that had to take an entire year off and figure it all out. Were you questioning Dre's decision? Losing someone close like that can be very tough on someone. K has had good days and likely bad ones. It's gotta be hard to focus on things when you're in mourning. I don't think it's fair to suggest 2 months is enough time for someone to get over it...

dukelifer
03-05-2014, 10:38 PM
I'm as disheartened as the rest of us after a loss like that.

And I'm going to breach a topic that may get me hammered, so I'll tread carefully. Ish.

But I feel strongly about this one...

This is the worst season I can remember out of Coach K. Not calling for anything ridiculous. Not making any outlandish comments on the matter. Just disappointed in the product on the court. If we give the man credit for some of his clearly wondrous coaching accomplishments over the years, I think it's fair to criticize shortfalls and, to me, this season qualifies.

I voiced it after the ND loss, or whatever loss it was where K had the post game presser where he said, "I got knocked back..." And I'll unfortunately voice it again now. We knew about his brother, and I can of course understand the impact that can have on someone, let alone in the middle of a basketball season. Yet now we're more than 2 months removed from that, with just about the deepest team I can remember, perhaps the most versatile team I can remember, and we still have serious questions about this team heading toward the ACC Tourney.

I mean we have everything I think any of us could have wanted: a top-3 draft pick/NPOY level player; a lottery pick/slashing athletic wing player; a combo guard who can shoot, drive, and dish; a veteran PG who can shoot, distribute, and control the ball; a quintessential glue guy veteran captain; a dead-eye 3pt shooter; a true 7-footer with promise; a long, smooth PF who can rebound very well and score reasonably well; youth off the bench. Yet here we are, suffering a devastating loss to a mediocre (at best) team with a week off to prepare in our second-to-last conference game of the year.

With that said, we still have a solid team that can make a run. And I will be here cheering various body parts off through thick and thin. So no, the year is not over. The sky is not falling. But the sun is beginning to set on this season, and I find myself asking, "Where has the day gone?"

Sincerely,
- A very frustrated Chillin

Coach K would likely agree that he has not done a great job- sometimes the pieces do not fit. This is a team that has not battled together enough. This same team next year would be different. Sadly it looks like a similar product next year - lots of talent but little team cohesion. KY is suffering from that as well. Duke could win out or lose in the first round of both tourneys. That is what you get with teams that don't have much history together.

Potato
03-05-2014, 10:40 PM
we are just not a good team. no leadership, no composure, no intensity. unc will beat us saturday in our own gym because they'll outwork us. they'll want it more. maybe next year,

CDu
03-05-2014, 10:40 PM
Duke had a player that had to take an entire year off and figure it all out. Were you questioning Dre's decision? Losing someone close like that can be very tough on someone. K has had good days and likely bad ones. It's gotta be hard to focus on things when you're in mourning. I don't think it's fair to suggest 2 months is enough time for someone to get over it...

Agreed. Some people never fully recover from the loss of a loved one. To expect him to be at top form again within two months of such a loss is a bit unfair.

I will agree with the statement that this hasn't been his best coaching job. Heck, I am sure he would agree. But the circumstances he has been dealt certainly make it understandable.

ChillinDuke
03-05-2014, 10:41 PM
Duke had a player that had to take an entire year off and figure it all out. Were you questioning Dre's decision? Losing someone close like that can be very tough on someone. K has had good days and likely bad ones. It's gotta be hard to focus on things when you're in mourning. I don't think it's fair to suggest 2 months is enough time for someone to get over it...

I'm not questioning Coach K's personal life. Everyone reacts differently to a loss like that. And I would completely understand if the loss was still impacting him.

That said, his job is to coach. So my post was not personal, it was professional. And I believe the product on the court and our progress as a team is less than what I have come to expect.

I made the post with full acceptance that many around here may think I'm way off base. But that's how I feel. Unfortunately.

- Chillin

nmduke2001
03-05-2014, 10:44 PM
Per Laura Keeley, Wojo (who filled in postgame) said Coach K is expected to recover fully. Coach K also walked out of Joel under his own power. Sounds like he should be okay.

Just speculation, but today is Ash Wednesday and many Catholics fast today. Not sure coach K is among them but I was slightly lightheaded this evening and I didn't have to coach in a game.

Chicago 1995
03-05-2014, 10:45 PM
Easy, spend the 1st half not attacking it with JP and Hood. Then in the 2nd half Jabari and Hood get in foul trouble.

That sort of explains tonight -- but the zone O looked pretty mediocre even with the aforementioned lottery picks on the floor -- but it doesn't explain how a zone has utterly ground our offense to a halt for the better part of the last six weeks. We've had Jabari and Rodney at our disposal plenty of times when a simple 1-2-2 has left us jacking three after three -- often times bad threes at that.

dukelifer
03-05-2014, 10:47 PM
we are just not a good team. no leadership, no composure, no intensity. unc will beat us saturday in our own gym because they'll outwork us. they'll want it more. maybe next year,

Or not. This team will need to establish the emotional edge.

FerryFor50
03-05-2014, 10:47 PM
I'm not questioning Coach K's personal life. Everyone reacts differently to a loss like that. And I would completely understand if the loss was still impacting him.

That said, his job is to coach. So my post was not personal, it was professional. And I believe the product on the court and our progress as a team is less than what I have come to expect.

I made the post with full acceptance that many around here may think I'm way off base. But that's how I feel. Unfortunately.

- Chillin

His job is to coach, but he's also human. And honestly, while we all love Duke basketball (well, everyone but Wheat and the random Maryland fans that post here), some things are bigger than basketball.

I agree this hasn't been his best coaching job, but I ask myself how I'd do at my job if I lost someone close to me.... I'd probably be distracted and not at my best, either.

CameronDuke
03-05-2014, 10:48 PM
I'm not questioning Coach K's personal life. Everyone reacts differently to a loss like that. And I would completely understand if the loss was still impacting him.

That said, his job is to coach. So my post was not personal, it was professional. And I believe the product on the court and our progress as a team is less than what I have come to expect.

I made the post with full acceptance that many around here may think I'm way off base. But that's how I feel. Unfortunately.

- Chillin

I think there's some validity to what you say. We are not playing as cohesive as we need to play and part of that is on the coaching staff. I also think Coach K still misses his brother dearly and has been affected to this day more than he publicly admits or discusses. But I think the biggest problem with this team has nothing to do with coaching and more to do with the mentality of our players. Out last two losses have both largely occurred because the opposing team out worked and out fought us. In the 2nd half of both losses, they curb stomped us and we limped home to mommy. That's alarming. It has very little to do with basketball skill and coaching. I think we have some of the best talent in the NCAA and the best coach. But until each player individually challenges themselves and wants to take the ball and shove it down someone's throat, we won't compete.

dukelifer
03-05-2014, 10:49 PM
Just speculation, but today is Ash Wednesday and many Catholics fast today. Not sure coach K is among them but I was slightly lightheaded this evening and I didn't have to coach in a game.

Hmmm. That is a very good possibility. A House like diagnosis!

SoCalDukeFan
03-05-2014, 10:51 PM
We simply can't defend man to man and stay out of foul trouble the way the game is being called. The refs were not bad in this game. Wake attacked our man to man and when you get into foul trouble you can't defend at all.

Marshall is good enough defensively and rebounding but his lack of offensive skills makes the game 4 on 5 offensively when he is in. When he is not in, we add offense but give up inside defense. I don't even know who Tyler Cavanaugh is but he had a career night tonight.

We get a lead and simply don't put them away. Make mental errors, don't get a rebound, make a foul or turn the ball over. On the road you have to put the home team away so the crowd is not a factor. To state the obvious, this team has not done that.

We need a better Quinn Cook. He has lost his confidence. That turnover/steal at the end of the first half was telling.

Finally, as for leadership etc., the best players on this team are young and don't really know how to lead. The older players probably don't feel that they are good enough to lead. Hence the vacuum. This leads to panic at crunch time and bad decisions and ultimately losses in games that we could have won.

Well, whatever ... on to UNC. I hope we throttle them.

Hopefully we will feel much better about this team after Saturdays game. However its hard for me to think that this late in the season we are going to figure out how to play defense without fouling, that Marshall's offense will improve by leaps and bounds, that we will start to how to play smarter, that the real Quinn Cook will show up, or that some leadership will develop.

SoCal

ChillinDuke
03-05-2014, 10:52 PM
His job is to coach, but he's also human. And honestly, while we all love Duke basketball (well, everyone but Wheat and the random Maryland fans that post here), some things are bigger than basketball.

I agree this hasn't been his best coaching job, but I ask myself how I'd do at my job if I lost someone close to me.... I'd probably be distracted and not at my best, either.

You're absolutely right. And I agree completely.

Unfortunately (or for some people, maybe it's fortunately), the show must go on. And I think our own Coach K would agree with a philosophy of "No Excuses". He said as much in that post game presser I referenced earlier.

The point remains, this team is far from the ceiling we thought we had entering this season. And I actually think the players have turned out better than expected, talent-wise.

- Chillin

Chicago 1995
03-05-2014, 10:53 PM
I'm as disheartened as the rest of us after a loss like that.

And I'm going to breach a topic that may get me hammered, so I'll tread carefully. Ish.

But I feel strongly about this one...

This is the worst season I can remember out of Coach K. Not calling for anything ridiculous. Not making any outlandish comments on the matter. Just disappointed in the product on the court. If we give the man credit for some of his clearly wondrous coaching accomplishments over the years, I think it's fair to criticize shortfalls and, to me, this season qualifies.

I voiced it after the ND loss, or whatever loss it was where K had the post game presser where he said, "I got knocked back..." And I'll unfortunately voice it again now. We knew about his brother, and I can of course understand the impact that can have on someone, let alone in the middle of a basketball season. Yet now we're more than 2 months removed from that, with just about the deepest team I can remember, perhaps the most versatile team I can remember, and we still have serious questions about this team heading toward the ACC Tourney.

I mean we have everything I think any of us could have wanted: a top-3 draft pick/NPOY level player; a lottery pick/slashing athletic wing player; a combo guard who can shoot, drive, and dish; a veteran PG who can shoot, distribute, and control the ball; a quintessential glue guy veteran captain; a dead-eye 3pt shooter; a true 7-footer with promise; a long, smooth PF who can rebound very well and score reasonably well; youth off the bench. Yet here we are, suffering a devastating loss to a mediocre (at best) team with a week off to prepare in our second-to-last conference game of the year.

With that said, we still have a solid team that can make a run. And I will be here cheering various body parts off through thick and thin. So no, the year is not over. The sky is not falling. But the sun is beginning to set on this season, and I find myself asking, "Where has the day gone?"

Sincerely,
- A very frustrated Chillin

There may well be understandable reasons and mitigating circumstances, but simply looking at the team, it's lack of growth and improvement and the product on the court generally, I don't think you're crazy at all to call this one of Ks worst coaching jobs. I think there was one worse, but this one is challenging it, and the way it looks right now, has a heck of a chance to pass it before it is said and done.

hurleyfor3
03-05-2014, 10:53 PM
Just speculation, but today is Ash Wednesday and many Catholics fast today. Not sure coach K is among them but I was slightly lightheaded this evening and I didn't have to coach in a game.

Maybe a full-strength K would have made up the difference, but it's March now. The 1992, 2001 and 2010 teams would've figured out themselves how to win. We had the chalice full of Hosts and dropped it.

FerryFor50
03-05-2014, 10:57 PM
You're absolutely right. And I agree completely.

Unfortunately (or for some people, maybe it's fortunately), the show must go on. And I think our own Coach K would agree with a philosophy of "No Excuses". He said as much in that post game presser I referenced earlier.

The point remains, this team is far from the ceiling we thought we had entering this season. And I actually think the players have turned out better than expected, talent-wise.

- Chillin

I look at it this way... this team *is* far from its ceiling. And there is still time. There is the UNC game. And the ACC tournament. And then the NCAAs.

Will Duke put it all together by then? Maybe. I think they've regressed on offense, but gotten better on defense overall. If they can get both sides going, back to the #1 team in offensive efficiency (and likely no long scoring droughts) and be at least in the 30-50 range defensively, then they can challenge for the title.

That's why they play the game!

Question for you... if Duke wins the NCAA title, does this turn into K's *best* coaching job?

And also, think of it this way... if this is K's worst coaching job... and Duke is 23-7... how do you think a coach like Calipari would do with this team? Or Roy? I doubt they'd be as good.

CDu
03-05-2014, 10:59 PM
Lack of cohesion. That is what this team lacks. Cohesive play is how you break down a zone. We lack cohesion and the result is that we frequently struggle with the zone. Sometimes we can mask that by bombing 3s or pounding the glass, but that is just a band-aid.

In the Phase post, I wrote about PG play. Well, it seems like we have fallen into a bit of a problem at the PG spot. Sulaimon has good creative instincts, but is too sloppy with the ball. Thornton is very safe with the ball but not able to break down a defense and create for others. Cook, at his best, provides both the creativity and ball security of an elite PG. But I think we can all agree that he has been far from his best of late. I cant decide whether he is hampered by injury or if he is going through a confidence crisis. But whatever the issue, I think Cook is the guy that needs to get it going if we are going deep in the tourney.

On the positive side, it was another positive step for Plumlee. I would argue that he has been our best C in each of the past 3 games, and the shift in minutes distribution would seem to support it. He has seemingly found his groove as an offensive rebound machine, and is actually putting up reasonable numbers for a role player. I sm no longer cringing when he is out there.

But it all comes back to guard play. Our guards failed to get the ball to our stars in good spots, failed to protect the ball, and were abysmal shooting. That is a sure-fire recipe for failure against a zone.

Gthoma2a
03-05-2014, 11:05 PM
Coach K would likely agree that he has not done a great job- sometimes the pieces do not fit. This is a team that has not battled together enough. This same team next year would be different. Sadly it looks like a similar product next year - lots of talent but little team cohesion. KY is suffering from that as well. Duke could win out or lose in the first round of both tourneys. That is what you get with teams that don't have much history together.

Let's wait until we see next year to determine who we have. They may be a young group that meshes very well. This is the closest recruiting class that I can remember.

ChillinDuke
03-05-2014, 11:05 PM
...

Question for you... if Duke wins the NCAA title, does this turn into K's *best* coaching job?

No.

...Ok, maybe. :D


And also, think of it this way... if this is K's worst coaching job... and Duke is 23-7... how do you think a coach like Calipari would do with this team? Or Roy? I doubt they'd be as good.

Oh, to be sure. It's a testament to K that 23-7 and a likely 3-seed is a bad year.

The man is the best in the business. No question in my mind. But even the best in the business has a spectrum, and this falls on the lower end. Still, 23-7.

- Chillin

jipops
03-05-2014, 11:08 PM
I think we saw tonight why I've been saying Plumlee is going to have to step up. Glad to see the announcers recognize that too.

Yes a productive Plumlee can certainly provide us a lift. But his play is not going to determine how far this team goes. I know you have this fixation on front court play. But the potential of this team largely depends on its guard play. And lately it has been horribly inefficient which has coincided with the abrupt slide in offensive output the last few weeks. If we have dependable guard play we thrash teams like Wake. With Cook inexplicably off in lala land the past few weeks we have nobody else that is capable of managing and distributing an offense. Tyler has some nice efficiency stats, but he doesn't actually run an offense. I don't think anyone would have thought this team's biggest weakness would be its guard play, but right now it is.

hustleplays
03-05-2014, 11:10 PM
We blew a winnable game against an inferior opponent. Beginning and end of the game we were ice cold from the floor, which is becoming a trend. I had high hopes for our chances vs. Unc, but now I am less than confident we can pull it out.

