MBB: Duke 100, Florida St. 93 Post-Game Thread

[JBDuke]

Put your post-game thoughts here.

[thedukelamere]

Put your post-game thoughts here.

It’s tricky to rock a rhyme, to rock a rhyme that’s right on time...

[LasVegas]

At what point will this team stop jacking up 3s and start pounding it in? 30 were taken today....30!!!!!!!

Huge last 5 minutes or so from Duval. Bagley continues to be a monster. Big win.

[duke4ever19]

Duval was sensational the last few minutes!


And he made FSU pay for leaving him open for 3 on a crucial possession. Loved seeing that go in.

[mattman91]

At what point will this team stop jacking up 3s and start pounding it in? 30 were taken today...30!!!!!!!

Huge last 5 minutes or so from Duval. Bagley continues to be a monster. Big win.

32 points 21 rebounds for Bagley... incredible.

[toughbuff1]

32 and 21 from Bags, including 11 offensive boards!!!

[ipatent]

Great win over a top 25 team that was hitting shots.

[Atlanta Duke]

Bagley continues to be a monster. Big win.

32 points/21 boards - those are Wilt/Kareem type stats from the 60s and early 70s

[MartyClark]

Great win over a top 25 team that was hitting shots.

Duke's defense was not good but FSU hit unlikely 3 pointers with remarkable efficiency.

It's a good win for a young team. Bring on State.

[timmy c]

Missed the game today. Can someone explain to me how we allowed fsu to hit 15 threes?
Thanks,
Timmy C

[OldPhiKap]

Carter had a great game as well. This team fights at crunch time. Look forward to when we put it together for 40, especially on the defensive end!

[DukieInBrasil]

highly entertaining, and yes, very frustrating game, but these guys played winning ball at winning time this game!
32-21 for Bagley, 14-16 for Carter. Those are both MAN games, with one being a bit more manly, just wow!!!
1-1 in the ACC!!!!!!

[WillJ]

A lot of defensive mistakes, but the team played hard and won.....we should take it. Also, I think we're going to have a lot of games like that over the rest of the year.

[AtlDuke72]

At what point will this team stop jacking up 3s and start pounding it in? 30 were taken today...30!!!!!!!

Huge last 5 minutes or so from Duval. Bagley continues to be a monster. Big win.

First post after THAT game, and 100 points, is complaining about the offense !!!! Really?

[TKG]

Missed the game today. Can someone explain to me how we allowed fsu to hit 15 threes?
Thanks,
Timmy C

Many of those threes were uncontested.

[Furniture]

Missed the game today. Can someone explain to me how we allowed fsu to hit 15 threes?
Thanks,
Timmy C

FSU shot out of their minds. Several from way downtown. Duke STILL won. That should be the point.

[CDu]

Missed the game today. Can someone explain to me how we allowed fsu to hit 15 threes?
Thanks,
Timmy C

FSU is a terrific 3pt shooting team and was hot. And we aren’t good defensively.

[curtis325]

Buckle your seat belts--I have a feeling this is not the last time we see a 100 point game. As long as Duke's on top I'm fine with it.

NPOY Bagley with 32 and 21!!! Just work on those free throws.

[AtlDuke72]

32 and 21 from Bags, including 11 offensive boards!!!

Trae Young had 39 and 14 assists Incredible players! Some team will have a tough choice in the draft!!!!

[InSpades]

At what point will this team stop jacking up 3s and start pounding it in? 30 were taken today...30!!!!!!!

Huge last 5 minutes or so from Duval. Bagley continues to be a monster. Big win.

I agree that we shoot too many 3s but 19 of the 30 were by Trent and Allen. 2 more by O'Connell who is shooting 50% on the season. Those are the guys we want shooting them... they just weren't falling today.

Duval was spectacular down the stretch... he needs to attack more and shoot 3s less. I know he hit the big one but... he just hasn't proven he can make it with any consistency yet.

Bagley is amazing. He created so many extra chances today.

