MBB: UVa 72, Duke 63 (ACC Finals) Post-Game Thread

[hurleyfor3]

I saw a Final Four team out there. Naturally, it was Virginia.

[Dr. Rosenrosen]

Boo refs. That is all.

[ice-9]

Tough game. Our guys gave it their all but we fell short. We need to be better. We just don't have that consistency. We've shown flashes of being a good defensive team, but we can't seem able to do it for 40 minutes and the worst thing is it affects our offense.

A lot of it is due to fatigue -- we're not a team that deals well with it. But we won't ever need to play 3 games in 3 days again. Next play, and let's hope the next one lasts 6 games.

And hey, let's give UVA some credit. This is a dang good team, they played a heckuva game especially defensively, and they're built for a deep run in the NCAA tournament. Today was a Final Four level game.

[FerryFor50]

I saw a Final Four team out there. Naturally, it was Virginia.

I don't think UVA is any more Final Four material than Duke is.

Unless they bring that officiating crew with them, of course...

[uh_no]

When did the ACC title game turn into a Big 10 Game? Anywho, we just looked half-a-step behind the entire game. Whether fatigue or "meh" --- I'm not sure.

It's done, let's take our #2 seed and go to the Dance.

gonna be a #3 now i'd imagine.

[Udaman]

Congrats UVA. Hard not to like that team. Good luck in the tourney.

[FerryFor50]

Tough game. Our guys gave it their all but we fell short. We just need to be better. We just don't have that consistency. We've shown flashes of being a good defensive team, but we don't seem able to do it for 40 minutes and the worst thing is it affects our offense.

A lot of it is due to fatigue -- we're not a team that deals well with it. But we won't ever need to play 3 games in 3 days again. Next play, and let's hope the next one lasts 6 games.

And hey, let's give UVA some credit. This is a dang good team, they played a heckuva game especially defensively, and they're built for a deep run in the NCAA tournament. Today was a Final Four level game.

I don't think it's fatigue. I think Duke played good defense until the fouls started piling up. Then it became tentative defense.

[chaosmage]

When did the ACC title game turn into a Big 10 Game? Anywho, we just looked half-a-step behind the entire game. Whether fatigue or "meh" --- I'm not sure.

It's done, let's take our #2 seed and go to the Dance.

[uh_no]

142 def eff in the second half.

GG.

story of the season.

[kaufmjo]

I don't think UVA is any more Final Four material than Duke is.

Unless they bring that officiating crew with them, of course...

I agree. There's nothing special about Virginia except they are consistent. Not that talented a team although I guess all the talent sits in the nba these days

[J4Kop99]

Watched the whole game, thought UVA was the better team and deserved to win. Did the refs make/not make some questionable calls? Sure, but I thought UVA played harder and better than we did.

As for the problems Duke had today, they are the same problems Duke had on day 1. Not worth pointing out... it is what it is at this point. Have to hope that we can somehow play our best 6 games of the season starting next week.

[hurleyfor3]

This wasn't a horrible loss. But UVa is better than us. Time to admit that.

[mattman91]

Hats off to the Cavs, it was their day. Now lets go win the big one!

[Kjeffrey]

VA played a great game but that game was well within our reach. We missed too many close shots which I assume was because the players were exhausted. I did not agree with some of the substitution patterns. Dre should have seen more time.

[uh_no]

VA played a great game but that game was well within our reach. We missed too many close shots which I assume was because the players were exhausted. I did not agree with some of the substitution patterns. Dre should have seen more time.

certainly they did what they needed to...especially playing phenomenal defense without fouling. if they had made a few FTs this would have been a bigger blwout

[sporthenry]

Refs weren't the whole story but ignoring them would also be a mistake. Duke did themselves no favors throughout and fatigue seemed to hurt them a bit more. Luckily, they won't play 3 games in 3 days the rest of the way.

If Anthony Gill shoots more FTs than the other team combined, UVA will cut down the nets.

[fisheyes]

Never would have thought that we wouldn't win going 8/14 from the 3 point line. Just not enough stops in the 2nd half. A bit of panic at the end too. Next play.
Go Duke!

[chaosmage]

Congrats UVA. Hard not to like that team. Good luck in the tourney.

I don't. That wasn't defense, that was pro wrestling.

:mad:;)

[18258]

I would've like to seen a little boxing out on the boards from our boys down the stretch, congrats wahoos, you wanted it more today

[Roger Andersen]

I expect boxing out to be a big in focus in this week's practices. I'm proud of the team for fighting back after a terrible start, but interior defense was a huge problem.

[turnandburn55]

On a note of levity, Coach K's marker does have a Twitter account.

https://twitter.com/coachk_pen

"I'm worried Rasheed will take out his anger on me"... if you can't laugh at yourself, right?

[El_Diablo]

gonna be a #3 now i'd imagine.

Probably a #7, according to Palm.

[_Gary]

I do feel like VA was allowed to be a heck of a lot more physical, especially in the post, than we were. Jabari took it hard many times and was mauled with no calls, while the Cavs were living at the line the entire day. Tough to win any game when your opponent goes to the FF line 25+ times more than you. It's just asking too much.

[TruBlu]

No shame in losing to this UVA team. Congrats to them on a great season, and on their ACC championship.

I can think of a lot of ACC teams that I would have hated losing to more.

Time for us to focus on the Big Dance.

[Atldukie79]

I like this UVA team. They are a machine.

38 - 11 ...Duke FTs vs UVA Fts.

The refs made it about them. Shame on them.

We can be fragile emotionally. Need to get focused...and angry in the NCAAs.

[flyingdutchdevil]

Some how, I'm not that upset about this game. The better team won today. I have a very hard time not liking Bennett and this UVA team. They are the definition of a 'team'.

UVA is the best team in the ACC. And I don't think it's very debatable.

However, there is still 3 weeks left. And I think Duke has the much higher ceiling.

[hurleyfor3]

if you can't laugh at yourself, right?

We as a fanbase don't do nearly as much of this as we should.

[LSanders]

VA played a great game but that game was well within our reach. We missed too many close shots which I assume was because the players were exhausted. I did not agree with some of the substitution patterns. Dre should have seen more time.

And Marshall.

[CoBlueDevil]

One of the most frustrating Duke games I have seen in a while. EVERYTHING went Virginia's way.

[SoCalDukeFan]

Well coached and experienced.

I think they will be a tough out in the NCAATOURNAMENT.

Weak T will hurt Duke.

SoCal

[ice-9]

I don't think it's fatigue. I think Duke played good defense until the fouls started piling up. Then it became tentative defense.

I agree that we played good defense most of the game.

Fatigue affected our offense. Rodney was often short and Sulaimon couldn't get into the lane and finish. It also affected our defense in that we committed way too many fouls and didn't always block out, which imply a lack of focus. (Then again, we've been doing that all season, so maybe not that.)

The only two players who I thought played strong with fresh energy were Amile and Parker, though Amile faded a bit in the second half.

[DukeHLM'13]

I'm ready to get out of ACC play so we can get away from ACC refs. Has Jabari, as the refs see it, gotten fouled a single time in ACC play?

It was a good game, very similar to the losses to Kansas and Arizona early in the year. In the game all the way, but the other team makes the plays in the last few minutes to win the game. Pretty happy with how the team played, just wish we could have stepped up in the last 3 minutes to get what would have been a great win.

[Gthoma2a]

I saw a Final Four team out there. Naturally, it was Virginia.

I don't know what to say, but there was a lot of fire. There were a lot of opportunities left out on the court. Dre saw very little time, even when players were tired and we weren't playing much D. I saw so many possessions where we didn't even box out and I just can't help but to hope that we focus on blocking out. Whether you are big or not, you can do that.

Jabari, for all of his positives could end up with a career that features no titles, if he doesn't win a national championship. Maybe it will make him want to stay, if we don't win a title. Either that or WIN THE FREAKING GAMES FROM HERE ON OUT!

[FerryFor50]

Some how, I'm not that upset about this game. The better team won today. I have a very hard time not liking Bennett and this UVA team. They are the definition of a 'team'.

UVA is the best team in the ACC. And I don't think it's very debatable.

However, there is still 3 weeks left. And I think Duke has the much higher ceiling.

I guess people are forgetting that Duke handled UVA pretty easily in Cameron. That score was only close because UVA had a frantic comeback.

And today, tons of lead changes all game. UVA pulled away at the end, but this game wasn't decided until the final minute or so. I wouldn't call UVA decidedly better.

[gumbomoop]

Bennett such a fine coach. Excellent game plan, players execute so well. Confident without splashy behavior. I have posted - too often, I admit - that relentlessness is the emotional factor I most value, I guess in all sports. UVA has it. Duke needs it, or something close, during the next weeks. Without it next weekend, there might not be a second weekend.

Truly heartfelt, admiring congratulations to UVA, absolutely the deserving team this day, and all during the ACC season. Hope they make the Final Four.

Not quite as much as I hope Duke makes it.

[ricks68]

That's all I can say.

ricks

[Dukehky]

The new rules emphases make them call fouls on our aggressive pressure D, which we can't play super effectively, and they were indeed fouls for the most part. But Jabari Parker is a great kid, who doesn't complain or anything, and every time he touches the ball in the post, he gets hammered. Apparently it's not a foul if if it takes place in the post. UVA played well, Rodney was dog tired from chasing Warren and Harris all over hell and high-water, you could tell that on the shots in the paint that he missed today and hasn't missed all year.

Maybe we are finally going to be due to beat a team that is "better" than Duke late in the tournament, because it hasn't happened yet this year. (away from Cameron of course).

I'm proud of them playing hard. Congrats to UVA for winning the title in the one year out of ever six that they will have the opportunity to do so.

[Levon]

Not a lot to say here. I think we played to our potential. This is one that probably could have gone either way.

I don't think we can or should ask much more of this team. Again, I am happy that we are playing at our potential and I do not doubt that it can take us pretty far in the tournament. Go Blue!

[duke4ever19]

"Hey, you know what? Since it's the Championship game, let's let 'em play it out to decide the winner."

--- Among the things not heard in the referee room before the game.

[Selover]

38 - 11 on free throw attempts. Wow.

[UrinalCake]

We just had no defense inside the last ten minutes. Every time they took it straight to the hole and either got a layup or got the offensive rebound and then got a layup. Would love to know their shooting percentage over those last ten or so minutes. Parker had a pretty awesome stretch but just wasn't enough.

[DukeDevil]

I'm proud of our guys fighting hard despite adversity. I would like to have seen Dre out there a bit more in the 2nd half...it really seemed like he was feeling it. I think this team can make a run, and I hope this loss fires them up to focus for the tourney.

I'm sure I'll get a warning for this, but I've never complained about the refs before, and I'll take the hit. That was absurd. I agree with some comments that UVAs play and strong defense earned less fouls, but there were SO many no calls on our player's drives. The free throw disparity was just unbelievable, even before we started fouling at the end (something like 30 to 9). It went from odd to upsetting to rage inducing to comical. That is the last I'll say of that.

[tfk53]

Lost a number of points on shots close-in that did not go. Cook's last shot was one of at least 6-7 through the game, perhaps more. I lost count. Also had several balls just pulled out of our hands. Bottom line, Virginia played exceedingly tough all game. With the poor shooting in first half as well as dismal 2 pt shooting all game, actually amazing we were as close as we were. Virginia plays with superb discipline. You have to admire that. That and that they don't wear the wrong color of blue!
Fatigue definitely a factor. Shows the advantage of playing the first game on Friday rather than the last. That fatigue often sets in 36-48 hours later. In some ways, would have been better to be the 4 seed.

[OZ]

Watched the whole game, thought UVA was the better team and deserved to win. Did the refs make/not make some questionable calls? Sure, but I thought UVA played harder and better than we did.

As for the problems Duke had today, they are the same problems Duke had on day 1. Not worth pointing out... it is what it is at this point. .

Agree.

[flyingdutchdevil]

I guess people are forgetting that Duke handled UVA pretty easily in Cameron. That score was only close because UVA had a frantic comeback.

And today, tons of lead changes all game. UVA pulled away at the end, but this game wasn't decided until the final minute or so. I wouldn't call UVA decidedly better.

ACC Reg Season champ and ACC Tourney Champ. They are the best team in the ACC. That's really the only measure to go by. And I remember the Duke/UVA game as being much closer. Yes, we were up 10 late in the second half. But we've been up 10 on lots of teams and lost.

[devilnfla]

I actually think Duke played a better game today than the previous 2 days. The difference today was the calls or lack there of, on one end around the basket and some interesting coaching decisions on Duke's bench.

[devildeac]

I like this UVA team. They are a machine.

38 - 11 ...Duke FTs vs UVA Fts.

The refs made it about them. Shame on them.

We can be fragile emotionally. Need to get focused...and angry in the NCAAs.


That's all I can say.

ricks


"Hey, you know what? Since it's the Championship game, let's let 'em play it out to decide the winner."

--- Among the things not heard in the referee room before the game.


38 - 11 on free throw attempts. Wow.

Glad to see I am not in the minority here:mad:.

[_Gary]

UVA is the best team in the ACC this year. No one can take that away from them. And they played like they've played all year - hard, and well disciplined. I have no problems with them winning this game. But the officials were very one-sided in terms of calls down low. Our guys would take it inside and absolutely get hammered with no calls. But on the other end of the court the officials had no problems calling Duke for anything close to a foul. That aspect of the game was majorly disproportionate. Still, I have no problems with the outcome and the Cavs winning. We just have to get ready for the NCAA's now, and there's much to work on in the next 4 to 5 days.

[Here is a Turtle]

There is an awful lot of complaining about the refs on here. The better team won. There was a reason that UVA won the regular season title. They play amazing defense without fouling. They may not be the most talented, but they are consistent. They deserved to win today.

[J4Kop99]

I don't think UVA is FF material either. They play way too many close games. They do have reliable guard play and they also play tremendous defense but they can't score (unless their opponent consistently forgets to box out and plays matador defense). I don't think they will fare well in the tournament.

[jipops]

We struggled with fouls as a result of being a poor defensive team. Virginia took advantage. It is discouraging that this team consistently wilts late in the 2nd half. Poor D being the cause.

[MaxAMillion]

This is about what I expected. UVA has an experienced and tough minded team. They were better today. That experience shown through in the 2nd half. I think Duke will win a couple of rounds in the NCAA, but their weaknesses are pretty apparent.

As I said before the season started, Losing three seniors the caliber of what Duke lost last year was going to hurt. No matter how many 5 star players you recruit and bring in.

[Utley]

Congrats to UVA - hard not to,like a team that plays great D, out works the other team and has a high basketball IQ - reminds me of duke in days of yore.

I think we have more talent but they are a better team. I thought we played pretty well today - but UVA was a little better.

Only possible advantage is this opens our eyes a little more to the value of D and ups our intensity.

[uh_no]

I actually think Duke played a better game today than the previous 2 days. The difference today was the calls or lack there of, on one end around the basket and some interesting coaching decisions on Duke's bench.

i thought the same thing about playing better than the past two days

and yes, the calls certainly made the difference, but the calls are a direct effect of getting beat on the perimeter and then reaching...i can say maybe a couple more calls could have gone duke's way, but no way in heck should duke have had nearly as many FTs as UVA had. they drove, we fouled, they got to the line....story of many of our losses....but then again, to many here, duke can do no wrong, and the refs are the primary factor in ALL our losses (and most of our wins)

[60's Devil]

Bennett did not even mention Duke in his post-game interview. Got to give him credit for a great coaching job with not a single McDonalds All American.

[Les Grossman]

Parker's hands and arms are all marked up now from being hacked and slapped so many times.
Every time they slow mo'd on Parker: smack, slap, slap, smack

[cspan37421]

Some how, I'm not that upset about this game. The better team won today. I have a very hard time not liking Bennett and this UVA team. They are the definition of a 'team'.

UVA is the best team in the ACC. And I don't think it's very debatable.

However, there is still 3 weeks left. And I think Duke has the much higher ceiling.

Excellent post. I agree on our high ceiling ... but it might take more than 3 weeks to regularly play at that level.

We have done a better job of rebounding in the 2nd half of the year, but we still left a lot of rebounds on the table vs. UVA by not blocking out ... AND not crashing the boards (did we not crash the boards on purpose ... to hedge on our spotty transition defense?). There was a considerable amount of lost composure out there in the last couple minutes too. Many things to improve upon, but by and large, I think we're a very good team, one of the best in our conference ... but obviously not the best in our conference. This year, Virginia is the best TEAM. Hopefully we can make a more cohesive team out of our deep talent, but sometimes that takes time, and it's not always easy to achieve team cohesion with players who haven't been playing together for long.

On to the NCAAs ... let's hope we can win three, four, or more.

[Kjeffrey]

And Marshall.