1-2-2 and 1-3-1 seem to be our Achilles heel this year.

After the UNC and Syracuse games, I asked, with genuine curiosity and confusion, why do we so often look and play so ineptly against zones? Several posters took issue -- pointing out that Syracuse's zone is really good. I get that. But I also trust my eyeballs. And WF and UNC's zones are not known to be world-class. After our UNC 2nd half debacle, Dan Shulman [sp?] of ESPN was interviewed on IMG and he said that he was perplexed by how perplexed duke seemed to be against UNC's zone. He was surprised they didn't work the baseline and middle more, instead of passing it around. We struggle against the zone, and every other coach is taking advantage.

This is one issue I wish someone could show me that I have completely wrong -- that we are great against zones. Seems clear to me we are not.

Obviously, it helps to make perimeter shots and we go through major scoring droughts, like many teams.

One major factor, IMO, is, sadly, finding ourselves now without an elite, polished PG. Never would have expected that. I was one of those a couple of years ago who was advocating giving Quinn more burn. Seemed very clear that he had great talent and that he would LEARN how to play PG, and that PT would help him learn. Didn't happen, and I don't know why. To me, Rasheed has many talents, including defense, shooting, driving and sometimes passing. But not the talent for running the entire offense.

I also agree with some others that this team has a certain amount of heart and hustle most of the time, but not enough heart all the time, and especially at crunch times. Still not enough tough, fierce, refuse to lose leadership.

I hope we can make a lot of 3's every time out.

Glad to see Marshall becoming an effective center.

Billy Dat
03-05-2014, 11:11 PM
Wake played an excellent, excellent game. They weren't perfect, but from the jump, they were intense, focused and prepared. I think BizmarkDee put together an impressive game plan, working us for high-lows, going at guys in foul trouble, etc. Any team that doesn't play zone against us is crazy, and that's what we saw most of the night. I do think they played harder, but I though we really played hard and well for the first 35 minutes of the game. They just played harder and better, made a lot of shots, took smart shots, and got the bounces for the most part. Until the run at the end, I kept saying to myself, "This is a vintage ACC road game - nothing easy and we're going to have to earn it".

There were at least 10 sequences, spilt between both halves, where the game had 5-6 point swings based on things that went their way. The typical situation was a Duke fast break getting thwarted between half court and the foul line and it going back the other way for an easy 2, or one of their guys beating 3 of ours for a board - but often because of a funky bounce, etc. I felt like the Basketball Gods were on their side.

Still, before the epic collapse, we were ready to put the hammer down. I do fault K for going too long with Parker, Hood and Plumlee on the bench. That's when the run started and then it just broke loose. Rasheed had a 3 going half way down that would have given us back the lead and might have stemmed the tide - after that they were running downhill.

More than anything, we need to figure out how to get into our offense against the zone quicker and more efficiently. We don't get that foul line pass quick enough, and we wait too long to attack. How man times do you see the big unsure of whether to run and set the high screen, or to start a different formation - we routinely blow the first 10 seconds of the clock doing nothing. We also have looked bad out of timeouts, especially on out of bounds plays. The failure at the end of the first half, giving up a steal and a lay-up after dribbling 30 seconds off the clock, was a sad representative example of our folly in this area at time.

We are who we are at this point. Having lost this game, to a Wake team that impressed me tonight, I still expect us to win on Saturday!

Furniture
03-05-2014, 11:12 PM
I was at the game and I think what ruined in the end was definitely the foul trouble. Once we got up there in fouls we were too tentative on defense but then again some of the fouls were not good fouls either. Not good decisions. I disagree about what someone said about Sheed having no heart. I saw him as being very vocal and trying to push his team mates. I don't know why with the slashers we have we can't run up the fouls faster than other teams?
Having said all of that I can't help thinking about how K feeling light headed affected these kids. If they saw him struggling with this I would guess that it would disturb the. Also, how much could K do feeling like that?

Troublemaker
03-05-2014, 11:14 PM
Maybe a full-strength K would have made up the difference, but it's March now. The 1992, 2001 and 2010 teams would've figured out themselves how to win. We had the chalice full of Hosts and dropped it.

What I'm hoping is this team is like some of the late 80s/early 90s teams that went to Final Fours and finished with 7, 8, 9 losses. That's why I'm not buying the "worst job by Coach K" talk. This loss tonight at Wake Forest was, of course, horrible. But I want to see the full picture of this season when it's over. I believe this team HAS improved throughout this season and will continue to improve, but improvement sometimes doesn't look like a smooth, staight line sloping up. Hopefully tonight was the final major setback, though.

Chicago 1995
03-05-2014, 11:17 PM
@laurakeeley: More Wojo on K: "He pours his heart and soul into everything that he does. His team not necessarily responding certainly can hit hard."

I'd be a lot happier if we kept that kind of sentiment in house. It might well be -- heck, probably is -- true, but there's nothing to be gained by saying that and throwing the players under the bus, even gently.

Jumbo
03-05-2014, 11:21 PM
Do any of our guys have girlfriends that could maybe suit up? We played like a bunch of Sally's and Alice's tonight and that simply is sickening to our head coach and to me.


That is embarrassingly sexist. Shame on you.

CDu
03-05-2014, 11:23 PM
Let's wait until we see next year to determine who we have. They may be a young group that meshes very well. This is the closest recruiting class that I can remember.

Agreed. Not only that, but it seemingly addresses ALL of our needs: true post scorer; elite PG; jack-of-all-trades SF. We will have depth and quality everywhere on the floor. The only questions will be whether Ojeleye is ready to fill a bigger PF role. But aside from that, the pieces seem to fit really nicely.

That said, if Cook can bounce back and if Plumlee continues to progress and if Dawkins returns to form, then this team could find itself with few weaknesses. That is a big set of ifs, but not out of the question.

hurleyfor3
03-05-2014, 11:24 PM
What I'm hoping is this team is like some of the late 80s/early 90s teams that went to Final Fours and finished with 7, 8, 9 losses. That's why I'm not buying the "worst job by Coach K" talk. This loss tonight at Wake Forest was, of course, horrible. But I want to see the full picture of this season when it's over. I believe this team HAS improved throughout this season and will continue to improve, but improvement sometimes doesn't look like a smooth, staight line sloping up. Hopefully tonight was the final major setback, though.

Except in none of those years (as well as in the national championship years) do I recall a late-season loss this bad. When we lost it was to solid tournament teams on the road, usually in the 3-6 seed range, and rarely would we crap the bed as we did tonight.

If there's a late-season loss this brings to mind, it's at Virginia in 2002. I think we blew a 15- or 16-point late lead; the actual game was not exactly the same as we were still in it until Jason Williams missed free throws in the last minute. Still there was the late-game swoon against a team we were much better than and some early-season issues returning to haunt us. Virginia by winning went from a "bad bubble team" to a "good bubble team" but still didn't get in.

CDu
03-05-2014, 11:25 PM
That is embarrassingly sexist. Shame on you.

Wow. Jumbo lives! I had begun to wonder if you had retired following that Scheyer NBA bet long ago. Glad to see you resurfaced. Hope it isn't just a blip on the radar. Nice to see an old familiar screen name.

MaxAMillion
03-05-2014, 11:26 PM
What I'm hoping is this team is like some of the late 80s/early 90s teams that went to Final Fours and finished with 7, 8, 9 losses. That's why I'm not buying the "worst job by Coach K" talk. This loss tonight at Wake Forest was, of course, horrible. But I want to see the full picture of this season when it's over. I believe this team HAS improved throughout this season and will continue to improve, but improvement sometimes doesn't look like a smooth, staight line sloping up. Hopefully tonight was the final major setback, though.

There is a pattern here that is real. The team goes through droughts in the 2nd half where they can't score. The team just falls apart. This is a team whose best players are underclassmen. The upperclassmen lie Dawkins and Cook are providing very little. This means the team has difficulties in tight games. The team would be better next year if Hood and Parker were returning (like Scheyer and Singler in 2010) but that isn't happening.

People want to look for someone to blame,but it seems obvious that the players just get tight and struggle in close games. You can recruit all the 5 star talent you want but you still need experience players to help in key moments.

Troublemaker
03-05-2014, 11:30 PM
That is embarrassingly sexist. Shame on you.

Well, not all was lost tonight. Great to hear from you, Jumbo. Hope all is well.

Dukehky
03-05-2014, 11:33 PM
There is a pattern here that is real. The team goes through droughts in the 2nd half where they can't score. The team just falls apart. This is a team whose best players are underclassmen. The upperclassmen lie Dawkins and Cook are providing very little. This means the team has difficulties in tight games. The team would be better next year if Hood and Parker were returning (like Scheyer and Singler in 2010) but that isn't happening.

People want to look for someone to blame,but it seems obvious that the players just get tight and struggle in close games. You can recruit all the 5 star talent you want but you still need experience players to help in key moments.

No kidding!??? You really think our team would be better next year if we had two top 10 draft picks come back for another year? No use talking about next year.

Facts: We need to play smarter basketball when the game gets close. Our guards have to be more consistent through the tournaments because that's what wins those games, and we have to stop opposing guards from getting into the lane whenver they want.

Do those things, we'll be okay, only problem is, we've known that stuff for a while...

Because of the level of talent on the team, I'm certainly not jumping on the first weekend exit like alot of people on TDD, but we need some of our older guys to just play better. That's really all there is to it. Part of playing better is giving Jabari the ball.

Atlanta Duke
03-05-2014, 11:34 PM
I'd be a lot happier if we kept that kind of sentiment in house. It might well be -- heck, probably is -- true, but there's nothing to be gained by saying that and throwing the players under the bus, even gently.

This one does not seem particularly gentle

@laurakeeley Wojo: "our guys got rattled... I didn’t think we had the poise or the leadership on the floor to win."

https://twitter.com/laurakeeley

The post-game tweets from Laura Keeley tonight are informative - apparently Coach K's condition during the game was noticed by the players and concerned AD Kevin White

Another Wojo quote from the N&O story on the game

"The teams that I’ve been a part of that have had the most success in March are teams with great internal leadership. The players, as much as you can try to inspire and motivate them, those guys have to show it."

http://www.newsobserver.com/2014/03/05/3677254/wake-forest-stuns-duke-for-82.html#storylink=cpy

Sounds like Wojo is trying to get the players to step up now or never.

Roger Andersen
03-05-2014, 11:34 PM
The team struggles at times to move quickly on offense, especially in terms of setting screens. I also wonder if they're out of sync mentally and that's hurting their 3 point shooting.

Billy Dat
03-05-2014, 11:37 PM
That is embarrassingly sexist. Shame on you.

It was a positive jolt to see your name pop up on screen - can you at least spare us a few sentences about your take on this team at this moment in the season...just for old times sake?

KandG
03-05-2014, 11:38 PM
This is the worst season I can remember out of Coach K. Not calling for anything ridiculous. Not making any outlandish comments on the matter. Just disappointed in the product on the court. If we give the man credit for some of his clearly wondrous coaching accomplishments over the years, I think it's fair to criticize shortfalls and, to me, this season qualifies.

I voiced it after the ND loss, or whatever loss it was where K had the post game presser where he said, "I got knocked back..." And I'll unfortunately voice it again now. We knew about his brother, and I can of course understand the impact that can have on someone, let alone in the middle of a basketball season. Yet now we're more than 2 months removed from that, with just about the deepest team I can remember, perhaps the most versatile team I can remember, and we still have serious questions about this team heading toward the ACC Tourney.

I mean we have everything I think any of us could have wanted: a top-3 draft pick/NPOY level player; a lottery pick/slashing athletic wing player; a combo guard who can shoot, drive, and dish; a veteran PG who can shoot, distribute, and control the ball; a quintessential glue guy veteran captain; a dead-eye 3pt shooter; a true 7-footer with promise; a long, smooth PF who can rebound very well and score reasonably well; youth off the bench. Yet here we are, suffering a devastating loss to a mediocre (at best) team with a week off to prepare in our second-to-last conference game of the year.

With that said, we still have a solid team that can make a run. And I will be here cheering various body parts off through thick and thin. So no, the year is not over. The sky is not falling. But the sun is beginning to set on this season, and I find myself asking, "Where has the day gone?"



I would say the coaching staff deserves some criticism for the way the team played early in the season (and K being affected by the loss of his brother is no small deal), but since the early losses and near-escapes vs. poor teams, we've seen more experimentation with the rotation with more positive results (most notably the improvement of Plumlee and the evolution of Parker to more of an inside threat and slasher), and the defense has gradually improved since the early season disasters.

I think you're overstating how "ideal" the roster is -- it's extremely young, small, and lacks polished playmakers and leadership. Hood and Parker have to play bigger players on defense with very mixed results (to put it kindly), and the guards have been disappointing at running the offense for too many stretches in games, and get beaten off the dribble on defense.

Of course, it's still on the coach to get the players motivated, deploy the best lineups, and remind them of simple things (like how to attack a zone properly) when they're struggling, but at this point in the season, it's largely on the players. This point was made really well by Gregg Popovich, the San Antonio Spurs coach...yes, he coaches NBA players who are more mature, but a lot of what he says still applies to any team with a team that's played so many games together: coaches can only do so much, the players have to communicate and learn how to manage adversity at this point in the season.

http://espn.go.com/nba/story/_/id/10559217/gregg-popovich-san-antonio-spurs-says-players-play-coach-court

Also, it's been pointed out many times, but Calipari and K are finding out how tough it is to coach hyper-talented young teams with insufficient leadership, especially when the young guys are constantly exposed to questions and press about their likely NBA draft position in a year.

Atlanta Duke
03-05-2014, 11:39 PM
That is embarrassingly sexist. Shame on you.

Great to see a legendary DBR member back

Troublemaker
03-05-2014, 11:41 PM
Except in none of those years (as well as in the national championship years) do I recall a late-season loss this bad. When we lost it was to solid tournament teams on the road, usually in the 3-6 seed range, and rarely would we crap the bed as we did tonight.

If there's a late-season loss this brings to mind, it's at Virginia in 2002. I think we blew a 15- or 16-point late lead; the actual game was not exactly the same as we were still in it until Jason Williams missed free throws in the last minute. Still there was the late-game swoon against a team we were much better than and some early-season issues returning to haunt us. Virginia by winning went from a "bad bubble team" to a "good bubble team" but still didn't get in.

I would say the '88 team losing to a 14-15 Clemson team, right before playing Carolina at home on Senior Night, is very similar to tonight's loss.

I feel like there have been others as well but don't want to look exhaustively right now.

Good teams lose to bad teams all the time. Sometimes those good teams go on to do great things.

dyedwab
03-05-2014, 11:43 PM
http://www.newsobserver.com/2014/03/05/3677254/wake-forest-stuns-duke-for-82.html

...in her game story, has a paragraph outlining our 10 possessions during Wake's 17-0 run


During that span, Duke’s 10 possessions went like this: turnover (Parker), turnover (Jefferson), missed 3 (Rasheed Sulaimon), turnover (Sulaimon), missed lay-up (Quinn Cook), missed 3 (Tyler Thornton), missed 3 (Cook), turnover (Sulaimon), missed 3 (Sulaimon), missed 3 (Andre Dawkins).

Note anything? Like how the fact the Parker and/or Hood weren't the shooters in any of these possessions? Our players, even when things are going well, don't understand what our offense should be doing. It just gets worse when the game falls apart...

KandG
03-05-2014, 11:44 PM
Great to see a legendary DBR member back

Amen. Jumbo posting here just brightened an otherwise very rough evening.

hurleyfor3
03-05-2014, 11:47 PM
I would say the '88 team losing to a 14-15 Clemson team, right before playing Carolina at home on Senior Night, is very similar to tonight's loss.