[Furniture]

First post after THAT game, and 100 points, is complaining about the offense !!!! Really?

Thats a good point but I can’t help feeling we can get better at the 3 point range. Trent in particular. When we do.....o dear!!

[chrishoke]

They also banked 2 in.

[timmy c]

Many of those threes were uncontested.


FSU shot out of their minds. Several from way downtown. Duke STILL won. That should be the point.


FSU is a terrific 3pt shooting team and was hot. And we aren’t good defensively.

Thank you all for your info.
Anyone know where I can see a replay?

[Ian]

Defense is still terrible, we basically have to win every game by outscoring the opponent.

[OldPhiKap]

Missed the game today. Can someone explain to me how we allowed fsu to hit 15 threes?
Thanks,
Timmy C

Braian Angola was unconscious. An incredible performance by that kid.

But yeah, the defense overall was spotty. Being kind.

[Dr. Rosenrosen]

Defense is still terrible, we basically have to win every game by outscoring the opponent.
Was this meant to be sarcastic? I hope...

[ipatent]

Scoring 100 points when shooting only 27% from three and under 60% at the line is remarkable.

[NashvilleDevil]

Defense is still terrible, we basically have to win every game by outscoring the opponent.

I thought the defense early was really good and then FSU started making some crazy 3s, starting with the banked in 3. FSU could not miss from 3 for a long time in the 2nd half and yes some were wide open but they hit some well defended shots too. Duke also had to play ole defense a good portion of the 2nd half with all the guys having 4 fouls but you failed to mention that.

[tfk53]

Impressed with Duke's composure in the final minutes as FSU began to lose theirs. Playing 4 freshman in December with 4 fouls each for extended minutes and not having any foul out shows growth. This team has learned a lot about how to win tight games.
Defense needs much growth still - have to be able to keep folks like Cofer from having career days and teams from top 3 pt percentage. even with missing their last 4 3's, they were at 46.9% for the game.
Very relieved to go into 2018 1-1 in conference instead of 0-2.

[OldPhiKap]

Was this meant to be sarcastic? I hope...

If you look statistically, I bet that we win most of our games when we outscore our opponent.

I don’t have a link, though, so take it for what it’s worth.



(I think Ian’s point that we cannot simply count on our offense to win games is sound though)

[TKG]

As I mentioned in Chat, this team is exhausting to watch. My sense is this will the case for the season.

[Coballs]

Three thoughts:
-That was a very big win. 0-2 could have been demoralizing and it would be tough to win the ACC regular season after dropping two games which on paper we're supposed to win
-FSU brought their A game. Thankfully we don't have to play at their place this season
-Unfortunately there were no signs of improvement in any of the areas that desperately need improvement

[kAzE]

So what's the over/under on number of times the rest of the season that our opponent nails 15 threes on us? This is getting a little ridiculous.

Also, Bagley and Carter outrebounded FSU 37-35.

[Saratoga2]

I like to put down my thoughts before reading what others have said.

This game was a classic. We killed them inside and easily outrebounded them. We got more steals and blocks as well. Bagley was magnificant with 32 points and 21 rwbounds. What a game he had. The starters all did well scoring the ball except we are not a good 3 point shooting club.

Couldn't typify it as a defensive game with 100 to 93 score. Somehow we hung in there with 4 guys close to fouling out.

I was really impressed with how Duval made so many great plays at the end when we desperately needed a lift. That kid can get to the basket.

So more work is needed and we have to do better from the free thrown line, but these young men are winners.

[DukieInBrasil]

Missed the game today. Can someone explain to me how we allowed fsu to hit 15 threes?
Thanks,
Timmy C

from the outset they were hitting them, many of them were wide open or within perfect flow. Our 3pt D improved in the 2nd half, but they were still hitting contested 3s. And then they missed like 5 or 6 to finish the game.

This is something that came up on the podcast: allowing teams to make 15 3s in a game. It had only happened a handful of times since 1995, the year K went out with his back injury. And now it's happened 4? 5? times this year. Our 3pt defense is just terrible. We just don't have the right mix of players to defend the 3pt shot effectively, and, i believe, the right system to limit teams from taking them. Gotta figure something out.

