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View Full Version : MBB: Duke 63, Clemson 68 Post-Game Thread



JBDuke
01-13-2016, 08:56 PM
Put your post-game thoughts here.

Neals384
01-13-2016, 08:57 PM
All my fault. I got home late and tuned in with the score 28-16 Duke. All downhill from there.

SCMatt33
01-13-2016, 08:58 PM
Live by the three, die by the thr...what, 11-25 from outside, but only scored 63 points. You sure...man, what kind of offense we runnin' anyway?

rsvman
01-13-2016, 09:00 PM
tough to win with players in foul trouble and nobody able to make a free throw.
still had a chance. I think we got a pretty decent look to tie it; was really surprised to see the air ball from Jones.
live and learn. the end of the first half was really bad and set in motion some things that led to our demise.

dukelifer
01-13-2016, 09:01 PM
Put your post-game thoughts here.

Hopefully they learn from this and play a bit smarter. The road has not been easy for teams in the ACC. Not enough to see a trend. Duke had been playing well of late, albeit against fairly weak opponents. Clemson has two quality wins in the ACC.

DukeWarhead
01-13-2016, 09:01 PM
Clemson is not good = neither are we. Manage expectations, folks. This ain't last year.

WillJ
01-13-2016, 09:02 PM
We played as if we were an inexperienced team...fancy that.

FerryFor50
01-13-2016, 09:02 PM
I really hate when coaches say "we work hard on not fouling" as Brownell said in his interview. That's not really something that's totally in their control. I am always in shock when a pressing team that plays such aggressive defense doesn't pile up fouls. But whatever. The loss hinged on several things:

- Foul trouble really hurt their aggressiveness on defense. And Jeter just gave them nothing.
- Plumlee having to help on Blossomgame so much resulted in some easy baskets on offensive boards
- Thornton's bad decision at the end of the half to jack up a 3 with 5 seconds left resulted in Ingram's 3rd foul and Clemson FTs to cut the lead to 2
- Bad FT shooting and inability to get to the line. Taking 25 3s was part of it, but some of it was the whistle being swallowed on some of those drives (particularly Kennard's drives). Clemson shot 13 FT attempts, hit 12.
- Clemson catching fire from 3 just as Duke went cold. But Duke shot 44% from 3. Not too shabby.

All in all, they played not so great and still almost pulled it out against a much improved Clemson team. Next play.

FerryFor50
01-13-2016, 09:04 PM
Clemson is not good = neither are we. Manage expectations, folks. This ain't last year.

Clemson is 4-1 in conference play. Duke is also 4-1. They're both good teams. Duke will get better if/when Amile comes back. Tonight was a glaring example why his presence is necessary to make a good team a great one.

Stray Gator
01-13-2016, 09:06 PM
If the charge by Nnoko on his last basket had been whistled, Duke might have pulled it out anyway. But after so many missed free throws and careless turnovers during this game, I can't say that we earned the victory. The officiating hurt us as a thin team, but was fairly typical for a road game in the ACC. In short, Clemson outplayed us in the last 10 minutes, so congrats to them. Next play.

FerryFor50
01-13-2016, 09:06 PM
If the charge by Nnoko on his last basket had been whistled, Duke might have pulled it out anyway. But after so many missed free throws and careless turnovers during this game, I can't say that we earned the victory. The officiating hurt us as a thin team, but was fairly typical for a road game in the ACC. In short, Clemson outplayed us in the last 10 minutes, so congrats to them. Next play.

Oh yeah. Forgot about that non-called charge. Hard to remember all the bad ones. :mad:

Wahoo2000
01-13-2016, 09:08 PM
Clemson is not good = neither are we. Manage expectations, folks. This ain't last year.

Doesn't appear to be last year for any other team in the country either though. There's not a team in bball as good as any of the top 5-7 last year. When/if Jefferson comes back, you guys have as good a shot as any other top 15-20 team to win a title.

TKG
01-13-2016, 09:09 PM
What to make of Thorton sitting during crunch time?

Ggallagher
01-13-2016, 09:09 PM
Wow, seems like Jeter is kind of sliding - the wrong way. Played four minutes, average a foul every 48 seconds, and got one rebound. Really hope he can turn things around soon.

TNTDevil
01-13-2016, 09:12 PM
Oh yeah. Forgot about that non-called charge. Hard to remember all the bad ones. :mad:What seemed most strange to me was the plethora of whistles in the first 14 or so minutes of the 2nd half then, silence. I think only three more fouls were called after the six minute mark.

OldPhiKap
01-13-2016, 09:12 PM
Hit our free throws, we win.

We didn't, so we didn't.

FerryFor50
01-13-2016, 09:13 PM
What seemed most strange to me was the plethora of whistles in the first 14 or so minutes of the 2nd half then, silence. I think only three more fouls were called after the six minute mark.

That benefited Duke once or twice. I swear Ingram could have fouled out once or twice down the stretch.

KandG
01-13-2016, 09:17 PM
Not a disgrace to lose to Clemson on the road, but the manner of the loss was disappointing to say the least.

Not building on a 28-16 lead. Ingram getting his 3rd foul toward the end of the half (and at the very end of a possession where Clemson was well defended), muzzling his aggressiveness & effectiveness for the rest of the game. Thornton taking the ill advised shot at the end of the first half. (ensuring his absence for most of the second). Letting Blossomgame go off after defending him extremely well for two thirds of the game.

Missed FTs by Grayson after the lead went up to 48-40 (one the front end of a one-and-one), Brandon (at 57-55) and Matt (at 62-61) all hurt. To give credit to Clemson, they defended Duke very well, especially Kennard, who had several good moments but who was shut down and/or contained well on those drives and curls he's excelled at. Felt in general that Duke not being able to get to the foul line was a big part of the loss.

Also, not crazy about the coaching staff deciding to let Clemson run the clock down after Grayson's basket cut the lead down to one with 35.6 seconds left, then running Kennard over to trap the ballhandler near fullcourt with about 12 left on the shot clock. Too easy for Clemson to break the trap and get the deciding basket. (With that said, I understand it's hard for Duke to play the foul game with Clemson when the roster is so thin).

Oh well, next play. Thought just about every Duke player had good moments, but the game was lost at the margins.

CameronDuke
01-13-2016, 09:18 PM
We are limited in the front court right now. Jeter is seemingly a good kid but is having a tough time out there right now. I've seen a lot of guys foul out of games before but don't think I've ever seen it occur in 4 minutes. The thing is we need him right now. Coach K is a master motivator and I wouldn't be surprised to see him heavily contribute to a win sooner rather than later this season.

Marshall had a few nice dunks but lost the ball a few times when Luke or others hit him near the basket with bounce passes. He may have been fouled a few times too that the officials missed. We had a shot to win it but just couldn't hit free throws or get a stop down the stretch with Ingram and Marshall each with 4 fouls. Grayson turned it on late but Clemson played good defense denying him the ball the first half and he got off to a slow start. I am sure we had a lot of teaching moments tonight that the coaching staff will touch on tomorrow in practice. This won't be our last ACC loss, but they're all learning opportunities. Clemson surprised me tonight, they can really defend. They blocked a few shots that were really impressive. I still like Luke's aggressiveness driving the ball offensively.

If we don't play highly motivated Saturday, then I'll be concerned.

Troublemaker
01-13-2016, 09:18 PM
tough to win with players in foul trouble and nobody able to make a free throw.
still had a chance. I think we got a pretty decent look to tie it; was really surprised to see the air ball from Jones.
live and learn. the end of the first half was really bad and set in motion some things that led to our demise.



- Foul trouble really hurt their aggressiveness on defense. And Jeter just gave them nothing.
- Plumlee having to help on Blossomgame so much resulted in some easy baskets on offensive boards
- Thornton's bad decision at the end of the half to jack up a 3 with 5 seconds left resulted in Ingram's 3rd foul and Clemson FTs to cut the lead to 2
- Bad FT shooting and inability to get to the line. Taking 25 3s was part of it, but some of it was the whistle being swallowed on some of those drives (particularly Kennard's drives). Clemson shot 13 FT attempts, hit 12.
- Clemson catching fire from 3 just as Duke went cold. But Duke shot 44% from 3. Not too shabby.


All those first-half turnovers, too. We could've/should've had a bigger halftime lead because they couldn't stop us when we didn't shoot ourselves in the foot. I'd put that right up there with the foul trouble as a leading cause of the loss. 3 of the past 4 games we've had too many turnovers for a team with our ball-handling and passing talent. Gotta clean that up.

TNTDevil
01-13-2016, 09:18 PM
That benefited Duke once or twice. I swear Ingram could have fouled out once or twice down the stretch.
Exactly my point. The last six minutes or so...you'd think we had different refs. It clearly worked both ways but, it was just so totally strange.

FerryFor50
01-13-2016, 09:19 PM
Not a disgrace to lose to Clemson on the road, but the manner of the loss was disappointing to say the least.

Not building on a 28-16 lead. Ingram getting his 3rd foul toward the end of the half (and at the very end of a possession where Clemson was well defended), muzzling his aggressiveness & effectiveness for the rest of the game. Thornton taking the ill advised shot at the end of the first half. (ensuring his absence for most of the second). Letting Blossomgame go off after defending him extremely well for two thirds of the game.

Missed FTs by Grayson after the lead went up to 48-40 (one the front end of a one-and-one), Brandon (at 57-55) and Matt (at 62-61) all hurt. To give credit to Clemson, they defended Duke very well, especially Kennard, who had several good moments but who was shut down and/or contained well on those drives and curls he's excelled at. Felt in general that Duke not being able to get to the foul line was a big part of the loss.

Also, not crazy about the coaching staff deciding to let Clemson run the clock down after Grayson's basket cut the lead down to one with 35.6 seconds left, then running Kennard over to trap the ballhandler near fullcourt with about 12 left on the shot clock. Too easy for Clemson to break the trap and get the deciding basket. (With that said, I understand it's hard for Duke to play the foul game with Clemson when the roster is so thin).

Oh well, next play. Thought just about every Duke player had good moments, but the game was lost at the margins.

Good summary of the missed FTs - it was more than the misses, but also the timing of the misses.

Kjeffrey
01-13-2016, 09:21 PM
Hit our free throws, we win.

We didn't, so we didn't.

Yup. We could complain about the refs but they didn't miss the free throws. And they sure didn't turn the ball over 13 times. It is hard to win on the road in the ACC when you don't make the freebies and take care of the ball. Btw, returning players accounted for nine of those turnovers and four of the five missed free throws. Not a great showing by Duke but Clemson is decent team and could make some noise in the ACC this year.

jipops
01-13-2016, 09:22 PM
Well, the better team won. Clemson was quicker and their zone in the last part of the 1st half totally took apart our rhythm.

Looking more broadly, I'm actually kind of happy we're 3-1 at this point with the Jefferson injury, lack of depth, and one available big man on the roster that is able to contribute. The upcoming slate of games is about to get far more difficult though. A tournament bid is still by no means a given with this group but I'm feeling pretty good about our chances. Hopefully we can steal one or two games against the top tier of ACC teams (Louisville 2x, the cheats 2x, Miami, UVA, Pitt). If not, then games against Notre Dame, Syracuse, GTech, NC State, FSU, and Wake are almost must-win games for us. Thankfully most are at home.

That aside, Matt Jones is having a pretty bad stretch of games lately. This goes for his defense as well as he has been regularly beaten on the floor. Hopefully it's just some kind of funk. But this team with its limited capabilities really can't afford for him to be stuck in this much longer.

CoSprings
01-13-2016, 09:24 PM
Clemson is not a tournament team. We were up 12 in the first half and they were dead in the water. Thornton jacks up an ill-advised 3 with 8 seconds left on the clock and then Ingram gets his third. We get nothing from the bench. The offense stalls and we only score 63 points.

Clemson is not a very good team. This is a 10 loss Duke team and anyone dreaming of some crazy run at this point hasn't been watching the games. We are young, alarmingly thin, and reliant upon guys who have never 'been the guy'. Not to mention very, very suspect point guard play.

Just really a poor, poor performance against a team that we should have put away in the first half.

FerryFor50
01-13-2016, 09:28 PM
Clemson is not a tournament team. We were up 12 in the first half and they were dead in the water. Thornton jacks up an ill-advised 3 with 8 seconds left on the clock and then Ingram gets his third. We get nothing from the bench. The offense stalls and we only score 63 points.

Clemson is not a very good team. This is a 10 loss Duke team and anyone dreaming of some crazy run at this point hasn't been watching the games. We are young, alarmingly thin, and reliant upon guys who have never 'been the guy'. Not to mention very, very suspect point guard play.

Just really a poor, poor performance against a team that we should have put away in the first half.

lol

A 10 loss team? Clemson isn't any good? Clemson just beat Louisville and Duke, back to back. Bad teams don't do that.

jv001
01-13-2016, 09:30 PM
Clemson is not a tournament team. We were up 12 in the first half and they were dead in the water. Thornton jacks up an ill-advised 3 with 8 seconds left on the clock and then Ingram gets his third. We get nothing from the bench. The offense stalls and we only score 63 points.