I'll grant you that one.

1988 was when I started paying serious attention to Duke basketball. Also women, booze and fast cars. It's been 25 years of going downhill from there.

Jumbo
03-05-2014, 11:50 PM
Amen. Jumbo posting here just brightened an otherwise very rough evening.


Thanks. That's very kind of you (and everyone else in this thread).

Acymetric
03-05-2014, 11:53 PM
I'd be a lot happier if we kept that kind of sentiment in house. It might well be -- heck, probably is -- true, but there's nothing to be gained by saying that and throwing the players under the bus, even gently.

Its March, and none of our problems are new problems. I doubt this is the first time the players have heard something like this. Nowhere to go but up, if calling out the players' relatively gently after an awful loss can help go for it.

GGLC
03-05-2014, 11:59 PM
Too bad we don't have an elite three-point shooter with which to attack these zones.

Also, it seems clear that benching Quinn has led to a negative feedback loop rather than being the motivator that the coaches were hoping for.

I actually think that if Quinn were to start, his confidence and performance would improve signficantly.

Bring back the line changes, maybe.

Or just learn how to play against these zones, because they're all we'll be seeing from now on. Wasn't there a quote about how we spent the week practicing for a man to man defense? Seriously?

JMarley50
03-06-2014, 12:08 AM
I've seen a few people mention how they wish Quinn would get his confidence back. Is it possible that it is exactly the opposite problem? Instead of no confidence, could it be that there is too much of it? If the shot clock gets down to about 10 seconds and he has the ball in his hands, he very rarely looks to pass. Usually he dribbles a hole in the floor around the perimeter and heaves up some kind of prayer. Is he the one player on this team that we would really want taking the shot when a clock is winding down? He seems to think so. Another example that leads me to question whether he really has a lack of confidence is some of the ill advised shots. Tonight for example, 2 on 3 break and he pulls up for a 3pt shot. It left our other player in the paint surrounded by 3 Wake players who easily grabbed the rebound and went back the other way to score. Quinn was so confident that he was going to make that shot that he didn't wait for our other guys to help out. Numerous times we have seen him dribble right into a double team and turn the ball over, because he thinks he can split it. Are these really decisions that someone who is lacking confidence makes?

Billy Dat
03-06-2014, 12:10 AM
Too bad we don't have an elite three-point shooter with which to attack these zones.

Also, it seems clear that benching Quinn has led to a negative feedback loop rather than being the motivator that the coaches were hoping for.

I actually think that if Quinn were to start, his confidence and performance would improve signficantly.

Bring back the line changes, maybe.

Or just learn how to play against these zones, because they're all we'll be seeing from now on. Wasn't there a quote about how we spent the week practicing for a man to man defense? Seriously?

I love how Marshall has emerged, but it does seem like Amile's stellar play has level off to kind of make the MP3 advances a net neutral. Combine Andre and Quinn's regression with Rasheed's re-emergence and, again, we are kind of in the same place with our depth. But, I'll keep believing in the upside involved with that fact that we have 9 guys if we count Jones and 10 if we count Josh who can be called upon.

Between minor injuries, foul trouble and the cresting and troughing of certain players (Quinn, Rasheed, Marshall, Amile, Andre), a predictable rotation has never been established.

Cameron
03-06-2014, 12:11 AM
These uncommonly long spells of being unable, almost helpless, to score down the stretch of games have killed us on numerous occasions this year and, along with a laundry list of other growing issues, they will be our undoing in the NCAA Tournament. For a team as replete elite scorers as we are, that this is even a concern is beyond ridiculous. In Parker and Hood, Duke features perhaps its most potent tandem of forwards since Dunleavy and Battier. Sulaimon and Dawkins are among the best outside shooters in the ACC, and Andre is arguably pound for pound the most lethal three-point marksman in the country. And yet, somehow an inability to score for seemingly endless periods of time has become our fatal flaw. Am I dreaming?

When we were 1-for-11 or whatever it was in the first half from beyond the arc and struggling to throw the ball against the backboard, where was Andre Dawkins? His wide smile should be on every milk box in North Carolina tomorrow morning. In the fleeting moments Andre was on the court, it was almost unrealistic to expect any genuine production out of him as he was never able to establish any discernible flow or rhythm in the game. He played just over 10 minutes.

As others have pointed out, Quinn proved a completely unstable influence as our on-court leader tonight. Eight points, 4 turnovers and one assist. The reality is that Quinn is a point guard in name only whose particular set of skills are better equipped for scoring in the role of a traditional two guard than running a team as a facilitator. And that's a huge problem for this team. With as talented as we are offensively at positions 2 through 4, we don't need a combo point guard whose best asset is scoring. We need a playmaker. A point guard we can count on to truly lead the attack and make our best players better by ensuring they get the ball in the right positions to score. As lethal a weapon as Jabari is, he was rendered almost useless at times tonight due to our inability to get him the ball in the correct spots. It's disappointing, to say the least.

Quinn's excellent assist-to-turnover ratio is often pointed to as evidence of his greatness as a point guard, but where he doesn't turn the ball over in errant passes or getting his pocket picked, he does so on missed pull-up threes in transition and wild forays into the lane that result in circus shots. I don't mean to be overly harsh on the kid. I really like the positive aspects that he does bring to the table -- force of character, dagger triples, cold-blooded competitiveness -- but as our point guard he just doesn't possess the right kind of skill that this team requires. Once Tyus Jones is here to fill that void, I think Quinn will excel quite well in his role as a complimentary scorer and boost of energy.

All I can say is I hope we shoot well against Carolina on Saturday. If we do not, it might not be pretty.

rsvman
03-06-2014, 12:11 AM
I, for one, would be in favor of a return to the line changes that first emerged in the UVa game. It energizes the team and it also helps to protect against early foul trouble.

I know Hairston hasn't played all that well, but I wonder if a few minutes of Hairston might have bought our other guys more quality time, by sparing a foul or two.

Coach K hates it, but we might also have to consider zone for at least a few possessions in each half; maybe more than a few. I think avoiding foul trouble should be one of the major goals going forward. If it takes playing some zone now and again, I think we should do it.

I know so e of you will say that we can't because we don't practice it. We just a mediocre Wake team use one pretty effectively. How hard could it be?

Atlanta Duke
03-06-2014, 12:12 AM
Its March, and none of our problems are new problems. I doubt this is the first time the players have heard something like this. Nowhere to go but up, if calling out the players' relatively gently after an awful loss can help go for it.

Agreed - Wojo might have been freelancing at the post-game presser but I doubt it.

But an interesting contrast to the comments by Coach K, following the Virginia win, when he addressed the Clemson/Notre Dame troubles

"Everything is on me.... It’s on me, not on my team. So what we have been doing, to me, doesn’t make a damn bit of difference. It’s on me."

http://www.newsobserver.com/2014/01/13/3530106/duke-holds-off-virginia-with-late.html#storylink=cpy

What was tolerable in January may be intolerable in March.

Wheat/"/"/"
03-06-2014, 12:13 AM
Yes a productive Plumlee can certainly provide us a lift. But his play is not going to determine how far this team goes. I know you have this fixation on front court play. But the potential of this team largely depends on its guard play. And lately it has been horribly inefficient which has coincided with the abrupt slide in offensive output the last few weeks. If we have dependable guard play we thrash teams like Wake. With Cook inexplicably off in lala land the past few weeks we have nobody else that is capable of managing and distributing an offense. Tyler has some nice efficiency stats, but he doesn't actually run an offense. I don't think anyone would have thought this team's biggest weakness would be its guard play, but right now it is.

If I have any fixation, I think it's on believing the best teams have balance. Strong inside play along with strong outside play.

Coach K has always preferred a wing oriented game. And Duke is always dangerous and a threat to win any game by going off with the great shooting, movement and pressure defense he likes. But I believe the best Duke teams have had good inside play to reach a balance where the wing play can be showcased, but still have some size and strength down low to keep teams honest.

Besides Parker for short stretches, Plumlee is the only player Duke has with the physical size and tools to battle in the post. Jefferson might get there, but he's got to beef up and it's not gonna happen this year. That's why Plumlee's going to be so important this post season, pun intended. There are a lot of big, strong players on the best teams out there just waiting on a clean entry pass against Duke. They are not going to hesitate going to the basket. And there's a lot of wings ready to take it to the rack because there is a lack of big man depth on this team. This late in the season the gameplan to beat Duke is pretty clear...guard the three, and attack the inside by pass or dribble to create foul trouble or soften the defense.

Plumlee just has to be less aggressive and manage his foul situation. Make the drivers, the entry feeds, have to make plays over him, don't bail them out with a foul.

Next year you have a real strong post player coming in with Okafor, who looks like the best one since Brand to me on what video I've seen. It will be interesting to see how he is used by coach K.

Acymetric
03-06-2014, 12:16 AM
I've seen a few people mention how they wish Quinn would get his confidence back. Is it possible that it is exactly the opposite problem? Instead of no confidence, could it be that there is too much of it? If the shot clock gets down to about 10 seconds and he has the ball in his hands, he very rarely looks to pass. Usually he dribbles a hole in the floor around the perimeter and heaves up some kind of prayer. Is he the one player on this team that we would really want taking the shot when a clock is winding down? He seems to think so. Another example that leads me to question whether he really has a lack of confidence is some of the ill advised shots. Tonight for example, 2 on 3 break and he pulls up for a 3pt shot. It left our other player in the paint surrounded by 3 Wake players who easily grabbed the rebound and went back the other way to score. Quinn was so confident that he was going to make that shot that he didn't wait for our other guys to help out. Numerous times we have seen him dribble right into a double team and turn the ball over, because he thinks he can split it. Are these really decisions that someone who is lacking confidence makes?

People here and on the Duke coaching staff have made comments over the course of the season that Cook "needs to shoot" (almost an exact quote from K on a radio postgame recently). Looking at only major contributors he is the 7th best shooter (by a narrow margin) and 6th best 3 point shooter (by a decent margin). If you ask me, shooting should be the last thing Cook does on the offensive end. His shooting and his decision making are his two worst qualities. He doesn't seem to be flourishing in his role off the bench but he certainly doesn't seem to belong in the starting lineup lately.

JMarley50
03-06-2014, 12:29 AM
People here and on the Duke coaching staff have made comments over the course of the season that Cook "needs to shoot" (almost an exact quote from K on a radio postgame recently). Looking at only major contributors he is the 7th best shooter (by a narrow margin) and 6th best 3 point shooter (by a decent margin). If you ask me, shooting should be the last thing Cook does on the offensive end. His shooting and his decision making are his two worst qualities. He doesn't seem to be flourishing in his role off the bench but he certainly doesn't seem to belong in the starting lineup lately.

There were numerous times tonight where Marshall had his guy sealed on the block, with a clear passing lane, in perfect position to score or at least get fouled and Quinn would look at him for a second and then go the other way. There is something wrong with that. It is nearly impossible that he did not recognize Marshall was open. It reminded me of the treatment that J.J. got from Jameer Nelson in Orlando.

LBF
03-06-2014, 12:42 AM
I still think this team can accomplish big things, although we shot blanks tonight in a big way. Dribbling into traps over and over and fouling incessantly in an attempt to play tough D. But we are a very dynamic and explosive team despite the multiple fall apart at the end games, I still say this team is a very tough out in the big dance. More than any other team out there, I wouldn't want to play us. Too many weapons. Let's just hope our guns get reloaded soon.

GTHC, you are going down!

ncexnyc
03-06-2014, 12:56 AM
There were numerous times tonight where Marshall had his guy sealed on the block, with a clear passing lane, in perfect position to score or at least get fouled and Quinn would look at him for a second and then go the other way. There is something wrong with that. It is nearly impossible that he did not recognize Marshall was open. It reminded me of the treatment that J.J. got from Jameer Nelson in Orlando.

And why does this surprise you? How many times this year have either Amile or Marshall come up and set a high screen, roll to the basket, and despite the fact they are unguarded not receive the pass?

Kedsy
03-06-2014, 01:37 AM
One thing I think people are overlooking is the fact that Wake Forest at home is a pretty good team, not the awful team everyone seems to think they are. This season Wake is 14-4 at home (5-4 ACC), including wins over UNC, Clemson, and Duke.


When you're a small team that lacks any dependable guard play then it's really hard to beat anyone.

Yeah, because Duke hasn't beaten anyone this season. No, wait...

Seriously, why can't people learn that one game does not define a season and certainly isn't a predictor of anything in the future? And if you don't believe me, go back and read the post-game threads after the NC State and Georgetown losses in 2010.


The only Prob is when Cook came in, our lead dwindled. It happened every time. He can not make good decisions when under pressure.

First of all, this isn't true. While he did play for almost all the 17-0 Wake run, far as I know Quinn wasn't the only Duke player out there. Other than that, he only entered the game twice. His first stint resulted in Duke going from being down 5 to being down 3 (so Duke outscored Wake by 2 points while Quinn was in). In his second stint, a Duke 6 point lead went down to a 3 point lead, not a big deal at all.

There is no "every time" generalization you can make about Quinn's game tonight, but personally I believe he would play better as our starting PG than he's been playing as our backup SG.


Add Tyler Cavanagh to the list.

Yes, you know the list of mild scoring, relatively low impact big men who plays Duke and blows up for a season/career high.

Seems like it happened all the time earlier this season - Vermont, East Carolina, Notre Dame, Clemson, etc., etc..

If you think this year's list of opposing big men leading their team in scoring is depressing, go back and look at the 2005-06 season, when practically every opposing big man had his best game of the season (and in several cases best game of his career) against us. If only we had a decent center that year -- no wait, I misspoke, our center won NDPOY that season.

This seems to happen more or less every season. I assume it has something to do with the style of defense Duke runs.


...the biggest problem is that the offense does not run through Jabari nearly enough, especially with the game on the line. He might be the ACC POY, runner up for national POY, and the #1 overall selection in the NBA draft. But tonight he only took 11 shots. And in the UNC game and second game against Cuse, he didn't get nearly enough touches. He should be taking at least 15-20 shots every night out. He's a world class talent that has the ability to carry a team on his back, but instead it seems like he's more like just one cog in this out of sync offense.

Other than Josh and Matt, Jabari has the lowest oRating on the team. I agree he's a great talent, but he hasn't been a particularly efficient scorer. I think giving him 20 shots a game would make our offense worse, not better.


...the defense couldn't rebound against a team that's typically very poor at offensive rebounding

Here's the thing about Marshall Plumlee's emergence: he's not a very good defensive rebounder. Tonight, for example, he only got one defensive rebound. When Marshall plays 17 minutes like tonight, he's using probably around 10 minutes that used to go to Amile (who is a very good defensive rebounder). Our defensive rebounding is bound to suffer as a result.

In fact, while so many people are praising Marshall as a "rim protector" who helps our defense, but seem to consider him somewhat of a liability on offense, I'm seeing exactly the opposite. He was all offense tonight. Six offensive rebounds in 17 minutes is amazing. Seven points in 17 minutes is a strong showing. At the same time, I wasn't particularly impressed by his defense, though I admit that may be a subjective opinion. What isn't subjective is Wake Forest got 11 offensive rebounds during Marshall's 17 minutes and only 5 offensive rebounds during the 23 minutes that Marshall wasn't on the floor. All those second chances can't be great for our defensive efficiency (and in fact, while admitting all the caveats regarding one-game plus/minus numbers, our defensive efficiency against Wake with Marshall in the game was 1.38 ppp and without Marshall was 1.17).