I have not been riding hard on the Trevon bandwagon lately, but his end of game performance was just amazing. When he plays going towards the rim he is amazing, and is a good enough passer that he can make great things happen for others. He was semi-passive and playing not to pick up more fouls, which made him ineffective for the broad span of the middle of the game. Granted, he picked up 2 in the first 1:30 of the game, and his 3rd less than a minute into the 2nd half. But after he (and the others) had 4 fouls with a few minutes left, his focus tightened a lot, and he played aggressive, but not out of control. He made 2 highly acrobatic shots, that might not have otherwise been considered good shots to take (and he *may* have been fouled on one of those shots, considering...), but they were right at the rim and had a good chance of being O-boarded for a putback anyway.

Great grit and resolve in those last few minutes to grab the win away from a hungry, worthy FSU team. They played winning ball at winning time and it paid off, unlike at BC, where they didn't wrestle the win away despite being up 4 in the last minutes.

[DukieInBrasil]

I agree that we shoot too many 3s but 19 of the 30 were by Trent and Allen. 2 more by O'Connell who is shooting 50% on the season. Those are the guys we want shooting them... they just weren't falling today.

Duval was spectacular down the stretch... he needs to attack more and shoot 3s less. I know he hit the big one but... he just hasn't proven he can make it with any consistency yet.

Bagley is amazing. He created so many extra chances today.

Duval was 1-5 from 3 today, and it brought his season 3% up!!!

[OZ]

This game wore me out. Perhaps it is my imagination and/or poor memory, but it seems teams become three point specialists when they play us; while, on the other hand, we seem to develop alligator arms on the free throw line. Bagley played at another level. Tough gutsy win. Would have been a fun game to watch if there had been no emotional investment.

[kmspeaks]

I agree that we shoot too many 3s but 19 of the 30 were by Trent and Allen. 2 more by O'Connell who is shooting 50% on the season. Those are the guys we want shooting them... they just weren't falling today.


They were also good shots. It's not like those two were chucking heat-check pull ups. If a possession ends with Trent or Allen with a catch and shoot 3 then I'd call it a good one and guess there won't be too many days those looks result in a 5-19.

[ncexnyc]

I'm not sure some of you watched the same game that I did. FSU was averaging 85 PPG, coming into today's game and they scored 8 over their average with some out of this world 3pt shooting.

I'm not going to fault the defense, as you could see they were putting in the effort and for the most part the rotations were good. Not much to be done when the other team shoots like FSU did.

I'm also not to upset with the loss to BC, after they lost by only 1, to UVA at UVA. BC isn't as bad as some of you think.

[throatybeard]

that game-sealing fast break tho

[sagegrouse]

Missed the game today. Can someone explain to me how we allowed fsu to hit 15 threes?
Thanks,
Timmy C

Well, Sofer was amazing in the first half for FSU with 22 points, and Angola couldn't miss in the second half. In the second half, big-time foul troubles put us in a zone defense for the last ten minutes.

[TKG]

Snark Alert: given than we entered the FSU game with lots of practice time to work on our D, I am excited to see how much we improve as we have a week before we play State! :p

[mgtr]

This game wore me out. Perhaps it is my imagination and/or poor memory, but it seems teams become three point specialists when they play us; while, on the other hand, we seem to develop alligator arms on the free throw line. Bagley played at another level. Tough gutsy win. Would have been a fun game to watch if there had been no emotional investment.

Very well said. Time for a nap.:D

[InSpades]

Stat of the match... Duke had 23 offensive rebounds, FSU had 26 defensive rebounds. We got nearly 50% of the rebounds at their end of the court (47% actually).

Comparatively... they had 9 offensive boards and we had 30 defensive... 23%.

How do you score 100 points without shooting very well? You get half of the offensive boards.

[Native]

that game-sealing fast break tho

Thought the roof was going to come off of Cameron.