Clemson is not a very good team. This is a 10 loss Duke team and anyone dreaming of some crazy run at this point hasn't been watching the games. We are young, alarmingly thin, and reliant upon guys who have never 'been the guy'. Not to mention very, very suspect point guard play.

Just really a poor, poor performance against a team that we should have put away in the first half.

What bench? We have Kennard and that's it. We're a pretty good team without Amile, but can be much better with Amile at 100%. We just need to tread water until he get's back. Plus this is not the first time Duke's lost a game at Clemson. GoDuke!

jipops
01-13-2016, 09:35 PM
Clemson is not a tournament team. We were up 12 in the first half and they were dead in the water. Thornton jacks up an ill-advised 3 with 8 seconds left on the clock and then Ingram gets his third. We get nothing from the bench. The offense stalls and we only score 63 points.

Clemson is not a very good team. This is a 10 loss Duke team and anyone dreaming of some crazy run at this point hasn't been watching the games. We are young, alarmingly thin, and reliant upon guys who have never 'been the guy'. Not to mention very, very suspect point guard play.

Just really a poor, poor performance against a team that we should have put away in the first half.

I disagree. Clemson has as much of a chance to make the tournament as we do, possibly better. They play UVA twice and have Miami next, but all of the others are very winnable games for them. And I wouldn't put it past them to upset the Hoos either.

CoSprings
01-13-2016, 09:39 PM
lol

A 10 loss team? Clemson isn't any good? Clemson just beat Louisville and Duke, back to back. Bad teams don't do that.

Clemson is 10-6 with a 23 point loss to Georgia. Georgia. Clemson will lose 12-14 games this year. This was a bad loss. We can't afford to give away games at this stage with the backloaded schedule we have. Anyone not upset and frustrated by this performance is still drunk from the national championship.

And yes, I believe Duke is a 10 loss team. We still have to play ND, Cuse twice, UNC twice, Louisville twice, Miami at Miami, FSU, UVA, etc..

A dream at this point would be 10-6 in the regular season ACC, that means we only lose 5 more games this regular season, plus one loss in the ACC Tourny and one loss in the real tourny, that's a 10 loss season. So yes, we are looking easily at losing 10 games this year.

What would make you believe Duke won't lose a minimum of 10 games this year based on the roster, depth, youth, injuries, etc..?

kAzE
01-13-2016, 09:40 PM
I think the most shocking thing about this game was how easily our elite offense was forced into settling for 3s. I'm not going to watch the game again, but I would guess that our off-the-ball movement on offense was not very good. Ball handlers were often not able to get any penetration because help was nearby at all times for Clemson's defense. If I were to change one thing about our game plan, I would have tried getting the ball to Brandon at the free throw line against their zone as much as possible, and letting him collapse their defense. Instead, we passed the ball around on the perimeter and jacked up the first open look from 3.

I thought this was a very poor game from Derryck in terms of decision making. Not just the boneheaded 3 with 8.6 seconds to go in the 1st half (though that was easily the most egregious), but SO many early shot clock attempts from beyond the arc. I actually liked his aggressive drives to the rim even though they were pretty much all erased by Nnoko. But instead of trying to force it over taller defenders, LOOK FOR YOUR TEAMMATES. If a center is coming to help on your drive, SOMEONE is open. He will learn this as he matures, but right now, Derryck is a score first guard (which is fine, it's not ideal, but it's not entirely fair to ask him to change who he is as a player in his freshman year), but his biggest problem is that he seems to have some pretty bad tunnel vision when he is driving into the paint. I'm not trying to pin this loss on him, but he definitely did not excel in decision making in this one.

Because of foul trouble, we desperately needed Chase to contribute in this game, and he was just not up to the challenge. It was brutal to watch, and I just feel bad for the kid. This has motivate him to get better. I still believe in his talent, but he's gotta start turning the corner. This just isn't a team that can afford any foul trouble in the front court until Chase starts playing better. It's like the announcers kept repeating ad nauseum: there's not going to be any easy wins in the ACC, and Amile Jefferson is not coming back any time soon.

91devil
01-13-2016, 09:40 PM
As noted above, the missed free throws came at very inopportune times and killed momentum.

We were the better team for, say, thirty of the forty minutes. The last five minutes of the first half and the span from ten minutes left to five minutes left in the second half really hurt us. Badly. The foul trouble (deserved) limited our ability to take the ball to the rim in the second half. And I think the zone defense, while necessary when we started to use it, was so ineffective that we should have stopped using it earlier. Clemson scored at will against it. Hard for a young team to switch defenses like that at critical times and play it well.

Matt's ankle injury is limiting his effectiveness; three straight sub-par games. The game still seems too fast for Chase; late reactions. I suppose playing time will help with that. Twenty pounds of muscle wouldn't hurt, either.

To me, the most important player for this team's success later in the year is Derryck Thornton. We're better when he's on the floor, but we're ALOT better when he plays under control and well.

CDu
01-13-2016, 09:46 PM
lol

A 10 loss team? Clemson isn't any good? Clemson just beat Louisville and Duke, back to back. Bad teams don't do that.

To be fair, a 10-loss season is quite possible. I mean, do you think a 12-6 ACC record, a loss in the ACC final, and a loss at some point in the tourney is out of the question? I don't, and that would be a 10-loss season right there.

NashvilleDevil
01-13-2016, 09:46 PM
What would make you believe Duke won't lose a minimum of 10 games this year based on the roster, depth, youth, injuries, etc..?

They won't lose 10 games because of this guy on the bench that has won over a 1,000 games, won 5 national titles, and been to 12 final fours. That's why they won't lose 10 games.

FerryFor50
01-13-2016, 09:47 PM
Clemson is 10-6 with a 23 point loss to Georgia. Georgia. Clemson will lose 12-14 games this year. This was a bad loss. We can't afford to give away games at this stage with the backloaded schedule we have. Anyone not upset and frustrated by this performance is still drunk from the national championship.

And yes, I believe Duke is a 10 loss team. We still have to play ND, Cuse twice, UNC twice, Louisville twice, Miami at Miami, FSU, UVA, etc..

A dream at this point would be 10-6 in the regular season ACC, that means we only lose 5 more games this regular season, plus one loss in the ACC Tourny and one loss in the real tourny, that's a 10 loss season. So yes, we are looking easily at losing 10 games this year.

What would make you believe Duke won't lose a minimum of 10 games this year based on the roster, depth, youth, injuries, etc..?

Clemson had a bad loss. A lot of good teams have bad losses. But they've also won 5 straight. Sometimes teams take time to gel. Maybe Clemson has figured it out. But they aren't a "bad" team by any stretch.

As for the list you gave, ND and Syracuse are way down this year. FSU can't seem to get out of their own way. L'ville, Miami, UNC and UVA are the most likely losses. So even in they lose all 6 (which I doubt happens), Duke is a 9 loss team. As for including the ACC tourny and NCAA, yea, that's possibly putting them at 10 losses. I was counting pre-NCAAs, though. I don't see Duke losing more than 8-9 going into the tournament.

It all hinges on if Amile comes back and can be effective.

FerryFor50
01-13-2016, 09:48 PM
To be fair, a 10-loss season is quite possible. I mean, do you think a 12-6 ACC record, a loss in the ACC final, and a loss at some point in the tourney is out of the question? I don't, and that would be a 10-loss season right there.

I wasn't counting the tournaments. I was considering pre-tournament record.

Including the tournaments, yes, Duke could be a 10 loss team. But I'm leaning toward them being better than that, but only if Amile comes back in mid-Feb.

CoSprings
01-13-2016, 09:50 PM
To be fair, a 10-loss season is quite possible. I mean, do you think a 12-6 ACC record, a loss in the ACC final, and a loss at some point in the tourney is out of the question? I don't, and that would be a 10-loss season right there.

I'd take 12-6 ACC record right now. Who wouldn't take that right now? Seriously, with the schedule we have coming up how could anyone in their right mind not believe that a 12-6 ACC record for Duke might be one of our best outcomes at this point?

kAzE
01-13-2016, 09:50 PM
They won't lose 10 games because of this guy on the bench that has won over a 1,000 games, won 5 national titles, and been to 12 final fours. That's why they won't lose 10 games.

I dunno, has he ever done it with 6 players? How about with only one good big man? Coach K is the best to ever do it, but he coaches basketball, he doesn't perform miracles. I think it's a toss up at this point whether or not we get to 10 losses. Teams are going to figure out how to play us, and many teams will try to get Brandon and Marshall into foul trouble again. If Chase is ever going to step up, it's going to be have to be now if we want to avoid double digit losses.

CDu
01-13-2016, 09:51 PM
They won't lose 10 games because of this guy on the bench that has won over a 1,000 games, won 5 national titles, and been to 12 final fours. That's why they won't lose 10 games.

Because Coach K has never had a 10-loss team before?

I think it is quite possible we lose 10. I don't know if it is probable, but I would guess that KenPom would have us on pace for about 14-4 or 13-5 in conference. If so, that means he is projecting an 8 or 9 loss season. And KenPom may now have us worse than that.

With our inexperience, with Jefferson hurt, and with the ridiculous strength of the ACC at the top, a 10-loss season is (a) not unfathomable and (b) not an awful result.

dukelifer
01-13-2016, 09:52 PM
Clemson is not a tournament team. We were up 12 in the first half and they were dead in the water. Thornton jacks up an ill-advised 3 with 8 seconds left on the clock and then Ingram gets his third. We get nothing from the bench. The offense stalls and we only score 63 points.

Clemson is not a very good team. This is a 10 loss Duke team and anyone dreaming of some crazy run at this point hasn't been watching the games. We are young, alarmingly thin, and reliant upon guys who have never 'been the guy'. Not to mention very, very suspect point guard play.

Just really a poor, poor performance against a team that we should have put away in the first half.
You seem to be arguing that Duke is not very good and then are surprised that they blew a road game to a hot team. Young teams get better. Maybe Duke will lose 10 games or maybe they will start making fewer mistakes. History suggests that K will get them oriented.

NashvilleDevil
01-13-2016, 09:55 PM
I dunno, has he ever done it with 6 players? How about with only one good big man? Coach K is the best to ever do it, but he coaches basketball, he doesn't perform miracles.

Take away his first 3 years at Duke and since the Dawkins' class sophomore year he has lost double digit games in a season 3 times. This includes the 95-96 team that was lacking players and was his year back after missing 94-95. He will figure it out until Amile gets back.

Channing
01-13-2016, 10:13 PM
We seemed to abandon dribble drive for large periods of the game. It was masked when we were unconscious from deep, but became a problem down the stretch. I felt like Grayson disappeared for a long stretch in the middle of he game and that hurt our offensive flow. When we had to go zone in the second half they tore us apart. We all know we are thin. Foul trouble is almost insurmountable against a reasonable opponent. I felt we got bumped a lot that didn't get called (may have been called the same both ways, I wasn't as focused on in when CU was on offense). Sending Luke for the double team late was terrible because the CU guard turned right out of t and it led to an easy dunk. That was poor execution. This team has been best when leading with the drive and taking the three that comes off of it rather than vice versa.

Ramblings over. Need a good high scoring not affair to get the offense back on track.

CDu
01-13-2016, 10:14 PM
Take away his first 3 years at Duke and since the Dawkins' class sophomore year he has lost double digit games in a season 3 times. This includes the 95-96 team that was lacking players and was his year back after missing 94-95. He will figure it out until Amile gets back.

By my math, that means there is a chance. Considering that we already have 3 losses, and the odds are that we will add a loss in both tourneys, that means we could only lose 4 more regular season games to avois a 10-loss season. We have yet to face the other five best teams in the conference, who we face 7 times total. If we avoid any more slipups against lesser teams, that would allow us to go 3-4 in those games. But until Jefferson returns I am not sure we can avoid tripping up again, and each loss to a lower team makes a 12-6 ACC season that much more likely.

Sluggo
01-13-2016, 10:17 PM
Tough game to watch in the 2nd half. Several aspects could have went better for us but the one that I thought was the most in our control was the free throws. Uncharacteristic misses. Really could have made a difference. On to Saturday.

jipops
01-13-2016, 10:23 PM
Because Coach K has never had a 10-loss team before?

I think it is quite possible we lose 10. I don't know if it is probable, but I would guess that KenPom would have us on pace for about 14-4 or 13-5 in conference. If so, that means he is projecting an 8 or 9 loss season. And KenPom may now have us worse than that.

With our inexperience, with Jefferson hurt, and with the ridiculous strength of the ACC at the top, a 10-loss season is (a) not unfathomable and (b) not an awful result.

I agree it is not an awful result with this group and very realistic. Obviously we can put talent on the floor. But this is a very, very young group for which only 6 players contribute - 5 of which are guards. I don't put a ton of stock into coaches, but I would venture to say that it would be enormously challenging to get this group into the tournament for any coach.