Great point! I wasn't even thinking about him but you are right. He could have provided more resistance down low and he could have given tired players some much needed rest.

[UrinalCake]

It was a good game, very similar to the losses to Kansas and Arizona early in the year. In the game all the way, but the other team makes the plays in the last few minutes to win the game.

I think it was similar to a LOT of our games - a late swoon in which we get horribly outscored. Against lesser teams we can still hang on and win, but against the elites we lose. Same story all year

[Saratoga2]

We had a one point lead with Jabari playing great and Plumlee in the game. Still a winnable game. When Marshall left, we got out-powered inside, were out-rebounded and lost our way. Pretty hard for Quinn, Tyler, Rodney and Amile to match up physically. It seemed clear that was happening but we stayed with it. Andre was hitting threes but gets so little PT he couldn't make much of an impact. Rodney had a decent game but Rasheed's game didn't work well against the pack line. Hard to get inside against that bunch. The one time Josh got in he was also undersized to stop anything.

I doubt coach K will modify his approach and then again, we don't play a team like Virginia every day. I don't fault the players, they fought hard for 40 minutes but needed better substitution protocols.

I recommend more of Marshall, Matt and Andre going forward.

[Dr. Rosenrosen]

There is an awful lot of complaining about the refs on here. The better team won. There was a reason that UVA won the regular season title. They play amazing defense without fouling. They may not be the most talented, but they are consistent. They deserved to win today.
Give it a rest. We can spout off on our own board if we want. No one can watch that game, see all the uncalled fouls inside, especially against Parker , and not feel the way many of us feel.

[hurleyfor3]

and yes, the calls certainly made the difference, but the calls are a direct effect of getting beat on the perimeter and then reaching...i can say maybe a couple more calls could have gone duke's way, but no way in heck should duke have had nearly as many FTs as UVA had. they drove, we fouled, they got to the line....story of many of our losses....but then again, to many here, duke can do no wrong, and the refs are the primary factor in ALL our losses (and most of our wins)

UVa got calls because they figured out how to get calls. That sequence in the second half where they kept driving and making layups, often getting a foul in the process -- y'all think that was chance? You don't think they figured out that was how to play our D and win?

[nyesq83]

Duke kept it close despite Virginia being a better, more cohesive, poised team.

K says obviously they got to the foul line a hellofalot better than we did.

[KandG]

Great game from both teams considering it was the 3rd game in 3 days, but it was clear the circumstances favored Virginia's style (physical, team-oriented, plenty of effort points) much more than Duke's (finesse, jumpshots, lot of one-on-one play).

Really thought Duke could fight through it anyway thanks to Jabari growing up hugely in the second half and going into takeover mode, but it was too much to overcome subpar games from Hood and Rasheed. (Sheed needs to be much, much better than that in the tournament for Duke to avoid losing next weekend). Actually thought Cook was OK against the type of defense that usually forces him into tons of questionable decisions, even though he lapsed a little late in the game with a couple of ill-advised one-on-one forays. Both Jabari and Quinn (along with Dawkins reappearing today) were the biggest positives I took from the last 3 days.

Congratulations to Virginia, definitely the better team this afternoon and deserving regular season and tournament champions. Kind of odd to see such a quality ACC final and yet think both teams might be gone after next weekend. So much quality and yet the flaws with both teams are real. Both could of course also make a run to the Final Four, though it will come down to seeding and matchups.

[Dr. Rosenrosen]

This is the closest I've ever heard K come to talking about the fouls...

[_Gary]

Hopefully after Andre's good showing today, we can get back to playing at least 8 deep. I just hated seeing us go about 6.5 deep for most of this weekend. It was a little better today, but I think even that was only a result of foul trouble. Still, we've got too many weapons to only play 6 to 7 guys. Especially if the primary six are gassed, as was clearly the case today.

[lotusland]

I think Jabari rose to another level in this tournament. He was a man out there all 3 games to the point that I was totally dumbfounded when he dropped the dime from Cook. It was like I just could not believe he was human. I thought UVA killed Duke on the boards. Every time it seemed we were going to get a crucial stop, Mitchell or Gill got a rebound and stick back. On the bright side, Quinn is playing much better, our defense is pretty good now and Dre got it going again. I don't think MP3 had a great tournament and Josh may have been more effective. It didn't really seem like the offense flowed as well with Plumlee running around looking for someone to screen. It's good to have him available for a few MPG though. Our guys fought hard today and I think Duke is in good shape for the big dance. It's all about match-ups and who is hot now but this team has a much of a shot to reach the Final Four as anyone else imo.

[Potato]

One of the most frustrating Duke games I've ever seen. We took every punch but rebounded awfully (why no Marshall?) and simply couldn't keep Virginia off the stripe. Then Dawkins made like 2/3 3's and sat the rest of the game which makes perfect sense. I don't blame games on refs, but let them play. Virginia is so annoying, the way they play is exactly why the NBA is becoming way more popular and the superior product. We need a shot clock in college ball.

[Dukehky]

My only major problem with the officiating is that Jabari has just gotten hammered on the block all season long, and tonight was no exception. He get's fouled 80% of the time he is in the paint. It's not like he complains or tries to show up refs or even the other team. If he was wearing number 50 with an North Carolina on the front, he would have shot 40 free throws tonight. I don't have a problem with the fouls being called on our team, I didn't see any bad calls in that regard, but it did seem to be largely one sided in that regarded, especially since we drove the lane so consistently.

Ultimately that kind of perceived if not existent officiating discrepancy in addition to our inability to get defensive boards when we most needed them, cost us the game. Credit to UVA, even when we looked like we were going to hit a spurt, they quelled it very effectively.

They set a lot of very close to moving screens.

[SCMatt33]

New Day, same story. Duke gave up points on 14 of UVA's last 16 possessions. This team really can't play more than 30 minutes of defense outside of Cameron. There are a lot of factors. Duke plays good D, but commits a lot of fouls early leading to less aggression late. They get beat so easily off of one bounce on the perimeter, even by guys less athletic then they are. They are awful at covering rotations and knowing how to help. Even when one guy successfully helps, the second guy probably missed it leading to an easy pass or easy offensive rebound.

Outside of Cameron, I really only see one good defensive performance down the stretch against a good team (UCLA). Out of Duke's nine wins outside of Cameron, 5 came against bad teams that are't close to any postseason competition (Bama, Elon, Miami, BT, and GT). 1 (Pitt) was fueled by a ridiculous offensive run combined with an offensive implosion by Pitt, missing easy shots and unforced turnover. 1 (NC State) was fueled by the opposition completely running out of gas. The last (Clemson) was won by having barely enough offense to hold a dwindling lead. I see nothing that leads me to believe that they can suddenly clean that up against a good team in the tourney, where they certainly won't be in Cameron.

[nyesq83]

K calls the T in first half ridiculous and shameful!!!!

[Dr. Rosenrosen]

K called the technical "shameful"...

[Karl Beem]

I saw a Final Four team out there. Naturally, it was Virginia.

The Hoos will go out early.

[uh_no]

UVa got calls because they figured out how to get calls. That sequence in the second half where they kept driving and making layups, often getting a foul in the process -- y'all think that was chance? You don't think they figured out that was how to play our D and win?

i think that's exactly why they won....and i don't think as a team that has made a killing over the years figuring out how to pick up offensive fouls by taking charges that we have ANY reason to criticize UVA's exploiting it, or the refs calling it. like it or not, refs are part of the game, and UVA figured out how to use that to their advantage. we did not. they are phenomenal at playing very good D with little fouling...we are not, and the entire rest of the season indicates that the fouls tonight were in large part due to our inherent flaws rather than an abberation of reffing (given, i know DBR by and large thinks the refs are to blame for all our losses)....

[UT Dukie]

I believe Coach K has already said Marshall is somewhat limited with playing time. I don't remember where I saw that recently, but I believe that's a reasonable paraphrase. I think this physical limitation affected K's decision not to play Plumlee more.

Rebounding wasn't too different between the teams today nor has it been the traditional problem this year. On that metric, we're better this year than some/many prior.

I doubt Coach K is as mad about the officiating as he is about the horrible defense his team has come to settle for this year. Now let's get ready for a bracket full of classic foes (e.g,. UCLA, Louisville). :rolleyes:

Finally, I bet Jabari gets called for 3 fouls in his first 15 games in the NBA. Like many of the best college players, he's presumably grown up watching enough of the NBA to know how the game is played (and called) and, for his sake, probably shouldn't bother adjusting to college officiating.

[cspan37421]

there were SO many no calls on our player's drives.


You may be right, but I have to be agnostic on the matter, because on Raycom at least, very few close-in replays were shown on non-calls. That may be generally true. But from the more remote camera shots, it's not common that I can tell whether someone down low in traffic was fouled. If the foul is up high, maybe I see hand-on-wrist. But if it's low, the bodies and arms and distance of the camera shot all conspire to make it impossible for me to judge with confidence one way or another. Circumstantially: we did miss a lot of close in shots. But if I were reffing from my couch, well, I can't call what I can't see. Perhaps ESPN had better angles ... but I was delighted to not be listening to Vitale.

[Mtn.Devil.91.92.01.10.15]

Good game. We were right there until a bad sequence around the 4 minute mark.

Please, shut up about the refs. It is low class and uncalled for.

Virginia was better down the stretch, we played great for 35 minutes and lost to a top ten team.

[Karl Beem]

Rodney went 3-5 in FTs and 2-10 on 2pointers. A normal game and we win.

[ice-9]

Congratulations to Virginia, definitely the better team this afternoon and deserving regular season and tournament champions. Kind of odd to see such a quality ACC final and yet think both teams might be gone after next weekend. So much quality and yet the flaws with both teams are real. Both could of course also make a run to the Final Four, though it will come down to seeding and matchups.

I disagree. UVA is the kind of team that may not win the tournament, but likely to go deep. Their defense is a constant, and they're going to play their style no matter who the opponent. This means they'll have an advantage on a short turnaround.

I fully expect them to go through the first week without getting tested. And then if they can survive that Sweet 16 game where their opponent will have ample time to prepare, they'll probably win their Elite 8 game with the short turnaround time.

It's that first game of the Final Four that UVA's flaws may be exposed.

[uh_no]

Rodney went 3-5 in FTs and 2-10 on 2pointers. A normal game and we win.

we also shot very well from outside....those extra threes compensate for rodney's missed 2'

[duke4ever19]

Tell that to Coach K. He is not happy with the refs today. Listen to the postgame press conference.

[devildeac]

K calls the T in first half ridiculous and shameful!!!!


K called the technical "shameful"...

Link? I'd love to listen to that presser.

[Karl Beem]

Good game. We were right there until a bad sequence around the 4 minute mark.

Please, shut up about the refs. It is low class and uncalled for.


They're incompetent.

[Dr. Rosenrosen]

Link? I'd love to listen to that presser.
Listening live to radio...

[crdaul]

Perhaps this game will quiet the "Duke gets all the calls" club ....probably not..on to the big dance!

[Matches]

And today, tons of lead changes all game. UVA pulled away at the end, but this game wasn't decided until the final minute or so. I wouldn't call UVA decidedly better.

This. This was a 50/50 game that tilted in their favor in the last 5 minutes. Kudos and congratulations to UVA, they earned it.

[duke4ever19]

Please, shut up about the refs. It is low class and uncalled for.

Tell that to Coach K. He is not happy with the refs today. Listen to the postgame press conference.

Foul trouble late in the game affects almost every facet of the game. Our starters cannot be as aggressive on D and UVA can feel free to run into the lane daring any starter in foul trouble (which happened to be ALL OF THEM) to try to stop them. It affects how aggressive our ball-handlers can be on the drive, because UVA will try to force an offensive foul. It's not enough to say, "late in the game we were not as aggressive on Defense" when there is perhaps a reason why. When our entire starting lineup was having to be careful of fouling out with 3-4 minutes to go in the game, you stand little chance of winning.

[azzefkram]

UVA played a better game and won. The refs didn't help our cause but I thought most of our fouls were legit. I thought UVA was given considerable latitude on the defensive end, especially in the paint. Coach did not help the team with his questionable substitutions (Hairston?) and the T. I still think we have the talent on O to make some serious noise in the tournament, but we need to start Quinn. Our ceiling is significantly higher with Quinn running the O than either Tyler or Sheed.

[Doubleott00]

Give it a rest. We can spout off on our own board if we want. No one can watch that game, see all the uncalled fouls inside, especially against Parker , and not feel the way many of us feel.

Well said! For the love of goodness sakes. Virginia was allowed to play however they wanted and we had to walk on eggshells! Virginia fouled a lot more than the boxscore shows and it's not even close. If one considers hacking and shoving and bumping to be legal, than Virginia played defense without fouling.

AS for our guys, pathetic!! The defense was atrocious for stretches and they were lazy on the boards!

[crdaul]

And who put the burr under Jamie Luckie's saddle?

[Dukehky]

Good game. We were right there until a bad sequence around the 4 minute mark.

[B]Please, shut up about the refs. It is low class and uncalled for.


To reiterate, none of our fouls, I thought, were non-fouls, just thought we probably should have shot a few more free throws as it appeared we got fouled on several drives, and Jabari looked to repeatedly get hammered, maybe he didn't.

[Karl Beem]

we also shot very well from outside....those extra threes compensate for rodney's missed 2'

That's silly.

[eddiehaskell]

Rebounding hurts us again.

During the last 3:21...

UVA 9 rebounds
Duke 1 rebound

ONE rebound!!!

That's all that needs to be said. If you get out rebounded 9 to 1 during the last 3 minutes of a close game...you lose.

[OZ]

UVa got calls because they figured out how to get calls. That sequence in the second half where they kept driving and making layups, often getting a foul in the process -- y'all think that was chance? You don't think they figured out that was how to play our D and win?


Whatever the reason, in an intense game, with both teams playing equally hard, the discrepancy in the fouls CALLED was rather difficult to understand.

Having said that, there were a lot of Duke shortcomings on the floor today, that looked a lot like what I have watched throughout the season. I don't know the reasons, but this team seemed difficult to coach. I noticed that Coach K seemed to be down on the floor and "into" the game more so than I have seen him recently.

[DukeDevil]

Ok, I've calmed down a bit.

1) If anyone has a link to the post game presser, they'd be a gentleman and a scholar in my book

2) I really really hope we extend the bench a bit in the tourney with a bit more burn for dawkins and plumlee. I know MP3 is limited for whatever reason (according to K) but I think he had more minutes than he put out there, and I think that his height and his boxing out (I honestly think he's the best player on the team at this) would have been critical in the 2nd half.

3) coach K's pen twitter feed is the best thing to come out of this game

[Bob Green]

Please, shut up about the refs. It is low class and uncalled for.



Bravo! The Twerping in this thread is shameful. Congratulations to Virginia on earning the ACC Championship today.

[devilnfla]

Bravo! The Twerping in this thread is shameful. Congratulations to Virginia on earning the ACC Championship today.

Sounds like Coach K is being shameful then. Care to admonish him?

[uh_no]

Sounds like Coach K is being shameful then. Care to admonish him?

K is not above admonishment. He's hot after a tough loss, especially one where he got stuck with an iffy T. I'm sure given a few hours, his remarks would be much more tempered.

[lotusland]

K called the technical "shameful"...

I watched the Raycom broadcast and I don't think they ever showed what the technical was for. What did K do to get T'd up?

[hurleyfor3]

We can disagree about the officiating but please do not make it personal with other posters.


/mod

[cspan37421]

I am reminded of the saying (something to the effect) that adversity does not build character, it reveals it. Let's just leave it at that.

[Dr. Rosenrosen]

I watched the Raycom broadcast and I don't think they ever showed what the technical was for. What did K do to get T'd up?
He literally said in presser when asked that he had no idea. Still doesn't know.

[duke4ever19]

K is not above admonishment. He's hot after a tough loss, especially one where he got stuck with an iffy T. I'm sure given a few hours, his remarks would be much more tempered.

True. But he also got an up-close-and-personal view of what happened out there. He is the first to congratulate and steer questions away from talk of refs, but today he, in his own way, let us know how he felt. There's a reason for that, I think.

[cspan37421]

I watched the Raycom broadcast and I don't think they ever showed what the technical was for. What did K do to get T'd up?

From what I hear, for throwing his dry-erase marker back to the bench area under his seat, from his position on the floor during a time-out, during which he was conferring with an official and, apparently not satisfied with the explanation given, threw the marker back to the bench area after said official turned around and walked away. This would explain why the T was called by another official further away.

[ice-9]

1) If anyone has a link to the post game presser, they'd be a gentleman and a scholar in my book

Just give it a bit, GoDuke will eventually post it on their website.