...and our guys lost composure during Wake's 17-0 run down the stretch. I do believe a team is capable of giving a terrible performance and follow it immediately with a great performance the next game, so I still feel good about Saturday against UNC. But obviously any hopes for a 1 seed are dashed now.

I agree with all this. I think each time we give up a late second half run, it damages the team psyche a little bit and makes it psychologically more difficult to stem the next potential late second half run. Not sure what to do about that, though.


Sadly it looks like a similar product next year - lots of talent but little team cohesion.

Please explain how you know so much about next year's team cohesion? Crystal ball? Tarot cards? Tea leaves? If it's chicken entrails, then I believe you.



I would say the '88 team losing to a 14-15 Clemson team, right before playing Carolina at home on Senior Night, is very similar to tonight's loss.

I feel like there have been others as well but don't want to look exhaustively right now.

Good teams lose to bad teams all the time. Sometimes those good teams go on to do great things.

I completely agree.

In fact, the 1988 team lost 3 games in a row leading up to that year's season finale against UNC, with the 3rd loss coming to unranked, non-NCAAT team Clemson. The 1989 team lost 2 in a row leading up to the final game at UNC, including again to unranked Clemson (though that Clemson edition did make the NCAAT and was seeded 9th). The 1990 team lost 2 of 3 games leading up to UNC, losing to #20 Clemson and also to unranked, non-NCAAT team NCSU. All three of those Duke teams made the Final Four.


we are just not a good team. no leadership, no composure, no intensity. unc will beat us saturday in our own gym because they'll outwork us. they'll want it more. maybe next year,

smh

Acymetric
03-06-2014, 01:42 AM
This is the first time that I can remember since I joined 6 or 7 years ago that we haven't had an MOTM thread...am I wrong?

Dukeface88
03-06-2014, 01:48 AM
Too bad we don't have an elite three-point shooter with which to attack these zones.

Also, it seems clear that benching Quinn has led to a negative feedback loop rather than being the motivator that the coaches were hoping for.

I actually think that if Quinn were to start, his confidence and performance would improve signficantly.

Bring back the line changes, maybe.

Or just learn how to play against these zones, because they're all we'll be seeing from now on. Wasn't there a quote about how we spent the week practicing for a man to man defense? Seriously?

"Attacking" the zone from 3 has consistently failed, and it has done so going all the way back to November. Not only have those shots not gone in, they almost result in a long rebound and a fast break. Getting the ball to someone at the free throw line has shredded everything we have done it against, regardless of whether "someone" was Jabari or Rodney or Amille. We shot 58% from inside the arc tonight and 22% outside it, and yet almost half of our shots were threes. I am not able rightly to apprehend the kind of confusion of ideas that could provoke such a terrible gameplan.

Kedsy
03-06-2014, 01:55 AM
Usually he dribbles a hole in the floor around the perimeter and heaves up some kind of prayer. Is he the one player on this team that we would really want taking the shot when a clock is winding down?

In tonight's game, Quinn shot 5 times in the first half, making three, including 2 of 4 from three-point range while the rest of the team was 0 for 8 on threes in the half. In the second half, he missed one three-pointer and one layup during the Wake run and then missed a shot with 34 seconds left in the game with us already down 10. In other words, your description of his game wasn't accurate tonight.


In the fleeting moments Andre was on the court, it was almost unrealistic to expect any genuine production out of him as he was never able to establish any discernible flow or rhythm in the game. He played just over 10 minutes.

And yet he scored 7 points in those 10 minutes (11 in the official box score), which would extrapolate to 25+ points in 40 minutes.

Cameron
03-06-2014, 02:26 AM
In tonight's game, Quinn shot 5 times in the first half, making three, including 2 of 4 from three-point range while the rest of the team was 0 for 8 on threes in the half. In the second half, he missed one three-pointer and one layup during the Wake run and then missed a shot with 34 seconds left in the game with us already down 10. In other words, your description of his game wasn't accurate tonight.



And yet he scored 7 points in those 10 minutes (11 in the official box score)

He did score on a couple of shots near the basket, but I was speaking to Andre's three-point stroke, an area of the game in which, despite a pretty significant part of our plan of attack, we struggled mightily. As a team we shot 6-of-27 (22%) from beyond the arc, and we helped dig ourselves into an especially deep hole by missing 10 of our 11 shots from outside in the first half alone (I believe that number is accurate). And yet, Andre, our best and most dangerous outside shooter, was on the bench for almost all of it (IIRC he played a couple of minutes midway through the first half and then didn't check back into the game until about the 30-second mark).

Due in part to that inconsistent pattern of play -- the effect of jumping in and out of the lineup, so to speak -- I felt it was almost impossible for Andre to get into a flow in the first half and that he was forced on a couple of occasions during the game into rushed shots that he ordinarily wouldn't take (thus contributing to his 1-for-4 effort from deep). I personally think it would have been in our best interest to play Andre more in the first half in an attempt to get him some good looks within the flow of the offense that might've got him going from outside, instead of sticking with a rotation that was launching blank after blank.


which would extrapolate to 25+ points in 40 minutes.

Based on that extrapolation, one would think you'd have been in favor of Andre playing many more minutes than 11 on a night when we lost because we could not score.

Kedsy
03-06-2014, 02:34 AM
Based on that extrapolation, one would think you'd have been in favor of Andre playing many more minutes than 11 on a night when we lost because we could not score.

I would totally be in favor of Andre playing more minutes, in every game. I've been advocating that all season. Unfortunately, Coach K won't take my calls.

Kedsy
03-06-2014, 02:40 AM
Also, those lamenting Cavanaugh's big game against us should also acknowledge that we completely shut down Wake's most talented big, Devin Thomas, to the tune of 4 points (on 1 of 6 shooting) in 26 minutes. Wake's two bigs average 20.4 ppg, and against us the two scored 24. In other words, Wake's bigs managed a slightly better than average game against us, scoring-wise. In other, other words, opposing bigs' scoring wasn't really our problem.

Cameron
03-06-2014, 02:57 AM
I would totally be in favor of Andre playing more minutes, in every game. I've been advocating that all season. Unfortunately, Coach K won't take my calls.

Then keep calling back.

Because watching the best three-point shooter in the nation sit in a chair for about 10 minutes straight in the first half, while the guys out on the floor hoisted as many bizarre shots as a fourth-grade team -- e.g. Rodney's three-point attempt that hit the bottom right corner of the backcourt -- was one of the more mind-boggling experiences of the season.

wsb3
03-06-2014, 06:59 AM
I would totally be in favor of Andre playing more minutes, in every game. I've been advocating that all season. Unfortunately, Coach K won't take my calls.

I do find it puzzling that Andre plays so little when we struggle so much against zone defense.

dukelifer
03-06-2014, 07:18 AM
One thing I think people are overlooking is the fact that Wake Forest at home is a pretty good team, not the awful team everyone seems to think they are. This season Wake is 14-4 at home (5-4 ACC), including wins over UNC, Clemson, and Duke.



Yeah, because Duke hasn't beaten anyone this season. No, wait...

Seriously, why can't people learn that one game does not define a season and certainly isn't a predictor of anything in the future? And if you don't believe me, go back and read the post-game threads after the NC State and Georgetown losses in 2010.



First of all, this isn't true. While he did play for almost all the 17-0 Wake run, far as I know Quinn wasn't the only Duke player out there. Other than that, he only entered the game twice. His first stint resulted in Duke going from being down 5 to being down 3 (so Duke outscored Wake by 2 points while Quinn was in). In his second stint, a Duke 6 point lead went down to a 3 point lead, not a big deal at all.

There is no "every time" generalization you can make about Quinn's game tonight, but personally I believe he would play better as our starting PG than he's been playing as our backup SG.



If you think this year's list of opposing big men leading their team in scoring is depressing, go back and look at the 2005-06 season, when practically every opposing big man had his best game of the season (and in several cases best game of his career) against us. If only we had a decent center that year -- no wait, I misspoke, our center won NDPOY that season.

This seems to happen more or less every season. I assume it has something to do with the style of defense Duke runs.



Other than Josh and Matt, Jabari has the lowest oRating on the team. I agree he's a great talent, but he hasn't been a particularly efficient scorer. I think giving him 20 shots a game would make our offense worse, not better.



Here's the thing about Marshall Plumlee's emergence: he's not a very good defensive rebounder. Tonight, for example, he only got one defensive rebound. When Marshall plays 17 minutes like tonight, he's using probably around 10 minutes that used to go to Amile (who is a very good defensive rebounder). Our defensive rebounding is bound to suffer as a result.

In fact, while so many people are praising Marshall as a "rim protector" who helps our defense, but seem to consider him somewhat of a liability on offense, I'm seeing exactly the opposite. He was all offense tonight. Six offensive rebounds in 17 minutes is amazing. Seven points in 17 minutes is a strong showing. At the same time, I wasn't particularly impressed by his defense, though I admit that may be a subjective opinion. What isn't subjective is Wake Forest got 11 offensive rebounds during Marshall's 17 minutes and only 5 offensive rebounds during the 23 minutes that Marshall wasn't on the floor. All those second chances can't be great for our defensive efficiency (and in fact, while admitting all the caveats regarding one-game plus/minus numbers, our defensive efficiency against Wake with Marshall in the game was 1.38 ppp and without Marshall was 1.17).



I agree with all this. I think each time we give up a late second half run, it damages the team psyche a little bit and makes it psychologically more difficult to stem the next potential late second half run. Not sure what to do about that, though.



Please explain how you know so much about next year's team cohesion? Crystal ball? Tarot cards? Tea leaves? If it's chicken entrails, then I believe you.



I completely agree.

In fact, the 1988 team lost 3 games in a row leading up to that year's season finale against UNC, with the 3rd loss coming to unranked, non-NCAAT team Clemson. The 1989 team lost 2 in a row leading up to the final game at UNC, including again to unranked Clemson (though that Clemson edition did make the NCAAT and was seeded 9th). The 1990 team lost 2 of 3 games leading up to UNC, losing to #20 Clemson and also to unranked, non-NCAAT team NCSU. All three of those Duke teams made the Final Four.



smh

Yes - chicken entrails. My point was if Hood and Parker and Dawkins and Thornton and Hairston all leave- history has shown that Freshman are rarely as good as most fans think they will be. True there are solid contributors left but there are a lot of new faces in key positions. I don't expect the team next year to be like 2010 where there was a mix of seniors and juniors that have played together over multiple seasons. So yes - I expect next years team to have issues with cohesion - if all above go. That does not mean the team can be successful. The key will be how those young guys learn to play D as a unit. This years team has not been a good defensive team in critical stretches against the better teams - and that is based on the eye ball test.

Highlander
03-06-2014, 07:22 AM
Well, Wake only played UVA once. So UVA only had to play one of the teams Duke lost to twice. Oh, and they didn't have to play UNC twice (you know, after UNC figured out they were good) or Syracuse twice (like, before Syracuse figured out they weren't that good).

So yea, the unbalanced schedule kinda sucks.

Agree. Wake is a different team home vs. away. We won by 20 in Durham and lost by 10 in W-S. UNC and NC State had similar experiences home vs. away. UVA played them once. In Charlottesville. Advantage - UVA.

That's not to say that UVA didn't earn the regular season crown. Hats off to them. But to say that their road was just as tough as Duke's is laughable.

lotusland
03-06-2014, 07:26 AM
Seems like playing the last 10 minutes with our front court in foul trouble and the team struggling to score is more the norm than an exception now. Even with MP3 contributing we still end up with Hood, Parker and Jefferson saddled with 4 fouls late in the game. I'm not sure what the answer is especially when we struggle to score without them on the floor. Maybe play Josh 5 minutes in the first half and work to get Dre some shots when Hood is sitting. I don't see this team beating good teams when they don't at least make 30% from 3 and they do not look like a very good 3 point shooting team right now. Thornton is the only one getting open looks now and he's not hitting them either. Our half court offense is really painful to watch now. I would have liked to see this team push the ball up court rather than run so much half court but it seems a bit late in the year to make a dramatic change. Also you need suffocating ball pressure to get more open court plays and we haven't had it often this year.

Of course a senior-day whipping of Carolina will cure these blues but I'm not feeling confident at all right now. The way the heels attack the boards and the rim we'll be lucky if Parker, Hood and Jefferson aren't all in foul trouble in the last 5 minutes.

kshepinthehouse
03-06-2014, 07:30 AM
Seems like playing the last 10 minutes with our front court in foul trouble and the team struggling to score is more the norm than an exception now. Even with MP3 contributing we still end up with Hood, Parker and Jefferson saddled with 4 fouls late in the game. I'm not sure what the answer is especially when we struggle to score without them on the floor. Maybe play Josh 5 minutes in the first half and work to get Dre some shots when Hood is sitting. I don't see this team beating good teams when they don't at least make 30% from 3 and they do not look like a very good 3 point shooting team right now. Thornton is the only one getting open looks now and he's not hitting them either. Our half court offense is really painful to watch now. I would have liked to see this team push the ball up court rather than run so much half court but it seems a bit late in the year to make a dramatic change. Also you need suffocating ball pressure to get more open court plays and we haven't had it often this year.

Of course a senior-day whipping of Carolina will cure these blues but I'm not feeling confident at all right now. The way the heels attack the boards and the rim we'll be lucky if Parker, Hood and Jefferson aren't all in foul trouble in the last 5 minutes.

I agree that I don't think we play well at a slow pace. Especially when the zone has time to set up. I think we need to fast break as much as possible and stop walking the ball up the court.

Brockt10
03-06-2014, 07:33 AM
Does anyone else want to slap this team and just ask WTF!

oldnavy
03-06-2014, 07:34 AM
I wish I could be upbeat, but that was a pretty sad game...

Like others I wonder why we can't figure out how to attack the zone defense with consistency.

Speaking of zone defense... has anyone noticed that this has become the trend now in college basketball? All the kids are doing it....

Well almost all the kids...

It sure would be nice to have a plan B when our MTM defense can't seem to stop the 206th rated offense in the country.

As great as Coach K is, and he is great, this is one area where I just scratch my head and wonder what the heck is going on. It is obvious at this point in the year that our guys are not good in the MTM defense.... they're just not. Sure the rules and the refs have something to do with it, I get that... so why not "adapt"?

I am not suggesting that we go zone as our primary defense, but for heavens sake, it would be nice to throw it out there every once in a while just to make the other team stop and think about it. It might also help with foul trouble. I would like to see our guys get to play aggressive later versus earlier in these games, but when you are saddled with foul trouble it is hard to do.

I know that this is heresy, but it really does make me wonder, why not? Why not at least for a few defensive possessions try it? How could it be any worse than what we have been doing? Wake Forest just dropped 82 points on us... they shouldn't score 62 points on this team... We may not be very good at playing zone, but we ain't exactly world beaters in the MTM either.

UNC is licking their lips... I have a sinking feeling that Paige will absolutely shred our MTM, and I will bet the house that they throw zone on us at least half the game and we will beat the ball into the court around the perimeter and jack up a bunch of threes and pray that we are making some. We will not stop UNC from scoring, so I hope we can match them point for point.

I've been around long enough to know that it is never too late, but honestly I am not confident that we will have a good response on Saturday...

I always seem to be on the wrong side of things when it comes to making predictions, I hope I am wrong yet again....

Let's GO DUKE!!

NYBri
03-06-2014, 07:34 AM
And why does this surprise you? How many times this year have either Amile or Marshall come up and set a high screen, roll to the basket, and despite the fact they are unguarded not receive the pass?

1,456,735.

I've counted them.

CameronDuke
03-06-2014, 07:41 AM
Agree. Wake is a different team home vs. away. We won by 20 in Durham and lost by 10 in W-S. UNC and NC State had similar experiences home vs. away. UVA played them once. In Charlottesville. Advantage - UVA.