Doria
01-13-2016, 10:25 PM
I felt like it was kind of a perfect storm of awfulness. With the exception of that terrible shot at the end of the first half, I actually thought Derryck was fairly passive and could have been a bit more aggressive; though it's certainly better to have him play under control than aggressively reckless.

The officiating was inconsistent in every way--ticky tac fouls called but very little in the post? Then a hailstorm of fouls to start the second, but none down the stretch? It disproportionately hurt us because of our... well, almost total lack of a bench, but in and of itself it wasn't the "reason" we lost. I think our players are just fighting uphill battles (and obviously mixed metaphors) with our lack of depth, and it shows in the mental lapses by players who should, and normally do, know better.

Clemson did a great job limiting Grayson's effectiveness, and Marshall had all he could handle with their big front line. Marshall did as good a job as he could have, given the situation in the second half, but it really affected his offensive output; I also feel that, to some degree and without a lot of statistical evidence, Matt's been flat been flat because of his defensive assignments. Given Brandon's foul situation, he understandably lost a lot of his first-half edge.

All of it ended up limiting our actually very good offense to, generously, two and a half players' output, and that's just not going to reliably cut it on the road in our league. (On the bright side, I felt like Luke had a pretty good game; I just wish he'd had some help.) Clearly, turnovers and horrible free throw shooting didn't help, and I'd actually tag those as the immediate causes of our loss.

Hopefully, we can bounce back strong at home. I'd be very surprised if we don't. But while no one (here) likes us to lose, it isn't like the sky is falling. I always expected we'd have a loss in this front stretch. I'd thought it was more likely to be Wake, but eh...

CDu
01-13-2016, 10:36 PM
We lost this game on the glass and on the line. Clemson got 10 of their 30 offensive rebound chances and we got just 4 of 30 of our offensive rebound chances. Clemson hit 12-13 from the line and we hit just 2-7.

The foul situation set up the rebounding problems, but if we hit our free throws we had a good chance to win.

Tough loss. Clemson isn't bad, but we should have won and didn't. That stinks.

SoCalDukeFan
01-13-2016, 10:51 PM
The ill-advised three by Thornton at the end of the first half really hurt. The got two points and Brandon got his third foul.

This team is really really thin without Amile. It is difficult to reload after last year.

SoCal

Saratoga2
01-13-2016, 10:52 PM
I thought Clemson's strategy from the get go was to limit our dribble drive penetration and block a lot of our attempts. They were able to do that pretty well which left us with few free throw opportunities and fewer inside points. That made us more dependent on the 3 ball. We shot that pretty well, especially when fresh. Later in the game we appeared to tire and missed more of our shots. Something we have seen before as the very short bench tends to wear our guys down.

Yes, Derryck's shot with 5 seconds on the clock was ill advised and spoke of his lack of game awareness. I would have expected the coaches to have told them just before to take the last shot and not to give Clemson time to score themselves. As it turns out, it cost us points and a foul on Brandon.

Yes, what few FTs there were needed to be made. What has happened to Grayson, who used to be money from the line? Luke never got to the line even though he was certainly bumped. He has become our most reliable FT shooter.

There were also freshman like plays from some of our experienced players. Grayson making wild passes and turning the ball over. Matt picking up a silly foul for shots on a player not facing the basket and 25 feet away from the basket to name a couple.

Getting back to the idea of a team tiring noticeably, since Jeter is not giving us much, is it possible Obi or Vrank could get a few minutes. Can they be that much more limited? Until we get Amile back. we are going to be vulnerable to athletic teams that take about our dribble penetration and tire us so that we finish the game weakly.

Mashall did all he could. He had to come off his man quite a few times to support when the penetrators got past our exterior defense. That set up layups and dunks for Clemson. On offense, bounce passes to Marshall, or most big men don't work well.

Back to the drawing board. We certainly could have and probably should have won this game tonight but it was a road game and we are very short handed. Onward we go.

vick
01-13-2016, 11:06 PM
By my math, that means there is a chance. Considering that we already have 3 losses, and the odds are that we will add a loss in both tourneys, that means we could only lose 4 more regular season games to avois a 10-loss season. We have yet to face the other five best teams in the conference, who we face 7 times total. If we avoid any more slipups against lesser teams, that would allow us to go 3-4 in those games. But until Jefferson returns I am not sure we can avoid tripping up again, and each loss to a lower team makes a 12-6 ACC season that much more likely.

Of course it's in the realm of possibility. Losing stinks, but a 10-loss season, inclusive of tournaments, is hardly a train wreck--I mean, last year there were two 10+ 3 seeds (and one 9-loss 2 seed!). We are very, very lucky/spoiled as a fan base when we start looking at double-digit losses as a calamity (this isn't directed specifically at you, CDu).

Kfanarmy
01-13-2016, 11:12 PM
Missed most of the game, so perhaps I didn't get as good a feel for it as others. Duke had just gone to zone and I didn't see many foul calls. My read was that no one was fouling. Duke was being extremely careful to avoid having guys foul out and Clemson was a bit more aggressive, because they had more players to spread the fouls around. Clemson took advantage, getting some really easy looks. If Duke had one more player in the rotation, I think they would have won going away. In any case I think they are going to be a really tough out come March, because of where they are, the longer bench they will have, and the growth I believe we'll see as the season progresses.

ChillinDuke
01-13-2016, 11:36 PM
Irritating game for the reasons already mentioned by others upstream.

Question: would it really cost us anything to try Obi and/or Vrank in there for spot minutes to spell Plumlee? I mean, seriously. The knock is always "K knows they're not ready." But nothing, and I mean nothing, has pointed to Chase being ready for those same minutes. So would it kill us to try them? I mean even if they gave us 4 minutes, zero stats, and 5 fouls, we'd be in the same darn spot.

Not trying to say either is going to be a worldbeater out there. Far from it. But it's just ugly trotting Chase out there right now.

- Chillin

Kedsy
01-14-2016, 12:44 AM
Clemson is not good = neither are we. Manage expectations, folks. This ain't last year.

Well, it may not be last season, but look at it this way:

On January 13, 2016, Duke lost on the road to the #75 team, according to Pomeroy.

On January 13, 2015, Duke lost at home to the #74 team (also according to Pomeroy, using the ranking on the date of that game). By 16 points. Three days after losing to the #57 team.

Tell me, exactly one year ago today were you saying, "Miami is not good = neither are we"?


A tournament bid is still by no means a given with this group...

Seriously? I'll bet you any amount that Duke makes the 2016 NCAA Tournament. Any amount.


I don't put a ton of stock into coaches, but I would venture to say that it would be enormously challenging to get this group into the tournament for any coach.

By "this group" do you mean the top ten Duke team with seven McDonald's All-Americans on the roster? Yeah, sounds enormously challenging to me.


What would make you believe Duke won't lose a minimum of 10 games this year based on the roster, depth, youth, injuries, etc..?

A minimum of 10 games? While as CDu pointed out, it is certainly possible that Duke loses 10 games this season (including the post-season), it's certainly not a given, as you seem to believe.

But if you really want to know "what would make [me] believe Duke won't lose a minimum of 10 games" this season, it's because in the last 19 seasons, Duke has lost more than 9 games only once (2007), and in the past 31 seasons, Duke has lost more than 9 games only three times (2007, 1996, 1995). And I don't for a minute think that this year's team is the worst or second-worst team we've had in the past 20 seasons or in the bottom four of teams we've had in the past 32 seasons. Do you?

I'd also mention that we've already won two ACC road games and I'm hopeful that our best interior defender and senior captain (who didn't play in two of our three losses) will come back sometime in February.

So that's why.


I dunno, has he ever done it with 6 players? How about with only one good big man?

IN 1999-2000, Duke played essentially a six-man rotation, with only one good big man. We ended the regular season ranked #1 in the country and finished with a 29-5 record (15-1 in the ACC). So, yeah, he's done it.

Steven43
01-14-2016, 12:49 AM
Clemson is not good = neither are we. Manage expectations, folks. This ain't last year.

If Duke is not good, as you say, why did ESPN's Basketball Power Index have them as the No. 5 team in the NCAA going into the Clemson game? For that matter wouldn't being considered one of, say, the top 30 teams or so in the country be considered to at least be 'good'? And just because the team has lost a few games (and two of those losses were very winnable), you say 'This ain't last year'? This team has an excellent coach, very good assistants, and elite talent. And when Jefferson comes back I think they're going to be not just good, but VERY good. I believe this team has the potential to be just as good as the National Champs of '14-'15.
.

Billy Dat
01-14-2016, 12:52 AM
I didn't get to watch the game, but watching K's post-game presser and reading these comments, it feels a little like the Wake game in terms of the foul trouble but this time it was our bigs instead of our wings and that played into Clemson's BIG hands. It is a real bummer that Jeter seems unable to take advantage of this rotation opportunity, but thems the breaks. Sounds like we had a chance to pull it out despite everything, and Clemson has been playing well. Lick our wounds and move on. Amile's coming back at some point and we'll get a big shot in the arm when he does. Until then, the boys keep stepping into the octagon and fighting their brains out. K has yet to question their effort and grit so I take that as a huge positive. Being leery of fouling won't help our defense...maybe we need Bo Ryan or Thad Matta, guys who seem to have a rep for coaching their players to not foul? Yeah, whatever. Bring the noise!

brevity
01-14-2016, 01:02 AM
Seriously? I'll bet you any amount that Duke makes the 2016 NCAA Tournament. Any amount.

Well, not ANY amount. Jason Evans put a 20 percent cap on what you can bet.

westwall
01-14-2016, 01:08 AM
Question: would it really cost us anything to try Obi and/or Vrank in there for spot minutes to spell Plumlee? . But it's just ugly trotting Chase out there right now.- Chillin

I never saw Obi or Vrank play before this year, but I did see Jeter play several times in high school and was not impressed. I was surprised at Jeter's ranking and by Duke's pursuit of him, but I assumed there must be something good there.. At this point, based on what I have seen thus far, I feel that none of them are likely to be contributors at any point this year (and Obi likely never), but that of the three only Jeter provides any hope, however thin. Therefore, I feel very confident in providing this answer to your question: Yes! It would likely cost us an extra loss or two, or at least shaky wins.


Coach K sees all three in practice; let him decide who can provide the appropriate level of help.

kAzE
01-14-2016, 01:48 AM
IN 1999-2000, Duke played essentially a six-man rotation, with only one good big man. We ended the regular season ranked #1 in the country and finished with a 29-5 record (15-1 in the ACC). So, yeah, he's done it.

Okay, I'll give you credit for digging that up but, but that team actually played several players deeper on the bench significant minutes. That team played 34 games, and the #7 player in the rotation to the end of the bench played a total of 849 minutes out of a possible 6925, which was 12.3% of all available minutes over the entire season.

This year, (excluding Amile), those guys have played 166 out of a possible 2953 minutes (excluding Amile's 273 minutes). 5.6%.

We were deeper in 99-00 and our #1-6 were way better. Battier, Carrawell, J-Will, Boozer, Dunleavy, Nate James. Do you really need more than 6 when those are your 6? There was no need to play guys deeper in the rotation. Also, I would consider Battier a pretty good big man in college. He was at least 6-8 220. Just as big as Justise, and certainly much bigger than Brandon.

Coballs
01-14-2016, 01:50 AM
I don't understand how it gets to the point that an injury to one contributing player can affect this
team so dramatically. That being said, I'd prefer to see Amile sit out of the remainder of the year and then use a medical redshirt to return next season alongside Giles and Tatum. This year's team isn't going very far. Next year's team plus Amile could be absurd.

Coballs
01-14-2016, 01:57 AM
I never saw Obi or Vrank play before this year, but I did see Jeter play several times in high school and was not impressed. I was surprised at Jeter's ranking and by Duke's pursuit of him, but I assumed there must be something good there.. At this point, based on what I have seen thus far, I feel that none of them are likely to be contributors at any point this year (and Obi likely never), but that of the three only Jeter provides any hope, however thin. Therefore, I feel very confident in providing this answer to your question: Yes! It would likely cost us an extra loss or two, or at least shaky wins.


Coach K sees all three in practice; let him decide who can provide the appropriate level of help.

I agree. None of them are capable of contributing. Jeter is a HUGE disappointment thus far, but it's early in his career and he has some potential. He may end up being a "nice" 4 year player when it's all said and done, but he's not going to be a force.

JPtheGame
01-14-2016, 02:53 AM
Irritating game for the reasons already mentioned by others upstream.

Question: would it really cost us anything to try Obi and/or Vrank in there for spot minutes to spell Plumlee? I mean, seriously. The knock is always "K knows they're not ready." But nothing, and I mean nothing, has pointed to Chase being ready for those same minutes. So would it kill us to try them? I mean even if they gave us 4 minutes, zero stats, and 5 fouls, we'd be in the same darn spot.

Not trying to say either is going to be a worldbeater out there. Far from it. But it's just ugly trotting Chase out there right now.