[ncexnyc]

Very well said. Time for a nap.:D
Who could sleep after this game?

[weezie]

Holy moly. Tense tense tense. Everybody thanking crowd in post game interviews. Bagley is quite the woofer when he's riled. That'll simmer down. Grayson was marvelous on floor towards the end, he floor coached that game like a pro.
Well done Devils!

[DukeDevil]

There were open threes and a couple of stupidly banked shots, but I can't really continue to say "well it's just that the other team is hitting ridiculous shots." The main difference is we aren't denying the shooters the ball. The ability to prevent passing outside to shooters has been a weakness that our historically great defensive teams are able to deny. I think it might have been Jason Evans who said this, or something to this effect in the DBR podcast, but the number of attempts is incredibly high. A good 3pt shooting team like FSU shouldn't be allowed to even attempt that many.

Now to end on a better note...wow this team has an impressive offense. I think Duval really took some great steps forward today. I still cringe every 3 he attempts, and even if he hit a great one today I still think he'd do better to drive and shoot or dish, that seems to be his clear strength. That being said it's nice to see some other players take the team on their back on occasion outside of GA and MBIII.

I haven't seen anyone mention this specifically, but Bagley had his 4th foul at 6:46, and then trent got his at 3:30. Nobody fouled out. The other 3 freshman played >6 minutes with 4 fouls and Trent for the last 3:30. Just impressive composure at the end there.

[SkyBrickey]

I thought our D looked better today. FSU just hit some ridiculous 3s.

Carter Jr stuffing the stat sheet with 14 pts, 16 reb, 4 blk, 4 ast.

It will be overshadowed by Bagley, but Wendell made a lot of smart big plays today.

[Duke76]

from the outset they were hitting them, many of them were wide open or within perfect flow. Our 3pt D improved in the 2nd half, but they were still hitting contested 3s. And then they missed like 5 or 6 to finish the game.

This is something that came up on the podcast: allowing teams to make 15 3s in a game. It had only happened a handful of times since 1995, the year K went out with his back injury. And now it's happened 4? 5? times this year. Our 3pt defense is just terrible. We just don't have the right mix of players to defend the 3pt shot effectively, and, i believe, the right system to limit teams from taking them. Gotta figure something out.

I have not been riding hard on the Trevon bandwagon lately, but his end of game performance was just amazing. When he plays going towards the rim he is amazing, and is a good enough passer that he can make great things happen for others. He was semi-passive and playing not to pick up more fouls, which made him ineffective for the broad span of the middle of the game. Granted, he picked up 2 in the first 1:30 of the game, and his 3rd less than a minute into the 2nd half. But after he (and the others) had 4 fouls with a few minutes left, his focus tightened a lot, and he played aggressive, but not out of control. He made 2 highly acrobatic shots, that might not have otherwise been considered good shots to take (and he *may* have been fouled on one of those shots, considering...), but they were right at the rim and had a good chance of being O-boarded for a putback anyway.

Great grit and resolve in those last few minutes to grab the win away from a hungry, worthy FSU team. They played winning ball at winning time and it paid off, unlike at BC, where they didn't wrestle the win away despite being up 4 in the last minutes.

Trevon was the key as you say down the stretch....I know Marvin had the monster game but we needed that inside out game....Trevon hitting the 3 was the turning point in the game for me...and then he started penetrating....he has to keep doing that...opens up the angles for passes or he takes it strong...he sorta knifes through the lane ...saw him on the baseline once or twice passing back in to the big men.

For us to get through that game with Kellog announcing and the refs calling the touch fouls in this game was a challenge...it always seems like lateral deficiencies with the feet that cause us trouble...freshmen just never coming with a basic understanding of how to stay down and move laterally..but really liked our grit...FSU was just on fire and I didn't really think our defense was that bad on the 3 point shots...it was the drives to the baskets that got us. Watch the film and next play guys...long season, will be a lot better at end of season I know

[azzefkram]

I am way too old for this. Nice job by the good guys closing out the game while dealing with foul trouble. I am not as down on our D as most. FSU made a boatload of contested and long 3s. Work still needs to be done but they are getting better. I am a bit surprised how much the talent drops off after our starting five. Things get really shaky when one of the starters goes out.