[_Gary]

The better team won today. UVA was solid from start to finish. My only beef is with the L-A-C-K of calls we got when Jabari (and others) went hard to the hole and got mugged. I think the way Parker played today he should have easily shot 16 - 20 free throws by himself. He really played tough and didn't get rewarded for all his hard work. Other than that facet of the game, everything was equal on both sides of the court, imho.

[Here is a Turtle]

Give it a rest. We can spout off on our own board if we want. No one can watch that game, see all the uncalled fouls inside, especially against Parker , and not feel the way many of us feel.

I'm a member here as well. I'm allowed to say my opinion as well. I watched the game. Were there tough calls? Sure. Was that why Duke lost. No. They lost because UVA played better and had a better team. If it was another team that was complaining this much, there would be laughter about all the other reasons that the team lost. There is a reason UVA won as many games as they did.


I watched the Raycom broadcast and I don't think they ever showed what the technical was for. What did K do to get T'd up?

It looked like he got it for throwing a pen on his sideline after arguing with a ref.

[gcashwell]

I sure would like to see the hockey style substitutions come back. If we do that, there is no foul trouble, which I think was responsible for our tough last few minutes.

I strongly disagree with playing 3 players with 4 fouls for the last 6 minutes of a tough game. It makes the defense and rebounding too tentative.

Overall, I was proud of the effort of the team today. I have been disappointed in the substitution patterns almost all year, and I think they cost us again.

[Karl Beem]

Well said! For the love of goodness sakes. Virginia was allowed to play however they wanted and we had to walk on eggshells! Virginia fouled a lot more than the boxscore shows and it's not even close. If one considers hacking and shoving and bumping to be legal, than Virginia played defense without fouling.



Yes. Jabari was mugged, shot 24 times with only 3 FTs. OTOH touch fouls were called constantly when they drove.

[fgb]

There is an awful lot of complaining about the refs on here.

38 to 11.

I'm not complaining, I'm just pointing out the math.

[sagegrouse]

I watched the Raycom broadcast and I don't think they ever showed what the technical was for. What did K do to get T'd up?

Threw a marker back into the Duke bench area.

[NYBri]

Next game. Refuse to sound like IC.

Congrats, UVA.

[Matches]

It looked like he got it for throwing a pen on his sideline after arguing with a ref.

I wasn't clear if he got t'd up for throwing the pen, or if he threw the pen in response to getting t'd up. Even people who were right there weren't sure.

It was a weird call, probably a wrong one. I wish he'd just let it die instead of complaining about it afterward though. It didn't decide the game, if anything I thought we played with more swagger after that.

[brickey]

UVA is a very good team, one completely deserving of an ACC Championship.

I think much of the fatigue we saw from Duke towards the end of the game was due to UVA's unbelievable off-ball movement. They were extremely agile and they extended wide on many of their screens, and Joe Harris' literal strength in creating space clearly wore us down.

That, coupled with hesitant defense due to foul trouble and our inability to finish through contact are what did us in today.

All said, no shame in losing to UVA, especially under these conditions.

Shame on K and Sheed for the technicals. I don't understand why they were so upset.

[KandG]

Bravo! The Twerping in this thread is shameful. Congratulations to Virginia on earning the ACC Championship today.

Thank you. It's fine to point out that Virginia may have gotten away with some overly physical defending inside, but some of the overheated whining is making me dread the inevitable shutdown of this board when Duke's season ends.

[MCFinARL]

UVa got calls because they figured out how to get calls. That sequence in the second half where they kept driving and making layups, often getting a foul in the process -- y'all think that was chance? You don't think they figured out that was how to play our D and win?

Agreed. They also figured out what wouldn't be called--i.e., that they could push off defenders with an arm or elbow and not get called unless it was really obvious. And they did. Rasheed was a frequent victim of this, which may have been part of why he eventually blew his cool.

Virginia is a very good team and deserved to win this game--and for various reasons they are a tough matchup for Duke--very physical while still very disciplined. Quite probably, they would have won anyway. But it was frustrating to see a game that was called in a manner that favored their style of game consistently. And I'm still curious about the tech at the end of the first half, which either was or wasn't for throwing a marker, and which put us in a little hole to start the second half. On the other hand, Duke got possession after the foul shots, which suggests it was not a technical. ???

It was also frustrating, to be fair, to see some of Duke's play, even though overall they played hard and often well. As others have noted in this thread, we suffered repeatedly from failure to box out on the defensive end, and too many times on offense we watched as a shot went up, with no one trying to get in position for an offensive rebound. That may need to be addressed if we want to see the second weekend. I've ranted elsewhere on substitutions, so I won't go there again except to mention that Rodney looked pretty tired at times today and might have been a bit less so had Dawkins/Jones totaled more than 4 minutes yesterday. Obviously, we need Hood on the court as much as possible, but he and Parker played a LOT of minutes Thursday and Friday. Even 4-5 minutes more rest yesterday (which would still have given him 32 minutes) might have helped today.

[El_Diablo]

I wasn't clear if he got t'd up for throwing the pen, or if he threw the pen in response to getting t'd up. Even people who were right there weren't sure.

It was a weird call, probably a wrong one. I wish he'd just let it die instead of complaining about it afterward though. It didn't decide the game, if anything I thought we played with more swagger after that.

Pretty sure it was for throwing the pen. He didn't have the pen after the T was called, when he was doing the "What???" gestures, so unless he went back over and got, then threw it a few seconds later, that happened before the T.

Plus, it would be extremely stupid to throw the pen after getting the T.

[Dr. Tina]

GoDuke.com will have K's press conference in awhile. They usually always put them up on the Blue Devil Network. Sounds like it's already a good listen.

[NSDukeFan]

"Hey, you know what? Since it's the Championship game, let's let 'em play it out to decide the winner."

--- Among the things not heard in the referee room before the game.
I can agree that the refs were not the reason for the loss, but I thought this was funny.


Congrats to UVA - hard not to,like a team that plays great D, out works the other team and has a high basketball IQ - reminds me of duke in days of yore.

I think we have more talent but they are a better team. I thought we played pretty well today - but UVA was a little better.

Only possible advantage is this opens our eyes a little more to the value of D and ups our intensity.
I was very impressed with Duke's D for most of the game and thought the guys looked really focused for most of the game. I was unfortunately, at least as impressed with Virginia's D. I thought UVa looked very focused throughout, defended very well and forced Duke to defend for a lot of time, which I thought Duke did, for the most part. Unfortunately, by the end, Duke's foul trouble had added up and perhaps they weren't quite as focused and it was difficult to defend quite as well. I was thinking mid-way through the second half that the game reminded me of the Cuse away game in that Duke was playing very well in a close game against a very good team. Unfortunately, Virginia made a few more plays down the stretch.


I think Jabari rose to another level in this tournament. He was a man out there all 3 games to the point that I was totally dumbfounded when he dropped the dime from Cook. It was like I just could not believe he was human. I thought UVA killed Duke on the boards. Every time it seemed we were going to get a crucial stop, Mitchell or Gill got a rebound and stick back. On the bright side, Quinn is playing much better, our defense is pretty good now and Dre got it going again. I don't think MP3 had a great tournament and Josh may have been more effective. It didn't really seem like the offense flowed as well with Plumlee running around looking for someone to screen. It's good to have him available for a few MPG though. Our guys fought hard today and I think Duke is in good shape for the big dance. It's all about match-ups and who is hot now but this team has a much of a shot to reach the Final Four as anyone else imo.
Jabari looks like a guy that won 4 straight state championships. He plays Singler's position (winner.)

Rebounding hurts us again.

During the last 3:21...

UVA 9 rebounds
Duke 1 rebound

ONE rebound!!!

That's all that needs to be said. If you get out rebounded 9 to 1 during the last 3 minutes of a close game...you lose.
That is quite an amazing stat. Mitchell is quite a player and Gill had a monster game for them as well.

Whatever the reason, in an intense game, with both teams playing equally hard, the discrepancy in the fouls CALLED was rather difficult to understand.

Having said that, there were a lot of Duke shortcomings on the floor today, that looked a lot like what I have watched throughout the season. I don't know the reasons, but this team seemed difficult to coach. I noticed that Coach K seemed to be down on the floor and "into" the game more so than I have seen him recently.

I didn't tkink there were that many shortcomings until the end, but would agree there was a large discrepancy in fouls in a game where two teams were playing very physically. Virginia was the best team in the ACC this year and deserves the title ACC Champions. As others have said, I do like that they play tough defense and play very solid, TEAM basketball. I just hope that they make a good run in the NCAA Tournament and don't get upset by some team that isn't nearly as good as they played today.
Duke is certainly not a Final Four favorite, but they have as good a chance as most anyone, if they play as well as they can. Go Duke! I would like to see this play a bunch more games this year. I would definitely enjoy the chance to see Thornton, Hairston and Dawkins a bunch more this year.

[gurufrisbee]

We still haven't lost a game since Clemson where the calls and non-calls for the game weren't three times in the favor of the other team. They might have been the better team, but there is no way to know when the officials are so lopsided that one team doesn't have a chance. If we get fair officiating, we still have a good shot at Final Four run.

[Duke79UNLV77]

In our last 4 losses. That's just a fact.

Those who find it shameful ever to mention the refs can analyze how we can foul a lot less. Others can question the impact of the national obsession every time a call goes our way. Or Commish Swofford. Or, a third group can have an opinion somewhere in the middle.

Any way you cut it, that's a huge handicap to overcome.

[Duke95]

Major respect for Virginia. They are the best team in the ACC this year. Hats off. Superbly done.

[LobstersPinchPinch]

Disappointed in some reactions and expectations on the board. UVA won because they are better. And this year's Devils are quite flawed and haven't shown F4 upside.

[dyedwab]

1) We foul a lot because we aren't a good defensive team. We reach a lot, don't rotate well, and, all is all commit fouls because we couldn't defend straight up.

2) Against good teams, we commit a lot more fouls and get into foul trouble.

3) That leads to tentative defense, which leads to a lot of scoring by the other team, and weird offensive combinations which leads to a discombobulated offense. We also don't rebound as aggressively

4) Thus, the last 10 minutes look like what they look like

It all stems from poor defense

OTOH, Jabari does appear to be the anti-Hansbrough in that he gets routinely hammered in the lane, and gets far fewer calls then he should

[75Crazie]

38 to 11.

I'm not complaining, I'm just pointing out the math.
And that's the problem with statistics. The discrepancy in fouls was due to the fact that Virginia can play their brand of hard-nosed defense without committing obvious fouls, under the current rules, while Duke cannot. I do not remember one, single foul called on Duke that was not well-earned. These kids, for whatever reason, just cannot play the kind of defense K wants to play without fouling. And while Virginia does play tenacious, hard defense, it was not terribly obvious to me that there were a significant number of non-calls on them. Parker, for his part, seemed to initiate a lot of the contact he encountered.

While I hate Virginia (or rather, their alumni) with a passion, I have nothing but admiration for their team. It reminds me of Duke 20+ years ago. They are a team ... Duke is a collection of talented players without a lot of cohesion. I wish I could see that changing.

[FerryFor50]

I don't think anyone taking about refs thought that the foul discrepancy should have been even. I thought Duke fouled more. Just not at a 3:1 ft discrepancy clip when Duke made a concerted effort to drive in this game.

[freshmanjs]

Disappointed in some reactions and expectations on the board. UVA won because they are better. And this year's Devils are quite flawed and haven't shown F4 upside.

what the heck is F4 upside? i guess that is what you noticed in wichita state at this time last year? and in vcu in 2011?

[NashvilleDevil]

For me it was Tyler's skip pass that went 5 rows deep. Before that game was back and forth and Jabari was in beast mode. After that UVA scored and made it a 4 point game. Duke had chances but could not capitalize. Liked the defense but it seemed that every bounce went to UVA and those bounces seemed to happen when Duke was going to extend the lead or cut into UVA's. One example, Duke plays great defense forces a bad shot as shot clock hits zero and Gill gets the board and fouled.

As for the officiating it's been like it's been inconsistent all year. It did feel like every time Duke drove the whistles were swallowed but a bump on UVA was called. Even with the FT difference Duke was in this game until the last minute or so. On to the dance as a 10 seed I'm guessing if Jerry Palm is to be taken seriously.

[dyedwab]

Disappointed in some reactions and expectations on the board. UVA won because they are better. And this year's Devils are quite flawed and haven't shown F4 upside.

Yeah, I think this is wrong. This is a team with 2 NBA 1st round picks - one could be the first pick in the draft, and a lot of talent elsewhere on the roster. To my eyes they are the most talented team we've had in a couple of year. The frustration with this team is the gap between the talent level and the performance.

[MCFinARL]

Agreed. They also figured out what wouldn't be called--i.e., that they could push off defenders with an arm or elbow and not get called unless it was really obvious. And they did. Rasheed was a frequent victim of this, which may have been part of why he eventually blew his cool.

Virginia is a very good team and deserved to win this game--and for various reasons they are a tough matchup for Duke--very physical while still very disciplined. Quite probably, they would have won anyway. But it was frustrating to see a game that was called in a manner that favored their style of game consistently. And I'm still curious about the tech at the end of the first half, which either was or wasn't for throwing a marker, and which put us in a little hole to start the second half. On the other hand, Duke got possession after the foul shots, which suggests it was not a technical. ???

It was also frustrating, to be fair, to see some of Duke's play, even though overall they played hard and often well. As others have noted in this thread, we suffered repeatedly from failure to box out on the defensive end, and too many times on offense we watched as a shot went up, with no one trying to get in position for an offensive rebound. That may need to be addressed if we want to see the second weekend. I've ranted elsewhere on substitutions, so I won't go there again except to mention that Rodney looked pretty tired at times today and might have been a bit less so had Dawkins/Jones totaled more than 4 minutes yesterday. Obviously, we need Hood on the court as much as possible, but he and Parker played a LOT of minutes Thursday and Friday. Even 4-5 minutes more rest yesterday (which would still have given him 32 minutes) might have helped today.

Can no longer edit my post so I am reposting to say I realize the team played Friday and Saturday, not Thursday and Friday--just wishful thinking on my part that tomorrow would not be Monday yet, I guess.

[NashvilleDevil]

1) We foul a lot because we aren't a good defensive team. We reach a lot, don't rotate well, and, all is all commit fouls because we couldn't defend straight up.

2) Against good teams, we commit a lot more fouls and get into foul trouble.

3) That leads to tentative defense, which leads to a lot of scoring by the other team, and weird offensive combinations which leads to a discombobulated offense. We also don't rebound as aggressively

4) Thus, the last 10 minutes look like what they look like

It all stems from poor defense

OTOH, Jabari does appear to be the anti-Hansbrough in that he gets routinely hammered in the lane, and gets far fewer calls then he should

Because Jabari isn't as goofy as Tyler and that goofiness made it looked like he was fouled. In the nba it's laughed at.

[BlueDevilBrowns]

I said last night that playing for a Championship is a valuable experience, win or lose.

I REALLY wanted this win but I am glad our team experienced this level of intensity before NCAAT play.

I don't think they'll face two better defenses than UVA and Clemson until maybe the elite 8, so they should be ready.

Remember, iron sharpens iron.

Next tournament.

Go Duke!

[superdave]

I think Jabari rose to another level in this tournament. He was a man out there all 3 games to the point that I was totally dumbfounded when he dropped the dime from Cook. It was like I just could not believe he was human. I thought UVA killed Duke on the boards. Every time it seemed we were going to get a crucial stop, Mitchell or Gill got a rebound and stick back. On the bright side, Quinn is playing much better, our defense is pretty good now and Dre got it going again. I don't think MP3 had a great tournament and Josh may have been more effective. It didn't really seem like the offense flowed as well with Plumlee running around looking for someone to screen. It's good to have him available for a few MPG though. Our guys fought hard today and I think Duke is in good shape for the big dance. It's all about match-ups and who is hot now but this team has a much of a shot to reach the Final Four as anyone else imo.


My only major problem with the officiating is that Jabari has just gotten hammered on the block all season long, and tonight was no exception. He get's fouled 80% of the time he is in the paint. It's not like he complains or tries to show up refs or even the other team. If he was wearing number 50 with an North Carolina on the front, he would have shot 40 free throws tonight. I don't have a problem with the fouls being called on our team, I didn't see any bad calls in that regard, but it did seem to be largely one sided in that regarded, especially since we drove the lane so consistently.

Ultimately that kind of perceived if not existent officiating discrepancy in addition to our inability to get defensive boards when we most needed them, cost us the game. Credit to UVA, even when we looked like we were going to hit a spurt, they quelled it very effectively.

They set a lot of very close to moving screens.


The ending of that game sucked. We could not grab a board or get a call. Jabari will have to ice down is arms/wrists/hands after all the slapping, grabbing, pounding Virginia did to him.