- Chillin

It would cost us the 5th year of vrank when he might have matured into a legit player. ACC season is no time for tryouts anyway

BigWayne
01-14-2016, 03:08 AM
One of the most strangely officiated games I have ever seen. Never saw so many illegal screen calls, on both teams. Long stretches of no fouls called mixed with any and everything called in other periods.

Bob Green
01-14-2016, 06:19 AM
Wow, seems like Jeter is kind of sliding - the wrong way. Played four minutes, average a foul every 48 seconds, and got one rebound.

Or 50 fouls per 40 minutes played. He would have fouled out 10 times.


Really hope he can turn things around soon.

He needs to get a lot stronger with much improved footwork. His fouls last night were largely due to bad footwork, arriving at his spot a heartbeat late and bumping the opponent with his body...at least that is what I think I saw.

Jeter is going to get there but I doubt it happens this season.

wsb3
01-14-2016, 06:32 AM
The ill-advised three by Thornton at the end of the first half really hurt. The got two points and Brandon got his third foul.SoCal

Agree. That might have been the biggest play of the game.

luburch
01-14-2016, 07:13 AM
It would cost us the 5th year of vrank when he might have matured into a legit player. ACC season is no time for tryouts anyway

Vrank isn't redshirting this season. He's played in 4(?) games already.

fraggler
01-14-2016, 07:37 AM
I never saw Obi or Vrank play before this year, but I did see Jeter play several times in high school and was not impressed. I was surprised at Jeter's ranking and by Duke's pursuit of him, but I assumed there must be something good there.. At this point, based on what I have seen thus far, I feel that none of them are likely to be contributors at any point this year (and Obi likely never), but that of the three only Jeter provides any hope, however thin. Therefore, I feel very confident in providing this answer to your question: Yes! It would likely cost us an extra loss or two, or at least shaky wins.


Coach K sees all three in practice; let him decide who can provide the appropriate level of help.

I can't say I'm surprised by Jeter's struggles all that much - disappointed to the extent of his struggles, but not that he has struggled. His highlight videos from highschool didn't show me much. He doesn't have the raw athleticism that can make up for a lack skill or understanding, and he hasn't shown enough skill to compensate for a lack of athleticism. I acknowledge that it might simply be too soon for him. Another summer of weight and agility training could do wonders. I am reminded a little of the situation with my old high school teammate, Casey Sanders. Went to a small prep school, was pursued by Duke, shot up in the rankings, became a McD's All American, and ended up not quite good enough at basketball to become a major contributor, much less a star. But then again, he played a very important role in the 2001 championship season, graduated with a Duke degree, and played several seasons overseas. Can't tell if it will be a good or a bad thing if Jeter has a career like Casey's.

left_hook_lacey
01-14-2016, 07:43 AM
That benefited Duke once or twice. I swear Ingram could have fouled out once or twice down the stretch.

I was screaming at the TV every time he made a weak swipe or reach in on a Clemson driver or when he would get boxed out on a rebound and lazily reach over the back to try to poke the ball away.

"Get back on D, you have four fouls!!!!" Luckily, they didn't call it, but as you said, they could have four or five times.

Mtn.Devil.91.92.01.10.15
01-14-2016, 07:47 AM
Clemson is not a tournament team. We were up 12 in the first half and they were dead in the water. Thornton jacks up an ill-advised 3 with 8 seconds left on the clock and then Ingram gets his third. We get nothing from the bench. The offense stalls and we only score 63 points.

Clemson has two more wins against top 25 opponents than we do. I would say they have and excellent shot at the tournament, barring always possible implosion.

Yed, our team made a lot of mistakes, but we are so young an inexperienced that we still have lots of room to grow in two months.


Clemson is not a very good team. This is a 10 loss Duke team and anyone dreaming of some crazy run at this point hasn't been watching the games. We are young, alarmingly thin, and reliant upon guys who have never 'been the guy'. Not to mention very, very suspect point guard play.

So, I don't know about "hasn't been watching," but I have seen a team that looks superb with Amile, excellent at times without him, and lost at times without him. We can score 100 points, or we can score 63. We are wildly inconsistent.

As far as ten losses go, if Duke has 10 losses and a winning ACC record going into the tournament and getting Amile back, well, does that realy sound like a team that couldn't pull together something special in March?


Just really a poor, poor performance against a team that we should have put away in the first half.

So, you weren't pleased then? :-/

I am really weary of the "instant overgeneralization" after each game on this board. Shellack a poor VaTech team? We are world-beaters, K is a genius, Ingram is a number one pick, Grayson is going pro this weekens, and we will sweep UNC. Lose a close road game to a hot Clemson team? Too "alarmingly thin" (you get points for verbage there), K can't coach free throws, Matt Jones is a bum, anf Grayson better stay all for years.

As Aaron Rogers says.... Relax.....

Still a lot of basketball to be played.

CDu
01-14-2016, 07:59 AM
Of course it's in the realm of possibility. Losing stinks, but a 10-loss season, inclusive of tournaments, is hardly a train wreck--I mean, last year there were two 10+ 3 seeds (and one 9-loss 2 seed!). We are very, very lucky/spoiled as a fan base when we start looking at double-digit losses as a calamity (this isn't directed specifically at you, CDu).

I agree. My point was merely to put the 10-loss season in perspective for those who scoffed at the idea. A 12-6 ACC, ACC finals loss, and Final Four loss would be a great, 10-loss season.

gurufrisbee
01-14-2016, 08:27 AM
Clemson is a good team. It was a road game. We're still very young. We're very badly missing Amile. We got absolutely screwed all game long by the refs. We did a lot of things last night very poorly - things that for the most part this season we've done pretty well.

And we still nearly won the game.

I love how all of the sudden we're terrible and everyone is hiding for cover for the lost season. Reminds me a lot of last season after Miami and NC St.

devildeac
01-14-2016, 08:39 AM
Agree. That might have been the biggest play of the game.

In K's comments in the News and Observer this AM, he fully agreed.

Saratoga2
01-14-2016, 08:40 AM
Coach K enumerated the issues that have also been mentioned here, except of course he wouldn't criticize officiating as some here do or imply: His take as I heard him explain:

1. End of the first half play was the play of the game, hurting Duke significantly.
2. Players in for heavy minutes getting tired but with no alternatives
3. Chase had a very rough game
4. Missing foul shots, especially mentioned Grayson who is usually better
5. Would have liked either Grayson or Luke to take the last shot, suggesting more confidence in them than Matt's shooting in that situation

Nothing new here. Clearly he misses Amile but says they need to monitor to see when he becomes truly healed. I think he feels and I agree, that this would have been a win with Amile available and ready to play.

CDu
01-14-2016, 08:43 AM
Clemson is a good team. It was a road game. We're still very young. We're very badly missing Amile. We got absolutely screwed all game long by the refs. We did a lot of things last night very poorly - things that for the most part this season we've done pretty well.

And we still nearly won the game.

I love how all of the sudden we're terrible and everyone is hiding for cover for the lost season. Reminds me a lot of last season after Miami and NC St.

I love the hyperbole in this post. Only one person has posted an even slightly negative post in this thread, nobody has said we are terrible, and nobody is calling this a lost season.

jipops
01-14-2016, 09:01 AM
Seriously? I'll bet you any amount that Duke makes the 2016 NCAA Tournament. Any amount.

By "this group" do you mean the top ten Duke team with seven McDonald's All-Americans on the roster? Yeah, sounds enormously challenging to me.



Oh sure it's a good bet, I like our chances a lot. Like I said, I'm happy we're 3-1 at this point. But it is certainly not a given. The upcoming schedule speaks to that.

"this group" does have seven McD All-Americans on its roster. 5 of them are playing and contributing. And look, I like Plumlee and how far he has come. But there are a number of other big men that were not McD All Americans that bring more talent to the table both offensively and defensively. Also, see UNC 2010 and UK 2013. Simply rolling the ball out there to a talented group this young and thin isn't exactly a piece of cake. "Enormously", yea I'll take the hyperbole hit on that one, but "challenging"... yes.

Seriously :).

Furniture
01-14-2016, 09:14 AM
One of the most strangely officiated games I have ever seen. Never saw so many illegal screen calls, on both teams. Long stretches of no fouls called mixed with any and everything called in other periods.

That illegal screen call on Brandon seemed to be nothing at all and the foul right afterwards too!

RepoMan
01-14-2016, 09:20 AM
Man, I hate losing. A couple thoughts:

1. I wish we could go back in time and see what would have happened if Derryck had waited until 3 seconds were left in the half, rather than 9, when he put up that 3. Had he run out the clock, then no Ingram foul, and I bet we win the game handily. It's always hard to say a single play changed the outcome of a game, but, for this no-depth team, I think that was a game changer. On the other hand, it is more good news that bad. Derryck has played 17 games of college basketball. In hoops, as in the rest of life, you learn through experience. I bet he won't rush that shot next time, and I would rather he learn the lesson in a road game at Clemson in January than some other time.

2. The game was no fun to watch because of the way it was officiated. Puzzling illegal screens; Duke goes to the line 7 times; weird calls and no calls in both directions. To my eyes, the refs were inconsistent, which is about the worst thing they can do because you can't properly adapt to the way the game is being called.

3. This is at least the 3rd or 4th game where I saw Kennard actively moving teammates around on defense -- and they were all doing what he said. That suggests that: (i) he knows what he is doing, and (ii) if he sticks around, we have a potential monster on-court leader if the future.

4. Marshall fumbled and didn't go up strong and dunk at least twice, resulting is lost balls. That's old Marshall. I don't wish to see old Marshall again.

5. I liked the way Allen didn't force the action. When it wasn't there, he dumped and distributed. He learned from the KY game.

6. Jeter is not at all ready for prime time. There's no reason to think he can't develop over the course of his career, but I have little hope that he will provide much quality PT this year. Still, until Amile comes back, he will see action, and, well, at least he's tall.

7. It is very hard to play in foul trouble. You have to play super smart. We have 3 freshman and a sophomore trying to do it. There are going to be nights like this.

8. I bet the NCAA tournament is going to be a seed-busting bloodbath this year. There are no great teams. (Though, man, if we get Amile back in time to integrate him into a cohesive style of play, I still like our chances for a Final Four run.)

9. Live by the free throw; die by the free throw. That has been a key component to our success this season. Last night, we rarely got to the line (despite driving), and when we did, we missed.

Time to get our minds right for a roller coaster year that should be interesting every single night. The key is to get hot at the right time.

Furniture
01-14-2016, 09:22 AM
Clemson is a good team. It was a road game. We're still very young. We're very badly missing Amile. We got absolutely screwed all game long by the refs. We did a lot of things last night very poorly - things that for the most part this season we've done pretty well.

And we still nearly won the game.

I love how all of the sudden we're terrible and everyone is hiding for cover for the lost season. Reminds me a lot of last season after Miami and NC St.

The sky is falling threads are an important of the yearly process here.

Troublemaker
01-14-2016, 09:28 AM
I don't understand how it gets to the point that an injury to one contributing player can affect this
team so dramatically. That being said, I'd prefer to see Amile sit out of the remainder of the year and then use a medical redshirt to return next season alongside Giles and Tatum. This year's team isn't going very far. Next year's team plus Amile could be absurd.

Why do people keep saying this? I would like to see someone defend that position. There are many possible avenues to do so.

For example, from what I can tell, much of the punditry and fans of college basketball believe Kansas, Oklahoma, and Michigan St to be top-3 teams in the country.

When I compare their rosters to Duke when Amile returns from injury, I don't see an advantage for those teams.

Am I wrong?

Lar77
01-14-2016, 09:36 AM
Well, it may not be last season, but look at it this way:

On January 13, 2016, Duke lost on the road to the #75 team, according to Pomeroy.

On January 13, 2015, Duke lost at home to the #74 team (also according to Pomeroy, using the ranking on the date of that game). By 16 points. Three days after losing to the #57 team.

Tell me, exactly one year ago today were you saying, "Miami is not good = neither are we"?



Seriously? I'll bet you any amount that Duke makes the 2016 NCAA Tournament. Any amount.



By "this group" do you mean the top ten Duke team with seven McDonald's All-Americans on the roster? Yeah, sounds enormously challenging to me.



A minimum of 10 games? While as CDu pointed out, it is certainly possible that Duke loses 10 games this season (including the post-season), it's certainly not a given, as you seem to believe.

But if you really want to know "what would make [me] believe Duke won't lose a minimum of 10 games" this season, it's because in the last 19 seasons, Duke has lost more than 9 games only once (2007), and in the past 31 seasons, Duke has lost more than 9 games only three times (2007, 1996, 1995). And I don't for a minute think that this year's team is the worst or second-worst team we've had in the past 20 seasons or in the bottom four of teams we've had in the past 32 seasons. Do you?

I'd also mention that we've already won two ACC road games and I'm hopeful that our best interior defender and senior captain (who didn't play in two of our three losses) will come back sometime in February.

So that's why.



IN 1999-2000, Duke played essentially a six-man rotation, with only one good big man. We ended the regular season ranked #1 in the country and finished with a 29-5 record (15-1 in the ACC). So, yeah, he's done it.