Trevon is a bit underappreciated by many around here. He took over in the closing minutes. I think if we had a more traditional Duke line-up with a stretch 4, he'd look a whole lot better. Ballsy move taking the charge with 4 fouls by Wendell. Marvin is unbelievable. Gary missed a bunch of wide open threes. He seems like too good a shooter to miss shots like that. Grayson was alternating loud and quiet, but he made some really smart decisions with the ball in the second half.

It will be good to get a week of practice in before their next game. Plus I could use the recovery time.

[53n206]

If we have a bunch of bigs on the floor,stacking the inside, it leaves a lot of space for smaller, faster guys to set up for 3s. Also I wonder if a few of their shooters called "bank shot" while their shots were in the air/

[snewman92]

I can't recall a player who can recover more quickly than MBIII. For those of us who are not elite athletes, we are inclined to exaggerate. This or that person is "superhuman." But, really, in this case, I think he may be. I know he has also worked very hard, but it is amazing to see somebody SO quick; and Carter isn't far behind him.

[SupaDave]

Let's not forget that we left about 15 points on the floor from missed free throws. Could've been an easier win (but I doubt it - FSU managed to stay solid until the end).

[DukieInBrasil]

Let's not forget that we left about 15 points on the floor from missed free throws. Could've been an easier win (but I doubt it - FSU managed to stay solid until the end).

it was actually "only" 9. After missing 7 in the 1st half, 15 missed FTs was certainly a possibility. I'm glad we did not achieve that goal.

our bench didn't thrill today. 3pts, 3asts, 3rebs, but no turns. rather "meh" game.

[drummerdevil]

Place was hopping and the guys pulled through. While we need to work on some things I choose to do what no one else seems to do and just bask in the fact that we won

[duke96]

Sounds like quite a game. Couldn’t watch live. Anyone know how to watch a replay remotely? So much easier when it’s an ESPN/ACC network game... thanks in advance.

[gofurman]

Summary. Phenomenal O. To shoot that poorly from 3 for early game and still make 100 points vs an FSU D that held Florida and Ok State to about 70... And to have that bad of a D. Fsu scored 80s vs Florida and 70 vs ok state. 90s vs us.

We are giving up about 10-15 more points than good defense. Scoring about 25 more than good offenses

[Hauerwas]

That was a man's game. FSU was out of their minds from 3 land, I doubt they will do that ever again this year. I don't really think the D was that bad actually. We forced them to take a ton of 3's and unfortunately they banked 2 in, plus made a few from about 30 feet. There isn't much you can do about that. They didn't really carve us up in the paint. For some reason though, teams are just shooting out of their minds against us this year.

Duval down the stretch was phenomenal, especially with 4 fouls. His on ball defense is actually pretty good. Not sure what to really make of the defensive performance beside the fact we survived. I'm just willing to think teams can't continue to make 15 3's a game against us.

I loved how we settled down offensively in the second half. I felt like FSU made us rush our offensive in the first half. Also, way too many 3's from us. We shot about 7 straight there in the second half, just dumb offense for a while and we still scored 100 points. That's how scary this team can be.

I'm exhausted. Really liked the fight we had toward the end, we were mentally and physically tough and FSU kinda panicked the last 2 minutes and we maintained our composure.

Will be interested to read K's presser to see what he thought of our defense vs. them just making wild shots...

[plimnko]

Game was great!! Cameron was crazy!!

[BD80]

To my eye, admittedly tinged blue, it looked like the defense is coming around. It's not good yet, but it is showing signs that it could be good, and maybe very good.

[NancyCarol]

but after that, I need some olives soaked in gin.

[CDu]

To my eye, admittedly tinged blue, it looked like the defense is coming around. It's not good yet, but it is showing signs that it could be good, and maybe very good.

