Kedsy
03-19-2014, 04:10 PM
The NCAA tournament opens with Duke playing Mercer at 12:15pm Friday and one of Massachusetts/Iowa/Tennessee on Sunday. We already have a Duke/Mercer pre-game thread, so I'm going to concentrate on the more global issues, rather than specifics of the particular opponents Duke will face.
So here goes:
1. Health
I hear what people have been saying that it's silly to make "Health" our #1 bullet point in these phase posts, but (a) Duke has dealt with late-season health issues in each of the last three seasons; and (b) I sure as he!! ain't gonna be the guy who jinxes us. So, health is first. Deal with it.
That said, Duke appears relatively healthy right now. I knocked on wood as I typed that.
2. Who bars our path to the Final Four?
In recent NCAA tournaments, Duke has made a bad habit of playing the teams it was supposed to play (for example, last year as a #2 seed we played the #15, the #7, the #3, and the #1, just like the committee drew it up). Unfortunately, that's not good if you want to make the Final Four. In the 29 years since the tournament went to 64 teams, 2-seeds have played a "chalk" path (though not necessarily getting all the way through it) a total of 43 times, and only four (4) of those 2-seeds made the Final Four, a success percentage of 9.3%. A total of 73 2-seeds faced at least one upset winner in the tournament, and 21 of those 2-seeds made the Final Four, a success percentage of 28.8%, meaning 2-seeds have been more than 3x more likely to make the Final Four if they play an upset winner somewhere along the way.
Expanding that stat to 2-, 3-, 4-, and 5- seeds, in the aggregate they've played their expected path 281 times and made the Final Four only nine (9) of those times (3.2%). Those seeds have played at least one upset winner 183 times and made the Final Four 49 of those (26.8%).
If you're interested in the above analysis, I wrote a detailed article on the subject which may be found here (http://bluedevilnation.net/2014/03/path-final-four/).
The idea of playing a lower seed than we're supposed to may be a two-edged sword for Duke in this particular region, however, since according to Pomeroy, both Iowa and Tennessee are better than UMass, and Louisville is better than Wichita State. Still, since Duke hasn't won a "chalk" path since 1992, this may be something worth keeping tabs on.
3. Will Coach K bring back the line changes?
The short answer is probably not. Coach K historically has shortened his rotation in the NCAA tournament (not necessarily counting the first game), and there's no reason to think this year will be different. That said, there are several players whose minutes will be worth monitoring. Foremost among them is Andre Dawkins, but since he currently has his own thread I'm not going to say much about that here. Also, the minutes of Quinn Cook (also has his own thread) and Marshall Plumlee (whose playing time has been discussed ad nauseam this season) are worth watching. And I know there are some people clamoring for more Matt Jones, but it's hard to envision him playing more than token minutes in this tournament.
4. The Point
We have three players who have gotten substantial minutes at point guard. This could be concerning, because at least at Duke it's almost always very clear who our point guard is. The only years I can remember during Coach K's tenure here in which the PG responsibilities blurred were 2012 (an ominous precedent) and maybe 2009 (when we had a late-season changing-of-the-(point)-guard.
All three of this year's PGs bring different strengths to the table. Quinn Cook is the best "pure" PG and seems to run the offense most smoothly. Rasheed Sulaimon has the best slashing ability and is the strongest on-ball defender. Tyler Thornton brings experience and toughness, and rarely makes mistakes, although he doesn't appear to bring the offense to life all that much either.
The ideal would be if one of these guys grabbed the mantle and ran with it, but more likely is we'll see different combinations based on opponent and Coach K's hunches.
5. Shooting
In our first six games this season, Duke shot 55% from the field. We also had really awful defense. Since Coach K was forced to make defensive-minded lineup changes starting with the Alabama game, Duke has shot only 44.5% from the field. Just our three-point shooting was 44.7% in those first six games, and even after the lineup changes we continued to shoot well from three-land for the next 17 games (41.1%). But something seemed to happen against Maryland and since then, in our last ten games, we've only shot 32.1% from the three-mosphere. It would be nice if we can get back up in the 40s for the NCAA tournament.
Interestingly, our downward slide in three-point shooting has been accompanied by an upswing in our two-point shooting. From Alabama to the first Syracuse game we shot 46.8% on two-point shots, and in our last twelve games we've shot 51.2% on two-pointers.
A lot of that increase is due to Jabari Parker making more of his two-pointers. From Alabama to the first Syracuse game he took 30.7% of our team's two-point shots and made 45.3% of them. In our last twelve games he's taken 34.9% of our two-point shots and made 54.1%. However, our other players have also shot better from short range in the last twelve games, going from 47.4% to 49.6%.