Thank you Kedsy for pointing out that one game is not a disaster. We made a lot of mistakes and Clemson made us pay for them. For those criticizing Chase Jeter getting 5 fouls in 4 minutes, I recall similar comments about all 3 Plumlees in their first years.

I'm sorry that we lost an ACC road game (might have been a different result at home, but who knows). It will happen again. This was a frustrating game, but we will learn from it and move on.

I'm more concerned about K's comments about Amile. We're now a month into the vigil and it sounds like it will be several more weeks.

Notre Dame and Syracuse are not what they were last year. We will be at home. Let's see where we are after the weekend.

Lar77
01-14-2016, 09:44 AM
Man, I hate losing. A couple thoughts:


Time to get our minds right for a roller coaster year that should be interesting every single night. The key is to get hot at the right time.


RepoMan, agree with all none of your points. But #10 is spot on. Even with Amile, this was going to be a roller coaster year. We have young guys that will make mistakes.

On the fouls, I think the refs are still adjusting. They didn't call fouls on drives as they have in other games. Moving screens have been a point of emphasis, even though I don't think they called them well last night (but I'm biased)

devildeac
01-14-2016, 09:59 AM
I did make $1K as I took clemmons and the points and unfortunately they not only covered but won :mad: . That leaves me at $4K. I'm going to have to figure out the spreadsheet on the "official" gambling thread :rolleyes: .

FerryFor50
01-14-2016, 10:14 AM
Why do people keep saying this? I would like to see someone defend that position. There are many possible avenues to do so.

For example, from what I can tell, much of the punditry and fans of college basketball believe Kansas, Oklahoma, and Michigan St to be top-3 teams in the country.

When I compare their rosters to Duke when Amile returns from injury, I don't see an advantage for those teams.

Am I wrong?

Yea, I don't get it. Mailing it in in January with a team that is 14-3 on the season?

The only team out of the top 3 you listed that I think is better than a Duke with a healthy Amile is Oklahoma. Hield and the frenetic defense would cause a lot of problems.

Troublemaker
01-14-2016, 10:18 AM
9. Live by the free throw; die by the free throw. That has been a key component to our success this season. Last night, we rarely got to the line (despite driving), and when we did, we missed.


I like this point you made a lot. And for those wondering, Clemson absolutely is one of the best teams in the country at not sending the opponent to the FT line. They rank 11th in the country in defensive free throw rate. So that's a legitimate skill/component of their success, and they deserve credit for winning a strength-on-strength battle against our drivers, who usually get to the line easily.

Still, we shot 54% on twos and 44% on threes. We would've won if not for the 13 turnovers, which in a low-possession game (63), meant we turned the ball over on over a fifth of our possessions.

FerryFor50
01-14-2016, 10:19 AM
I never saw Obi or Vrank play before this year, but I did see Jeter play several times in high school and was not impressed. I was surprised at Jeter's ranking and by Duke's pursuit of him, but I assumed there must be something good there.. At this point, based on what I have seen thus far, I feel that none of them are likely to be contributors at any point this year (and Obi likely never), but that of the three only Jeter provides any hope, however thin. Therefore, I feel very confident in providing this answer to your question: Yes! It would likely cost us an extra loss or two, or at least shaky wins.


Coach K sees all three in practice; let him decide who can provide the appropriate level of help.

Jeter reminds me a bit of Joakim Noah.

Noah was the #75 recruit coming out of high school:

http://sports.yahoo.com/usf/basketball/recruiting/player-Joakim-Noah-13734

As a freshman, Noah averaged about 9 minutes and 3.5 ppg.

http://www.sports-reference.com/cbb/players/joakim-noah-1.html

They don't list stats for fouls or turnovers, but I recall Noah to be very "active" as a player, similar to Jeter. All over the place. Hustling.

Jeter's issue is that he's not getting in the right spots fast enough because, well, he's a freshman. But he's got a motor and plays hard. Yes, he's looked fairly bad so far, but like you said, he must be showing something in practices.

I'm not going to give up on him yet.

Troublemaker
01-14-2016, 10:25 AM
Also, not crazy about the coaching staff deciding to let Clemson run the clock down after Grayson's basket cut the lead down to one with 35.6 seconds left,

I agree, I would've preferred we foul to extend the game there, especially since getting the defensive rebound was hard for us in the second half.

Troublemaker
01-14-2016, 10:28 AM
I'd take 12-6 ACC record right now. Who wouldn't take that right now? Seriously, with the schedule we have coming up how could anyone in their right mind not believe that a 12-6 ACC record for Duke might be one of our best outcomes at this point?

Not me. I want to see this play out. I believe several outcomes > 12-6 are possible.

wavedukefan70s
01-14-2016, 10:35 AM
We will be fine amigos.we are young.after last year .our expectations are out of whack.which is a good problem to have. I personally think we are doing fine.look at every other program in the A.C.C. i wouldnt trade places with any of them.by febuary we will have something special.

As for the game clemson has played goonball for decades .thats a lot to deal with for most young teams.with the turnovers and foul trouble they were scared until the final seconds.we were still a couple of plays from winning.

Troublemaker
01-14-2016, 10:37 AM
I am reminded a little of the situation with my old high school teammate, Casey Sanders. Went to a small prep school, was pursued by Duke, shot up in the rankings, became a McD's All American, and ended up not quite good enough at basketball to become a major contributor, much less a star. But then again, he played a very important role in the 2001 championship season, graduated with a Duke degree, and played several seasons overseas. Can't tell if it will be a good or a bad thing if Jeter has a career like Casey's.

Chase is going to be better than Casey. He has much better coordination than what he's shown so far. I just think Chase is a bit up in his head right now, and things need to slow down for him.

Chase went to a high school power in Bishop Gorman. They play a national schedule, so his competition in high school was fine.

Troublemaker
01-14-2016, 10:42 AM
Clemson has two more wins against top 25 opponents than we do. I would say they have and excellent shot at the tournament, barring always possible implosion.

Clemson's played well at the start of the ACC season, but they had a very poor non-conference that will drag down their chances. If by "excellent shot at the tournament" you mean they have a > 50% shot at it, I'd have to disagree. We might even be able to bet on it now :-)

whereinthehellami
01-14-2016, 10:50 AM
The positives

Had a lead for most of the game, a road game against a hot opponent at that.


Had a lead for most of the game with foul trouble and some dubious decisions (teaching points?).


Allen played well despite being the focal point. Unlike the KY game, he wasn't shut down.


Ingram continued to play like a 1st rounder.


Kennard hit some early shots and showed some leadership.


Plumlee gave 7 points and 9 rebounds and showed a lot of energy.

The negatives


Jones had a rough game. You wonder how healthy he is? That airball at the end was U-G-L-Y.


Thornton's play at the end of the 1st half was...not good. And he has done this multiple times this season. Need to get this fixed.


Ingram seemed exhausted at the end. Beginning of a theme for this season?


Kennard seemed to waffle on whether to fully commit to being one of the guys at the end. Also, take it strong. Can't look for contact and the call on the road.


Plumlee away from the rim is...not strong.


I have never seen a player overthink setting a screen like Jeter did last night, it looked so awkward.


The dribble drive passing was shaky at best? Can other teams play it like CU did?

Misc

Not overly impressed with Clemson, though they had a strong collective will. Forced the script so to speak.


Worst call of the game I thought was the Jones layup at the end of the game, where he twirled into the defender, who was twirling away from the contact, and then Jones crumpled like he was made of paper. They counted the hoop and Jones missed the FT.


I think the rest of the season is going to be a roller coaster. and I don't see how duke doesn't lose at least 10 games and you know what, I'm okay with that. I'll still enjoy the ride as long as Duke is fighting and developing. What more can you ask? The pieces are what they are, talented but small in number and inexperienced.

CDu
01-14-2016, 11:04 AM
Here are my thoughts on the game:

1. It was a really strange game from our team. We came out guns-a-blaring, taking a 28-16 lead. But after that, things fell apart. Clemson won the rest of the game 52-35 for the last 27 minutes. That's awful. As has been mentioned, it's odd to lose a game when we shoot nearly 50% from the field and 44% from 3 and don't have a huge number of turnovers, but that's what happened.

2. There were two short, brutal stretches that largely cost us the game. The last 1:30 of the first half was especially rough. We forced a turnover while up 35-29, but Ingram picked up his second foul. At that point, we should have probably pulled him from the game through the half. Instead, we left him in and he picked up his third foul with just a few seconds left. That completely took him out of the game. He scored literally one more point in the second half, spending a decent chunk of the game on the bench and being very tentative when in.

In addition to that rough stretch, the span of ~14:30 minutes to ~10:30 was pretty brutal too. In that span, Plumlee picked up 3 fouls. He went from no foul trouble to extreme foul trouble just like that. And in that same span, Ingram picked up his 4th foul. From that point on, we were forced to play tentatively defensively.

Coach K has gotten MUCH better at massaging foul trouble since the 2004 debacle against UConn, but last night wasn't his best work. I think he probably should have pulled Ingram to end the first half, and he probably should have been willing to go wit Obi for a few minutes in the middle of the second half. Not that Obi would have been a productive player (see below for more on that), but using him might have allowed us to play man-to-man defense instead of having to commit to 8 minutes of zone with 1 or 2 guys with 4 fouls, and might have allowed Marshall to play more aggressively when he was in there. The zone was a disaster last night, as we just couldn't get stops (probably because we had so many tentative players).

3. Aside from those two stretches, the game was lost in two areas: the free throw line, and rebounding. Clemson killed us on the glass, and we shot 2-7 from the line versus 12-13 for Clemson. The rebounding battle was a reasonable loss given that all of our bigs got in foul trouble and we had to play so much of the game REALLY small. But the free throw shooting was costly. Allen missed the front end of a one-and-one and another free throw. Ingram missed one of two. Jones missed his one attempt. Those guys are all good free throw shooters, and they combined for 1-5. If they go 3-5, we might very well have won the game; 4-5 puts us in pretty good position to win; 5-5 and I'd say we were strongly likely to win. But 1-5 left us still chasing Clemson in the final minutes, and we just never got back over the hump.

4. Tough night for Thornton. The stat line doesn't fully show his struggles, but he just looked really shaky out there. So much so that the team went away from him for a good chunk of crunch time. He's a freshman PG, and it has showed so far this year.

5. Allen had a really strange game. He scored 5 in the first 7 minutes, and then 12 in the final 15 minutes of the game, on a ridiculous efficiency of over 2 points per shot. But he disappeared for the middle 18 minutes of the game, with 0 points (only 1 shot attempt) 1 assist and 2 turnovers. Our most productive player just can't be taken out of the game for half the game like that, especially when he was so effective when he did shoot.

6. It was a tough second half for Kennard, too. He had a terrific first rotation, scoring 8 points and looking awesome. But he scored just 2 more points the last 27 minutes, and wound up with fewer points than FGA. Oddly, he was hitting his jumpshot but missing around the basket last night, which has been the opposite of what he's done this year. He was aggressive in the second half, but his drives were just not producing points. He and Thornton really seemed to struggle in traffic.

7. Ingram was a monster in the first half. His getting in foul trouble just completely changed the game. After Ingram's fourth foul, Blossomgame scored 10 points (we scored just 19 from then on).

8. Not much to say about Jeter other than he just isn't ready to play against ACC-quality big men. Nnoko just abused him inside in the brief time Jeter was out there. And if Obi isn't as ready as Jeter, well, that probably says all there is to say about Obi.

Tough loss. We are the better team, but we didn't play like it last night. We'll have better games. We may have trouble winning the ACC regular season (especially if Jefferson misses any of the bigger games on our schedule), but hopefully we can build toward the tourneys.

Kedsy
01-14-2016, 11:11 AM
Okay, I'll give you credit for digging that up but, but that team actually played several players deeper on the bench significant minutes. That team played 34 games, and the #7 player in the rotation to the end of the bench played a total of 849 minutes out of a possible 6925, which was 12.3% of all available minutes over the entire season.

I don't know what season you looked at, but in 1999-2000, the 7th man (Matt Christensen) played 295 minutes. It really was a 6-man rotation.

bluedev_92
01-14-2016, 11:17 AM
Clemson is not a tournament team. We were up 12 in the first half and they were dead in the water. Thornton jacks up an ill-advised 3 with 8 seconds left on the clock and then Ingram gets his third. We get nothing from the bench. The offense stalls and we only score 63 points.

Clemson is not a very good team. This is a 10 loss Duke team and anyone dreaming of some crazy run at this point hasn't been watching the games. We are young, alarmingly thin, and reliant upon guys who have never 'been the guy'. Not to mention very, very suspect point guard play.

Just really a poor, poor performance against a team that we should have put away in the first half.

Tell that to Louisville. Really, that's an overreaction.

Indoor66
01-14-2016, 11:19 AM
Let's see, last night we played:

1 Senior
1 Junior
1 Sophomore
4 Freshmen

Why weren't they a polished, compete product on January 13, 2016?