That being said, Jabari has come alive since the Wake Forest game. He hit another gear in the 2nd half today. If he keeps that up in the tournament, we will be happy fans. This team needs to push the pace more and dare teams to score with them. We have a lot of speed and athleticism but have slowed down too much.

How many times today did we see a Duke guard stop and wait for the UVA defense to set up so they could read it? Well, attack the rim guys! No need to let UVA
s great half-court defense set up. Go! Get to the rim. What a waste of an opportunity. Jabari can score in the halfcourt and in transition before defenders know what him them. Let's speed this thing up.

[ice-9]

1) We foul a lot because we aren't a good defensive team. We reach a lot, don't rotate well, and, all is all commit fouls because we couldn't defend straight up.

2) Against good teams, we commit a lot more fouls and get into foul trouble.

3) That leads to tentative defense, which leads to a lot of scoring by the other team, and weird offensive combinations which leads to a discombobulated offense. We also don't rebound as aggressively

4) Thus, the last 10 minutes look like what they look like

It all stems from poor defense

OTOH, Jabari does appear to be the anti-Hansbrough in that he gets routinely hammered in the lane, and gets far fewer calls then he should

Yes, agree (except the last point...I only agree with that -ish, -ish not).

I will also add that we make dumb fouls too. As in, the defender is beat and the other player has an easy shot -- but the foul isn't strong. Like it'll be a bump or an errant swipe, and the opponent often gets the and-1. If we're beat, we're beat, no need to foul. And if we want to foul, then heck make it count.

In general we just make very low foul ROI.

[tommy]

Boo refs. That is all.

C'mon guys. Can't we be better than that?

Virginia is a very, very good team and they played better than we did today. We were not able to defend them in the second half without fouling, and we didn't have enough firepower offensively outside of Jabari today. They just beat us. Every loss we have cannot and should not be blamed on the referees. That type of loser talk just diminishes us, IMO.

I will say that I thought a big point in the game came with about 12 minutes to go. We had been playing from behind all day, and Andre hit a 3 to finally tie it. Quinn got a steal and led the break, Andre fanned out for another 3, great look, just went in and out. They run down with it and Harris buried a 3. Instead of being up 3, we were down 3 -- big six point swing. I know there was still a lot of ball to be played, and we fought the rest of the way, but had Andre's second straight three gone down, giving us the 3 point lead, I think the emotional impact of that could've been huge, and it could really have changed the course of the game.

[bob blue devil]

a) the better team won (congrats hoos). this was not a 50/50 game - it was close, but they had the lead almost the whole way and we were fighting to get it. we didn't play a bad game (relative to others we've played this year), but still lost.
b) sure, i wasn't thrilled about the reffing. that doesn't change my view on point a). p.s i don't have a strong opinion on the k T - in a way he did show the ref up.
c) speaking of fouls - gosh i wish we could figure out how to play d without fouling. this is a regular problem for us.
d) why did rasheed get the late T? i never saw a replay.

ultimately, i still fantasize about our ridiculously talented group figuring things out before the tourney, but it seems like a long shot at this point.

i am a huge fan of sulaimon, jefferson and hood. they do the little things on both ends of the floor and are also great talents. they're tough defenders. they're efficient on the offensive end. i love watching them battle. i wish hood was coming back, but sulaimon and jefferson should make great leaders next year.

[duke4ever19]

The Coach K postgame is up for your viewing pleasure.


http://www.goduke.com/mediaPortal/player.dbml?catid=13807&id=3224017

[richardjackson199]

Congrats to UVA. In November/December that team looked awful. What a phenomenal coaching job. Classy coach and players. Duke and UVA both played their hearts out today for the win. The Wahoos were better today and they deserved to win.

Duke played well overall given it was our 3rd tough game in 3 days. It was a big difference going from playing 2 NIT-bound teams to a top 10 NCAA team. We paid severely for our mistakes. Mistakes we need to work on from this game are: securing defensive rebounds; lockdown defense in the last 10 minutes of a close game, and making sure to finish opportunities in close. We should take note and learn from how well Virginia moves without the ball, gets great shots on offense, plays tough defense, and rebounds with passion. That is why they beat us today.

Officiating is part of the game, and not something our players or coaches have any control over. You have 40 minutes to go out there and win the game with your play, which they can control.

Dawkins made 3/5 threes in a short amount of playing time. Hopefully he can keep earning more. Recall his beautiful offensive explosion in a game away from Cameron at Pitt. He could really help our team in the tourney. Rasheed played hard but looked tired today. In the tourney, I hope he can put it all together. Yesterday he was doing a nice job finishing his takes. Earlier in the season he was creating some beautiful assists. I'd love to see Quinn and Rasheed in the tourney using their elite skills as double threats to score and assist in multiple ways. I think Dawkins will need to play more. I'm guessing our coaches want those guys to play better defense, and they'll have to give it their all. Jabari and/or Rodney should be getting touches on most possessions. They'll have to balance using their ability to take over and create their own shot vs. trusting their teammates when they get double-teamed to avoid hero-ball bad shots.

Today will sting badly and it should. Our team got great experience today playing a championship level game against a really good team. We played well, but not well enough to win a championship. This should focus us to want it even more. This should focus us to know that to win 6 games against elite competition we'll have to play to optimum potential. UVA is playing at optimum potential. Our ceiling with our team is to win a national championship. We learned today that nobody gives you one just because you tried real hard. You get 40 minutes to go out there and make it happen on every play. So use this loss to fuel some fire!

Forget the refs. Let's have some great practices this week and win two games next weekend. Losing sucks, let's get hungry and go win us another championship! It might be nice for this team to be a 2 or 3 seed. Let's play with a chip on our shoulder as the underdog. We can ball and beat some people up real bad if we play with a little swag.

[Wheat/"/"/"]

First game I've been able to watch in the ACC Tourney...

I thought it was a very hard fought game, and that UVA showed us why they won the conference title with their balance and composure.

UVA proved to be the best team in the ACC and we should all congratulate them on a great season.

This is a confident UVA team. They never looked pressured. I thought the difference was their great offensive teamwork and defense. UVA players are all active, very fundamentally sound, and move their feet defensively. They have a good feel for when to challenge and back off.

I thought Duke got out of position on a lot of plays and did a lot of reaching on D, you're gonna get called on that.

Coach K is going to have to find a way to get this team to share the ball better and work for quality shots, be more patient, not depend so much on Parker and Hood's one one one moves.

Jefferson or Plumlee are going to have to play better inside for this team to get past the sweet sixteen.

No shame losing the ACC title game to the number 1 seed.

[greybeard]

I wasn't clear if he got t'd up for throwing the pen, or if he threw the pen in response to getting t'd up. Even people who were right there weren't sure.

It was a weird call, probably a wrong one. I wish he'd just let it die instead of complaining about it afterward though. It didn't decide the game, if anything I thought we played with more swagger after that.

K was pushing guys in the huddle. Some forceful 1 handed shoves just inside the shoulder. What's up with that?

Actually, if someone can explain the new "impeding" rule that would be great.

A key aspect, I thought, to the first half, was the way Virginia played off-ball screens. When Duke came off such a screen, he got chipped, Hard. I haven't seen that type of defense since Bobby Knight's teams in the Buchner years. Then, Thornton clearly anticipated a down screen for Harris, stepped out facing the baseline on the far side of the screen, Harris ran square into his chest, and the call was "impeding."

UVA ran it's offense with terrific pass, terrific angles, terrific quickness, off the ball, coming off screens, quickness in getting rid of the ball, passed on many scoring opportunities, seemed always to have Duke catching up, having to shift the defense some to prevent or impede what was to come, only to keep the offense going, until someone decided that it was time to go. Very impressive and intense.

UVa was unable to sustain that speed, quickness, etc. on offense because the shots they were getting were not falling, Duke had something to do with that, but I think that it was just an over expenditure of energy.

Talking about an over expenditure of energy, Duke gave up too much of it the previous game. Unfathomable why Dawkins didn't play, actually, as I posted previously, fathomable but dead wrong of K. Dead. Had Duke platooned, they would have won Saturday's game with considerable space, the key players would physically, mentally, and emotionally would have had much more going, and Duke would have entered this game with a stature that was unique.

Duke competed on an extraordinary high level today.

It was clear that K went to Amile early today, and looked to include him in the offense throughout. Amile made special plays on offense. How he is not a coequal player on offense with Rasheed, Parker, and Hood, I understand but do not like (like in every meaning of the term). I still think that he will be the best Pro from this group.

[cspan37421]

Give us good to great players for four years, we can turn out champions ... which begins with great defense.

Through yesterday, kenpom had us #97 in defensive efficiency. Just pause for a moment and think of that. Would we even play in a postseason tournament if defense were everything? Thankfully it's not, but normally we don't have such a glaring deficiency that deals with half the game (well, almost half the game ... I forgot about special teams ;)

I'll always pull for Duke, but when your backup center has as many steals as your starting backcourt combined, maybe, just maybe, you're not a very good defensive team. That we could play for a conference championship today speaks volumes about our offense. But as the saying goes, defense is like water, it finds its level, but offense is like a roller coaster, so unfortunately we can't (yet) count on tough D to win a game if our offense has a down day.

[dukelifer]

Yeah, I think this is wrong. This is a team with 2 NBA 1st round picks - one could be the first pick in the draft, and a lot of talent elsewhere on the roster. To my eyes they are the most talented team we've had in a couple of year. The frustration with this team is the gap between the talent level and the performance.

Duke has talent- but talent is not the only thing it takes to win- it just helps with the margin for error. To win in college you need consistent guard play. This is Duke's weakness this year to get to the next level. If Duke's guards can play to their potential for the next 4 games- they have a shot at the FF.

[Mabdul Doobakus]

I am once again surprised to see people blaming yet another loss on the refs. I don't know why this continues to surprise me since it has been par for the course...but again I feel like I was watching a different game. I thought the refs called a very good game. UVA got more foul shots because they were able to move the ball around and get our defensive players out of position. When the defense is late to react, it's going to lead to fouls. Duke, on the other hand, once again exhibited very little purposeful ball movement. There was a lot of 1 on 1 play, and a whole lot of poor shots early in the shot clock. UVA played a much smarter and more fundamentally-sound game of basketball than we did. There's no question in my mind that we have more talent and a higher ceiling than UVA but we continue to do less with more. I mean, I can't tell you how many times a game I watch one of our players overdribbling at the top of the key early in the shot clock, and I just know he's determined to throw some kind of terrible shot come hell or high water. UVA's shot selection and execution was superior to ours all game, and hero ball by our myriad talented players wasn't enough to overcome that.

[duke4ever19]

I am once again surprised to see people blaming yet another loss on the refs.

You will enjoy the presser. http://www.goduke.com/mediaPortal/player.dbml?db_oem_id=4200&id=3224017&catid=13807

[turnandburn55]

Yeah, I think this is wrong. This is a team with 2 NBA 1st round picks - one could be the first pick in the draft, and a lot of talent elsewhere on the roster. To my eyes they are the most talented team we've had in a couple of year. The frustration with this team is the gap between the talent level and the performance.

We've had a lot of teams with individual young talent, but generally there's been the stabilizing influence of a senior leader in the starting lineup. Tyler Thornton is fine in his own right, but a Chris Duhon, Jon Scheyer, or Nolan Smith he is not.

[Devilwin]

UVa got calls because they figured out how to get calls. That sequence in the second half where they kept driving and making layups, often getting a foul in the process -- y'all think that was chance? You don't think they figured out that was how to play our D and win?

Very true, but we were NOT getting calls when we drove, even while Hood and Parker were getting crushed. That's an undeniable fact...:mad:

[dairedevil]

Congratulations to Virginia, a well-coached team that played hard, and won both the regular season and ACC tournament. Glad to see the champions come from the "traditional" ACC. I did not want the former Big East teams to take over the tourney, certainly not the first year. I've got to get used to these new faces - heck, I've bareley gotten used to the last expansion.

I'll leave the dissection of the game to the rest of you folks. It will be interesting to see where we are seeded, who is in our bracket, and what day the the tournament will begin for Duke. That's the thing, the loss today is not the end of the season. What is it they say? Oh, yeah...next play.

[hurleyfor3]

Other fanbases, here, have a present.

http://forums.dukebasketballreport.com/forums/attachment.php?attachmentid=4007

[howardlander]

First game I've been able to watch in the ACC Tourney...

I thought Duke got out of position on a lot of plays and did a lot of reaching on D, you're gonna get called on that.


I agree with this, but that's not the whole story. Parker and others were hammered repeatedly on the inside with no calls. I really think some referees hear the "Duke gets all the calls" nonsense, and, at least sub-consciously it effects them. I know you get homered some times on the road, and God knows lots of fans think their teams get homered in Cameron, but it's a shame when it happens at a neutral site in a conference final. The way Parker was officiated today reminds me of the way Shaq used to get officiated in the NBA. I think Virginia is a great team, and they've established a certain style of defense, but geez 38 - 11? Duke got homered today.

Howard

[DukieInBrasil]

How can one team "earn" 27 more FTs than the other? It looks like the whiners whining is starting to pay dividends.
How can Dawkins score 9 points in 7 minutes, and only get 7 minutes of PT?
The prevailing wisdom was that if this game was played in the 70s, it was Duke's to win. Throw that out the window.
The enigma of this team continues.

[KandG]

Other fanbases, here, have a present.

http://forums.dukebasketballreport.com/forums/attachment.php?attachmentid=4007


A tough loss with all sorts of implications for Duke's prospects for the NCAA tournament turns what could have been a potentially interesting discussion thread into IC-lite. A gift for other fanbases indeed.

[60's Devil]

Jabari shot the ball 24 times, many in the paint, and shot 3 free throws.
Res ipsa loquitur

[Wheat/"/"/"]

d) why did rasheed get the late T? i never saw a replay.



Because he got in the ref's face after he tried to draw a foul on a 3pt attempt by obviously kicking his leg out and the ref didn't bite on that move for a no-call. He got away with the same thing a few games ago, I forget against who at the moment, but it didn't work this time. He was just frustrated.

He's going to have to check that attitude and be more controlled or it's going to cost Duke somewhere down the line.

I let it ride, but I thought I'd seen a questionable bit of attitude from him in that game where he stole the ball as time ran out after selling that he was going to let it run out too...he's a young guy that needs to work on some maturity.

[devilnfla]

Duke's Defensive Philosophy..... Has it changed over the years? When's the last time they as a unit slapped the floor and turned the d up a notch. For the last several years I've noticed a slip. Preventing dribble penetration being one of the main differences. Also, it doesn't seem like they force near as many turnovers as we use to. Those forced turnovers that led to fast breaks use to come multiple times in every game. It seemed as if it always helped fuel Duke to 12-0 runs. Over the last couple of years I chalked it up to lack of athletes on the perimeter, but this year it seems like we have the athlete's to pressure the ball. Seems like Duke teams in the past always had a couple of lock down defenders. This year they say it's supposed to be Hood but I just don't see it.

[cspan37421]

You will enjoy the presser. http://www.goduke.com/mediaPortal/player.dbml?db_oem_id=4200&id=3224017&catid=13807

The way K handled the last (dumb) question was classic, and appropriate.

"Should I tell Roy that the two of us should keep losing?" [to broaden the appeal/respect of ACC basketball, by "allowing" other teams to win the ACCT]

That said, I have to question his assertion that he would be allowed to do a handstand, throw a clipboard, do a tumble, etc., on the sidelines so long as it wasn't in response to something the refs said. Can he really do anything? And how can you tell it's not in response to what the refs said? How is the ref to know what is in his mind, driving the response? He turned around after conferring with the ref and threw his marker. Perhaps if he waited a few seconds it would have been officiated differently, because it could have been interpreted as reacting to something else? Maybe if he said to an assistant, "Hit me with some stats!" and then threw the marker, he'd be OK.

[Wheat/"/"/"]

I agree with this, but that's not the whole story. Parker and others were hammered repeatedly on the inside with no calls. I really think some referees hear the "Duke gets all the calls" nonsense, and, at least sub-consciously it effects them. I know you get homered some times on the road, and God knows lots of fans think their teams get homered in Cameron, but it's a shame when it happens at a neutral site in a conference final. The way Parker was officiated today reminds me of the way Shaq used to get officiated in the NBA. I think Virginia is a great team, and they've established a certain style of defense, but geez 38 - 11? Duke got homered today.

Howard

I thought Parker initiated a lot of the contact inside to create space. He,(Parker), wasn't fouling, just doing what good players do inside.