We will see. Our defense left a LOT of open shooters today. Yes, they hit a high percentage. But it was only 3 more than their average would suggest. And again, a LOT were open.

But even taking away those 9 shots, our defense probably doesn’t improve based on today. And with them, our defense got worse.

I will say that the defense in the home stretch was very good. But in general we have a long way to go on that end.

[jv001]

Trevon was the key as you say down the stretch...I know Marvin had the monster game but we needed that inside out game...Trevon hitting the 3 was the turning point in the game for me...and then he started penetrating...he has to keep doing that...opens up the angles for passes or he takes it strong...he sorta knifes through the lane ...saw him on the baseline once or twice passing back in to the big men.

For us to get through that game with Kellog announcing and the refs calling the touch fouls in this game was a challenge...it always seems like lateral deficiencies with the feet that cause us trouble...freshmen just never coming with a basic understanding of how to stay down and move laterally..but really liked our grit...FSU was just on fire and I didn't really think our defense was that bad on the 3 point shots...it was the drives to the baskets that got us. Watch the film and next play guys...long season, will be a lot better at end of season I know

Marvin is the exception to staying down in his defensive positioning. If more of our players used this positioning, our defense would probably improve. Now for the game;
Our offensive rebounding saved us today, with Tre playing great last 5 or so minutes. I wish he would begin the game with this style of play. He needs to understand that he is our best point guard and one of our best defenders. That is when he's not fouling so much. Those fouls regulated him to 22 minutes play in todays game. When you look at MBIII, Wendell, Gary and Grayson you wonder how we have such defensive issues. They're athletic and seem to have good basketball IQs. Is our man2man that hard to grasp. To answer my own question; I guess it is because we've had a bad defense for several seasons. To my eye test, the zone looked better than the man today. Maybe it was because we didn't foul as much in the zone. Well, Next play and beat NCSU. GoDuke!

[Furniture]

Coach K was gushing with pride in the press conference. He is one happy man. It was a great win from his perspective.

[jv001]

Coach K was gushing with pride in the press conference. He is one happy man. It was a great win from his perspective.

A great win for me as well, Furniture. This team could have 3 or 4 more losses except for their never give up attitude and big hearts. I loved seeing Marvin waving on the crowd today. We need more of that from our guys. Some intimidation so to speak. Put some fear in the other teams eyes. Then maybe they won't come out hot from the three point line. GoDuke!

[OZ]

We will see. Our defense left a LOT of open shooters today. Yes, they hit a high percentage. But it was only 3 more than their average would suggest. And again, a LOT were open.

But even taking away those 9 shots, our defense probably doesn’t improve based on today. And with them, our defense got worse.

I will say that the defense in the home stretch was very good. But in general we have a long way to go on that end.

... and a few of those threes were well defended... and deep. It is also difficult to play tough man to man when three starters have three fouls at the 13 minute mark of the second half; and then three had four fouls with 6+ minutes left (actually, it is tough to play any kind of defense).

This was tough game against a hot shooting team... Overall, I just don't think our defense was so terrible.

[dukeinla]

a great win but I am surprised no one has talked about the outstanding play of the Duke bench. NOT! When Wendall and Marvin had three, then four, fouls -where were Javin and Marquis? If neither of them could play in this game when will they play in the future?

[CoachJ10]

Our opponents are 30-57 from 3 pt land. That is just absurd. And it will not persist throughout the season. It is amazing to see what the D-u-k-e on our jerseys can do to our opponents.

Great effort by everyone today. Bags needs to touch the battle on every offensive set we run.

PS The only thing worse than 3 ACC refs are 2 ACC refs trying to do the job of 3.

[OZ]

We will see. Our defense left a LOT of open shooters today. Yes, they hit a high percentage. But it was only 3 more than their average would suggest. And again, a LOT were open.

But even taking away those 9 shots, our defense probably doesn’t improve based on today. And with them, our defense got worse.

I will say that the defense in the home stretch was very good. But in general we have a long way to go on that end.