Any thoughts?

superdave
01-14-2016, 11:25 AM
What to make of Thorton sitting during crunch time?

Derryck was looking to shoot a little too much and maybe even dribble/drive too much. He needs to work to break down his guy and dish, or get the ball to Brandon, Grayson and Luke who are better playmakers at this point.

He is still playing too fast and reminds me of a jackrabbit out there. A lot of energy, not enough focus.

By the way, Luke's feed to a rolling Marshall made me so happy.

kAzE
01-14-2016, 11:42 AM
I don't know what season you looked at, but in 1999-2000, the 7th man (Matt Christensen) played 295 minutes. It really was a 6-man rotation.

I said 7th player to the end of the bench. That includes Matt Christensen, Nick Horvath, Casey Sanders, Andre Buckner, etc. Those guys could be trusted with minutes. We do not have those guys this year. 849 minutes is not chump change. Mike Dunleavy only played a total of 724 minutes that year. Boozer played 807.

Like I said, those players played about 1/8 of all available minutes. That's not a 6-man rotation, those other players played a significant amount of minutes combined. We don't have that this year. And I'd also like to re-emphasize that we don't have that same top 6 this year as in 1999-00. 2 of those guys have jerseys hanging in Cameron (Both NPOYs), 2 more of them are still playing in the NBA, and the other 2 are or were part of our coaching staff. All of them except Nate James were All Americans at some point in their career. That's like an all-time amazing top 6. It's not the same situation at all. Matt Jones and Marshall Plumlee are wonderful guys and great leaders, but neither will ever receive votes for an all-american team.

CDu
01-14-2016, 11:57 AM
I said 7th player to the end of the bench. That includes Matt Christensen, Nick Horvath, Casey Sanders, Andre Buckner, etc.

Like I said, those players played about 1/8 of all available minutes. That's not a 6-man rotation, those other players played a significant amount of minutes combined. We don't have that this year. And I'd also like to re-emphasize that we don't have that same top 6 this year as in 1999-00. 2 of those guys have jerseys hanging in Cameron (3 combined national player of the year awards), 2 more of them are still playing in the NBA, and the other 2 are or were part of our coaching staff. All of them except Nate James were All Americans at some point in their career. That's like an all-time amazing top 6. It's not the same situation at all.

Yeah, that was Coach K's classic 6.5-man rotation. It's just that the 0.5 (and that could almost really be called a full man) was a trio of "bigs": Christensen, Horvath, Sanders, combining to average about 20.8 mpg. You knew that almost every night at least one (if not two) of those guys was going to play (Christensen played 31 games, Horvath 32, Sanders 25). You just weren't sure which one would get the most minutes.

Christensen, for example, averaged 9 mpg in the ACC tournament and played 10 minutes in the loss to Florida, but did not play the opening weekend of the NCAAs. Sanders and Horvath each played double-digit minutes against Lamar, and combined for 4 minutes against Kansas.

Almost every night one of those guys got 10 minutes in a game, often two of them. It just wasn't a set guy each night.

Kedsy
01-14-2016, 12:05 PM
Almost every night one of those guys got 10 minutes in a game, often two of them. It just wasn't a set guy each night.

Well, even this wasn't really true. In 1999-2000, after January 1 we played 17 games decided by 20 or fewer points. In 5 of those games, 7 players got 10+ minutes. In 12 of those games, only 6 players got 10+ minutes. I haven't tracked whether the 7th guy got 8 minutes or not, but in tight games when it counted, only six guys played double-figure minutes. In zero such games did two of those guys get as many as 10 minutes.

Also, while I agree we had a really good top six that year, I would also remind everyone that three of them were freshmen, none of whom played as well in 1999-2000 as we remember from their later years.

kAzE
01-14-2016, 12:07 PM
Yeah, that was Coach K's classic 6.5-man rotation. It's just that the 0.5 (and that could almost really be called a full man) was a trio of "bigs": Christensen, Horvath, Sanders, combining to average about 20.8 mpg. You knew that almost every night at least one (if not two) of those guys was going to play (Christensen played 31 games, Horvath 32, Sanders 25). You just weren't sure which one would get the most minutes.

Christensen, for example, averaged 9 mpg in the ACC tournament and played 10 minutes in the loss to Florida, but did not play the opening weekend of the NCAAs. Sanders and Horvath each played double-digit minutes against Lamar, and combined for 4 minutes against Kansas.

Almost every night one of those guys got 10 minutes in a game, often two of them. It just wasn't a set guy each night.

Yeah I'd also add that those 3 bigs (Christensen, Horvath, and Sanders) combined for 211 points and 157 rebounds over the course of a 34 game season. They didn't just get minutes, they contributed. That's 6.2 points and 4.6 rebounds per game. If we could get that from Chase/Obi/Vrank, I think we'd all be overjoyed.

ThrowItAround
01-14-2016, 12:14 PM
Let's see, last night we played:

1 Senior
1 Junior
1 Sophomore
4 Freshmen

Why weren't they a polished, compete product on January 13, 2016?

Any thoughts?


This.

kAzE
01-14-2016, 12:39 PM
Derryck was looking to shoot a little too much and maybe even dribble/drive too much. He needs to work to break down his guy and dish, or get the ball to Brandon, Grayson and Luke who are better playmakers at this point.

He is still playing too fast and reminds me of a jackrabbit out there. A lot of energy, not enough focus.

By the way, Luke's feed to a rolling Marshall made me so happy.

Based on what I've seen through 17 games, I'd rank our guards in these categories like so:

Passing Vision

1. Grayson
2. Brandon
3. Luke
4. Matt
5. Derryck

Passing Accuracy

1. Brandon
2. Grayson
3. Luke
4. Derryck
5. Matt

Ball Handling

1. Derryck
2. Luke
3. Grayson
4. Matt
5. Brandon

Decision Making
1. Luke
2. Grayson
3. Brandon
4. Matt
5. Derryck

Ability to Finish in the Paint
1. Brandon
2. Grayson
3. Luke
4. Derryck
5. Matt

Perimeter Shooting

1. Luke (Yes, I know he's shooting 30%, but everything that you hear from Coach K implies that Luke is the best pure shooter, and he looks like it, given his form, free throw accuracy, and the shots that he's allowed to take)
2. Grayson
3. Brandon
4. Matt
5. Derryck

I didn't rank leadership or defense, which are Matt's calling cards, so I hope nobody thinks I'm just hating on him.

So (in my opinion) for pretty much everything other than bringing the ball up the court, Grayson, Brandon, and Luke are going to be the preferred play makers. I don't know if Derryck will progress to that next level this year. I think he will get there next year with a full summer of practice, but we can't rely on him to be Tyus Jones. I think if it wasn't already apparent how special Tyus was, it's even more obvious now.

FerryFor50
01-14-2016, 12:44 PM
Based on what I've seen through 17 games, I'd rank our guards in these categories like so:

Passing Vision

1. Grayson
2. Brandon
3. Luke
4. Matt
5. Derryck

Passing Accuracy

1. Brandon
2. Grayson
3. Luke
4. Derryck
5. Matt

Ball Handling

1. Derryck
2. Luke
3. Grayson
4. Matt
5. Brandon

Decision Making
1. Luke
2. Grayson
3. Brandon
4. Matt
5. Derryck

Ability to Finish at the Rim
1. Brandon
2. Grayson
3. Luke
4. Derryck
5. Matt

I didn't rank leadership or defense, which are Matt's calling cards, so I hope nobody thinks I'm just hating on him.

So (in my opinion) for pretty much everything other than bringing the ball up the court, Grayson, Brandon, and Luke are going to be the preferred play makers. I don't know if Derryck will progress to that next level this year. I think he will get there next year with a full summer of practice, but we can't rely on him to be Tyus Jones. I think if it wasn't already apparent how special Tyus was, it's even more obvious now.

No shooting ranks?

kAzE
01-14-2016, 12:48 PM
No shooting ranks?

Well, initially, I didn't consider shooting a major factor in the ability to make plays, but now that I think about it, it does impact play making off of shot fakes. Luke gets in to the paint quite a bit off of shot fakes. I'll update it. Really, though, all 5 of them are excellent perimeter shooters.

superdave
01-14-2016, 01:13 PM
Coach K has gotten MUCH better at massaging foul trouble since the 2004 debacle against UConn, but last night wasn't his best work. I think he probably should have pulled Ingram to end the first half, and he probably should have been willing to go wit Obi for a few minutes in the middle of the second half. Not that Obi would have been a productive player (see below for more on that), but using him might have allowed us to play man-to-man defense instead of having to commit to 8 minutes of zone with 1 or 2 guys with 4 fouls, and might have allowed Marshall to play more aggressively when he was in there. The zone was a disaster last night, as we just couldn't get stops (probably because we had so many tentative players).


I agree with this. Coach K needs to play Obi 1-2 minutes each half in this game, once we hit foul trouble, just to buy time. I would put in Obi in and slow the game down o limit the number of possessions.

cato
01-14-2016, 01:22 PM
I agree with this. Coach K needs to play Obi 1-2 minutes each half in this game, once we hit foul trouble, just to buy time. I would put in Obi in and slow the game down o limit the number of possessions.

I'll be interested to see what happens going forward. I thought yesterday was K leaving key players out there to see if they could play with foul trouble. They did not pass with flying colors.

Thornton is getting a lot of heat for the 3 at the end of the half, but I was also disappointed that Ingram committed the foul.

GGLC
01-14-2016, 01:23 PM
How bad could Obi be? I don't get it.

uh_no
01-14-2016, 01:40 PM
How bad could Obi be? I don't get it.

given what we've seen from chase, pretty bad...seeing that K's philosophy is you have to perform in practice...and if chase is out-performing obi in practice....

maybe chase is practicing far better than he is playing...but who knows.

what I do know is that we don't have very many good options, and our best option right now is to keep the top 6 on the floor as many minutes as possible and pray for a speedy amile return.

Kedsy
01-14-2016, 01:43 PM
Perimeter Shooting

1. Luke (Yes, I know he's shooting 30%, but everything that you hear from Coach K implies that Luke is the best pure shooter, and he looks like it, given his form, free throw accuracy, and the shots that he's allowed to take)
2. Grayson
3. Brandon
4. Matt
5. Derryck



Three-point shooting percentage:

FULL SEASON
1a. Matt: 42.2%
1b. Grayson: 42.1%
3. Derryck: 41.0%
4. Brandon: 39.3%
distant 5. Luke: 29.7%

JANUARY (ALL ACC GAMES)
1. Grayson: 50.0%
2. Brandon: 46.2%
3a. Luke: 30.8%
3b. Matt: 30.4%
3c. Derryck: 30.0%

DECEMBER
1. Derryck: 53.3%
2. Brandon: 45.5%
3. Matt: 42.5%
4. Luke: 31.3%
5. Grayson 28.0%

NOVEMBER
1a. Matt: 48.7%
1b. Grayson: 48.6%
3. Derryck: 33.3%
4. Luke: 28.6%
5. Brandon: 24.0%

Obviously, due to low-ish sample size, three-point shooting percentage tends to vary (sometimes dramatically) from month to month. But Luke hasn't varied much at all, he's been very consistently around 30%.

I agree that Luke has exceeded expectations and has been really good at most things, especially for a freshman. But I don't care about veiled reports from practice, he is clearly not our best outside shooter.

CDu
01-14-2016, 01:47 PM
Well, even this wasn't really true. In 1999-2000, after January 1 we played 17 games decided by 20 or fewer points. In 5 of those games, 7 players got 10+ minutes. In 12 of those games, only 6 players got 10+ minutes. I haven't tracked whether the 7th guy got 8 minutes or not, but in tight games when it counted, only six guys played double-figure minutes. In zero such games did two of those guys get as many as 10 minutes.

Also, while I agree we had a really good top six that year, I would also remind everyone that three of them were freshmen, none of whom played as well in 1999-2000 as we remember from their later years.

From January onward, here is the game-by-game breakdown:
Jan 2 (William&Mary): blowout
Jan 5 (UVa): They combined for 10 minutes (Christensen leading with 6)
Jan 12 (Ga Tech): blowout
Jan 16 (FSU): blowout
Jan 19 (State): Just 4 total
Jan 22 (Wake): 14 combined, 7 for Christensen
Jan 29 (Clemson): blowout
Feb 5 (UVa): Horvath got 7, Christensen 8, Sanders only got in for the last 3 minutes with the scrubs as we pulled away at the end
Feb 9 (Maryland): Christensen 11
Feb 12 (Ga Tech): Christensen got 10
Feb 16 (FSU): blowout
Feb 19 (State): Christensen 8, trio got 12
Feb 22 (Wake): Christensen 12, Horvath 18
Feb 26 (SJU): Christensen 14, Horvath 9
March 1 (Clemson): Christensen 9, Horvath 17
March 4 (UNC): Christensen 13, Horvath 6, Sanders 1
March 10 (Clemson): blowout
March 11 (Wake): Christensen 10
March 12 (UNC): blowout
March 19 (Kansas): 4 combined
March 24 (Florida): Christensen 10

So pretty much every game the trio had 10+ minutes. Only the State and Kansas games did they fall short. Sometimes it was one guy, sometimes 2, sometimes it was just the combination getting 10. But it was pretty consistently a 6.5 man rotation.

ricks68
01-14-2016, 01:52 PM
How bad could Obi be? I don't get it.