[DukieInBrasil]

The new rules emphases make them call fouls on our aggressive pressure D, which we can't play super effectively, and they were indeed fouls for the most part. But Jabari Parker is a great kid, who doesn't complain or anything, and every time he touches the ball in the post, he gets hammered. Apparently it's not a foul if if it takes place in the post. UVA played well, Rodney was dog tired from chasing Warren and Harris all over hell and high-water, you could tell that on the shots in the paint that he missed today and hasn't missed all year.


Maybe Coach K ought to take this into account at some point? It's been going on all year yet K refuses to do anything about it. Very frustrating.

[dukelifer]

I agree with this, but that's not the whole story. Parker and others were hammered repeatedly on the inside with no calls. I really think some referees hear the "Duke gets all the calls" nonsense, and, at least sub-consciously it effects them. I know you get homered some times on the road, and God knows lots of fans think their teams get homered in Cameron, but it's a shame when it happens at a neutral site in a conference final. The way Parker was officiated today reminds me of the way Shaq used to get officiated in the NBA. I think Virginia is a great team, and they've established a certain style of defense, but geez 38 - 11? Duke got homered today.

Howard

The 11 by UVa is somewhat consistent with them but the 38 is not consistent with Duke. Something was amiss. Strange disparity.

[NashvilleDevil]

I thought Parker initiated a lot of the contact inside to create space. He wasn't fouling, just doing what good players do inside.

I guess after watching Hansbrough get every call for 4 years Duke fans thought that was how it was called underneath.

[duke4ever19]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fMh6O7HuI08

With that said, on to the selection show.

[fan345678]

I thought Parker initiated a lot of the contact inside to create space. He,(Parker), wasn't fouling, just doing what good players do inside.

It's called Hansbroughing

[SoCalDukeFan]

I don't like it when fans cry about one call, usually late in the game, as the deciding factor. The refs make lots of calls during the game and certainly they are not all the right call, so play on.

However I, and others felt, that Parker repeatedly got hammered inside and nothing was called while Duke seemed to get called for every ticky tack touch inside. As the fouls piled up, they affected Duke's ability to play tough D.

On the other hand, its not right to take anything away from UVa. They played hard and well and as a team.

SoCal

[Lulu]

Sorry, haven't mentioned the refs all year, but in this game fouls were not consistently called on both ends of the court. Virginia's defensive reputation just allowed them a lot more contact than we were allowed against them. A weird call or two at the end when it didn't matter anymore, but when it did matter, the game was not called fair.
That said, I'm not even upset that we lost. Virginia, especially in the first half, just appeared to be the more disciplined, better coached team (not trying to knock K, but Virginia was executing extremely well). We, yet again, didn't pass the ball at times and took too many silly shots, basically boiling down the fact we looked intimidated anywhere near the rim in the first half after they got those first couple blocks. I know we have great offensive efficiency, on the whole, but in my mind shot selection is the difference between us being a team capable of winning any game, and one that's exiting the tournament a little early again. Poor shot selection is no different than a turnover.
Some huge defensive lapses on our part, and even though I think some of that was due to our frustration (yes, with the calls and non-calls, too) there can be no excuse, ever, for a disciplined team to have lapses like that. I'm really tired of seeing our player who thinks he just got fouled stare at the ref while the other team is headed back down the court. You cannot afford that many lapses in games decided by single digit margins.

This is one year where I think loosely-called games could be in Duke's favor, so let's hope the tourney sticks to tradition in that regard. I think we're better playing through fouls than most teams, and foul trouble has just been an enormous handicap for us in our competitive games. I'd love to see us distribute the minutes a little more and really ratchet up our D, otherwise I'm just not sure this team is capable of maintaining defensive intensity for a full forty minutes the way it's needed.

[DU82]

Driving back from the game with Julio's brother, we were commenting that we didn't think there'd be a problem with the board after this hard-fought, high-level game. Sitting in the arena, other than the technical on Coach K, we didn't think much of the calls, in that nothing felt wrong. Admittedly, we were not behind the basket close enough to see the calls inside, but it sure seemed like we got some breaks on contact, just as UVa did.

Wow, didn't expect this Terping on here at all.

As somebody else mentioned, the turning point of the game was the overthrown skip pass by Tyler that allowed UVa to get a tempo (two possession lead) on us. After that, we missed again, and Joe Harris took advantage with a three to put them up seven, and that was essentially it. Harris made another really smart play, driving to the basket while our guys were standing around trying to think about what they should be doing. A real senior (college) moment.

Virginia reminds me a lot of previous Michigan State teams. Older than most college teams these days, and the play as a team. Bennett is an exceptional coach, and as Coach K said yesterday, he doesn't have a good team, he has a good program.

After the pain yesterday of sitting in front of two typical State fans complaining all game, it was a pleasure (of sorts) to be surrounded by mostly UVa fans that cheered for their team, not against Duke (and the refs.) A lot of appreciation of good plays on both sides. I hope we'll be together next weekend in Raleigh (about 25 minutes until we find that out.)

[MCFinARL]

I don't like it when fans cry about one call, usually late in the game, as the deciding factor. The refs make lots of calls during the game and certainly they are not all the right call, so play on.

However I, and others felt, that Parker repeatedly got hammered inside and nothing was called while Duke seemed to get called for every ticky tack touch inside. As the fouls piled up, they affected Duke's ability to play tough D.

On the other hand, its not right to take anything away from UVa. They played hard and well and as a team.

SoCal

Maybe part of this has to do with the way UVA defends in the post--there was a lot of contact, but it was often body contact, where Duke frequently ended up making contact with the hands (not always on purpose; sometimes there would be Duke players going straight up with the body whose hands managed to touch the UVA players anyway). It seemed like the hand/arm contact was called much more often than body contact in the post.

[gofurman]

Next game. Refuse to sound like IC.

Congrats, UVA.

I have recently learned it is Impossible to "sound" like IC after a loss - this is bc I do not know how to replicate the sound of "Fake Server Maintenance". ;)

[BobBender]

What I said three weeks ago on here was echoed precisely by K after the semifinal. To wit, what Tony Bennett is doing is remarkable. That is a sustainable program that is here for the long run. I said that UVA reminds me of the Johnny Dawkins, Mark Alarie, Bilas, David Henderson group that turned the tide in 84-85.
I think Duke partisans have been grudging in respecting UVA. Like the widespread belief that their comeback at Cameron was a fluke. Like the endless crap about the "unbalanced schedule". They were beating the crap out of the ACC, not eking out wins like Syracuse.
I'm glad that most are finally giving them their due, while a small minority still are I'm a real wanker for saying this.I'm a real wanker for saying this.I'm a real wanker for saying this.I'm a real wanker for saying this.I'm a real wanker for saying this.ing about officiating.... Live by the jump shot, die by the jump shot

[91_92_01_10_15]

Wow, didn't expect this Terping on here at all.



I haven't commented on the officiating all year, nor have I in this thread, but I don't think what is happening here is Terping. I mean, the free throw discrepancy was 38-11. 38-11. When have you ever seen that? It doesn't happen often. And when it does, I think it is perfectly normal to notice it and discuss it.

[NashvilleDevil]

What I said three weeks ago on here was echoed precisely by K after the semifinal. To wit, what Tony Bennett is doing is remarkable. That is a sustainable program that is here for the long run. I said that UVA reminds me of the Johnny Dawkins, Mark Alarie, Bilas, David Henderson group that turned the tide in 84-85.
I think Duke partisans have been grudging in respecting UVA. Like the widespread belief that their comeback at Cameron was a fluke. Like the endless crap about the "unbalanced schedule". They were beating the crap out of the ACC, not eking out wins like Syracuse.
I'm glad that most are finally giving them their due, while a small minority still are I'm a real wanker for saying this.I'm a real wanker for saying this.I'm a real wanker for saying this.I'm a real wanker for saying this.I'm a real wanker for saying this.ing about officiating.... Live by the jump shot, die by the jump shot

But Duke didn't live by the jump shot today. Jabari made several drives as did Rodney.

[Saratoga2]

First game I've been able to watch in the ACC Tourney...

I thought it was a very hard fought game, and that UVA showed us why they won the conference title with their balance and composure.

UVA proved to be the best team in the ACC and we should all congratulate them on a great season.

This is a confident UVA team. They never looked pressured. I thought the difference was their great offensive teamwork and defense. UVA players are all active, very fundamentally sound, and move their feet defensively. They have a good feel for when to challenge and back off.

I thought Duke got out of position on a lot of plays and did a lot of reaching on D, you're gonna get called on that.

Coach K is going to have to find a way to get this team to share the ball better and work for quality shots, be more patient, not depend so much on Parker and Hood's one one one moves.

Jefferson or Plumlee are going to have to play better inside for this team to get past the sweet sixteen.




No shame losing the ACC title game to the number 1 seed.


Marshall did play well when in and was virtually the only one boxing out. When he went out, the rebounding turned totally in Virginia's favor. He also might have been able to stop some of the forwards pushing past Amile into a close in score. Marshall free throws are on the level of Amile's so why not give him more PT at the end?

[JPtheGame]

Sorry, haven't mentioned the refs all year, but in this game fouls were not consistently called on both ends of the court. Virginia's defensive reputation just allowed them a lot more contact than we were allowed against them. A weird call or two at the end when it didn't matter anymore, but when it did matter, the game was not called fair.
That said, I'm not even upset that we lost. Virginia, especially in the first half, just appeared to be the more disciplined, better coached team (not trying to knock K, but Virginia was executing extremely well). .

Was the 8 plus minute stretch without a field goal part of that amazing execution? This game was sham from start to finish and it was obvious. The worst part is it ruined what would have been an all time great performance in the second half by jabari.

[FerryFor50]

Was the 8 plus minute stretch without a field goal part of that amazing execution? This game was sham from start to finish and it was obvious. The worst part is it ruined what would have been an all time great performance in the second half by jabari.

Yea, UVA came out firing, but then went ice cold. Duke's defense stepped up pretty well, but UVA just isn't really an explosive offense. They rely on a defense that never fouls.

[tux]

It's been said here many times: Duke's defense is designed to make it hard for the opponent to run their sets and values creating turnovers more than contesting shots and rebounding. I feel like over the past 5-10 years, a lot of teams have started to figure out how to attack Duke's defense. Teams that are mature and take care of the basketball (and force Duke to defend for 20-25 seconds) really can put a ton of pressure on Duke's defense. I don't think it's a coincidence that every year (lately) folks here constantly bemoan Duke's inability to stop dribble penetration. But, IMO, very few people can stay in front of someone 20-25 feet from the basket for 20-25 seconds being run off multiple screens, etc. And when Duke gets spread out, it makes help and recovery almost impossible. It really started to to show after 3 games in 3 days, especially with such a young team. UVA just put Duke in a lot of tough spots and the fouls really started to mount. And once Jabari or Hood get 3, I feel like it almost becomes a layup line for the other team.

This year -- with the rules changes -- a lot of teams that normally play man-to-man have started mixing in more zone. K, who seems hell-bent on defending folks out to the margins of the court, is IMO just asking too much of this team. K needs to understand that most of our opponents know how to attack his defense. The goal on the defensive end is either to create a turnover, and if not, to force the other team into a low percentage shot (and then rebound). I'd like to see this Duke team focus less on the former and more on the latter during this final stretch...

[JPtheGame]

What I said three weeks ago on here was echoed precisely by K after the semifinal. To wit, what Tony Bennett is doing is remarkable. That is a sustainable program that is here for the long run. I said that UVA reminds me of the Johnny Dawkins, Mark Alarie, Bilas, David Henderson group that turned the tide in 84-85.
I think Duke partisans have been grudging in respecting UVA. Like the widespread belief that their comeback at Cameron was a fluke. Like the endless crap about the "unbalanced schedule". They were beating the crap out of the ACC, not eking out wins like Syracuse.
I'm glad that most are finally giving them their due, while a small minority still are I'm a real wanker for saying this.I'm a real wanker for saying this.I'm a real wanker for saying this.I'm a real wanker for saying this.I'm a real wanker for saying this.ing about officiating.... Live by the jump shot, die by the jump shot

Nice idea but I'll believe it when I see it. Virginia loses two critical pieces of the puzzle in mitchell and smith and there are simply not ready replacements ready to go. Recruiting will always be an issue because of the competition in conference from some real heavyweights and the fact that top flight talents will not want to come play grab and clutch defense and score in the 50's each night. Remember, seth greenberg had a program on the rise just a few short years ago, built on many of the same principles, and now he hangs out with jay williams for a living.
Having said that, congrats on the second conference championship ever.

[Karl Beem]

Anthony Gill of UVa: 26 minutes of play, 17 FT attempts. The entire Duke team got 11 attempts.

[ricks68]

There is an awful lot of complaining about the refs on here. The better team won. There was a reason that UVA won the regular season title. They play amazing defense without fouling. They may not be the most talented, but they are consistent. They deserved to win today.

I think you need to modify your signature line, now----at least for bb and fball.

ricks

[Furniture]

Like many have also said I was not too upset about this loss....
I was actually quite proud and pleased by the way the guys played.
I also think the following:
When you are in foul trouble at the end of the game it's difficult to play defense. Big chance that you lose.
We actually held our own for most of the game and if a few more bounces go in our favor we win!
I don't buy that VA is a much better team!!!!!!
Now about the foul count. It's very difficult to win with such a foul count disparity.
So, if it's not the refs picking on Duke and fixing the game for UVA then it's the players or the coaching staff that are not as smart as UVA. Maybe you can say that lately we live and die by the foul count (not threes).
TT leads the charge in getting into foul trouble. Is that the great duke defense or just plain stupidity?
I love TT but I wonder if his hard play is the smart play that's required? K loves TT. K sets the ethos for the team through TT.
We should either be analyzing why we are fouling more in some games or just accept the fact that some refs are not going to let us win...

[aheel4ever]

Next game. Refuse to sound like IC.

Congrats, UVA.

Too late. IC's got nothing on you guys when it comes to complaining about refs.

[ricks68]

Maybe part of this has to do with the way UVA defends in the post--there was a lot of contact, but it was often body contact, where Duke frequently ended up making contact with the hands (not always on purpose; sometimes there would be Duke players going straight up with the body whose hands managed to touch the UVA players anyway). It seemed like the hand/arm contact was called much more often than body contact in the post.

Bingo! I noticed that also. We have been hammered like that all year with no calls.

ricks

[Furniture]

I guess people are forgetting that Duke handled UVA pretty easily in Cameron. That score was only close because UVA had a frantic comeback.

And today, tons of lead changes all game. UVA pulled away at the end, but this game wasn't decided until the final minute or so. I wouldn't call UVA decidedly better.

I completely agree...

[UrinalCake]

Parker had a great game but does need to learn how to pass out of the double team. He's skilled enough and strong enough that he can often power through it or shoot the fadeaway jumper over it, but several times today he got caught in a double team and couldn't find the open man. Tyler's critical turnover where he threw the ball into the bench happened because Jabari was basically triple teamed and a guy was wide open on the other side of the court (Cook? Hood? I can't remember). Jabari got the ball to Tyler and Tyler tried to swing the ball over to that side, recognizing the overplay by UVA, but he rushed it.

Jabari, and really the entire team, needs to realize that those double teams are going to come, especially when he's on fire like he was, and maybe run some set plays where he receives the ball and immediately passes it back out to a shooter. And his teammates need to make themselves more available by cutting into open space where he can see them, rather than just standing still and screaming for the ball.

As for the refs, I totally get that foul disparity is not necessarily an indication of biased referee'ing. My problem is that whenever Duke is on the positive end of such a disparity, the announcers go on and on about how big the disparity is and how Duke must be getting all the calls in order for that disparity to exist. But when we're on the other end of it, they either don't say anything or they claim it's Duke's fault for not being aggressive enough. It just perpetuates the myth that Duke gets all the calls and when Duke doesn't get the calls they lose.

[jv001]

Josh Hairston is a fine young man as far as I know, but he's lacking the skills to be a good offensive player or a good defensive player. He cannot shoot very well, he cannot defend without fouling and he cannot rebound. If all of this is true, why was Josh in the game down the stretch. Most every media person has said that for Duke to be successful in the NCAAT, Plumlee is going to have to contribute. If that's so, why has his minutes gone down. The same question applies to Andre Dawkins. He has not gotten many minutes in games that we could surely have used them. He's no worse on defense than any guard not named Rasheed. The minutes that Matt Jones has gotten should be going to Andre. I believe Matt is the worse shooter on the team. I'm not about to blame the loss on officials but the numbers speak for themselves. It's late in the season gang. It's time for these guys to play like a TEAM and not like a bunch of individuals. And for that Virginia TEAM, congratulations on winning the ACC Championship and the Regular Season Championship as well. They have a heckuva Coach. GoDuke!