Best of both worlds would obviously be to continue shooting well from two while regaining our touch from three and still playing at least a little bit of defense. We'll have to wait and see on that one.
6. Defense
Our D was pretty bad the first six games of the season. After Coach K made the defense-oriented lineup changes against Alabama our D was decent to good all the way through the Virginia Tech game in late February, with just a couple lapses (Notre Dame, Clemson). Starting with the Wake Forest loss on March 5, our defense has once again been somewhat atrocious. It's not clear exactly what's gone wrong the past two weeks, but obviously we have to fix it.
7. Rebounding
In the beginning of the season, a lot of folks fretted about our potential lack of defensive rebounding. For the first 16 games of the season, Duke confounded the fretters, collecting an outstanding 71.3% of available defensive rebounding, which if it had continued would have been by far the best Duke defensive rebounding performance since they started separating offensive and defensive rebounds on the stat sheet. At the same time, however, our offensive rebounding was somewhat anemic (29.8%, the 2nd-worst offensive rebounding performance since they started keeping the stat).
In our 17th game, against Virginia, Coach K instituted what we now call the "line changes," and since that time, our rebounding has reversed. In our last 18 games, we've collected only 65.4% of defensive rebounds, but our offensive rebounding has been a very impressive 39.5%. How concerned should we be about the defensive rebounding decline? How happy about the turnaround on the offensive boards?
Well, for what it's worth the 2nd half rebounding stats are more of a traditional Duke spread. In other words, most Duke teams have been poor at defensive rebounding and good at offensive rebounding. In fact, our 2nd half DR% of 65.4% is better than every Duke team from 1990 to 2006 (except the 2002 team, which managed 65.9%). Presumably, it won't hurt us this year any more than it hurt us in the past.
As far as offensive rebounding goes, the increase could be a good sign. I posted this earlier in the season, but when Duke is really good at offensive rebounding we've had a lot of NCAAT success. Here are the ten best offensive rebounding teams since 1987:
1999: 44.3% (3rd in the country)
1990: 40.9%
2010: 40.6% (6th)
1988: 40.5%
1998: 39.7% (39th)
1992: 39.5%
2004: 39.2% (16th)
1996: 38.3%
1991: 38.0%
1994: 38.0%
Eight of the ten teams on this list made the Final Four (including three of our four national champions). Only one team on the list didn't at least make the Elite Eight. And the 1986 team almost certainly would have been on this list if they'd kept the stat then, so really this covers 9 of our 11 Final Four teams with only one false positive. The fact that our second half offensive rebounding percentage falls right in the middle of this list is obviously no guarantee of success, but it might make us feel at least a little better.
8. Leadership
Much has been made at DBR and elsewhere about Duke lacking a leader. Most Duke teams have at least one senior who is one of our best players and is the obvious choice to lead the team. This season, our seniors are not among our best players and our best players are relatively new to the program.
Is leadership necessary? It sure doesn't hurt. And if we lack it this season it might help explain our seeming inconsistency over the course of the season and our apparent inability to reach our "ceiling."
Does it have to be a senior? I'd say no. The way Jabari took charge of things in the second UNC game, it seemed we were on the right track. And maybe we still are. It's certainly something to watch as the NCAA tournament unfolds.
9. Concentration/Focus and the "fourth quarter"
All season long, Duke has had stretches when we seem to lose concentration or focus. In the beginning of games against poorer opponents, when we jump out to a big lead and, most distressingly, in the last 10 minutes of close games. The "fourth quarter woes" seem to all run from the same script: first the other team scores easily several possessions in a row and at the same time we struggle to get good looks on offense. Then it snowballs into panic on defense and "hero ball" on offense, and before you know it Kansas/Vermont/Arizona/Notre Dame/Clemson/Virginia/UNC/Wake Forest has gone on a big run and either won the game or made it perilously close.
This is the elephant in the room. The one flaw that could end our season in any game. Will it happen again?
Who knows. Presumably this is tied in with the leadership question. The good news is in games where the players knew they had to keep their concentration -- the two Syracuse games, the 2nd UNC game, the ACC championship -- this didn't really happen. We lost the first Syracuse game and the second Virginia game, but not because we let the opponent go on a big run. Hopefully the players know they have to focus every possession from here on in.
10. Bringing it all together
Duke has an extremely deep and talented roster this season. We do a lot of things at a very high level, and even things that aren't our best strengths we've done really well for periods. This question has been asked many times on the board, but can we bring everything together and excel at everything all at once? Will we do it during the NCAA tournament?