Very bad knees, evidently. IMHO, I think it's about time posters just accept this fact and move on. Sorry to disappoint.

ricks

Kedsy
01-14-2016, 01:53 PM
So pretty much every game the trio had 10+ minutes. Only the State and Kansas games did they fall short. Sometimes it was one guy, sometimes 2, sometimes it was just the combination getting 10. But it was pretty consistently a 6.5 man rotation.

I didn't realize you meant combined. I've always thought an "x.5 man rotation" meant an x+1th guy got bottom-of-the-rotation minutes. I've never understood the ".5" to mean the aggregate of the entire end of the bench.

Saratoga2
01-14-2016, 01:57 PM
Here are my thoughts on the game:

1. It was a really strange game from our team. We came out guns-a-blaring, taking a 28-16 lead. But after that, things fell apart. Clemson won the rest of the game 52-35 for the last 27 minutes. That's awful. As has been mentioned, it's odd to lose a game when we shoot nearly 50% from the field and 44% from 3 and don't have a huge number of turnovers, but that's what happened.

2. There were two short, brutal stretches that largely cost us the game. The last 1:30 of the first half was especially rough. We forced a turnover while up 35-29, but Ingram picked up his second foul. At that point, we should have probably pulled him from the game through the half. Instead, we left him in and he picked up his third foul with just a few seconds left. That completely took him out of the game. He scored literally one more point in the second half, spending a decent chunk of the game on the bench and being very tentative when in.

In addition to that rough stretch, the span of ~14:30 minutes to ~10:30 was pretty brutal too. In that span, Plumlee picked up 3 fouls. He went from no foul trouble to extreme foul trouble just like that. And in that same span, Ingram picked up his 4th foul. From that point on, we were forced to play tentatively defensively.

Coach K has gotten MUCH better at massaging foul trouble since the 2004 debacle against UConn, but last night wasn't his best work. I think he probably should have pulled Ingram to end the first half, and he probably should have been willing to go wit Obi for a few minutes in the middle of the second half. Not that Obi would have been a productive player (see below for more on that), but using him might have allowed us to play man-to-man defense instead of having to commit to 8 minutes of zone with 1 or 2 guys with 4 fouls, and might have allowed Marshall to play more aggressively when he was in there. The zone was a disaster last night, as we just couldn't get stops (probably because we had so many tentative players).

3. Aside from those two stretches, the game was lost in two areas: the free throw line, and rebounding. Clemson killed us on the glass, and we shot 2-7 from the line versus 12-13 for Clemson. The rebounding battle was a reasonable loss given that all of our bigs got in foul trouble and we had to play so much of the game REALLY small. But the free throw shooting was costly. Allen missed the front end of a one-and-one and another free throw. Ingram missed one of two. Jones missed his one attempt. Those guys are all good free throw shooters, and they combined for 1-5. If they go 3-5, we might very well have won the game; 4-5 puts us in pretty good position to win; 5-5 and I'd say we were strongly likely to win. But 1-5 left us still chasing Clemson in the final minutes, and we just never got back over the hump.

4. Tough night for Thornton. The stat line doesn't fully show his struggles, but he just looked really shaky out there. So much so that the team went away from him for a good chunk of crunch time. He's a freshman PG, and it has showed so far this year.

5. Allen had a really strange game. He scored 5 in the first 7 minutes, and then 12 in the final 15 minutes of the game, on a ridiculous efficiency of over 2 points per shot. But he disappeared for the middle 18 minutes of the game, with 0 points (only 1 shot attempt) 1 assist and 2 turnovers. Our most productive player just can't be taken out of the game for half the game like that, especially when he was so effective when he did shoot.

6. It was a tough second half for Kennard, too. He had a terrific first rotation, scoring 8 points and looking awesome. But he scored just 2 more points the last 27 minutes, and wound up with fewer points than FGA. Oddly, he was hitting his jumpshot but missing around the basket last night, which has been the opposite of what he's done this year. He was aggressive in the second half, but his drives were just not producing points. He and Thornton really seemed to struggle in traffic.

7. Ingram was a monster in the first half. His getting in foul trouble just completely changed the game. After Ingram's fourth foul, Blossomgame scored 10 points (we scored just 19 from then on).

8. Not much to say about Jeter other than he just isn't ready to play against ACC-quality big men. Nnoko just abused him inside in the brief time Jeter was out there. And if Obi isn't as ready as Jeter, well, that probably says all there is to say about Obi.

Tough loss. We are the better team, but we didn't play like it last night. We'll have better games. We may have trouble winning the ACC regular season (especially if Jefferson misses any of the bigger games on our schedule), but hopefully we can build toward the tourneys.

I enjoy reading your analysis since you go into depth and still try to be understanding and fair to the players and coaches. The turnover situation hurt last night and had we cut down just a few might have allowed us to win. Grayson often is on the limits of control when going to the basket. That is part of his approach to the game. Unfortunately, his full bore efforts put him in the position of making wild passes, which were intercepted. I think of the foul when Matt was guarding a player with his back to the basket and approximately 25 feet out was decisive and was due to Matt's semi-exhaustion.

I also believe the wearing nature of being on the floor for 35 minutes had the effect of lessening our shooting accuracy as the game played on. We have seen the same thing happen with Brandon now in several games. Little can be done to give our players more game rest breaks until either Amile gets back or Chase has an breakthrough. It appears that Obi is just not going to be much help and I know it is grasping at straws, but there is still a 6'11", 270# Center on the bench who seems to move as well as Marshall. Clearly the coaches don't think he can help.

Derryck is making freshman mistakes out there although he is our quickest player and has a good handle. Teaching moments abound for him. Lets hope he is listening, since we need him to be more productive and give others some rest breaks.

JNort
01-14-2016, 02:09 PM
I saw only one problem but it's been a problem all year. We play to much help defense and our guys get lost when they switch. Not sure how it's that hard to learn but somthing needs to be done

CDu
01-14-2016, 02:09 PM
I agree with this. Coach K needs to play Obi 1-2 minutes each half in this game, once we hit foul trouble, just to buy time. I would put in Obi in and slow the game down o limit the number of possessions.

Yeah, to be clear I think those 1-2 minutes are going to be net negatives for those few minutes. But I think the tradeoff in terms of being able to go full-bore the last 10 minutes of the game would make it a net positive. And as you said, if you slow the pace for those few minutes, you reduce the net negative.

The key is doing it when the other team's backup bigs are in.

Kfanarmy
01-14-2016, 02:10 PM
Let's see, last night we played:

1 Senior
1 Junior
1 Sophomore
4 Freshmen

Why weren't they a polished, compete product on January 13, 2016?

Any thoughts?

Not quite enough water under the bridge yet for all the rocks to be polished

CDu
01-14-2016, 02:13 PM
I didn't realize you meant combined. I've always thought an "x.5 man rotation" meant an x+1th guy got bottom-of-the-rotation minutes. I've never understood the ".5" to mean the aggregate of the entire end of the bench.

Yeah, normally it does refer to one guy. But that year was a particularly odd case in which we didn't have a clear guy there, but had multiple guys who all played the same spot. They weren't usually on the floor at the same time (except at the end of blowouts of course), but they were regular spot-filler for our center/PF spots as needed when Boozer needed rest or was in foul trouble.

But even if you want to think of it as being a "just one guy" thing, I think all but one of the other games listed had one guy getting at least 7 minutes. So the 6.5 man rotation thing really did hold.

sagegrouse
01-14-2016, 02:14 PM
How bad could Obi be? I don't get it.


given what we've seen from chase, pretty bad...seeing that K's philosophy is you have to perform in practice...and if chase is out-performing obi in practice...

maybe chase is practicing far better than he is playing...but who knows.

what I do know is that we don't have very many good options, and our best option right now is to keep the top 6 on the floor as many minutes as possible and pray for a speedy amile return.

I expect Chase earned a spot on the bench, and someone else will get playing time for at least one game. I mean, how much worse could he have played? Five fouls (which cost us points through bonus shots) in four minutes.

BTW, I expect Chase to be playing much, much better by the end of the season, but I think K has to take a short-term step.

Kindly,
Sage

FerryFor50
01-14-2016, 02:18 PM
I expect Chase earned a spot on the bench, and someone else will get playing time for at least one game. I mean, how much worse could he have played? Five fouls (which cost us points through bonus shots) in four minutes.

BTW, I expect Chase to be playing much, much better by the end of the season, but I think K has to take a short-term step.

Kindly,
Sage

True. If Ingram can be benched, so can Jeter.

wsb3
01-14-2016, 03:09 PM
How bad could Obi be? I don't get it.

You know when we have all those silly thoughts in the summer about the next season...I actually thought with Plumlee, Jefferson, (can't predict injuries) Obi & Jeter that we were actually going to be deep around the basket. One injury & Jeter to this point not living up to the hype & Obi a non factor & I don't know what I was thinking.

Obi puzzles me the most because Coach K's track record with transfers to this point has been pretty darn good..He nearly averaged a double double as a freshman. If we were getting half that it would make a world of difference.

http://www.riceowls.com/sports/m-baskbl/mtt/sean_obi_854237.html

I am not questioning Coach K not playing him. He sees him in practice. I just thought with that body... his freshman year...a year being taught by the best Coach..

I am not giving up on this season at all but regardless Duke won the NC last year & subsequently lost three freshman in the process. Regardless of what happens from here on out it was worth it. It could be worse we could not have got Ingram. I don't even want to see what this season would look like without him.

Kedsy
01-14-2016, 03:12 PM
But even if you want to think of it as being a "just one guy" thing, I think all but one of the other games listed had one guy getting at least 7 minutes. So the 6.5 man rotation thing really did hold.

I agree, but this season is pretty much the same. Chase has played at least 6 minutes every game since Amile went down. As the original question was whether Coach K has ever succeeded before with such a thin rotation, I think the 1999-2000 is apropos.

FerryFor50
01-14-2016, 03:14 PM
You know when we have all those silly thoughts in the summer about the next season...I actually thought with Plumlee, Jefferson, (can't predict injuries) Obi & Jeter that we were actually going to be deep around the basket. One injury & Jeter to this point not living up to the hype & Obi a non factor & I don't know what I was thinking.

Obi puzzles me the most because Coach K's track record with transfers to this point has been pretty darn good..He nearly averaged a double double as a freshman. If we were getting half that it would make a world of difference.

http://www.riceowls.com/sports/m-baskbl/mtt/sean_obi_854237.html

I am not questioning Coach K not playing him. He sees him in practice. I just thought with that body... his freshman year...a year being taught by the best Coach..

I am not giving up on this season at all but regardless Duke won the NC last year & subsequently lost three freshman in the process. Regardless of what happens from here on out it was worth it. It could be worse we could not have got Ingram. I don't even want to see what this season would look like without him.

I think someone else mentioned that Obi has cranky knees.

Mtn.Devil.91.92.01.10.15
01-14-2016, 03:16 PM
Very bad knees, evidently. IMHO, I think it's about time posters just accept this fact and move on. Sorry to disappoint.

ricks

Yes, that's my thought too. In one of his brief appearance, I watched him very carefully and he seems almost incapable of any vertical leap. I mean, a few inches even looks like a stretch. Gotta assume that's an injury or some sort of chronic condition.

As someone who has suffered knee issues in the past, it is extremely frustrating.

kAzE
01-14-2016, 03:18 PM
I agree, but this season is pretty much the same. Chase has played at least 6 minutes every game since Amile went down. As the original question was whether Coach K has ever succeeded before with such a thin rotation, I think the 1999-2000 is apropos.

That can't be entirely true. Off the top of my head, I can think of at least one game where he only had 4 minutes . . .

Still, this rotation is thinner. Both literally and figuratively. Matt Christensen, Nick Horvath, Casey Sanders, and Andre Buckner played more minutes (20.4 on average) and were more productive in those minutes than Chase, Obi, Vrank, and Pagliuca. This is probably the shortest rotation Coach K has ever had to play.

wsb3
01-14-2016, 03:23 PM
I think someone else mentioned that Obi has cranky knees.

Yes & I meant to mention that. Thank you.

I"m not at all questioning you but has Coach K ever spoke about Obi's knees holding him back? I know he can be a vault about these things.

LOVE DUKE WIN OR LOSE

FerryFor50
01-14-2016, 03:25 PM
Yes & I meant to mention that. Thank you.

I"m not at all questioning you but has Coach K ever spoke about Obi's knees holding him back? I know he can be a vault about these things.

LOVE DUKE WIN OR LOSE

Cone of silence, I suppose?

My info is 2nd hand. Given that Obi isn't playing, even though Jeter's been kind of a trainwreck, I'm inclined to believe that theory.