[jipops]

Like many have also said I was not too upset about this loss....
I was actually quite proud and pleased by the way the guys played.
I also think the following:
When you are in foul trouble at the end of the game it's difficult to play defense. Big chance that you lose.
We actually held our own for most of the game and if a few more bounces go in our favor we win!
I don't buy that VA is a much better team!!!!!!
Now about the foul count. It's very difficult to win with such a foul count disparity.
So, if it's not the refs picking on Duke and fixing the game for UVA then it's the players or the coaching staff that are not as smart as UVA. Maybe you can say that lately we live and die by the foul count (not threes).
TT leads the charge in getting into foul trouble. Is that the great duke defense or just plain stupidity?
I love TT but I wonder if his hard play is the smart play that's required? K loves TT. K sets the ethos for the team through TT.
We should either be analyzing why we are fouling more in some games or just accept the fact that some refs are not going to let us win...

I don't know if uva is a MUCH better team. But there are far better arguments for saying they are the better team.

[Furniture]

I don't know if uva is a MUCH better team. But there are far better arguments for saying they are the better team.

I think I got that wrong. I should have said that IMHO UVA are 'not' a better team than duke...thanks for pointing it out.

[uh_no]

Yea, UVA came out firing, but then went ice cold. Duke's defense stepped up pretty well, but UVA just isn't really an explosive offense. They rely on a defense that never fouls.

I'm just throwing it out there, but UVA put up a 142 in the second half....with a number of missed FTs. i certainly agree that we looked somewhat better than the first two games of the tournament, but the numbers are not good.

[eddiehaskell]

Josh Hairston is a fine young man as far as I know, but he's lacking the skills to be a good offensive player or a good defensive player. He cannot shoot very well, he cannot defend without fouling and he cannot rebound. If all of this is true, why was Josh in the game down the stretch. Most every media person has said that for Duke to be successful in the NCAAT, Plumlee is going to have to contribute. If that's so, why has his minutes gone down. The same question applies to Andre Dawkins. He has not gotten many minutes in games that we could surely have used them. He's no worse on defense than any guard not named Rasheed. The minutes that Matt Jones has gotten should be going to Andre. I believe Matt is the worse shooter on the team. I'm not about to blame the loss on officials but the numbers speak for themselves. It's late in the season gang. It's time for these guys to play like a TEAM and not like a bunch of individuals. And for that Virginia TEAM, congratulations on winning the ACC Championship and the Regular Season Championship as well. They have a heckuva Coach. GoDuke!It seems to me that this late in the season players would be fiercely boxing out when a shot goes up. If an offensive player is able to go straight up to grab a rebound and then go straight up again to put the ball in, obviously no one had a body on him.

[ncexnyc]

A really great championship game, which was hotly contested by both teams. Unfortunately we came up a bit short in the end.

Rasheed has been getting a little testy with the refs lately and today he just lost it. He did try to draw the foul at the end with the leg kick and when the ref didn't buy it, that was the straw that broke the camel's back, as it came shortly after Brogden used his elbow to get around Rasheed for a layup.

Jabari was a beast, but even he seemed to run out of gas down the stretch.

Rodney seemed tired, as his shot kept coming up short most of the game. He continues to miss his boxing out assignment and it cost us several times yesterday.

Quinn has been steady as of late and I too wonder if he's earned his starting spot back.

Andre seemed on, but as usual he gives with one hand and gives away with the other. Will Coach K realize Andre's offensive firepower clearly outweighs his defensive lapses.

Marshall played well, but if his minutes are going to be limited we need to find a way to keep our other players fresh and out of foul trouble.

Amile, isn't the biggest or strongest of our frontcourt players, but he leaves it all out there. I really, really wish he look for his shot more than he does. I believe he has the handle necessary to blow by the stiffs that are guarding him.

Congratulations to UVA, they played hard and smart and executed when they needed too.

[CBecker]

It was a great game for the most part, and Virginia totally deserved the win. They were far more physical, and deserved nearly all the calls they got. There was a stretch in the 2nd half where Duke didn't even look like getting a defensive rebound, and if they weren't getting an offensive board, they were getting an easy layup, usually off a cut to the bucket.
Their coaching and chemistry seems far better than Duke's. Too many terrible Hood and Parker 1on1 isos.
Cook got 30 minutes tonight, and I think he needs to continue to get those minutes if Duke are going to do anything this NCAA tourney, the ball just doesn't move as well without him in there.

[JPtheGame]

It was a great game for the most part, and Virginia totally deserved the win. They were far more physical, and deserved nearly all the calls they got. There was a stretch in the 2nd half where Duke didn't even look like getting a defensive rebound, and if they weren't getting an offensive board, they were getting an easy layup, usually off a cut to the bucket.
Their coaching and chemistry seems far better than Duke's. Too many terrible Hood and Parker 1on1 isos.
Cook got 30 minutes tonight, and I think he needs to continue to get those minutes if Duke are going to do anything this NCAA tourney, the ball just doesn't move as well without him in there.

Very much agree on Cook, very much disagree on Hood and Parker. Those may be two of the best isolation players in college right now so they can go one on one all day. In fact, i think that Hood and Parker being successful in isolation is Duke's key to a long tourney life. One caveat, those iso's have to be moving towards the bucket for Parker and towards space for Hood.

[sporthenry]

They were far more physical, and deserved nearly all the calls they got.

This makes no sense to me. How can you be more physical, yet get called for half the fouls? Especially in an environment where physical play is supposed to be a point of emphasis?

[daveduke76]

Listening live to radio...

What radio station were you listening to?

[Dr. Rosenrosen]

What radio station were you listening to?
In the triangle, 102.9FM

[CBecker]

This makes no sense to me. How can you be more physical, yet get called for half the fouls? Especially in an environment where physical play is supposed to be a point of emphasis?

Well I was referring to the foul shots they attempted. if you're aggressive going for the boards and attacking the basket like they were, they are going to get calls. It didn't look suspicious in any way to me, I felt the fouls were there. The fact that Duke only got 11 shots despite of how aggressive Parker in particular was, in driving to the basket, is another issue though.

[CBecker]

Very much agree on Cook, very much disagree on Hood and Parker. Those may be two of the best isolation players in college right now so they can go one on one all day. In fact, i think that Hood and Parker being successful in isolation is Duke's key to a long tourney life. One caveat, those iso's have to be moving towards the bucket for Parker and towards space for Hood.

Yes, they are. But I don't like the offense being exclusively them going 1on1 ( or 1on4) whilst everyone else just stands around and watches, it often lead to a poor shot against the disciplined defense that Virginia has. I felt Virginia just had far better offense and execution.
I agree that Parker's shots need to be going to the basket, he can shoot but I don't really like his pull up long twos at all.

[dukepsy1963]

Is it me or does anyone notice some "over the top" behavior by K? Maybe it's just the TV coverage? But am I alone in perceiving that K seems unusually angry and demonstrative lately? Or merely "super" frustrated by some of the team's recent efforts? Or by some especially dubious calls by the referees (I seldom blame losses on officiating and am not here)?
Anyone?

Go Duke!

[Matches]

Well I was referring to the foul shots they attempted. if you're aggressive going for the boards and attacking the basket like they were, they are going to get calls. It didn't look suspicious in any way to me, I felt the fouls were there. The fact that Duke only got 11 shots despite of how aggressive Parker in particular was, in driving to the basket, is another issue though.

Jabari gets mugged in the paint pretty regularly, should probably get more calls than he does.

The reason we get CALLED for so many fouls, though, is because we foul a lot. Our guys are late very frequently on help defense, and that causes them to get called for fouls. We also tend to reach a lot when guys get by us. Not sure there's a great solution to this at this point - this is not a particularly good defensive team. We have improved but it's still not a strength.

[ice-9]

Is it me or does anyone notice some "over the top" behavior by K? Maybe it's just the TV coverage? But am I alone in perceiving that K seems unusually angry and demonstrative lately? Or merely "super" frustrated by some of the team's recent efforts? Or by some especially dubious calls by the referees (I seldom blame losses on officiating and am not here)?
Anyone?

Go Duke!


I noticed it, and my take is that Coach K was trying to give the passion, energy and intensity he must feel this team needs.

[tendev]

Clearly the refs called more fouls on Duke and UVa therefore shot more FTs. A lot more in this case. The question is why? Unless you believe that the refs consciously make calls in favor of the other team, I don't see the point in complaining about the disparity in calls. The only good reason to complain about refereeing in general is one which suggests a nefarious motive on their part. While refs clearly miss calls from time to time and call games in certain ways, I don't believe they favor teams. It seems to me that UVa's style of defense limits fouls. They move their feet very well and keep their opponents in front of them. Their low post guys, such as Akil Mitchell, are strong, active and able. Their guards make it hard to get the ball inside.

A lot of the calls that went against us were fouls that came when we were out of position, reaching to knock the ball out of an offensive player's hands when they were in good scoring position. Or when they got an offensive rebound. Gill shot 17 FTs yesterday, many for this reason.

On the offensive side, their guards get the ball inside to their bigs in good scoring position. Then we have no choice but to foul to stop an easy bucket. That happened quite often yesterday. On the other hand our bigs have to maneuver their way into the paint. And when Jabari takes the ball inside, he often initiates the contact by elevating into the defender. There is nothing wrong with that but you can't call a foul on the defender for maintaining verticality while the offensive player jumps towards you as he goes up to the basket. That is a no call.

The foregoing adds up to more fouls being called against us, particularly yesterday. Duke tries to do this every year but we don't have the skill set to make that happen this year. UVa is a damned good team. They play a better brand of Duke basketball then Duke's current team plays it.

[Troublemaker]

Is it me or does anyone notice some "over the top" behavior by K? Maybe it's just the TV coverage? But am I alone in perceiving that K seems unusually angry and demonstrative lately? Or merely "super" frustrated by some of the team's recent efforts? Or by some especially dubious calls by the referees (I seldom blame losses on officiating and am not here)?
Anyone?

Go Duke!

I think this goes back to that article BillyDat posted about how this Duke team needs hard coaching. So our coaches are going to be angry and yell a bit more than usual down the stretch of this season.

Listening to the "Duke Basketball Report" on GoDuke.com this morning, Coach K said he was very proud of the fight this team showed in Greensboro and that he felt we got better over the course of the tournament. He sounded upbeat heading into the NCAAs; hopefully, it's not just a positive mindset overlaying doubts.

Coach mentioned that the players were crying in the locker room after the loss to UVA. They really, really wanted to win the ACC Championship. Probably to the point where they nervously missed a few shots inside that they would usually finish. I'm thinking of Rodney especially here. Controlling your emotions in big games is a very important lesson to experience. Hopefully, next time, our guys will finish their easy shots better.

I hope our guys can make the Final Four. They've been a pleasure to watch on Duke Blue Planet and in games all season long. They genuinely like and care for each other and exhibit great personal chemistry. I just hope they can improve the basketball chemistry a bit so that the team starts to click at 100% in the Big Dance.

[Wheat/"/"/"]

Clearly the refs called more fouls on Duke and UVa therefore shot more FTs. A lot more in this case. The question is why? Unless you believe that the refs consciously make calls in favor of the other team, I don't see the point in complaining about the disparity in calls. The only good reason to complain about refereeing in general is one which suggests a nefarious motive on their part. While refs clearly miss calls from time to time and call games in certain ways, I don't believe they favor teams. It seems to me that UVa's style of defense limits fouls. They move their feet very well and keep their opponents in front of them. Their low post guys, such as Akil Mitchell, are strong, active and able. Their guards make it hard to get the ball inside.

A lot of the calls that went against us were fouls that came when we were out of position, reaching to knock the ball out of an offensive player's hands when they were in good scoring position. Or when they got an offensive rebound. Gill shot 17 FTs yesterday, many for this reason.

On the offensive side, their guards get the ball inside to their bigs in good scoring position. Then we have no choice but to foul to stop an easy bucket. That happened quite often yesterday. On the other hand our bigs have to maneuver their way into the paint. And when Jabari takes the ball inside, he often initiates the contact by elevating into the defender. There is nothing wrong with that but you can't call a foul on the defender for maintaining verticality while the offensive player jumps towards you as he goes up to the basket. That is a no call.

The foregoing adds up to more fouls being called against us, particularly yesterday. Duke tries to do this every year but we don't have the skill set to make that happen this year. UVa is a damned good team. They play a better brand of Duke basketball then Duke's current team plays it.


On the money.

[sporthenry]

Clearly the refs called more fouls on Duke and UVa therefore shot more FTs. A lot more in this case. The question is why? Unless you believe that the refs consciously make calls in favor of the other team, I don't see the point in complaining about the disparity in calls. The only good reason to complain about refereeing in general is one which suggests a nefarious motive on their part. While refs clearly miss calls from time to time and call games in certain ways, I don't believe they favor teams. It seems to me that UVa's style of defense limits fouls. They move their feet very well and keep their opponents in front of them. Their low post guys, such as Akil Mitchell, are strong, active and able. Their guards make it hard to get the ball inside.

A lot of the calls that went against us were fouls that came when we were out of position, reaching to knock the ball out of an offensive player's hands when they were in good scoring position. Or when they got an offensive rebound. Gill shot 17 FTs yesterday, many for this reason.

On the offensive side, their guards get the ball inside to their bigs in good scoring position. Then we have no choice but to foul to stop an easy bucket. That happened quite often yesterday. On the other hand our bigs have to maneuver their way into the paint. And when Jabari takes the ball inside, he often initiates the contact by elevating into the defender. There is nothing wrong with that but you can't call a foul on the defender for maintaining verticality while the offensive player jumps towards you as he goes up to the basket. That is a no call.

The foregoing adds up to more fouls being called against us, particularly yesterday. Duke tries to do this every year but we don't have the skill set to make that happen this year. UVa is a damned good team. They play a better brand of Duke basketball then Duke's current team plays it.

Well, the refs don't have to have nefarious reasons to impact a game. In fact, I have never argued that refs have nefarious reasons b/c I've done it. The game happens too fast for you to process what happens, process which team it benefits, and make a call. But that doesn't mean the refs can't have an impact on the game.

Yes, much of this can be boiled down to the fact that UVA is rarely out of position while Duke is often out of position. This has the tendency to magnify fouls (or give you the ref's preemptive foul call) against Duke while giving UVA the benefit of the doubt. I.e. if you are beat and reach in, it is almost an automatic foul while if you are in front of someone and reach in, they are less likely to call it even if the two plays have identical contact. But that doesn't mean fouls didn't occur.

And any time you have a nearly 2-1 discrepancy, I think it is fair to bring it up. You mention UVA being aggressive, Duke was equally aggressive. You correctly pointed out that quite a few of Duke's fouls came after offensive rebounds. Well guess what, Duke had more offensive rebounds. Duke shot 14 3's to UVA's 12. There was not a 2-1 discrepancy in UVA attacking the rim.

Likewise, you mention that Jabari tries to draw contact. Well what did UVA do? There were multiple times when they just jumped into Amile and got fouls called.

The point is, the refs played right into UVA's hands yesterday. Refs are part of the game and they can have an influence on the outcome of the game. But if you think Jabari Parker takes 21 shots from inside the arc and was only fouled twice while Anthony Gill takes 14 and was fouled 8 times, then I don't know what to tell you.

[Mtn.Devil.91.92.01.10.15]

Clearly the refs called more fouls on Duke and UVa therefore shot more FTs. A lot more in this case. The question is why? Unless you believe that the refs consciously make calls in favor of the other team, I don't see the point in complaining about the disparity in calls. The only good reason to complain about refereeing in general is one which suggests a nefarious motive on their part. While refs clearly miss calls from time to time and call games in certain ways, I don't believe they favor teams. It seems to me that UVa's style of defense limits fouls. They move their feet very well and keep their opponents in front of them. Their low post guys, such as Akil Mitchell, are strong, active and able. Their guards make it hard to get the ball inside.

A lot of the calls that went against us were fouls that came when we were out of position, reaching to knock the ball out of an offensive player's hands when they were in good scoring position. Or when they got an offensive rebound. Gill shot 17 FTs yesterday, many for this reason.

On the offensive side, their guards get the ball inside to their bigs in good scoring position. Then we have no choice but to foul to stop an easy bucket. That happened quite often yesterday. On the other hand our bigs have to maneuver their way into the paint. And when Jabari takes the ball inside, he often initiates the contact by elevating into the defender. There is nothing wrong with that but you can't call a foul on the defender for maintaining verticality while the offensive player jumps towards you as he goes up to the basket. That is a no call.

The foregoing adds up to more fouls being called against us, particularly yesterday. Duke tries to do this every year but we don't have the skill set to make that happen this year. UVa is a damned good team. They play a better brand of Duke basketball then Duke's current team plays it.

I agree 100%. I started a (now locked) thread that pointed out the fallacy of complaining about refs.