That's not to say that UVA didn't earn the regular season crown. Hats off to them. But to say that their road was just as tough as Duke's is laughable.

I fail to see why or how we as Duke fans can point to the "unbalanced schedule" to say UVa's schedule was not as tough as Duke's when we couldn't take care of business against the bottom feeders of the league. UVa won at Clemson, where we lost, and at ND, where we lost. As for the excuse that Wake "plays tougher at home" and "Duke gets everyone's best shot on the road", the official attendance last night at the Joel was 12,036 which is 82% full! It wasn't even a sellout! And I don't buy the stuff that Wake played some inspired game where they gave effort that they wouldn't normally give. Duke stunk it up and should have beat this team by 15 if they played together and played with fight.

Also, shame on ACC coaches for not inspiring their teams to give UVa their best shot - do any of them, I don't know, take a gander at the rankings sporadically? UVa has been ranked in both the AP Poll and Coaches Poll for 5 weeks now! Why wouldn't you be excited to beat a top 25 team? That argument is hogwash. Duke has also lost 5 games on the road in the ACC now. What makes you think we would beat UVa at UVa? Maybe we should be thankful for the unbalanced schedule so we don't have to watch Duke go to Charlottesville and lose.

kshepinthehouse
03-06-2014, 07:51 AM
I fail to see why or how we as Duke fans can point to the "unbalanced schedule" to say UVa's schedule was not as tough as Duke's when we couldn't take care of business against the bottom feeders of the league. UVa won at Clemson, where we lost, and at ND, where we lost. As for the excuse that Wake "plays tougher at home" and "Duke gets everyone's best shot on the road", the official attendance last night at the Joel was 12,036 which is 82% full! It wasn't even a sellout! And I don't buy the stuff that Wake played some inspired game where they gave effort that they wouldn't normally give. Duke stunk it up and should have beat this team by 15 if they played together and played with fight.

Also, shame on ACC coaches for not inspiring their teams to give UVa their best shot - do any of them, I don't know, take a gander at the rankings sporadically? UVa has been ranked in both the AP Poll and Coaches Poll for 5 weeks now! Why wouldn't you be excited to beat a top 25 team? That argument is hogwash. Duke has also lost 5 games on the road in the ACC now. What makes you think we would beat UVa at UVa? Maybe we should be thankful for the unbalanced schedule so we don't have to watch Duke go to Charlottesville and lose.

Agreed. This didn't seem like the normal Wake crowd fired up and ready to beat Duke.

PSurprise
03-06-2014, 07:51 AM
While I'm not a fan of Josh's play this season, I think Coach K can use him in a few situations, especially in the first half, to help deal with the potential foul situations that we face (and probably will face the rest of the season). While he gives us very little on offense, he can play at least some marginal D and give us 5 fouls to burn. When Rodney, Amile and Jabari pick up 2 fouls in the first half, with the way this team plays D, (everyone-guards, forwards, everyone), it's quite likely they will pick up one and usually two (and sometimes 3) fouls in the second half, which greatly limits them on D, and probably affects their aggressiveness on O.
I think inserting Josh for a few minutes in the first half, maybe before a TV timeout, would help the inside guys with their foul issues as well as keeping them fresher during the game, at least marginally.
Heck, maybe we should go back to the line changes we saw a few weeks ago. That would be fun! Just my two cents.

Go Duke! Beat Carolina!

cruxer
03-06-2014, 08:13 AM
While I'm not a fan of Josh's play this season, I think Coach K can use him in a few situations, especially in the first half, to help deal with the potential foul situations that we face (and probably will face the rest of the season). While he gives us very little on offense, he can play at least some marginal D and give us 5 fouls to burn. When Rodney, Amile and Jabari pick up 2 fouls in the first half, with the way this team plays D, (everyone-guards, forwards, everyone), it's quite likely they will pick up one and usually two (and sometimes 3) fouls in the second half, which greatly limits them on D, and probably affects their aggressiveness on O.
I think inserting Josh for a few minutes in the first half, maybe before a TV timeout, would help the inside guys with their foul issues as well as keeping them fresher during the game, at least marginally.
Heck, maybe we should go back to the line changes we saw a few weeks ago. That would be fun! Just my two cents.

Go Duke! Beat Carolina!

It seems Josh's minutes have gone to near zero with the emergence of Marshall, who happens to be better on the offensive end. If Josh and Tyler are in at the same time, you only end up with 3 offensive options. At least with Marshall you get the (pretty good!) chance that he'll rebound a miss and keep the possession going or score doing dirty work. Tyler had been occasionally punishing teams who chose not to defend him, but it seems we haven't seen that in a few games.

I'd really love to see us relentlessly attack the zone from the lane. We seem to fall into the trap of taking the available perimeter shot against it. While those are good shots, the fact that we're not knocking them down with any regularity hurts us tremendously. To my eye, we've been much more effective by either passing into the lane to Hood or driving the lane and dishing underneath the zone to Jabari. I would like to see us try one of those at least 75% of the time against the zone.

-c

jv001
03-06-2014, 08:13 AM
I told my wife that this loss hurt me more than any loss in a long time. I knew Wake would come out fired up and I thought our guys would match their intensity. Well they may have matched their intensity but we still let them get that confidence they needed to keep it close with a chance to win at the end and they did win. I have to agree with old navy on a lot of things about the game.

Point guard play has not been good at all. We had 15 turnovers and only 14 assists. Quinn had 4 turnovers with 1 assist and Rasheed had 4 turnovers and 4 assists. Jabari had 1 assist(2 to's). As good as he is, that's not taking advantage of what the opponent is giving him. Our guards are hesitant to quickly pass the ball into the post or to the rolling screen guy. I wish Matt Jones could shoot, we could use his defense and energy.

We are not a good man to man defensive team. We foul way too much(refs didn't lose this game). We talk about hero ball on offense, well sometimes we play hero ball on defense as well. Last night with the game still close, Jabari comes over to try and block a shot and leaves his man wide open for the put back. The Wake player was shooting an off balance shot that had little hope of going in and he was well guarded anyway. Too many times this year, our guys have gone for the steal or block that leaves our team in bad defensive position.

Billydat made a comment that I agree with. We waste too much time bringing the ball up and getting into our sets. This is especially true against zones. Quinn is the worst on the team for that. Three times last night Quinn had the ball taken from him and at least two those led to run out layups. And one ended up a foul on Rodney. I agree with Marley, it's not lack of confidence with Quinn, it's too much confidence with Quinn.

I hesitate to say this, with Coach K being ill, but this is how I feel. I feel that lack of defense late in the game was because of foul trouble. We didn't play good man to man defense and this is not the first time this has happened this year. I have seen more zone defense played this year than I can ever remember. Not just against Duke, but in other games I watch. It seems that other teams have adjusted to how games are officiated this year by playing more zone. I don't know if it's the players can't play zone and Coach K realizes it or the coaches can't coach it. I'm not talking about zone being our primary defense. I'm talking about 10-15 minutes per game. This would help in times of foul trouble, would give the other team something to prepare for and would help stop dribble penetration. I know I'll probably be "bashed" for saying this, but it's how I feel.

As bad as I feel about last nights game, I'm happier to see Jumbo back posting again. Great to have you back, big guy. God bless you and GoDuke!

oldnavy
03-06-2014, 08:32 AM
I told my wife that this loss hurt me more than any loss in a long time. I knew Wake would come out fired up and I thought our guys would match their intensity. Well they may have matched their intensity but we still let them get that confidence they needed to keep it close with a chance to win at the end and they did win. I have to agree with old navy on a lot of things about the game.

Point guard play has not been good at all. We had 15 turnovers and only 14 assists. Quinn had 4 turnovers with 1 assist and Rasheed had 4 turnovers and 4 assists. Jabari had 1 assist(2 to's). As good as he is, that's not taking advantage of what the opponent is giving him. Our guards are hesitant to quickly pass the ball into the post or to the rolling screen guy. I wish Matt Jones could shoot, we could use his defense and energy.

We are not a good man to man defensive team. We foul way too much(refs didn't lose this game). We talk about hero ball on offense, well sometimes we play hero ball on defense as well. Last night with the game still close, Jabari comes over to try and block a shot and leaves his man wide open for the put back. The Wake player was shooting an off balance shot that had little hope of going in and he was well guarded anyway. Too many times this year, our guys have gone for the steal or block that leaves our team in bad defensive position.

Billydat made a comment that I agree with. We waste too much time bringing the ball up and getting into our sets. This is especially true against zones. Quinn is the worst on the team for that. Three times last night Quinn had the ball taken from him and at least two those led to run out layups. And one ended up a foul on Rodney. I agree with Marley, it's not lack of confidence with Quinn, it's too much confidence with Quinn.

I hesitate to say this, with Coach K being ill, but this is how I feel. I feel that lack of defense late in the game was because of foul trouble. We didn't play good man to man defense and this is not the first time this has happened this year. I have seen more zone defense played this year than I can ever remember. Not just against Duke, but in other games I watch. It seems that other teams have adjusted to how games are officiated this year by playing more zone. I don't know if it's the players can't play zone and Coach K realizes it or the coaches can't coach it. I'm not talking about zone being our primary defense. I'm talking about 10-15 minutes per game. This would help in times of foul trouble, would give the other team something to prepare for and would help stop dribble penetration. I know I'll probably be "bashed" for saying this, but it's how I feel.

As bad as I feel about last nights game, I'm happier to see Jumbo back posting again. Great to have you back, big guy. God bless you and GoDuke!

At this point, I'd really like to hear a good argument for NOT using zone some....

I know that "we are a MTM team and always have been", but that isn't a good argument, that is just stating the obvious. To say we are bad at zone also doesn't wash at this point of the year. We are bad at MTM. If we are going to play bad defense, let's at least mix up the bad defenses and perhaps protect our guys against foul trouble. What difference does it make if we play MTM and surrender 82 points to Wake? Maybe, just Maybe we slow them down a little with zone and JP, MP3, and Hood aren't having to play with 4 fouls.

Folks can bash away, but until someone presents a rational argument for why we don't EVEN TRY it when teams are going on 17-0 runs against us, and we have 3 primary players with 4 fouls... and we can't get back to back stops with the MTM... I am going to keep on thinking that we are playing right into our opponents hands.. they are adjusting and we are not.

Saratoga2
03-06-2014, 08:40 AM
First of all, Wake had a lot of losses but were still a decent team playing on their home court on senior night and gave a strong effort. Those saying Wake is a weak team and pointing at their record have some credibility, but Wake did play well last night.

Those saying Duke didn't play hard weren't watching the efforts of Jabari, Rodney, Rasheed, Marshall, Tyler and even Amile.

So why did we look anemic, especially at the end?

Coach K had said they would rest a physically and mentally tired team after their difficult stretch of games and that both the coaches and players would review game tapes to see what they had done poorly and identify and work on areas of improvement. Clearly, whatever they believe they found was not as effective as hoped for.

The team came out with the lineup of Amile, Jabari, Rodney, Rasheed and Tyler and promptly fell behind. Was it the size of the lineup, the inability to hit three point shots over the zone or the lack of toughness inside that made the team seem flat.

A switch with putting Marshall in for Amile seemed to help the interior, and when Marshall is left open, he can score. Something our guards need to realize. We pulled the game back and should have had the lead at half, but a poorly conceived play at the end had Quinn dribbling the ball near the half court until 9 seconds and then not being able to find anything, eventually turning the ball over for a run out by Wake. Does that play, make any sense, when Rodney or Jabari were proven scorers in the game? Even had he not turned the ball over there was no way he would have gotten off a shot.

My view is that our guard play was poor throughout the game with neither Quinn (not strong with the ball), Rasheed (flummoxed against the zone) or Tyler (unable to generate any offense) could help our bigger guys with either scoring or even setups. I really dislike our use of Quinn and Tyler in the game at the same time and it clearly was not a competitive approach at the end of the game.

I agree with those who say Marshall had a good offensive game and it could have been better if he had been anymore than an afterthought. His defense has still not caught up. He is disruptive around the basket with his size and he is coming out hard to hedge plus he boxes out well, but he doesn't seem to go hard for defensive rebounds nor is he particularly strong on help defense and shot black attempts. These are areas I had hope the coaches would have concentrated on but I saw little evidence of it in the game.;

With our guard play weak, coach K clearly doesn't think Andre could help much as he got little time in the game. He did make some offensive plays of note and I felt he might have gotten his stroke back in the second half when he hit the 3. I would have played him more in the second half to alleviate some of the foul issues and also to get some potent scoring into the game. We have been known as a good three point shooting team with a lot of weapons, but when Rodney is not hitting and the starting guards are not hitting, shouldn't we try our premier shooter?

Matt came in the game as is a good defender, is energetic and maybe could spell those that are not producing. He missed his free throws and is not currently scoring, but I believe the ability is there and should be encouraged.

As far as keeping the fouls down on our bigs, Jabari did it do himself with a charge and then an obvious push-off. He is so valuable to the team he has to think more clearly about fouling. Jabari's inside game was outstanding but he lacked the inside/outside threat of some other games. He is either a natural 3 at the next leavel or a college 4 with outside shooting ability. Great overall player. Amile seemed overpowered and tends to pick up fouls in that circumstance. Rodney played a lot of minutes and is even more overpowered inside so shouldn't be asked to handle that role. Marshall also got into foul trouble, which I didn't expect. His were more bumping fouls.

So who can we play to help these guys stay in the game with some degree of freshness? Clearly Andre can spell Rodney and even more we have two bigs who sit on the bench the whole time. I don't really think Josh offers a lot and that is why he is stilling. Semi is inexperienced but strong and athletic and has shown he can score. Why not Semi? All I can think of is coach K is set in his ways and thinks the value of Semi in getting in some minutes to keep the fouls down for 5 to 10 minutes in a game where fouls are building is not worth the defensive liability. I think he should reconsider. The team seemed more effective when we were substituting broadly.

weezie
03-06-2014, 08:41 AM
We sure seem to get bogged down, even with our quick progression on offense. Run it up then stand around, get stuck in corners, nobody coming to help, etc. And then there's the flip side, if we slow it down the other team sets up and we're standing still and looking over the fence. I'd love to see Rodney constantly on the move, like JJ back in the day. Make the other team dizzy for a change.
But, of course, gotta hit the shots and maybe we're not that good with quick release. Ya think?!
signed, Captain Obviousweezie

CDu
03-06-2014, 08:42 AM
One thing I think people are overlooking is the fact that Wake Forest at home is a pretty good team, not the awful team everyone seems to think they are. This season Wake is 14-4 at home (5-4 ACC), including wins over UNC, Clemson, and Duke.

I am going to have to disagree with this statement. Wake is not a good team at home. They are an average team at home.

The 9 non-conference games they played at home were a joke: Colgate, VMI, Presbyterian, Jacksonville, Citadel, Tulane, Richmond, St. Bonaventure, and UNC-Greensboro. So let's not trumpet their 14-4 home record.

Against real competition, they were 4-4 at home with one good home win (UNC, but back when UNC was struggling), one decent home win (an inconsistent Clemson team), and two "blah" home wins (State and Notre Dame). But they had recently lost 4 of their last 5 home games, to Syracuse (no harm there), Georgia Tech (by 9), FSU (7), and most recently BC (8).

So they were NOT a good home team. They were an average home team and a very below-average road team. Good home teams don't lose comfortably to BC and GT. Wake is much better at home than on the road, but that's simply because they are abysmal on the road.

There is no sugar coating this. We lost to a mediocre team in a game we had no business losing. And we did so despite having a 3-possession lead late in the second half.