Troublemaker
01-14-2016, 03:26 PM
I think someone else mentioned that Obi has cranky knees.

Yeah, there's enough smoke to these rumors that I believe injury is a possibility.

In either case -- whether he's injured or whether he's just not good enough to contribute even 5 minutes -- Coach K has repeatedly said in press conferences that there are no alternatives. I wouldn't lose any sleep over Obi's playing time going forward.

jv001
01-14-2016, 03:50 PM
I expect Chase earned a spot on the bench, and someone else will get playing time for at least one game. I mean, how much worse could he have played? Five fouls (which cost us points through bonus shots) in four minutes.

BTW, I expect Chase to be playing much, much better by the end of the season, but I think K has to take a short-term step.

Kindly,
Sage

You could be correct in Chase sitting out the next game or at least most of it. Chase seems to lack the necessary footwork and lateral quickness at this point in his career. I don't think we will see his lateral quickness improve this season, but his footwork could improve. I still say he needs to shoot the jump hook shot he used his senior year in high school. It can't be worse than his layups getting blocked. But his offense is not his biggest weakness. His defense and rebounding his what we need at this point in the season(see Amile thread). Well that and positive minutes to help the inside guys(MPIII/Brandon). GoDuke!

CDu
01-14-2016, 04:00 PM
I agree, but this season is pretty much the same. Chase has played at least 6 minutes every game since Amile went down. As the original question was whether Coach K has ever succeeded before with such a thin rotation, I think the 1999-2000 is apropos.

Okay, then yeah, I mostly agree. I do think we played a bit deeper with that team than this current group, though. But not by very much. Whereas the combo 7th man averaged 20+ mpg (and 10+ mpg even in close games), the 7th man on this group rarely gets to 10 mpg. So this group (by virtue of Jeter not being ready) plays marginally thinner than that 2000 team.

But, in terms of a comp, it's a pretty close one.

ricks68
01-14-2016, 04:17 PM
Yes & I meant to mention that. Thank you.

I"m not at all questioning you but has Coach K ever spoke about Obi's knees holding him back? I know he can be a vault about these things.

LOVE DUKE WIN OR LOSE

Yes, he actually he let it out a few months back in an interview, but it was never mentioned again. Sorry, but I cannot give an accurate reference. I had posted well before that of Obi's dogging it in the CTC pre-game drills and relayed that I felt something might not be right, IIRC. So, I was on the lookout for any comments regarding Obi's situation. For the usual reasons, the board did not reflect my observations. (You know how it often is around here------so much thread hijacking, overly indulgent unwarranted player praise, ridiculous predictions, doom and gloom after one loss, incessant time allocation dicussions, persistant questioning of why Coach K won't put in a player, etc., that my observations got buried.)

So here we are with a player that can't physically play due to injury (Obi) and another (Jeter) that is unable to play effectively at the college level at this time. As far as the other bench players are concerned, Coach K obviously has development plans that do not include their participation in games this year. Amile will return when he is healed and ready to go. I think that pretty well sums it up. (I sure hope a lot of posters read this and spend some time separating the facts from the fiction, as I am getting tired of wading through the mountainous pile of----I need a more respectful word for "drivel" here, but am having a brain freeze-----in order to get to the really valuable stuff that this board is known for. There, now I have finally said what has been on my mind for a long time. Let the flaming begin.😮

ricks

Doria
01-14-2016, 04:43 PM
I agree, but this season is pretty much the same. Chase has played at least 6 minutes every game since Amile went down.

Wow, I hadn't realized Chase was playing so (relatively) much. Honestly, I think the best we can hope for in the short term is that he can provide regular "neutral" minutes that more productive players can use to rest. And I think that that goal is realistic--certainly not next game, but in the near future.


So here we are with a player that can't physically play due to injury (Obi) and another (Jeter) that is unable to play effectively at the college level at this time. As far as the other bench players are concerned, Coach K obviously has development plans that do not include their participation in games this year. Amile will return when he is healed and ready to go. I think that pretty well sums it up.

I agree, and really, I feel very bad for Obi, as well as Jefferson. As others who have some experience with either age- or injury-related chronic joint problems--or in my happy case, both!--can attest, that isn't fun, and I'm sure that Obi didn't transfer to Duke just because he wanted to ride the bench. It's disappointing, but sometimes things don't work out the way we always want, either as players or fans.

I'm disinclined to get too down on Chase for not being ready to play a major role as a freshman. As long as he is learning and, barring a couple steps back every now and again, progressing, that's fine. I hate to lose, and I hope we don't make it a habit, but I think losses can often be more instructive than easy wins. So we'll see what the team looks like at the back end of the season. I love seeing Duke compete, even if they don't win every game.

I also really enjoy reading everyone's detailed analysis, which is why I finally joined the forums, after having been a silent reader for over a year.

ricks68
01-14-2016, 04:52 PM
Wow, I hadn't realized Chase was playing so (relatively) much. Honestly, I think the best we can hope for in the short term is that he can provide regular "neutral" minutes that more productive players can use to rest. And I think that that goal is realistic--certainly not next game, but in the near future.



I agree, and really, I feel very bad for Obi, as well as Jefferson. As others who have some experience with either age- or injury-related chronic joint problems--or in my happy case, both!--can attest, that isn't fun, and I'm sure that Obi didn't transfer to Duke just because he wanted to ride the bench. It's disappointing, but sometimes things don't work out the way we always want, either as players or fans.

I'm disinclined to get too down on Chase for not being ready to play a major role as a freshman. As long as he is learning and, barring a couple steps back every now and again, progressing, that's fine. I hate to lose, and I hope we don't make it a habit, but I think losses can often be more instructive than easy wins. So we'll see what the team looks like at the back end of the season. I love seeing Duke compete, even if they don't win every game.

I also really enjoy reading everyone's detailed analysis, which is why I finally joined the forums, after having been a silent reader for over a year.

Welcome Doria. We do have many really knowledgeable posters here, and I am sure they are appreciative of your comments, so please don't hesitate to join in.

ricks

Mtn.Devil.91.92.01.10.15
01-14-2016, 05:15 PM
Wow, I hadn't realized Chase was playing so (relatively) much. Honestly, I think the best we can hope for in the short term is that he can provide regular "neutral" minutes that more productive players can use to rest. And I think that that goal is realistic--certainly not next game, but in the near future.]

I echo ricks68's welcome to you. The more the merrier around here.

I'm not surprised that Chase's contributions haven't been readily recognized. His pace of fouls yesterday was certainly noticed, and I would say I'd rather him play a little less, er, noticeably.

I'm not a member of the "gloom and doom" sect around this forum. I'm not quite Ozzie Optimistic, but I haven't seen any reason to write off this season to date. Chase's college career has a LOT of games left, and I suspect the Chase we see right now is likely quite different than the one will see near the end or his career. Or, possibly, at the end of the season. There are so many twists and turns left in the next two and half months. As this season unfolds, we will learn a lot about each of these youngsters.

Kedsy
01-14-2016, 06:00 PM
That can't be entirely true. Off the top of my head, I can think of at least one game where he only had 4 minutes . . .

You're right, GoDuke.com doesn't list the Clemson game yet -- but if he hadn't fouled out he would have played more than 6 minutes. In the previous 7 games since Amile went down, Chase played: 17, 6, 15, 9, 6, 7, and 8 minutes. In the traditional sense of the "6.5 man rotation," he is playing as much or more than whoever was the 7th man for any particular close-ish game in 2000.

Neals384
01-14-2016, 06:30 PM
Not a disgrace to lose to Clemson on the road, but the manner of the loss was disappointing to say the least.

Not building on a 28-16 lead. Ingram getting his 3rd foul toward the end of the half (and at the very end of a possession where Clemson was well defended), muzzling his aggressiveness & effectiveness for the rest of the game. Thornton taking the ill advised shot at the end of the first half. (ensuring his absence for most of the second). Letting Blossomgame go off after defending him extremely well for two thirds of the game.

That was his second foul with 1:20 left. His third foul was after Thornton's missed 3.


To me, the most important player for this team's success later in the year is Derryck Thornton. We're better when he's on the floor, but we're ALOT better when he plays under control and well.

No, we're not. Thornton is averaging +10 per 40 minutes. Allen, Jones, Ingram and Kennard are all +18 per 40 or better.


Irritating game for the reasons already mentioned by others upstream.

Question: would it really cost us anything to try Obi and/or Vrank in there for spot minutes to spell Plumlee? I mean, seriously. The knock is always "K knows they're not ready." But nothing, and I mean nothing, has pointed to Chase being ready for those same minutes. So would it kill us to try them? I mean even if they gave us 4 minutes, zero stats, and 5 fouls, we'd be in the same darn spot.

Not trying to say either is going to be a worldbeater out there. Far from it. But it's just ugly trotting Chase out there right now.

- Chillin

This. Well put.


I don't understand how it gets to the point that an injury to one contributing player can affect this
team so dramatically. That being said, I'd prefer to see Amile sit out of the remainder of the year and then use a medical redshirt to return next season alongside Giles and Tatum. This year's team isn't going very far. Next year's team plus Amile could be absurd.

Well, the way Duke's year-to-year turnover has worked out, we don't have a senior Jeter waiting in the wings to step up. Instead, we have four backup bigs with a total of one year experience among them.


Or 50 fouls per 40 minutes played. He would have fouled out 10 times.

He needs to get a lot stronger with much improved footwork. His fouls last night were largely due to bad footwork, arriving at his spot a heartbeat late and bumping the opponent with his body...at least that is what I think I saw.

Jeter is going to get there but I doubt it happens this season.

It was his 4th foul, just after coming in for Plumlee, that bothers me the most. He lost the ball underneath, it was gone to Clemson, he wasn't going to be able to snatch it back, and yet he reached in anyway. Showed a tremendous lack of awareness of the game situation - he's in there to spell Plum who has 4 fouls, and he picks up his 4th on a senseless foul.

sagegrouse
01-14-2016, 06:39 PM
So here we are with a player that can't physically play due to injury (Obi) and another (Jeter) that is unable to play effectively at the college level at this time. As far as the other bench players are concerned, Coach K obviously has development plans that do not include their participation in games this year. Amile will return when he is healed and ready to go. I think that pretty well sums it up.

Vrankovich has already burned a year of eligibility with his four minutes of playing time. How bad could he be?

CDu
01-14-2016, 07:10 PM
You're right, GoDuke.com doesn't list the Clemson game yet -- but if he hadn't fouled out he would have played more than 6 minutes. In the previous 7 games since Amile went down, Chase played: 17, 6, 15, 9, 6, 7, and 8 minutes. In the traditional sense of the "6.5 man rotation," he is playing as much or more than whoever was the 7th man for any particular close-ish game in 2000.

Not sure you can say that, actually. Most of Jeter's games since Jefferson went down have been blowouts. In the closeish (<20)games he has played 6, 6, 7, and 4 minutes. That is less than whomever happened to lead in minutes among the 2000 trio.

And even that comp is biased in favor of Jeter. Coach K has chosen one 7th man this year (and doesn't play the other two at all) rather than rotating among 3 back in 2000. That group definitely combined to average more minutes than Jeter, even in close games.

By pretty much any measure, I would say that Coach K is playing a more shallow rotation right now than back in 2000.

Neals384
01-14-2016, 07:34 PM
Vrank isn't redshirting this season. He's played in 4(?) games already.

Yes, 4 games. Siena, Bryant, Utah State, Elon. 13 minutes total.


That can't be entirely true. Off the top of my head, I can think of at least one game where he only had 4 minutes . . .

Still, this rotation is thinner. Both literally and figuratively. Matt Christensen, Nick Horvath, Casey Sanders, and Andre Buckner played more minutes (20.4 on average) and were more productive in those minutes than Chase, Obi, Vrank, and Pagliuca. This is probably the shortest rotation Coach K has ever had to play.

Fewest minutes for Jeter since Amile went down: BC, 5:33 and then Clemson 3:36.


I echo ricks68's welcome to you. The more the merrier around here.

I'm not surprised that Chase's contributions haven't been readily recognized. His pace of fouls yesterday was certainly noticed, and I would say I'd rather him play a little less, er, noticeably.

I'm not a member of the "gloom and doom" sect around this forum. I'm not quite Ozzie Optimistic, but I haven't seen any reason to write off this season to date. Chase's college career has a LOT of games left, and I suspect the Chase we see right now is likely quite different than the one will see near the end or his career. Or, possibly, at the end of the season. There are so many twists and turns left in the next two and half months. As this season unfolds, we will learn a lot about each of these youngsters.

Despite everything, I'm hopeful Duke's season lasts 2 1/2 more months, and maybe a week beyond that.

elvis14
01-15-2016, 01:12 PM
One thing I haven't seen posted here yet is the defense Derryck was playing on the Clemson point guard. I know he needs to improve on the offensive side and take care of the ball but I thought he we was killing Clemson on the defensive end of the court. Particularly in the first half (which is when he got a lot of playing time).