Duke got called for a ton of fouls for three different reasons:

1) We STILL have not adjusted to the new rules and interpretations of rules for this year. Charges and close defense were a staple of Duke defense for the last 20 some-odd years. You can't just adjust to that overnight as a team and a coaching staff. I predict massive improvements next year.

2) We flat out aren't very good at defense. Our guys get into position too slowly. When you can't get your feet in front of your mark, you make up for it by playing defense from behind (usually a foul), reaching in (almost always a foul), and swatting up high with your arms (aka "MP3ing). It doesn't mean that the referees hate you or are biased against you, but rather that you are trying to make up for deficiencies in playing defense against quick players.

3) We were frustrated by UVa's defense and tried to make up for it on our own defensive end.

Does no one else recognize the irony of pointing to fouls as free throws as evidence of imbalanced refereeing when Duke has been on the opposite end of the ledger for most of the last 15-20 years?

UVa forced Duke into positions where we fouled to catch up. Congrats to them. The deserved the championship and I salute them.

And yes, there were a few questionable calls, just like in every game.

[Kfanarmy]

Clearly the refs called more fouls on Duke and UVa therefore shot more FTs. A lot more in this case. The question is why? Unless you believe that the refs consciously make calls in favor of the other team, I don't see the point in complaining about the disparity in calls. The only good reason to complain about refereeing in general is one which suggests a nefarious motive on their part. While refs clearly miss calls from time to time and call games in certain ways, I don't believe they favor teams. It seems to me that UVa's style of defense limits fouls. They move their feet very well and keep their opponents in front of them. Their low post guys, such as Akil Mitchell, are strong, active and able. Their guards make it hard to get the ball inside.

A lot of the calls that went against us were fouls that came when we were out of position, reaching to knock the ball out of an offensive player's hands when they were in good scoring position. Or when they got an offensive rebound. Gill shot 17 FTs yesterday, many for this reason.

On the offensive side, their guards get the ball inside to their bigs in good scoring position. Then we have no choice but to foul to stop an easy bucket. That happened quite often yesterday. On the other hand our bigs have to maneuver their way into the paint. And when Jabari takes the ball inside, he often initiates the contact by elevating into the defender. There is nothing wrong with that but you can't call a foul on the defender for maintaining verticality while the offensive player jumps towards you as he goes up to the basket. That is a no call.

The foregoing adds up to more fouls being called against us, particularly yesterday. Duke tries to do this every year but we don't have the skill set to make that happen this year. UVa is a damned good team. They play a better brand of Duke basketball then Duke's current team plays it.

I completely agree with your analysis of Duke's fouls, but disagree with the assertion that fans, and coaches for that matter, shouldn't point out when the officiating, calls and no calls, clearly favors one team by allowing the common fouls committed by one to go unchecked while consistently calling common fouls against the other team, regardless if it is the result of conscious (nefarious), subconscious (gee wouldn't it be nice if...), or incompetent thought. When the disparity gets out of hand, and they do know when they are calling significantly more fouls on one team than another, the officials should check themselves. I think if they went back and watched the game, most officials would recognize they missed a ton of fouls against UVA: body checking the shooter and hand checking the ball handler consistently everywhere on the floor. There was one sequence early in the 2nd half where a Duke player was dribbling at the top of the three point arc and it looked like his arm was slapped on three successive dribbles...I just don't see how an official misses that, even if he's not predisposed to calling it (not one of the things he consistently calls). That behavior has a specific impact over the life of the game on the opposing team's ball handlers, making them hesitant to drive, making the ball harder to handle and making quick passes much more difficult to initiate, or how "their guards make it hard to get the ball inside." If I were the coaching staff, I'd probably have someone spend some time over the summer, making darn sure officials understand how UVA is using uncalled fouls to enhance their defense.

I think Duke, could and should have won this game. And while I also agree that most of Duke's fouls were caused by poor positioning, I don't think they should be required to play a clean game while the opponent is allowed to commit an entirely different set of fouls at will. UVA uses hand checks and pushes to prevent opponents from dissecting their defense. While some disparity in officiating game-to-game should be expected, IMO what that crew did was not good officiating because it had a direct impact on the outcome of the game based on the style of the two teams involved. I believe they will run into an officiating crew, say from the PAC-12, that calls those fouls and they'll be done in the tourney.

[MCFinARL]

Very much agree on Cook, very much disagree on Hood and Parker. Those may be two of the best isolation players in college right now so they can go one on one all day. In fact, i think that Hood and Parker being successful in isolation is Duke's key to a long tourney life. One caveat, those iso's have to be moving towards the bucket for Parker and towards space for Hood.

Also, the rest of the team has to be orienting itself to what they are doing--anticipating and moving to get rebounds or passes if necessary instead of watching Parker or Hood play.

[Kfanarmy]

Also, the rest of the team has to be orienting itself to what they are doing--anticipating and moving to get rebounds or passes if necessary instead of watching Parker or Hood play. Absolutely...RH and JP can decimate a team's defense if others are a threat...but not if the other three players are standing flat footed watching.

[tendev]

I completely agree with your analysis of Duke's fouls, but disagree with the assertion that fans, and coaches for that matter, shouldn't point out when the officiating, calls and no calls, clearly favors one team by allowing the common fouls committed by one to go unchecked while consistently calling common fouls against the other team, regardless if it is the result of conscious (nefarious), subconscious (gee wouldn't it be nice if...), or incompetent thought. When the disparity gets out of hand, and they do know when they are calling significantly more fouls on one team than another, the officials should check themselves. I think if they went back and watched the game, most officials would recognize they missed a ton of fouls against UVA: body checking the shooter and hand checking the ball handler consistently everywhere on the floor. There was one sequence early in the 2nd half where a Duke player was dribbling at the top of the three point arc and it looked like his arm was slapped on three successive dribbles...I just don't see how an official misses that, even if he's not predisposed to calling it (not one of the things he consistently calls). That behavior has a specific impact over the life of the game on the opposing team's ball handlers, making them hesitant to drive, making the ball harder to handle and making quick passes much more difficult to initiate, or how "their guards make it hard to get the ball inside." If I were the coaching staff, I'd probably have someone spend some time over the summer, making darn sure officials understand how UVA is using uncalled fouls to enhance their defense.

I think Duke, could and should have won this game. And while I also agree that most of Duke's fouls were caused by poor positioning, I don't think they should be required to play a clean game while the opponent is allowed to commit an entirely different set of fouls at will. UVA uses hand checks and pushes to prevent opponents from dissecting their defense. While some disparity in officiating game-to-game should be expected, IMO what that crew did was not good officiating because it had a direct impact on the outcome of the game based on the style of the two teams involved. I believe they will run into an officiating crew, say from the PAC-12, that calls those fouls and they'll be done in the tourney.

I am not commenting on what a coach should do if he thinks the refs missed a call. I know what they do; they complain, but I am not sure it helps all that much other than get it off their chest. When coaches complain to the refs I think it is more a natural, human, competitive reaction. But I strongly suspect that it usually occurs when the game is tight or they are losing. Same thing with technical fouls. Coaches don't get them when they are up. As for disparities I don't think they arise because refs are consistently missing calls consciously or subconsciously in favor or one team or another.

After the game is over, however, it is time to try to be more objective and that is what I am commenting on. It is just typical for the losing team's fans to complain about the refs in order to rationalize the loss. You can say that all we are doing is simply pointing out the fact of a disparity, but the always implicit message of complaining about the refs is that we would have won this game if not for the unfairness of the refs. I don't like it when I hear fans of other teams do it when Duke wins so I don't like it when our fans do it when the other team wins.

[vick]

I completely agree with your analysis of Duke's fouls, but disagree with the assertion that fans, and coaches for that matter, shouldn't point out when the officiating, calls and no calls, clearly favors one team by allowing the common fouls committed by one to go unchecked while consistently calling common fouls against the other team, regardless if it is the result of conscious (nefarious), subconscious (gee wouldn't it be nice if...), or incompetent thought. When the disparity gets out of hand, and they do know when they are calling significantly more fouls on one team than another, the officials should check themselves.

I disagree with pretty much all of this. If anything, I think the available evidence suggests that referees balance out the foul counts too much (likely not deliberately). Furthermore, the problem is that fans never seem to find an example of a foul discrepancy "clearly favoring" their own team. Put differently, until someone can point to a mirror thread of this after a Duke win saying "boy sure got a ton of calls in our favor that game," then either there's a nefarious anti-Duke conspiracy among the referees, or we aren't very good at analyzing basketball.

[Kfanarmy]

I disagree with pretty much all of this. If anything, I think the available evidence suggests that referees balance out the foul counts too much (likely not deliberately). Furthermore, the problem is that fans never seem to find an example of a foul discrepancy "clearly favoring" their own team. Put differently, until someone can point to a mirror thread of this after a Duke win saying "boy sure got a ton of calls in our favor that game," then either there's a nefarious anti-Duke conspiracy among the referees, or we aren't very good at analyzing basketball.

Sorry, I try to write with precision, so am not sure I said anything about conspiracy, nor did I say the officials should "balance" foul counts. They should however "check themselves" to make sure they aren't unintentionally providing one team and unearned advantage...that they are calling all of the fouls, by type and number. Calling one type and not another is bound to favor one team over the other at some point. Professional officials should recognize and be wary of that impact.

I wouldn't expect a thread entitled, "boy we sure got all the calls" by any "fan" base. The lack, or presence, of one is not an indicator of expertise, rather it is evidence of why we're called "fans" of a specific team. On the other hand, I've seen several games where the other fan base was certainly justified in complaining...though I'm not inclined to complain with them. :p

[tux]

I agree 100%. I started a (now locked) thread that pointed out the fallacy of complaining about refs.

Duke got called for a ton of fouls for three different reasons:

1) We STILL have not adjusted to the new rules and interpretations of rules for this year. Charges and close defense were a staple of Duke defense for the last 20 some-odd years. You can't just adjust to that overnight as a team and a coaching staff. I predict massive improvements next year.

2) We flat out aren't very good at defense. Our guys get into position too slowly. When you can't get your feet in front of your mark, you make up for it by playing defense from behind (usually a foul), reaching in (almost always a foul), and swatting up high with your arms (aka "MP3ing). It doesn't mean that the referees hate you or are biased against you, but rather that you are trying to make up for deficiencies in playing defense against quick players.

3) We were frustrated by UVa's defense and tried to make up for it on our own defensive end.

Does no one else recognize the irony of pointing to fouls as free throws as evidence of imbalanced refereeing when Duke has been on the opposite end of the ledger for most of the last 15-20 years?

UVa forced Duke into positions where we fouled to catch up. Congrats to them. The deserved the championship and I salute them.

And yes, there were a few questionable calls, just like in every game.


I think more than the rules changes, the issue is an increased ability of opposing coaches to attack our pressure defense. The fact that very few charges are being called (and perimeter contact is getting whistled more) just adds to Duke's misery. I guess you guys think that several years of Duke "not being able to stop dribble penetration" is only due to personnel? (We just need a more elite PG who can move his feet faster...) Well, I think that's like 20% of what's going on here. Teams are dropping their sets, spreading us, and driving. I don't have the stats in front me, but on several occasions teams have had almost record games (or at least halves) against Duke's D. I.e., there's no doubt this young team could play K's style of defense better, but it's the defensive scheme that's putting this team in a difficult position.

[CBecker]

Clearly the refs called more fouls on Duke and UVa therefore shot more FTs. A lot more in this case. The question is why? Unless you believe that the refs consciously make calls in favor of the other team, I don't see the point in complaining about the disparity in calls. The only good reason to complain about refereeing in general is one which suggests a nefarious motive on their part. While refs clearly miss calls from time to time and call games in certain ways, I don't believe they favor teams. It seems to me that UVa's style of defense limits fouls. They move their feet very well and keep their opponents in front of them. Their low post guys, such as Akil Mitchell, are strong, active and able. Their guards make it hard to get the ball inside.

A lot of the calls that went against us were fouls that came when we were out of position, reaching to knock the ball out of an offensive player's hands when they were in good scoring position. Or when they got an offensive rebound. Gill shot 17 FTs yesterday, many for this reason.

On the offensive side, their guards get the ball inside to their bigs in good scoring position. Then we have no choice but to foul to stop an easy bucket. That happened quite often yesterday. On the other hand our bigs have to maneuver their way into the paint. And when Jabari takes the ball inside, he often initiates the contact by elevating into the defender. There is nothing wrong with that but you can't call a foul on the defender for maintaining verticality while the offensive player jumps towards you as he goes up to the basket. That is a no call.

The foregoing adds up to more fouls being called against us, particularly yesterday. Duke tries to do this every year but we don't have the skill set to make that happen this year. UVa is a damned good team. They play a better brand of Duke basketball then Duke's current team plays it.
A really well written analysis, wish I could've been that clear. They're just a well oiled machine on both ends.

I still think Jabari sometimes gets hacked pretty badly, even if he is initiating the contact.

[Mal]

I think one can agree with both sporthenry's and Mountain Devil's last posts here. It's all frustrating as a fan, especially when we've become so accustomed to winning through defense and out-FT'ing our opponents. Can it not be the case that both points of view are valid/correct here? 1. This team doesn't play very good defense - our ability to stop penetration from the perimeter is not very strong, and while in the past we've been able to rely on superior rotation and help defense to funnel driving players into traps down low or intercepted passes across the lane when we haven't had great lockdown guard defense, we just don't do this well this season. One guy may rotate over, but the second one is rarely there. 2. The new reff'ing emphasis on limiting perimeter contact is something (a) we haven't yet fully adjusted to, and (b) isn't great for our current personnel. Kyrie Irving would have shot five thousand free throws this year, but Quinn Cook is not Kyrie Irving. I think, as Mountain Devil asserts, that the coaching staff and our player selection probably adjust to this over time and we play to the new style more and more as time goes on. In the meantime, it is hard to watch, and likely there's some subconscious desire by officiating crews to not overdo the new emphasis and call a billion fouls, so there may be some leniency on the interior play so as not to stop the game every two seconds. That doesn't help a guy like Parker. While I understand the assertion that he may jump into defenders some, it is difficult to argue with the oddity of a 6' 8" guy who gets 15 shots/gm. and touches the ball every possession averaging just 6 FT's a game (2 of which are probably accounted for by late game, clock slowing foul situations), and just 3 yesterday when he took 24 shots, only 4 of them from behind the arc. It's tough to believe he just jumps into offensive players significantly more than others with his size and skill set.

In any event, 90% of the posters in this thread have conceded that UVa was the better team yesterday and throughout the season, and have congratulated them on fully earning both their regular season and conference champion wins. They play team defense, they move their feet, they're patient on offense to the point of never settling early in the shot clock for something they could get later, they're well-coached, and they play hard for each other. Compliments to them. Discussing some frustration with the fashion in which the game seemed to be officiated yesterday on top of that doesn't mean we're I/C over here. Had the 'Hoos made better use of their trips to the line yesterday, they would have easily won by 15 and the game would never have been in doubt. I think it's difficult to aver that, however solid they are and well they played, that they put forth an effort (or that we put forth an effort) that would justly produce a 15 point margin and a snoozer of a game yesterday.

Whoever said upthread that our guys need to get a better ROI on their fouls is spot-on, too. The number of and-1's given up, or worthless hand checks up top, has got to stop.

I'd love to see this team play more of a pack it in, dare you to shoot 3's because we're in rebounding position and we're gonna run style. I just don't think we've got the guards to do it. At this point, we are who we are, and we need to hope that we can ride the Superman style that often works well in the NCAA tournament as far as we can. Not like it hasn't been done successfully before. Balance and a third offensive option and teamwork more often win it all, but Danny Manning Glen Rice Carmelo Anthony Kemba Walker. Don't bother describing the ways those squads are somewhat different from this one - they were all 3 seeds.

[TNTDevil]

Wow, didn't expect this Terping on here at all.


I haven't commented on the officiating all year, nor have I in this thread, but I don't think what is happening here is Terping. I mean, the free throw discrepancy was 38-11. 38-11. When have you ever seen that? It doesn't happen often. And when it does, I think it is perfectly normal to notice it and discuss it.

Funny. I thought "Terping" was complaining when the foul/FT disparity was 26-24/27-21?

Now it appears that the definition has morphed into making any mention of the officiating.

And as for the "Live by the jump-shot, die by the jump-shot" trope. That is definitely true for Duke in some games but, I don't think it holds water here. As even K mentioned, JP took 25 shots, a good many driving to the rim, and was only fouled twice. Hell, Mr. Featherston's article even points out how incensed K was about the officiating (was he "Terping"?).

So, what was the team to do? Continue driving and, in effect, turning the ball over? They chose the other option which is to shoot the jumper.