CDu
03-06-2014, 08:46 AM
At this point, I'd really like to hear a good argument for NOT using zone some....

I know that "we are a MTM team and always have been", but that isn't a good argument, that is just stating the obvious. To say we are bad at zone also doesn't wash at this point of the year. We are bad at MTM. If we are going to play bad defense, let's at least mix up the bad defenses and perhaps protect our guys against foul trouble. What difference does it make if we play MTM and surrender 82 points to Wake? Maybe, just Maybe we slow them down a little with zone and JP, MP3, and Hood aren't having to play with 4 fouls.

Folks can bash away, but until someone presents a rational argument for why we don't EVEN TRY it when teams are going on 17-0 runs against us, and we have 3 primary players with 4 fouls... and we can't get back to back stops with the MTM... I am going to keep on thinking that we are playing right into our opponents hands.. they are adjusting and we are not.

The argument is that we've spent the entire season (and many previous seasons) working to try to perfect our man-to-man defense. To play a zone well, you need to spend a lot of time working on it. And we haven't spent that time working on it.

If we were to start working on it in the offseason and make it the focus for an upcoming season, then a lot of this argument could go away. Give the team time to gel with the zone and it might work. Switching to zone late in the season is not going to work.

And I'm someone who has no dog in the fight of man-to-man vs. zone. I think both defenses have their strengths and weaknesses. I do think this particular team would have been better suited to play zone. But that ship sailed about 6-7 months ago.

jv001
03-06-2014, 08:50 AM
First of all, Wake had a lot of losses but were still a decent team playing on their home court on senior night and gave a strong effort. Those saying Wake is a weak team and pointing at their record have some credibility, but Wake did play well last night.

Those saying Duke didn't play hard weren't watching the efforts of Jabari, Rodney, Rasheed, Marshall, Tyler and even Amile.

So why did we look anemic, especially at the end?

Coach K had said they would rest a physically and mentally tired team after their difficult stretch of games and that both the coaches and players would review game tapes to see what they had done poorly and identify and work on areas of improvement. Clearly, whatever they believe they found was not as effective as hoped for.

The team came out with the lineup of Amile, Jabari, Rodney, Rasheed and Tyler and promptly fell behind. Was it the size of the lineup, the inability to hit three point shots over the zone or the lack of toughness inside that made the team seem flat.

A switch with putting Marshall in for Amile seemed to help the interior, and when Marshall is left open, he can score. Something our guards need to realize. We pulled the game back and should have had the lead at half, but a poorly conceived play at the end had Quinn dribbling the ball near the half court until 9 seconds and then not being able to find anything, eventually turning the ball over for a run out by Wake. Does that play, make any sense, when Rodney or Jabari were proven scorers in the game? Even had he not turned the ball over there was no way he would have gotten off a shot.

My view is that our guard play was poor throughout the game with neither Quinn (not strong with the ball), Rasheed (flummoxed against the zone) or Tyler (unable to generate any offense) could help our bigger guys with either scoring or even setups. I really dislike our use of Quinn and Tyler in the game at the same time and it clearly was not a competitive approach at the end of the game.

I agree with those who say Marshall had a good offensive game and it could have been better if he had been anymore than an afterthought. His defense has still not caught up. He is disruptive around the basket with his size and he is coming out hard to hedge plus he boxes out well, but he doesn't seem to go hard for defensive rebounds nor is he particularly strong on help defense and shot black attempts. These are areas I had hope the coaches would have concentrated on but I saw little evidence of it in the game.;

With our guard play weak, coach K clearly doesn't think Andre could help much as he got little time in the game. He did make some offensive plays of note and I felt he might have gotten his stroke back in the second half when he hit the 3. I would have played him more in the second half to alleviate some of the foul issues and also to get some potent scoring into the game. We have been known as a good three point shooting team with a lot of weapons, but when Rodney is not hitting and the starting guards are not hitting, shouldn't we try our premier shooter?

Matt came in the game as is a good defender, is energetic and maybe could spell those that are not producing. He missed his free throws and is not currently scoring, but I believe the ability is there and should be encouraged.

As far as keeping the fouls down on our bigs, Jabari did it do himself with a charge and then an obvious push-off. He is so valuable to the team he has to think more clearly about fouling. Jabari's inside game was outstanding but he lacked the inside/outside threat of some other games. He is either a natural 3 at the next leavel or a college 4 with outside shooting ability. Great overall player. Amile seemed overpowered and tends to pick up fouls in that circumstance. Rodney played a lot of minutes and is even more overpowered inside so shouldn't be asked to handle that role. Marshall also got into foul trouble, which I didn't expect. His were more bumping fouls.

So who can we play to help these guys stay in the game with some degree of freshness? Clearly Andre can spell Rodney and even more we have two bigs who sit on the bench the whole time. I don't really think Josh offers a lot and that is why he is stilling. Semi is inexperienced but strong and athletic and has shown he can score. Why not Semi? All I can think of is coach K is set in his ways and thinks the value of Semi in getting in some minutes to keep the fouls down for 5 to 10 minutes in a game where fouls are building is not worth the defensive liability. I think he should reconsider. The team seemed more effective when we were substituting broadly.

I think Andre needs more playing time and more plays run for him. I was thinking the same thing last night about Semi. He's an intriguing player. Big, strong, great leaper and can hit the 3. I defer to our HOF coach as he knows more about him than I do. But he couldn't have done worse than the wild drives, quick threes and not getting the ball to Jabari at the end. GoDuke!

superdave
03-06-2014, 09:04 AM
The argument is that we've spent the entire season (and many previous seasons) working to try to perfect our man-to-man defense. To play a zone well, you need to spend a lot of time working on it. And we haven't spent that time working on it.

If we were to start working on it in the offseason and make it the focus for an upcoming season, then a lot of this argument could go away. Give the team time to gel with the zone and it might work. Switching to zone late in the season is not going to work.

And I'm someone who has no dog in the fight of man-to-man vs. zone. I think both defenses have their strengths and weaknesses. I do think this particular team would have been better suited to play zone. But that ship sailed about 6-7 months ago.



No we have not been practicing to play zone all year. What we have done (and presumably have practiced) is bringing extra pressure in a variety of ways. We have played a very mediocre full court press this season a few times. The one wrinkle I thought we have done well is a half-court trap. Wake's ballhandlers were shaky enough to where it could have worked some.

Quinn absolutely hounded Cat Stevens when we played State and Nate Britt when we played Carolina. Rasheed has done that as well this season. Tyler has had some exceptional games playing help-side D. Not sure how to get that intensity each game. How do you make kids hungry? Would the platoon system work if Coach K said this is the starting squad, this is the second squad, you are both equal but the team playing the best D gets more minutes. Or something like that.

The coaches do need to find a way to maximize the team's talents. I think playing more up-tempo does that. Dare teams to match our point totals. One way to get there is to push the ball more, before our opponent can set up their mind-blowing zone defenses. We should 3-4 players who can finish on the break at all times with the talent we have. If not 5. And with our depth ( and platoon subs) there is no reason why each should not be playing all-out when in the game.

Coach K has made late season tweaks before. I am sure he can do it again. He's got the pieces, now to figure out the fit. Personally, I'd sub a lot, trap a lot and run like hell.

sagegrouse
03-06-2014, 09:06 AM
Agreed. This didn't seem like the normal Wake crowd fired up and ready to beat Duke.

Moreover, I saw a lot of blue in the stands.

jipops
03-06-2014, 09:13 AM
If I have any fixation, I think it's on believing the best teams have balance. Strong inside play along with strong outside play.

Coach K has always preferred a wing oriented game. And Duke is always dangerous and a threat to win any game by going off with the great shooting, movement and pressure defense he likes. But I believe the best Duke teams have had good inside play to reach a balance where the wing play can be showcased, but still have some size and strength down low to keep teams honest.

Besides Parker for short stretches, Plumlee is the only player Duke has with the physical size and tools to battle in the post. Jefferson might get there, but he's got to beef up and it's not gonna happen this year. That's why Plumlee's going to be so important this post season, pun intended. There are a lot of big, strong players on the best teams out there just waiting on a clean entry pass against Duke. They are not going to hesitate going to the basket. And there's a lot of wings ready to take it to the rack because there is a lack of big man depth on this team. This late in the season the gameplan to beat Duke is pretty clear...guard the three, and attack the inside by pass or dribble to create foul trouble or soften the defense.

Plumlee just has to be less aggressive and manage his foul situation. Make the drivers, the entry feeds, have to make plays over him, don't bail them out with a foul.

Next year you have a real strong post player coming in with Okafor, who looks like the best one since Brand to me on what video I've seen. It will be interesting to see how he is used by coach K.

You kind of contradicted yourself here just a little. Yes, K has largely preferred a wing-oriented game but that is also largely due out of necessity, as described in your 3rd paragraph.

Duke does not have front court scoring talent to rely on outside of Parker. Amile and Marshall have shown they are capable of making plays but neither is one that can be leaned on and run plays for. They're energy guys, that is what suits them best at this point. The success of this team heavily depends on what it can get from the perimeter because that is simply how it is built.

I also disagree to an extent about having "balance" but that may depend on what exactly you mean by it. Sure it is much more aesthetically pleasing to have an equal mix of post up buckets to made perimeter shots. But we've seen many very good and highly successful teams that get little scoring from their front count but excellent defense and board play. Duke 2010 would be one example of that, Louisville 2013 is another (both front court contributers averaged single digits). Unfortunately this year's Duke team doesn't have any of this. If anything Plumlee may give us a lift here, defense and rebounding, but I really don't know how much he is capable at this point. This is why we've got to have our guards give us the major lift, not just in scoring but keeping the ball moving to get the defense a little off balance, which hasn't happened at all for a few weeks now.

szstark
03-06-2014, 09:40 AM
I've seen a few people mention how they wish Quinn would get his confidence back. Is it possible that it is exactly the opposite problem? Instead of no confidence, could it be that there is too much of it? If the shot clock gets down to about 10 seconds and he has the ball in his hands, he very rarely looks to pass. Usually he dribbles a hole in the floor around the perimeter and heaves up some kind of prayer. Is he the one player on this team that we would really want taking the shot when a clock is winding down? He seems to think so. Another example that leads me to question whether he really has a lack of confidence is some of the ill advised shots. Tonight for example, 2 on 3 break and he pulls up for a 3pt shot. It left our other player in the paint surrounded by 3 Wake players who easily grabbed the rebound and went back the other way to score. Quinn was so confident that he was going to make that shot that he didn't wait for our other guys to help out. Numerous times we have seen him dribble right into a double team and turn the ball over, because he thinks he can split it. Are these really decisions that someone who is lacking confidence makes?

Bingo! He appears to think he can do it all by himself. He often dribbles away 20 to 25 seconds of the shot clock (especially against zones) and then starts the play. At that late point, it is no wonder that Parker and Hood are no getting the touches they need or that we end up jacking up a desperation three. We have outstanding three point shooters, but it is very difficult to hit a rushed three. The key to beating a zone is to move the ball. We rarely move the ball. We basically play a man-to-man offense with picks and screens. Cook stands there waiting for the other four players to try to get open. We make mediocre zones look great. Move the ball quickly, get Parker and Hood touches early in the shot clock and find your three point shooters open and in shooting rhythm. This is not rocket science, but we don't seem to get it.

FerryFor50
03-06-2014, 09:41 AM
Quinn absolutely hounded Cat Stevens when we played State

I think you meant Cat Barber (http://www.gopack.com/sports/m-baskbl/mtt/anthony_cat_barber_847116.html). Cat Stevens goes by Yusuf Islam these days, anyway... ;)

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cat_Stevens

Plus, I don't think Cat Barber has called for a fatwa on Salman Rushdie... yet.

BlueDevilCorvette!
03-06-2014, 09:42 AM
Time to man up and play true DUKE basketball! I have faith that these guys will get it together starting Saturday night against UNC. LET'S GO DUKE (Keep the faith folks)

Deep3Ball
03-06-2014, 09:43 AM
I would say the '88 team losing to a 14-15 Clemson team, right before playing Carolina at home on Senior Night, is very similar to tonight's loss.

I feel like there have been others as well but don't want to look exhaustively right now.

Good teams lose to bad teams all the time. Sometimes those good teams go on to do great things.

No way was that Clemson team even close to as bad as this WFU team. Check out who was on that Clemson team:

http://www.sports-reference.com/cbb/schools/clemson/1988.html

Dale Davis and Elden Campbell both became first team all ACC and had 16 and 17 year careers in the NBA. WFU doesn't have one, nevermind two, players of that quality on the team this year.

I can't recall a loss this bad this late in the season (say mid February on) by a K team that then went on to the Final Four. Am I missing one?

Matches
03-06-2014, 09:50 AM
Like many here I have huge concerns about PG play. It's kind of weird for a guy who comes off the bench to assume primary ballhandling roles while he's in the game, unless it's a straight-up backup situation. We've got guys who are starters moving off the ball while Quinn is in the game, which I find very odd.

I'm not as down on K's coaching job this year as some - this is a talented but odd mix of players. We have lots of good pieces that do not fit together in an obvious way. K has not been entirely successful at putting them together but I'm starting to wonder if they CAN be put together. It seems like when the staff plugs one leak, another one pops open.

There is just no excuse for giving up a 17-0 run to that opponent in that situation. None. That's a crisis of composure and leadership.

peteandpete
03-06-2014, 09:52 AM
No we have not been practicing to play zone all year. What we have done (and presumably have practiced) is bringing extra pressure in a variety of ways. We have played a very mediocre full court press this season a few times. The one wrinkle I thought we have done well is a half-court trap. Wake's ballhandlers were shaky enough to where it could have worked some.

Quinn absolutely hounded Cat Stevens when we played State and Nate Britt when we played Carolina. Rasheed has done that as well this season. Tyler has had some exceptional games playing help-side D. Not sure how to get that intensity each game. How do you make kids hungry? Would the platoon system work if Coach K said this is the starting squad, this is the second squad, you are both equal but the team playing the best D gets more minutes. Or something like that.

The coaches do need to find a way to maximize the team's talents. I think playing more up-tempo does that. Dare teams to match our point totals. One way to get there is to push the ball more, before our opponent can set up their mind-blowing zone defenses. We should 3-4 players who can finish on the break at all times with the talent we have. If not 5. And with our depth ( and platoon subs) there is no reason why each should not be playing all-out when in the game.

Coach K has made late season tweaks before. I am sure he can do it again. He's got the pieces, now to figure out the fit. Personally, I'd sub a lot, trap a lot and run like hell.
I would like to make a several observations. For years, the rule of thumb in our household is that if you had made at least half of the FTs you missed in a close game, it would have made a difference. At the 1:51 mark of the second half, we had missed 5 of the 6 FTs we would eventually miss and were down two possessions. If we had hit 3 of those, it would have been a one possession game. However, that wouldn't have been much help seeing as we launched a three on our next trip up the court only 15 seconds into the shot clock.
Two, we wasted timeouts early to apparently set up (I won't say scoring plays b/c we don't seem to have any) the offense and got nothing.
Three, Coach B was able to delay the resumption of play on a dead ball by making a substitution to set up a another successful in bounds scoring play. We weren't able to recognize that Wake was going to run the same play for Cavanaugh later. We don't seem to defend those plays consistently well enough and have difficulty putting the ball in play ourselves against pressure, often resulting in our having to call time out.
Four, as for playing zone, if you understand MTM principles, you should be able to play zone. Obviously, Coach doesn't feel comfortable doing or coaching that.
Five, we don't box out well.
Six, I would to see more ball fakes and bounce passes.
Seven, Outside shooting does not make an opponent abandon a zone, getting inside in spite of the zone does.
Deep cleansing breath....eight, manage the fouls better Coach while still keeping scoring options on the floor. You have to provide scoring opportunities for the players when they aren't shooting well and allowing the guards to waste time on the perimeter while not putting pressure on the opponents defense (that hopefully will fatigue them and lead to them getting into foul trouble) does not do that.
Let's Go Duke and GTHC, GTH!