I have no idea. The fact that we haven't clicked on all cylinders even once this season would suggest that bringing it all together now is unlikely. That said, if we do manage it, Duke is going to be awfully tough to beat.
So here's hoping. Go Duke!
So here goes:
1. Health
I hear what people have been saying that it's silly to make "Health" our #1 bullet point in these phase posts, but (a) Duke has dealt with late-season health issues in each of the last three seasons; and (b) I sure as he!! ain't gonna be the guy who jinxes us. So, health is first. Deal with it.
That said, Duke appears relatively healthy right now. I knocked on wood as I typed that.
2. Who bars our path to the Final Four?
In recent NCAA tournaments, Duke has made a bad habit of playing the teams it was supposed to play (for example, last year as a #2 seed we played the #15, the #7, the #3, and the #1, just like the committee drew it up). Unfortunately, that's not good if you want to make the Final Four. In the 29 years since the tournament went to 64 teams, 2-seeds have played a "chalk" path (though not necessarily getting all the way through it) a total of 43 times, and only four (4) of those 2-seeds made the Final Four, a success percentage of 9.3%. A total of 73 2-seeds faced at least one upset winner in the tournament, and 21 of those 2-seeds made the Final Four, a success percentage of 28.8%, meaning 2-seeds have been more than 3x more likely to make the Final Four if they play an upset winner somewhere along the way.
Expanding that stat to 2-, 3-, 4-, and 5- seeds, in the aggregate they've played their expected path 281 times and made the Final Four only nine (9) of those times (3.2%). Those seeds have played at least one upset winner 183 times and made the Final Four 49 of those (26.8%).
If you're interested in the above analysis, I wrote a detailed article on the subject which may be found here (http://bluedevilnation.net/2014/03/path-final-four/).
The idea of playing a lower seed than we're supposed to may be a two-edged sword for Duke in this particular region, however, since according to Pomeroy, both Iowa and Tennessee are better than UMass, and Louisville is better than Wichita State. Still, since Duke hasn't won a "chalk" path since 1992, this may be something worth keeping tabs on.
3. Will Coach K bring back the line changes?
The short answer is probably not. Coach K historically has shortened his rotation in the NCAA tournament (not necessarily counting the first game), and there's no reason to think this year will be different. That said, there are several players whose minutes will be worth monitoring. Foremost among them is Andre Dawkins, but since he currently has his own thread I'm not going to say much about that here. Also, the minutes of Quinn Cook (also has his own thread) and Marshall Plumlee (whose playing time has been discussed ad nauseam this season) are worth watching. And I know there are some people clamoring for more Matt Jones, but it's hard to envision him playing more than token minutes in this tournament.
4. The Point
We have three players who have gotten substantial minutes at point guard. This could be concerning, because at least at Duke it's almost always very clear who our point guard is. The only years I can remember during Coach K's tenure here in which the PG responsibilities blurred were 2012 (an ominous precedent) and maybe 2009 (when we had a late-season changing-of-the-(point)-guard.
All three of this year's PGs bring different strengths to the table. Quinn Cook is the best "pure" PG and seems to run the offense most smoothly. Rasheed Sulaimon has the best slashing ability and is the strongest on-ball defender. Tyler Thornton brings experience and toughness, and rarely makes mistakes, although he doesn't appear to bring the offense to life all that much either.
The ideal would be if one of these guys grabbed the mantle and ran with it, but more likely is we'll see different combinations based on opponent and Coach K's hunches.
5. Shooting
In our first six games this season, Duke shot 55% from the field. We also had really awful defense. Since Coach K was forced to make defensive-minded lineup changes starting with the Alabama game, Duke has shot only 44.5% from the field. Just our three-point shooting was 44.7% in those first six games, and even after the lineup changes we continued to shoot well from three-land for the next 17 games (41.1%). But something seemed to happen against Maryland and since then, in our last ten games, we've only shot 32.1% from the three-mosphere. It would be nice if we can get back up in the 40s for the NCAA tournament.
Interestingly, our downward slide in three-point shooting has been accompanied by an upswing in our two-point shooting. From Alabama to the first Syracuse game we shot 46.8% on two-point shots, and in our last twelve games we've shot 51.2% on two-pointers.
A lot of that increase is due to Jabari Parker making more of his two-pointers. From Alabama to the first Syracuse game he took 30.7% of our team's two-point shots and made 45.3% of them. In our last twelve games he's taken 34.9% of our two-point shots and made 54.1%. However, our other players have also shot better from short range in the last twelve games, going from 47.4% to 49.6%.
Best of both worlds would obviously be to continue shooting well from two while regaining our touch from three and still playing at least a little bit of defense. We'll have to wait and see on that one.
