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View Full Version : Pros/Cons of Post-Christmas("Shake Off the Rust")Games



Spanarkel
12-05-2017, 09:42 AM
Preface: this is NOT a critique of Duke's scheduling m.o. over the years

In Coach K's 37 completed seasons at Duke, the Blue Devils have played post-Christmas "shake off the rust" game(s) before the first ACC game after the holiday break(not necessarily the start of ACC play) 35 times, with our record in those ACC games being 27-8.

In two seasons('04-'05 and last season) Duke did not play a post-Christmas game before the first ACC game after the holiday break, with a record of 1-1 in those ACC contests.


What are DBR posters' thoughts on the pros/cons of post-Christmas tuneups, especially in light of an apparently very talented FSU squad's coming to CIS on 12/30 after Duke will have last played on 12/20?


My "fan only" preference is for a post-Christmas game, schedule permitting, but this year the players most likely won't return to campus until 12/26, and it would be hard to slip in an OOC game on 12/27 or 12/28 and then fully prepare for the Seminoles.


LGD!

OldPhiKap
12-05-2017, 09:45 AM
Preface: this is NOT a critique of Duke's scheduling m.o. over the years

In Coach K's 37 completed seasons at Duke, the Blue Devils have played post-Christmas "shake off the rust" game(s) before the first ACC game after the holiday break(not necessarily the start of ACC play) 35 times, with our record in those ACC games being 27-8.

In two seasons('04-'05 and last season) Duke did not play a post-Christmas game before the first ACC game after the holiday break, with a record of 1-1 in those ACC contests.


What are DBR posters' thoughts on the pros/cons of post-Christmas tuneups, especially in light of an apparently very talented FSU squad's coming to CIS on 12/30 after Duke will have last played on 12/20?


My "fan only" preference is for a post-Christmas game, schedule permitting, but this year the players most likely won't return to campus until 12/26, and it would be hard to slip in an OOC game on 12/27 or 12/28 and then fully prepare for the Seminoles.


LGD!

I think it let’s coach work on some things so I’m in favor.

Henderson
12-05-2017, 10:10 AM
I think it lets coach work on some things so I’m in favor.

This. And let's remember we have actual student athletes with end-of-semester academic responsibilities taken seriously by the coaching staff, and therefore by the students. It appears as though this year anyway, Duke has sort of light-loaded its December schedule. I'm OK with that.

Billy Dat
12-05-2017, 10:40 AM
FSU plays on 12/21 and then has 9 days of no games before coming to CIS. Seems like a fair fight.

BigWayne
12-05-2017, 10:51 AM
I think the Evansville game is sort of like a mid-term test. Practice, etc. between there and the FSU game will be determined by how that game plays out after the exam break.

UrinalCake
12-05-2017, 11:36 AM
It is pretty common for us to struggle in games following the exam and holiday breaks. Consider:

12/5/2016 we beat Tennessee State by only 10, a game in which we led by 4 at the half and by 3 with 12 minutes left in the game.
12/21/2016 we beat Elon by only 10 (the Grayson tripping game). They were up 1 at the half and we led by only 4 with 16 minutes left.
12/30/2015 we trailed Long Beach State for most of the first half, before entering halftime up by 6
12/29/2014 we led Toledo by only 4 at the half

All of these games were in Cameron except Elon. Point being, our team always follows the break with a game in which we look pretty average for at least a half, and as fans we always chalk it up to rust, an effect that is even more pronounced the younger our team is. Which is why this FSU game scares the mess out of me. They just destroyed Florida on Florida's home court.

Hingeknocker
12-05-2017, 12:06 PM
Interesting topic for discussion. I wonder if there would be any differences between the Post-Christmas period and the Post-Finals period? I often wonder about the focus and intensity levels of those games taking place between the Thanksgiving holiday tournament

And this is the perfect time to bring up one of my personal pipe dreams as it relates to the non-conference schedule. This will never happen, but if I were in charge of college basketball, I would cancel most (or all) non-conference matchups as currently scheduled. There's no real reason that Duke needs to play a bunch of cupcakes, except for the fact that everyone else does, too. In its place, I would create a Champions League for all D1 teams, to be played during the current non-conference season of November/December. Groups of 4 teams each would be based on the prior year's conference standings, just like in soccer. And there would be Europa League equivalents as far down as you'd need to go to include every D1 team. The format would be the same as soccer: home-and-home matchups during group play (6 games), followed by 3 or 4 knockout games, depending on how many groups filter through to each knockout round. You'd end up around 9 or 10 total non-conference games during this part of the season, which already fits into what teams do now.

This would instantly create 5-star home-and-home matchups among some of the best teams every season, and then the knockout rounds could be played in neutral sites to replace the revenue of the current holiday tournaments. I salivate at the idea of Duke and Kansas meeting in a home-and-home matchup in November. Sure, teams will end up with more losses than they would have otherwise, but there would be many more compelling matchups, and everyone will roughly be in the same boat.

One big flaw I can think of is that it would pigeon-hole teams' resumes based on what League and group they ended up in, which could matter come tournament selection time. However, if the committee put more faith in metrics like KenPom, this effect would be mitigated. There may be other flaws, but when people in college basketball talk about ways to spice up the beginning of the season and demand national attention, well, I can't really think of a better solution than this.

Anyway, that's my soapbox moment. One can dream...

Spanarkel
12-05-2017, 12:15 PM
FSU plays on 12/21 and then has 9 days of no games before coming to CIS. Seems like a fair fight.

Good point, but Duke has been/is an elite hoops program, and I don't think that FSU(despite having had a number of fine players)can be reasonably considered as such so why should Duke schedule like FSU? Additionally, Duke has a younger squad than the Seminoles this season. In my post I was trying to point out that for 35 out of the past 36 years Coach K has felt like it's advantageous to play a post-Christmas tune-up game and that approach has apparently changed over the past two seasons.