Deep3Ball
03-06-2014, 10:04 AM
One thing I think people are overlooking is the fact that Wake Forest at home is a pretty good team, not the awful team everyone seems to think they are. This season Wake is 14-4 at home (5-4 ACC), including wins over UNC, Clemson, and Duke.

they are 14-4 at home because they scheduled 10 terrible non-NCAAT teams at home in Nov and Dec:

http://espn.go.com/mens-college-basketball/team/schedule/_/id/154/wake-forest-demon-deacons

They were 1-8 in the 9 games leading up to last night and had an RPI of 126. They are terrible so I don't know why you are trying to sugar coat how bad they actually are and how badly they had been playing over the past month.


Seriously, why can't people learn that one game does not define a season and certainly isn't a predictor of anything in the future? And if you don't believe me, go back and read the post-game threads after the NC State and Georgetown losses in 2010.

Huh? That Georgetown team was a 3 seed in the NCAAT. You seriously think this year's WFU team is comparable to a 3 seed??? NC St that year also wasn't horrible. They were 20-15, won not one but two games in the ACCT, made the NIT and then won another game there. Come back to me when this year's WFU team wins three post season games.


In fact, the 1988 team lost 3 games in a row leading up to that year's season finale against UNC, with the 3rd loss coming to unranked, non-NCAAT team Clemson. The 1989 team lost 2 in a row leading up to the final game at UNC, including again to unranked Clemson (though that Clemson edition did make the NCAAT and was seeded 9th). The 1990 team lost 2 of 3 games leading up to UNC, losing to #20 Clemson and also to unranked, non-NCAAT team NCSU. All three of those Duke teams made the Final Four.

Again, none of these teams Duke lost to is even remotely comparable to how bad this WFU team is. As I noted above, that "bad" Clemson team had both Davis and Campbell. Good/great teams lose conference games all the time but I can't recall a Duke FF team that has lost to a team even remotely as bad as this WFU team. Even worse, this was a bad WFU team that was playing its worst basketball of the year (coming off a 1-8 slide). I'd love to be wrong and see this year's team be the first Duke team to rally after a horrific loss like this and make it to the FF but it doesn't bode well.

Troublemaker
03-06-2014, 10:10 AM
No way was that Clemson team even close to as bad as this WFU team. Check out who was on that Clemson team:

http://www.sports-reference.com/cbb/schools/clemson/1988.html

Dale Davis and Elden Campbell both became first team all ACC and had 16 and 17 year careers in the NBA. WFU doesn't have one, nevermind two, players of that quality on the team this year.

I can't recall a loss this bad this late in the season (say mid February on) by a K team that then went on to the Final Four. Am I missing one?

Well, college basketball isn't as good or deep in quality as it was 26 years ago, either. A sub-.500 team (relative to competition) is a sub-.500 team (relative to competition).

Besides, what are we supposing here? That it's now impossible (or nearly so) for this team to make the Final Four because we suffered an awful loss late in the regular season? I don't buy it.

UrinalCake
03-06-2014, 10:11 AM
And the whole team's been shooting pretty poorly from 3 the last few games.

Since the last Wake game...

Dawkins: 9-28 (32%)
Hood: 16-43 (37%)
Sulaimon: 12-33 (36%)
Cook: 16-44 (36%)
Parker: 5-16 (31%)

Thornton is at 29%. Definitely the lowest, but also takes many fewer shots per minute than anyone else.

Those pecentages actually aren't THAT bad for a "normal" team. Shooting 33% or so is probably about average. The problem is that we shoot so freaking many of them. It's as if sometime before the UNC game our team looked up and saw we were shooting 42% from three and decided that's all we should ever do. IMO we don't have great three point shooters on our team, except for Dawkins. We have guys who can hit wide open threes with their feet set. But shooting the three should not be the #1 option on offense. If we shoot threes in rhythm, off of kick-outs, and only when open, we can shoot 42%. If we base our entire offense on passing around the perimeter or weaving aimlessly for 15 seconds and then heaving up a 30-footer, we'll continue to shoot 30% or worse.

During this same stretch teams have been zoning us a lot more, which draws us into shooting threes even more. But they're not good threes - even when they're open, they're taken from five feet behind the line, late in the shot clock, after not attempting to go inside at all.

BlueDevilBrowns
03-06-2014, 10:22 AM
Like many here I have huge concerns about PG play. It's kind of weird for a guy who comes off the bench to assume primary ballhandling roles while he's in the game, unless it's a straight-up backup situation. We've got guys who are starters moving off the ball while Quinn is in the game, which I find very odd.

I'm not as down on K's coaching job this year as some - this is a talented but odd mix of players. We have lots of good pieces that do not fit together in an obvious way. K has not been entirely successful at putting them together but I'm starting to wonder if they CAN be put together. It seems like when the staff plugs one leak, another one pops open.

There is just no excuse for giving up a 17-0 run to that opponent in that situation. None. That's a crisis of composure and leadership.

My observations from last night are similar to yours:

My biggest concern with this team is they just aren't a FF-Quality Team. The individual parts are great, but the Team is only above-average.

Why? Ineffective On-Court Leadership:

The best player on the team is a Freshman. The 2nd best player is a 1st year player(with Duke). For a team to be truly Great, the best players need to be also the best leaders. So far this year, that's not the case.

This team reminds me a little bit of the 2012 squad when Rivers was our best player, but because he was a freshman, it was difficult for him to lead and for his teammates to follow him, as well. Coupled with the fact that most of the starters weren't used to logging starters minutes, it resulted in a dissapointing end to the season.

Kelly, MP1, Curry, and MP2, although upperclassmen, hadn't played a ton of minutes so weren't really ready to be leaders, yet, either. In 2013, we were able to see the difference a year of playing together meant for Kelly, Mason, and Curry as they were one foot injury away from being in the FF. They were not only used to playing with each other effectively, they were ready to take on the "Matrix of Leadership" left by Smith and Singler.

Getting back to this year, no, I don't think Parker and Hood, up to this point, have shown on-court leadership skills to rally the team together, put them on their back, and tough out a win consistently. We've seen flashes here and there, but that's it.

Cook COULD have been that on-court leader needed this year, as he was a primary member of last year's squad, but, whether due to injury or emotional makeup, just hasn't materialized(yet).

TT has good leadership skills, I think, but simply isn't a good enough player to warrent other teammates to follow him. A big part of on-court leadership is leading by example, and that's hard for a role player to do during games.

To be clear, Duke HAS leadership, from Coach K and the Staff to TT and Hairston. BUT, what Duke lacks is that on-court leadership that's needed to rally the team and prevent these late game flame-outs we've been seeing.

Unfortunately, at this point, this team reminds me more of 2012 than 1988, 1994, 2010, or any other teams that had some bad games before making deep runs.

However, I do believe there is still time for us to turn things around, but it's going to take Leading by Example to On-The-Court to make it happen.




***EDIT*** Having re-read my post, I believe I used the word "leadership" exactly 9,216 times. It sounds weird but I'm not sure what other word or phrase I could use as a substitute. Anyone have a thesaurus?

Deep3Ball
03-06-2014, 10:28 AM
Well, college basketball isn't as good or deep in quality as it was 26 years ago, either. A sub-.500 team (relative to competition) is a sub-.500 team (relative to competition).

Besides, what are we supposing here? That it's now impossible (or nearly so) for this team to make the Final Four because we suffered an awful loss late in the regular season? I don't buy it.

Not impossible but more like unprecedented.

Yes, college basketball isn't as deep or good as it was 26 years ago but the ACC is considerably WORSE today than it was in 1988. Unless something substantial happens, a 15-team team ACC is looking at just 5 teams in the NCAAT. That is a historically bad ratio and indicative of a very weak middle and bottom of the league. In 1988, an 8-team ACC got 5 teams into the NCAAT:

http://www.databasesports.com/ncaab/tourney.htm?yr=1988

That is an extraordinary concentration of excellent teams that meant very few games against average to weak teams in conference (as opposed to this year's ACC where most games are against average at best teams). Stick that 1988 Clemson team in this year's ACC with all of the cannon fodder that at best will get an NIT bid and I am fairly certain that they finish better than 14-15 and 4-10.

Mtn.Devil.91.92.01.10.15
03-06-2014, 10:36 AM
I don't think that anyone here is suggesting that this year's Wake Forest team is an equal to the Clemson or Georgetown teams mentioned previously, but rather that there is an insane tendency to react WILDLY to whatever happened last night. If it was a good win, then out team is destined to win out and get another championship. If we fell apart at the end of the game and lost, then Coach K has lost his mind, our players are overmatched, and we will likely not win again all season.

Perhaps - just perhaps - the truth is somewhere in the middle? A lot of the angst and fury held by some of you more... reactionary fans will be greatly diminished if we take care of business and win our 33rd straight home game on Saturday night.

Now, I agree with some of the criticism I've seen on the thread. I would suggest that what we lack on offense is a "put the team on my back" guy. I think that both Hood and Parker have the talent for that, but have not yet shown the mentality for it. Again, that can change in the next two weeks. The ACC Tournament has been the site of many a "coming out" party for players who find their inner Zen.

On defense, I'm still not blaming the referees (I very rarely do) but rather our slowness to rotate over and our reluctance to move our feet. Once your man gets a half-step past you, you end up fouling or giving up the bucket (or both). I don't think that the refs are jobbing us (really - grow up) and I don't think that Coach K needs to go to a zone defense. I think that the players and the coach are still learning how to adjust to the new foul calls this season. It affects Duke more than most teams, because Duke historically did a better job of drawing player control fouls than just about any program I have ever seen.

There is still a lot of good basketball to be played. A week from now, we might have a very different attitude about our guys than we do this morning. But, there are no easy games left, and it's possible that we only get to see this team tip off a total of three more times. Let's savor each moment, give thanks to Andre, Tyler, Josh and whoever else might shuffle off after this year, and root our faces off to beat Carolina on Saturday.

Go Duke!

pfrduke
03-06-2014, 10:36 AM
Not impossible but more like unprecedented.

Yes, college basketball isn't as deep or good as it was 26 years ago but the ACC is considerably WORSE today than it was in 1988. Unless something substantial happens, a 15-team team ACC is looking at just 5 teams in the NCAAT. That is a historically bad ratio and indicative of a very weak middle and bottom of the league. In 1988, an 8-team ACC got 5 teams into the NCAAT:

http://www.databasesports.com/ncaab/tourney.htm?yr=1988

That is an extraordinary concentration of excellent teams that meant very few games against average to weak teams in conference (as opposed to this year's ACC where most games are against average at best teams). Stick that 1988 Clemson team in this year's ACC with all of the cannon fodder that at best will get an NIT bid and I am fairly certain that they finish better than 14-15 and 4-10.

I don't know, I think Elden Campbell and Dale Davis are getting a little creaky (and probably have lost both some foot speed and some elevation).

Matches
03-06-2014, 10:42 AM
The best player on the team is a Freshman. The 2nd best player is a 1st year player(with Duke). For a team to be truly Great, the best players need to be also the best leaders. So far this year, that's not the case.

This team reminds me a little bit of the 2012 squad when Rivers was our best player, but because he was a freshman, it was difficult for him to lead and for his teammates to follow him, as well. Coupled with the fact that most of the starters weren't used to logging starters minutes, it resulted in a dissapointing end to the season.


It's always a little awkward when the upperclassmen are not the best players on the team. We've had lots of underclassmen who were stars, but few years where none of the seniors were among the team's best players. The last time I remember that happening was 2009, where Paulus, Pocius, and McClure were all fringe rotation players. But even that team had Jr. Scheyer and Jr. Thomas playing big roles.

From the beginning of the season I thought it was strange that K elected to name Hood a captain and bypass Cook, an upperclassman and our incumbent starting PG. It says something about his confidence in Hood but it says something about Cook too. It's really an odd situation and IMO we may be at a crossroads where we either need to go all-in on Quinn - put him back in the lineup and turn the keys over to him - or minimize his role dramatically. Right now I think we're straddling that fence and it's not benefitting anyone, including Quinn who seems to be overcompensating by forcing things.

_Gary
03-06-2014, 10:44 AM
Then keep calling back.

Because watching the best three-point shooter in the nation sit in a chair for about 10 minutes straight in the first half, while the guys out on the floor hoisted as many bizarre shots as a fourth-grade team -- e.g. Rodney's three-point attempt that hit the bottom right corner of the backcourt -- was one of the more mind-boggling experiences of the season.

Agreed. I too have been yearning to see Coach play Andre more. Matt Jones too. Last night Matt probably only got into the game in the 1st half because of foul difficulty, but boy did his insertion help us to make up ground. His defense was very solid (still think he's probably the best perimeter defender on the team), but I didn't realize his shooting percentage for the year was so low. That probably doesn't help make a case for more minutes. Still, he made an impact in that first half. No doubt about that.

The guy that killed us, as far as I'm concerned, is Quinn. I've never seen him make so many boneheaded plays on offense. As our point guard, he dribbled into at least 3 double-teams that caused turnovers and easy breakouts on the other end. And then there was that weird on the court deal in the first half where he didn't call time-out and they took the ball for another easy bucket. By my count he easily cost us 8 points on freshman-like plays. Problem is he's not a freshman. I actually didn't want him to come back into the game after the last of those silly turnovers which cost Rodney his 4th foul and was the turning point in the 2nd half, imho. I'm not sure why he's playing so poorly, but for every great play/shot/steal he makes, he seems to counter-act that with a real stinker of a play. I'm just not confident his +/- is worth it going forward. But at this point we are going to have to play the hand we've been dealt. Too late in the season to make any radical changes, although I wouldn't mind seeing Tyler and Rasheed be our primary points going forward, with only limited action for Quinn until he picks up his game and gets more consistent.

Troublemaker
03-06-2014, 10:53 AM
Yes, college basketball isn't as deep or good as it was 26 years ago but the ACC is considerably WORSE today than it was in 1988. Unless something substantial happens, a 15-team team ACC is looking at just 5 teams in the NCAAT. That is a historically bad ratio and indicative of a very weak middle and bottom of the league. In 1988, an 8-team ACC got 5 teams into the NCAAT:

http://www.databasesports.com/ncaab/tourney.htm?yr=1988

That is an extraordinary concentration of excellent teams that meant very few games against average to weak teams in conference (as opposed to this year's ACC where most games are against average at best teams). Stick that 1988 Clemson team in this year's ACC with all of the cannon fodder that at best will get an NIT bid and I am fairly certain that they finish better than 14-15 and 4-10.

I don't disagree with any of that. '88 Clemson is better than '14 Wake. Heck, that Clemson team may have made the NCAAT against this season's competition. Kedsy mentioned a non-NCAA-making NCSU team that Duke lost to late in 1990 that had Fire & Ice and Googs on it, too. So, I agree, the ACC is much weaker now but I guess my point is the NCAA in general is also much weaker and that's the field Duke will be attempting to make the Final Four against. Cliff Ellis had a reputation for scheduling very soft out of conference, so I'm guessing '88 Clemson's 10-5 record out of conference isn't remarkably different (adjusted for competition) from this Wake's team very soft 10-3 record out of conference. I think '88 Clemson "counts" as a similar loss. Even if it didn't, I still think the #8 KenPom team (returning to the modern age), which Duke currently is, can make the Final Four.