6. Defense
Our D was pretty bad the first six games of the season. After Coach K made the defense-oriented lineup changes against Alabama our D was decent to good all the way through the Virginia Tech game in late February, with just a couple lapses (Notre Dame, Clemson). Starting with the Wake Forest loss on March 5, our defense has once again been somewhat atrocious. It's not clear exactly what's gone wrong the past two weeks, but obviously we have to fix it.
7. Rebounding
In the beginning of the season, a lot of folks fretted about our potential lack of defensive rebounding. For the first 16 games of the season, Duke confounded the fretters, collecting an outstanding 71.3% of available defensive rebounding, which if it had continued would have been by far the best Duke defensive rebounding performance since they started separating offensive and defensive rebounds on the stat sheet. At the same time, however, our offensive rebounding was somewhat anemic (29.8%, the 2nd-worst offensive rebounding performance since they started keeping the stat).
In our 17th game, against Virginia, Coach K instituted what we now call the "line changes," and since that time, our rebounding has reversed. In our last 18 games, we've collected only 65.4% of defensive rebounds, but our offensive rebounding has been a very impressive 39.5%. How concerned should we be about the defensive rebounding decline? How happy about the turnaround on the offensive boards?
Well, for what it's worth the 2nd half rebounding stats are more of a traditional Duke spread. In other words, most Duke teams have been poor at defensive rebounding and good at offensive rebounding. In fact, our 2nd half DR% of 65.4% is better than every Duke team from 1990 to 2006 (except the 2002 team, which managed 65.9%). Presumably, it won't hurt us this year any more than it hurt us in the past.
As far as offensive rebounding goes, the increase could be a good sign. I posted this earlier in the season, but when Duke is really good at offensive rebounding we've had a lot of NCAAT success. Here are the ten best offensive rebounding teams since 1987:
1999: 44.3% (3rd in the country)
1990: 40.9%
2010: 40.6% (6th)
1988: 40.5%
1998: 39.7% (39th)
1992: 39.5%
2004: 39.2% (16th)
1996: 38.3%
1991: 38.0%
1994: 38.0%
Eight of the ten teams on this list made the Final Four (including three of our four national champions). Only one team on the list didn't at least make the Elite Eight. And the 1986 team almost certainly would have been on this list if they'd kept the stat then, so really this covers 9 of our 11 Final Four teams with only one false positive. The fact that our second half offensive rebounding percentage falls right in the middle of this list is obviously no guarantee of success, but it might make us feel at least a little better.
8. Leadership
Much has been made at DBR and elsewhere about Duke lacking a leader. Most Duke teams have at least one senior who is one of our best players and is the obvious choice to lead the team. This season, our seniors are not among our best players and our best players are relatively new to the program.
Is leadership necessary? It sure doesn't hurt. And if we lack it this season it might help explain our seeming inconsistency over the course of the season and our apparent inability to reach our "ceiling."
Does it have to be a senior? I'd say no. The way Jabari took charge of things in the second UNC game, it seemed we were on the right track. And maybe we still are. It's certainly something to watch as the NCAA tournament unfolds.
9. Concentration/Focus and the "fourth quarter"
All season long, Duke has had stretches when we seem to lose concentration or focus. In the beginning of games against poorer opponents, when we jump out to a big lead and, most distressingly, in the last 10 minutes of close games. The "fourth quarter woes" seem to all run from the same script: first the other team scores easily several possessions in a row and at the same time we struggle to get good looks on offense. Then it snowballs into panic on defense and "hero ball" on offense, and before you know it Kansas/Vermont/Arizona/Notre Dame/Clemson/Virginia/UNC/Wake Forest has gone on a big run and either won the game or made it perilously close.
This is the elephant in the room. The one flaw that could end our season in any game. Will it happen again?
Who knows. Presumably this is tied in with the leadership question. The good news is in games where the players knew they had to keep their concentration -- the two Syracuse games, the 2nd UNC game, the ACC championship -- this didn't really happen. We lost the first Syracuse game and the second Virginia game, but not because we let the opponent go on a big run. Hopefully the players know they have to focus every possession from here on in.
10. Bringing it all together
Duke has an extremely deep and talented roster this season. We do a lot of things at a very high level, and even things that aren't our best strengths we've done really well for periods. This question has been asked many times on the board, but can we bring everything together and excel at everything all at once? Will we do it during the NCAA tournament?
I have no idea. The fact that we haven't clicked on all cylinders even once this season would suggest that bringing it all together now is unlikely. That said, if we do manage it, Duke is going to be awfully tough to beat.
So here's hoping. Go Duke!