My wife is a UVa grad, so we didn't sulk too much around here. UVa is a good team (I got to see the first UVa/Duke match-up in Cameron) and is a worthy champion. I thought the team improved during this tournament and, even with the disadvantages dealt to Duke by the officiating, stayed in the final game 'til the end.

Next play.

[Matches]

In general I do not like complaining about officiating and I try not to do it. I actually thought yesterday's game was well-officiated other than the BS T on K.

But to be fair to those doing the complaining - can you imagine if the FT discrepancy was 38-11 in our favor? It would be the lead story on SportsCenter and the SBI probably would be appointing a special prosecutor by now. Even some of the news stories about this are poking fun at the notion of *Duke* fans complaining about officiating, as if it's a given that normally we are the beneficiaries of bad reffing.

It's a bit grating to be on the bad end of a 38-11 discrepancy and STILL have to hear how we "get all the calls."

[tendev]

In general I do not like complaining about officiating and I try not to do it. I actually thought yesterday's game was well-officiated other than the BS T on K.

But to be fair to those doing the complaining - can you imagine if the FT discrepancy was 38-11 in our favor? It would be the lead story on SportsCenter and the SBI probably would be appointing a special prosecutor by now. Even some of the news stories about this are poking fun at the notion of *Duke* fans complaining about officiating, as if it's a given that normally we are the beneficiaries of bad reffing.

It's a bit grating to be on the bad end of a 38-11 discrepancy and STILL have to hear how we "get all the calls."

More than a bit grating. I agree.

[dyedwab]

More than a bit grating. I agree.

Coack K agrees

http://www.cbssports.com/collegebasketball/eye-on-college-basketball/24488880/coach-k-people-saying-duke-gets-all-the-calls-is-old-stuff


"It's like old stuff... We're not a state school so you don't have a press corps protecting you, you know what I mean? You're out there. That goes with the territory. Not only that, but announcers and talk shows and whatever. They will not say anything about yesterday's game... Obviously, there were 38 free throws to 11. There were things that, if you're trying to homer for somebody, you could homer. We don't get that at all. Ever. So that does get old"

[bbosbbos]

Already plenty of arguments about refs. But I still want to say, uva is good, but we are better than them. When ref gave K that T and Parker got hammered every time without call, I thought the game was over. We did fouled them very often. Some calls were we pushing uva by fingers or just touching them. When uva blocked our rim attack, they grabbed our hands or hammered our arms. Watch the game again, we can find many many times of this. I do not understand why refs do this. I do not want to guess the reason either. But I know our Duke is better team. I am very proud of our guys.

This also reminds me of the L'ville game last year. Russ Smith and Siva played KongFu without being called. There was no way we could win under that situation. Therefore I refuse to admit L'ville was 2013 Champ. They simply stole it from us or WSU or UM.

[killerleft]

The way K handled the last (dumb) question was classic, and appropriate.

"Should I tell Roy that the two of us should keep losing?" [to broaden the appeal/respect of ACC basketball, by "allowing" other teams to win the ACCT]

That said, I have to question his assertion that he would be allowed to do a handstand, throw a clipboard, do a tumble, etc., on the sidelines so long as it wasn't in response to something the refs said. Can he really do anything? And how can you tell it's not in response to what the refs said? How is the ref to know what is in his mind, driving the response? He turned around after conferring with the ref and threw his marker. Perhaps if he waited a few seconds it would have been officiated differently, because it could have been interpreted as reacting to something else? Maybe if he said to an assistant, "Hit me with some stats!" and then threw the marker, he'd be OK.

I don't know how, but evidently the ref thinks he did know, you know? I think he just assumed. So easy to let it go, but the controller couldn't resist the chance to control.

[bbosbbos]

So refs "assumed" Parker was a steel monster, hammering him was ok. Meanwhile refs "assumed" we were bad guys, we were always guilty.

The foul difference is so huge that I could not get it out of my head even 24 hrs after the game.


I don't know how, but evidently the ref thinks he did know, you know? I think he just assumed. So easy to let it go, but the controller couldn't resist the chance to control.

[bwl5]

Was at the game yesterday (nosebleed seats), and while I think Marshall helped on the defensive end, he just didnt seem to be in the flow on the offensive end. All he seems to do is go out to the perimeter and tries to set screens and then runs back to try to get the offensive rebound. Its just like our guys are playing 4 on 5 on the offense when he is in the game He just doesnt seem to be an offensive threat and that enabled Virginia to double team our scorers.

[killerleft]

So refs "assumed" Parker was a steel monster, hammering him was ok. Meanwhile refs "assumed" we were bad guys, we were always guilty.

The foul difference is so huge that I could not get it out of my head even 24 hrs after the game.

I was only commenting on the technical foul. We may have gotten hosed overall, maybe not. But until Tyler jumped in the air and then airmailed that pass out of bounds, we were in a position to win. And I'm not trying to diss Tyler. It just turned out to be very bad timing, because Virginia was waiting to pounce, and they did.

Virginia just won it. They made the plays. Not their fault if the refs were bad. The Joe Harris three was an absolute dagger. These are the plays Duke fans have become used to seeing. VA made them yesterday. Duke did not.

[Billy Dat]

My family tends to leave the house when a big Duke game is on. The kids are too young and get scared at my yelling, and my wife just doesn't understand (sigh). Yesterday, around 4PM, she saw me rubbing my arm strangely and asked what was the matter. Against my better judgement, I confessed, "My arms hurt from punching the couch."


Every time it seemed we were going to get a crucial stop, Mitchell or Gill got a rebound and stick back.


Good game. We were right there until a bad sequence around the 4 minute mark.


I will say that I thought a big point in the game came with about 12 minutes to go. We had been playing from behind all day, and Andre hit a 3 to finally tie it. Quinn got a steal and led the break, Andre fanned out for another 3, great look, just went in and out. They run down with it and Harris buried a 3. Instead of being up 3, we were down 3 -- big six point swing. I know there was still a lot of ball to be played, and we fought the rest of the way, but had Andre's second straight three gone down, giving us the 3 point lead, I think the emotional impact of that could've been huge, and it could really have changed the course of the game.

The punching-of-couch was definitely in relation to what these posts detail. Despite the foul disparity and the season-long poor D that can lead to foul disparities, we were right there to win this game. Their hot start was extremely important - I didn't see too many posts mentioning it. It's not like our D was bad during that time, but their D was asserting itself. Unfortunately, we let their D get in our head early, especially Rodney, who started oddly altering his shots and generally getting taken out of his game. We took a long time to adjust to their D, but we were sharp by the end of the first half. The sequence Tommy describes was deadly (even though Andre got the ultimate shooters roll on that first three which basically went dead on the back rim and rolled in). From the 6 minute mark to about the 3 minute mark, we failed to secure at least 2 huge defensive boards that led to back breaking baskets, possessions where we could have come down and taken leads and made their offense start to hurry up. But, we didn't. Despite the fouls and our defense, the game turned on those sequences. I know defensive rebounding is part of defense, but that hasn't been our problem this year, the penetration and rotating has been. I was really upset because I thought we failed in areas where we are normally good in those crucial exchanges.


Coach K is going to have to find a way to get this team to share the ball better and work for quality shots, be more patient, not depend so much on Parker and Hood's one one one moves.


Duke, on the other hand, once again exhibited very little purposeful ball movement. There was a lot of 1 on 1 play, and a whole lot of poor shots early in the shot clock. UVA played a much smarter and more fundamentally-sound game of basketball than we did. There's no question in my mind that we have more talent and a higher ceiling than UVA but we continue to do less with more. I mean, I can't tell you how many times a game I watch one of our players overdribbling at the top of the key early in the shot clock, and I just know he's determined to throw some kind of terrible shot come hell or high water. UVA's shot selection and execution was superior to ours all game, and hero ball by our myriad talented players wasn't enough to overcome that.


Parker had a great game but does need to learn how to pass out of the double team. He's skilled enough and strong enough that he can often power through it or shoot the fadeaway jumper over it, but several times today he got caught in a double team and couldn't find the open man. Tyler's critical turnover where he threw the ball into the bench happened because Jabari was basically triple teamed and a guy was wide open on the other side of the court (Cook? Hood? I can't remember). Jabari got the ball to Tyler and Tyler tried to swing the ball over to that side, recognizing the overplay by UVA, but he rushed it.

Jabari, and really the entire team, needs to realize that those double teams are going to come, especially when he's on fire like he was, and maybe run some set plays where he receives the ball and immediately passes it back out to a shooter. And his teammates need to make themselves more available by cutting into open space where he can see them, rather than just standing still and screaming for the ball.

I think you three hit upon something that I have seen for some time. Despite the fact that our offense is very very highly rated, nearly the best in the country according to advanced stats it is not a well oiled machine. The 5 moving parts don't work in ultimate concert. Many is the time you see Amile or Marshall or Jabari or Rodney aimlessly circling the paint trying to figure out where to go and screen while the guard pounds the ball. When Jabari catches, guys don't instinctively know where to cut to provide a release valve that might result in an easy two. I think K has gotten so used to his Team USA offensive savants that he has given our players almost too much freedom, and they haven't gotten quite used to it. I don't think it can be fixed, but luckily most teams don't play UVA level D. However, too many of our plays are telegraphed - bigs catching and not even looking at the hoop, guards looking exactly where they are going to pass, etc. But, mostly its guys not knowing how best to play together - they want to - but it's still a work in progress.


Amile made special plays on offense. How he is not a coequal player on offense with Rasheed, Parker, and Hood, I understand but do not like (like in every meaning of the term). I still think that he will be the best Pro from this group.

grey, I know you believe this with all your heart, and I always appreciate when your passions make me smile. If you are correct, and I don't think you are, we have an even brighter future than I think. I have long felt that Amile could give us more on offense and am glad to see him getting more aggressive.

A few more things:
-I actually like Rasheed's new fire and passion. I don't like Ts, but the kid is coming on like gangbusters. He's not there yet, but I like his mindset.
-Not one post mentioned Harris' berserk fast break 3 with 2 minutes to go and UVA up 4. That was a CRAZY shot. I saw many tweets comparing it to the famous 3 by Northern Iowa's Ali Farokmanesh against Kansas in the Round of 32 in 2010 (sorry Texhawk). Those were Sam Cassell level onions, I am sure Tony Bennett was screaming "NO!" before it went in.
-Did UVA play any zone yesterday. I don't think they did. Considering we have struggled against it all year, even ballsier of them to go exclusively man-to-man all game.

Echoing Mabdul's point above, we do seem to do less with more. What we do is pretty great, but it still feels like we have another gear but I am not sure we'll ever get there as the finish line is near. I can't really remember a Duke team that didn't maximize its potential. This team captivates me for that reason - they are supremely talented good kids who you can tell want it very badly - and that's all we can ask - but they just don't quite play like the fist. Imagine if they did!?!

I hope we can get past this first weekend (I believe we will) to get a chance to perform on that big stage.

[Devilwin]

I don't know what to say, but there was a lot of fire. There were a lot of opportunities left out on the court. Dre saw very little time, even when players were tired and we weren't playing much D. I saw so many possessions where we didn't even box out and I just can't help but to hope that we focus on blocking out. Whether you are big or not, you can do that.

Jabari, for all of his positives could end up with a career that features no titles, if he doesn't win a national championship. Maybe it will make him want to stay, if we don't win a title. Either that or WIN THE FREAKING GAMES FROM HERE ON OUT!

Rumors swirling again about Parker returning next year. Okafor made the comment as well, saying he cannot wait to play with Parker. Wonder if Hood returns as well? If they do, they can mail in the title next year! We'll be a true beast!!!

[Devilwin]

This wasn't a horrible loss. But UVa is better than us. Time to admit that.

I do agree it wasn't a horrible loss. But, I don't agree that they are better than us, at least by not much anyway. The disparity of fouls called was a major factor, to be sure, and I watched a replay, and trust me, although I look at this with dark blue glasses, there were many fouls on UVA that simply were not called. Jabari and Rodney were smacked and slapped on a number of drives, and the whistles were swallowed. That being said, we didn't help our cause with poor shot selection, and missing bunny layups. As the fouls mounted, we couldn't do anything defensively either. And lest we forget, we did beat them at home.
I don't see UVA in the Final Four at all. They were blown out by Tennessee, and lost to Green Bay. Louisville is a four seed, and would beat UVA head to head I think.
We did beat Michigan (by ten) and UCLA outside the conference.
Anyway, time to put this behind us and get ready for Mercer, who is a nice little basketball team, and we best not take them lightly!
GO DUKE!

[NashvilleDevil]

Rumors swirling again about Parker returning next year. Okafor made the comment as well, saying he cannot wait to play with Parker. Wonder if Hood returns as well? If they do, they can mail in the title next year! We'll be a true beast!!!

How about we enjoy what the team does this year first?

[FerryFor50]

Rumors swirling again about Parker returning next year. Okafor made the comment as well, saying he cannot wait to play with Parker. Wonder if Hood returns as well? If they do, they can mail in the title next year! We'll be a true beast!!!

0% chance Hood returns. But Jabari could surprise us...

Agree with others though... we will have plenty of time after the tourny to speculate on this. Let's enjoy the rest of the season first.

[Devilwin]

True enough. But one can dream, can we not.lol
Prediction:
UVA out by Sweet 16...

[JPtheGame]

Rumors swirling again about Parker returning next year. Okafor made the comment as well, saying he cannot wait to play with Parker. Wonder if Hood returns as well? If they do, they can mail in the title next year! We'll be a true beast!!!

I have been on this for awhile. I think Parker comes back and plays 3/4 throughout the year in preparation for what he will be doing in the NBA. I also think it was the deciding factor in Okafor signing up. I do believe Hood is gone but I don't think it changes the outcome. Duke will be dominant next year. I am definitely enjoying this years team but there is nothing wrong with looking to the future as well. Thats why recruiting sights are popular and why espn has their signing day specials.
Besides, this is a free message board so how about everyone talks about what they want to talk about and people who aren't interested can just keep scrolling. It's a buffet folks, just take what you like and move on. No need to comment on the dishes you don't like.

[greybeard]

Billy Dat, the offensive darts, long strides, outstretched arms, not completely omitting to a full go, having reversibility until the last moment, to me is the stuff of genius. I do not like comparisons but James Worthy and Bobby Jones come to mind. I do not think that it will be difficult for him to develop a little jump shot in the lane. He is killing people on these moves, at least a couple every game, and finishes off the glass, which is SAFER in terms of injury and takes the sugar-like hit out of the game, keeps the game and Amile flowing. Right now he is in between. I think he has free reign and at times, the beginning of the last game, K was ran 2 or 3 right at the beginning for him. His footwork let him down by a half a step, he'll take a next step the next time and finish on the far side of the rim on the one he missed, a little hook in front of the basket, but he glides into the middle, and can explode either way, get to the basket in one and a half steps that are like a bolt from the foul line, and has discernment about when to go. The little jump shots, if he goes even closer to the basket, goes in slow motion, experimenting with footwork, bringing the ball to shooting in different ways, different body leans, arcs, backboard or not, playing like a kid making believe he is one of his pro heros and the next and tries to figure out why all of a sudden G got so good going hard right to the foul line, stopping with a short and hard jab second step with his right foot right next to his left which both stops over rotation, you duck your right shoulder in front, which brings the ball up right in the defender's face and between his two outstretched arms, and can either elevate quickly off the jab, bring it up but don't commit to up, the defender commits to up but your momentum is down although the ball stays relatively high and you shoot at your leasure. You play with being Jordon, Kobe, Worthy, whomever.

With his quickness off his feat, ability to move his feet, his vision to find space, his read of the ball in different players hands so key to rebounding, I see him as a terrific offensive rebounder, extraordinarily efficient scorer with a range of options who will be a go to guy, and great defender, defensive rebounder, with the ability to run the court and play all out and under emotional control

Parker I think has trouble with guys bigger than him and does so many things that fool people that I think that he will have the big guys from the pros smashing into him too often for his own good. I think he is a tremendous talent that, unlike many, has the ability to modify his jump shot, make it more economical, less wind up before the pitch, and less of a need to be jumping over people. It will save his body which is CRUcial. With the big guy coming next year, I'd love to see him stay one more year, work like crazy on that mid range game, get a 3 pointer motion more like Bird's (I suspect easy for him to work with his approximation of it until he figures out what about Bird's shot that made it so effortless and repeatable. Less acrobatics, playing perhaps a 3-4 interchangeably with Amile's 3-4. could make his pro ride that much richer. Quality and safety matter. Love for the guy to stay.

By Amile's senior year, look out. And then, as a pro, getting all that one on one, wow.

[Reilly]

... It's a buffet folks, just take what you like and move on. No need to comment on the dishes you don't like.

I'll have a Ribeye done medium, Texas toast, and the jello cup (this is Bonanza, right?).