TexHawk
03-06-2014, 11:06 AM
My biggest concern with this team is they just aren't a FF-Quality Team.

"FF-Quality" is a weird standard, imo. On this exact date last year, Wichita State had just lost two straight games to Evansville (#81 Kenpom) and Creighton (by 22 points).

Troublemaker
03-06-2014, 11:14 AM
There is just no excuse for giving up a 17-0 run to that opponent in that situation. None. That's a crisis of composure and leadership.

Agreed. This should've been a "learning win" (not that we shouldn't strive to play better than that.) Play horribly against the 1-2-2 zone, don't defensive rebound at all, but still have a 66-59 lead with 5 minutes left. The 17-0 SPLAT that ensued was the most jarring, disappointing thing to me.


It's really an odd situation and IMO we may be at a crossroads where we either need to go all-in on Quinn - put him back in the lineup and turn the keys over to him - or minimize his role dramatically. Right now I think we're straddling that fence and it's not benefitting anyone, including Quinn who seems to be overcompensating by forcing things.

I've had this exact same strange thought as you, that Quinn may be helped by either starting and receiving 30mpg or coming off the bench for 10mpg as a clear backup PG. The expectation/hope that he can win back his previous role organically through great play off the bench may be causing him to press or play poorly. I'm leaning towards just giving him the starting spot and 30mpg.

gotoguy
03-06-2014, 11:15 AM
[QUOTE=jipops;711419]
Duke does not have front court scoring talent to rely on outside of Parker. Amile and Marshall have shown they are capable of making plays but neither is one that can be leaned on and run plays for. They're energy guys, that is what suits them best at this point. The success of this team heavily depends on what it can get from the perimeter because that is simply how it is built.

Duke will not play zone as long as K is coaching with an occasional exception for a play or two. Any practice time devoted to teaching zone is spent on fine tuning man to man.

If our guards can't stop dribble penetration it significantly increases pressure on our bigs and if they're late getting into position fouling is much more likely. Reduce dribble penetration fewer fouls. As we generaaly play tight out front man to man and try to over play the passing lanes penetration is the key to breaking down Duke D as it gets our bigs, Parker and rodney into foul trouble.

Duke does have front court scoring talent beyond Parker as Rodney demonstrated last night with several baskets at the rim and at least one if not two foul line jumpers when he received the ball INSIDE THE WF ZONE AT THE FT LINE. When attacking the zone from the low block or high post we were quite successful scoring with those two. Jabari threw a pass away that was intended for Amile who was wide open under the bucket on another play because he wasnt looking.

Instead we throw the ball around the horn on the perimeter looking for a three point shot, Hood on the wing or on top of the key and Parker in the corner where they are much less effective and all easier to defend.

Laphonso Ellis had the color for the ESPN 2 broadcast. He played with his back to the basket at ND probably under Digger. He commented several times during the broadcast how much more effective the offense was getting the ball to Hood at the FT line.

We all know one of the easiest ways to get an open three pointer is following an offensive rebound and kick out to the perimeter as the defense naturally collapses toward the basket after the initial shot. Well the same principle applies when the ball gets into the paint to Hood or Parker or the bigs. Defense collapses, ball passed back out, better 3 point opportunity. Of course Jabari, Rodney and Amile/Marshall have to recognize that.

Which takes me to my favorite Duke coaching theory/criticism (dare I do so). Our biggest shortcoming is our (very successful) backcourt bias. All our coaches in the K era are backcourt players Nate and Jay excepted and they look at the game thru the backcourt lens. Too many guards. I'm not saying they can't coach big men. It's just that the offense is designed with a perimeter bias which is fine when the threes are falling. They don't always fall. Jabari is our most skilled inside scorer since Boozer with better post moves than Elton. That he didn't get the ball in the paint when Wake took the lead late is an institutional failure, a coaching blindspot. How else to explain it?

Somebody mentioned a few pages back that the guard never passes it to the Big setting the screen at the top of the circle on the roll. I think Amile would have a better chance of finishing than would Marshall presently but I'd love to see that pass happen. More likely that Clemson wins in Chapel Hill.

campered
03-06-2014, 11:15 AM
Hard to be optimistic moving forward. If we don't win an ACC title or NCAA championship we are looking at a season with at least 9 losses. Pretty bad by our standards. No doubt Tyus Jones gets the nod next year. Quinn gas almost been a liability in the last 4 weeks. He cannot play strong with the ball.........I can honestly say that having watched Duke basketball for 50 years, we have seen this before. Yep, the officiating seems to be worse than ever, but a team ranked number 4 in the nation with a few days of needed rest being taken to the wood shed late in the second half, by a bottom team? That is the ACC!! Always has been. Hate to pick on one player, but Quinn is not cooking with any gas right now. He has lost his swagger and his heart. He looks like a player that wishes the season was over. In last night's game, he wilted with the ball trying to dribble but going nowhere except backwards, allowing Wake players to pick him clean, albeit, there were a couple of times a foul should have been called on Wake, when Cook was accosted, no doubt. This team is still able to do great things, but unless they totally forget last night, and never approach that type of effort for the rest of this season, only then will they find success....I only hope Quinn can find his moxy, mojo, heart, and gas and lead this team again!!

_Gary
03-06-2014, 11:15 AM
I mean we have everything I think any of us could have wanted: a top-3 draft pick/NPOY level player; a lottery pick/slashing athletic wing player; a combo guard who can shoot, drive, and dish; a veteran PG who can shoot, distribute, and control the ball; a quintessential glue guy veteran captain; a dead-eye 3pt shooter; a true 7-footer with promise; a long, smooth PF who can rebound very well and score reasonably well; youth off the bench.

I'd disagree with only one part of what you said above, and I think it's the primary rub for the entire season - we don't have a "veteran PG who can shoot, distribute and control the ball" if by that you mean Cook. He *should* be all those things, but he's clearly not at this point in the season. And I think that's the biggest reason we are struggling right now because everything else you mentioned has held true to form except the PG situation. Parker went through the typical freshman slump and emerged better than ever; Hood has been money in most of the games we've played in; Rasheed, after a rocky start, has emerged as a solid starter; Tyler and Amile are doing what we'd expect them to do; Andre continues to be a great shooter and has now added a bit to his game where he's not totally one-dimensional; the bench is doing basically what I thought they'd be able to do. Sure, things could be better in many ways, but the one key element to your equation is that we do NOT see our PG doing what we should expect a 3 year guy to be doing, and what an elite team needs their PG to do. That's the big elephant in the room, imho.

hillsborodevil
03-06-2014, 11:19 AM
•MP3 improves each game
•Wish Matt Jones and Andre would get more burn.
•Amile is not able to handle the high post like Hood. He’s more suited under the basket.
•Would like to see Jabari at the high post, splitting time with Hood
•As a few others have stated this team does not use a pick n role
•On a positive note, losing to Wake should ignite a fire for UNC.

BlueDevilBrowns
03-06-2014, 11:24 AM
"FF-Quality" is a weird standard, imo. On this exact date last year, Wichita State had just lost two straight games to Evansville (#81 Kenpom) and Creighton (by 22 points).

As far as standards, reaching a Final Four(or getting darn close to it) is the "Standard" for any elite team, like UK, KU, UNC, etc., every year(fair or not). And, up to this point, I don't see this Duke team making a FF-run UNLESS they improve(which is certainly possible).

Comparing them to WSU last year, are you saying that you DID predict the Shockers were FF-Quality last year even after they lost to Evansville and Creighton? Clearly, they were not. BUT, they improved from that point on and gained some fortunate matchups in the NCAAT and made it far.

Hindsight's always 20/20, though.

I hope I am wrong and Duke does make the FF, but if things stay the status quo, I don't feel confident in predicting them to win a Regional Championship, at this point. So far, Duke's been an above average team(for Duke's standards) but does consist of GREAT individual players(Hood, Parker, Sulaimon, perhaps Cook).

The challenge for Duke is finally coming together and playing as "One".

If they can do it, they'll go far. If not, it's an early exit.

Time will tell.

DukeWarhead
03-06-2014, 11:26 AM
...but I wish he would. For me, Shane is the one Duke player I always think of after witnessing a Duke loss that features a lack of energy or "wanting it." One of those, "Shane would never let that happen on his team" type complaints. He epitomized the type "refuse to lose" heart, fire, and fight that we have come to expect of Duke players. I think JJ had it too, but clearly it showed much more on the offensive side. Not saying that our teams since haven't played hard or aren't committed. 2010, of course. But I think Battier put the bar really, really high in terms of on the court leadership, passion, and intensity. I hold all other Duke players to the Battier standard in that regard, and that's probably not fair. But it's the way it is.

Troublemaker
03-06-2014, 11:27 AM
Again, the 1988 Clemson team isn't even in the same ballpark as this year's WFU team so why do you keep on clinging to that falsehood? That Clemson team, unlike WFU this year, did in fact play real teams OOC:

http://www.sports-reference.com/cbb/schools/clemson/1988-schedule.html

OSU and Michigan (a 3 seed) both were NCAAT teams and Clemson actually beat OSU. WFU scheduled a bunch of patsies at home for the first 2 months of the year (won 10 of those games) and then has proceeded to lose (and lose a lot) against ACC teams in a historically weak year for the ACC (likely just 5 NCAAT teams with 15 teams in the league).

The 1990 NC State team you referenced was 18-12 in another loaded year for the ACC (5 of the 8 teams made the NCAAT and NC St tied for 5th in the league). That was a very good team that would have made the NCAA if it had been in any other conference in 1990. This year's terrible WFU isn't even remotely as good as that NC St team. Why are you so uncomfortable dealing with the simple fact that not one of K's FF teams suffered a loss like this?

LOL, I'm completely comfortable with that as I've mentioned at least twice previously to you that I don't even care if there is no precedence. The #8 kenpom team can make a Final Four.

What I'm doing is adjusting for levels of competition between '88 and '14. This season's ACC/NCAA is much weaker than in '88, so OF COURSE a .500-ish (and sub-.500 in ACC) team from '88 will be better than its equivalent in '14 on an absolute scale.

Kfanarmy
03-06-2014, 11:30 AM
Hopefully we will feel much better about this team after Saturdays game. However its hard for me to think that this late in the season we are going to figure out how to play defense without fouling, that Marshall's offense will improve by leaps and bounds, that we will start to how to play smarter, that the real Quinn Cook will show up, or that some leadership will develop.

SoCalyep. The other team is playing better and better...Duke is still in January. Home win streak may go down in a blow out. Frankly UNC may be the best team in the conference at the moment.

Matches
03-06-2014, 11:31 AM
I've had this exact same strange thought as you, that Quinn may be helped by either starting and receiving 30mpg or coming off the bench for 10mpg as a clear backup PG. The expectation/hope that he can win back his previous role organically through great play off the bench may be causing him to press or play poorly. I'm leaning towards just giving him the starting spot and 30mpg.

And I'm leaning in the opposite direction, to be honest. No disrespect meant to the kid, who I'm sure is trying his best, but I feel like I've seen enough. He may need an offseason to clear his head at this point.

_Gary
03-06-2014, 11:38 AM
And I'm leaning in the opposite direction, to be honest. No disrespect meant to the kid, who I'm sure is trying his best, but I feel like I've seen enough. He may need an offseason to clear his head at this point.

Agreed. At this point I'd prefer he be limited to spot duty minutes. I'm not one to normally lay a huge portion of blame for any loss on one player, but last night Quinn (and I do love him - honestly I do) really hurt us with his play more than he helped us. The turnovers (which were so unneccesary and freshman-like); the inability to keep his man from blowing past him (which contributed to our bigs' foul trouble); the inability to distribute the ball to open players - his last turnover, which lead to Hood's fourth foul and a seat on the bench for Rodney because of it, was terrible because Andre was in the corner wide open and Quinn didn't get him the ball and instead held it and then dribbled right into a double-team; most of what he did for us last night was negative. I don't know the +/- for him yesterday, but the eye test tells me he hurt us more than he helped us - by a large margin.

I hope he somehow regains his confidence and anything else he needs to be the player he should be. But right now I think I'd prefer Tyler and Rasheed splitting the lion's share of the minutes at the point.

Monmouth77
03-06-2014, 11:42 AM
Agreed. This should've been a "learning win" (not that we shouldn't strive to play better than that.) Play horribly against the 1-2-2 zone, don't defensive rebound at all, but still have a 66-59 lead with 5 minutes left. The 17-0 SPLAT that ensued was the most jarring, disappointing thing to me.



I've had this exact same strange thought as you, that Quinn may be helped by either starting and receiving 30mpg or coming off the bench for 10mpg as a clear backup PG. The expectation/hope that he can win back his previous role organically through great play off the bench may be causing him to press or play poorly. I'm leaning towards just giving him the starting spot and 30mpg.

I agree with this (somewhat counterintuitive) idea and wouldn't mind seeing at least some limited variation of the line changes where we have Sulaimon and Dawkins come on the court as first substitutions (with Marshall) as an energy boost that balances defense and scoring punch. Everyone was talking about Sulaimon as a James Harden type 6th man super-sub back when K first unveiled that look in January. I think that's an ideal role for him on this team (or a better one than having him play PG).

Confidence and ego can be fragile things, and K is usually a master manager. I think Quinn is one of those guys who needs to be given full backing and ample room to breathe. But he has got to be much, much stronger with the ball than he was last night. I hope and believe he realizes that.

And if I can take a stab at providing some optimism, two points:

(1) Wake's style of offense-- to spread us out and drive it -- is the one that gives us the most trouble as we have seen time and again. It was actually working to their advantage in the game in Cameron in the early going until we started turning them over and unleashed a huge run to make it a blow out. Despite our talent advantages at just about every position, there is a sense in which we match up poorly with Wake that will not be true in other games.

(2) In terms of comparisons accross seasons, and looking to late season losses to read the tea leaves, last night's game reminds me a lot of our ACCT quarterfinal loss to the Terps last year. A game after a long layoff, same style of attacking offense, shots not falling for Duke, guys getting in foul trouble, flat footed defense with slow recovery/helpside D. That game cost us a #1 seed and this one probably did too. But (since this is the optimism section of my post) this year we have a chance to put that bad loss behind us earlier, and use what will hopefully be an emotional home win over Carolina to propel us into Tournament season.

Kedsy
03-06-2014, 11:44 AM
Why not at least for a few defensive possessions try it? How could it be any worse than what we have been doing?

There was one possession last night where it looked to me like we were playing a zone (thought I suppose it's possible I just imagined it). It ended with an uncontested layup for Wake and I didn't see it again.

We also played zone for a few possessions way back in November against Arizona. They shredded it.


I fail to see why or how we as Duke fans can point to the "unbalanced schedule" to say UVa's schedule was not as tough as Duke's when we couldn't take care of business against the bottom feeders of the league.

I agree. Virginia won the ACC regular season by 3 games. If they'd had to play 3 more games against the other top three teams in the ACC (something none of the other three teams had to do), and lost them all, they'd still be tied for first.


Coach K has made late season tweaks before. I am sure he can do it again. He's got the pieces, now to figure out the fit.

If he was going to introduce a major wrinkle/tweak, last week was the time to work on it. Presumably we'd have seen it against Wake.


Why are you so uncomfortable dealing with the simple fact that not one of K's FF teams suffered a loss like this?

Sample size. Coach K has only had 11 Final Four teams. Nine of those 11 teams suffered late-February/early March losses to inferior teams. The idea that those losses were so qualitatively different from this loss that this is an unprecedented event is kind of silly.

Also, what Troublemaker said.