MOTM: Duke vs. Notre Dame (Jan 28, 2015)

[JBDuke]

Who was Man of the Match in Duke's 77-73 loss to Notre Dame?

[FerryFor50]

I went with Tyus. Played better than most of the team, especially when Duke built a 10 point lead. Okafor was ok, but did not dominate as much as he should have.

Overall disappointing effort.

[Furniture]

Difficult to chose. Oklafor wasn't up to much only 22 points and 17 rebounds!

[FerryFor50]

Difficult to chose. Oklafor wasn't up to much only 22 points and 17 rebounds!

Yea, I realize it was ridiculous to say.

But he could have had 30 and 22 against that ND front line. He also failed to foul Auguste out. And played poor defense. And missed critical FTs.

Definitely not why Duke lost, but I was more encouraged with Tyus in this game.

[Dukehky]

AT least justise scored some points. Thought he played good D on Grant at the beginning of 2nd half. Just obviously still not right. Still absolutely NO explosion when he gets in the paint. But i figured if he reads this maybe he would take confidence because I voted for him.

[Lennies]

I voted for Winslow because of his defensive effort. Okafor was barely making it into the poster.

[CDu]

This one is difficult. On the one hand, Okafor put up impressive stats, with 22 and 17. On the other hand, he was awful defensively (he might be worse than Parker on defense, though he is better offensively) and his missed free throws (combined with his defense) forced Coach K to bench him down the stretch. It is hard to give the player of the game honor to a guy who couldn't stay on the floor in crunch time.

But ultimately, none of the other guys were able to step up and right the ship, so I went with Okafor in spite of his rough finish.

[MCFinARL]

I voted for Quinn Cook based on overall play and a better defensive effort than we have seen from him in a while. Granted, Okafor made by far the biggest statistical contributions, and ordinarily I would have voted for him--but I couldn't bring myself to because of his poor foul shooting and how costly that turned out to be in this game. Hope he works on that.

[jv001]

This one is difficult. On the one hand, Okafor put up impressive stats, with 22 and 17. On the other hand, he was awful defensively (he might be worse than Parker on defense, though he is better offensively) and his missed free throws (combined with his defense) forced Coach K to bench him down the stretch. It is hard to give the player of the game honor to a guy who couldn't stay on the floor in crunch time.

But ultimately, none of the other guys were able to step up and right the ship, so I went with Okafor in spite of his rough finish.

I felt the same way about Jahlil, so I went with Justise. He's certainly not completely healthy but he played well not to be 100% and he hit some big 3s. I could have gone with Tyus or Quinn and not been wrong either. But they didn't play good enough defense in my eye test. GoDuke!

[left_hook_lacey]

Does Marshall get the obligatory "Spurrier" vote in every poll? If so, why? Did I miss an inside joke?

[Bob Green]

It is a public poll:

http://forums.dukebasketballreport.com/forums/poll.php?pollid=1029&do=showresults

[Jeffrey]

This one is difficult. On the one hand, Okafor put up impressive stats, with 22 and 17. On the other hand, he was awful defensively (he might be worse than Parker on defense, though he is better offensively) and his missed free throws (combined with his defense) forced Coach K to bench him down the stretch. It is hard to give the player of the game honor to a guy who couldn't stay on the floor in crunch time.

But ultimately, none of the other guys were able to step up and right the ship, so I went with Okafor in spite of his rough finish.

Hi,

I went through the same analysis and came to the same conclusion. Based on this game reflection, I'm actually very impressed we continually stayed in this game given how well N.D. played overall. Clearly, Grant was phenomenal, Okafor (the best player in college hoops) faded hard, and we still could have won on their court.

[Lar77]

The game sort of had a reverse St Johns feel to it. They were slightly outplaying us early and Quinn kept us in the game. We roared back in the middle with Tyus. Then, we couldn't find a shot and seemed out of it.

I voted for Tyus, but I could have gone with Quinn. Both for leadership.

Jahlil is our best player, but he is reminding me a little of Wilt Chamberlain - dominant (offensively), great rebounder, great stats, but it took Wilt a number of years before he "got it."

My memories of this past game are Auguste driving uncontested for lay-ups, two ridiculous shots by Grant (the fall down at the last second and the "I'm in the middle of the shamrock 3"), and a lot of rim outs. We can do better.