The difference today was that FSU hit 15 -32 threes, for 47%; for the year, they have averaged 9 per game at 38%. Yeah, a few were open, but some of those threes were well defended; others were from the depths.
Our defense wasn't perfect and could have been better; but I just don't think we played that poorly. Sometimes, you just have to admit the other team played well.

[CDu]

... and a few of those threes were well defended... and deep. It is also difficult to play tough man to man when three starters have three fouls at the 13 minute mark of the second half; and then three had four fouls with 6+ minutes left (actually, it is tough to play any kind of defense).

This was tough game against a hot shooting team... Overall, I just don't think our defense was so terrible.

The defense was actually BETTER with the foul trouble. FSU scored 49 in the first half, 44 in the second. And our best defense came with 4 guys with 4 fouls.

Yes, FSU hit a few NBA 3s, some of which were well-covered. They also had many if not most of them wide open.

Look, I don’t want to make a stink in what was a very fun win. But I think our defense still needs a lot of work. We can celebrate the win without sugarcoating the defense.

[CDu]

The difference today was that FSU hit 15 -32 threes, for 47%; for the year, they have averaged 9 per game at 38%. Yeah, a few were open, but some of those threes were well defended; others were from the depths.
Our defense wasn't perfect and could have been better; but I just don't think we played that poorly. Sometimes, you just have to admit the other team played well.

They took 32 3s. For the season, they shoot 37.8%. Hence, on 32 attempts, they should make 12 on average. Hence my statement.

And it was more than “a few” that were open.

Again, I don’t want to sully a really fun win. But we don’t have to overstate things the other way either.

Our offense was amazing. Our defense... wasn’t. Thankfully, our offense was just that good today. And in crunch time, our defense was solid. Which all made for a really fun win.

[OZ]

The defense was actually BETTER with the foul trouble. FSU scored 49 in the first half, 44 in the second. And our best defense came with 4 guys with 4 fouls.

Yes, FSU hit a few NBA 3s, some of which were well-covered. They also had many if not most of them wide open.

Look, I don’t want to make a stink in what was a very fun win. But I think our defense still needs a lot of work. We can celebrate the win without sugarcoating the defense.

I am celebrating this game, because it was a great game... a great game... and we were fortunate enough to win! I wasn't "sugarcoating" anything. Yeah, we can get better on defense. But, today, each team had difficulty stopping the other because of the incredible will of the players to win/score. Both teams played hard and great. Sometimes, in spite of defense, the other team scores.
I just beg to disagree.

[CDu]

I am celebrating this game, because it was a great game... a great game... and we were fortunate enough to win! I wasn't "sugarcoating" anything. Yeah, we can get better on defense. But, today, each team had difficulty stopping the other because of the incredible will of the players to win/score. Both teams played hard and great. Sometimes, in spite of defense, the other team scores.
I just beg to disagree.

FYI, I wasn’t referring to your post with the sugarcoating comment. You replied to me to start this. I was defending my initial response, which was to someone else.

FSU played well for sure. And they are good. But it is possible for one team to play well AND for the other team to have struggles. That was my point. It wasn’t just a “well, we played great D, but the other team couldn’t miss” game. We helped them too.

But yes, it was a great win, thanks to the offense being amazing and the defense finally clicking very late in the game.

[ipatent]

The defense was actually BETTER with the foul trouble.

Because they went back to the zone...

[kshepinthehouse]

Yea I’m definitely in the camp of those who don’t see much improvement in the defense. Not to sound negative but almost everytime a team hits a boat load of threes against us the comment is made that they hit more than their average, they were on fire, they were well contested, etc. After a while ya gotta call a spade a spade and admit that there is a reason teams are hitting a bunch of threes against us. It’s not a random event.

[Furniture]

a great win but I am surprised no one has talked about the outstanding play of the Duke bench. NOT! When Wendall and Marvin had three, then four, fouls -where were Javin and Marquis? If neither of them could play in this game when will they play in the future?

You should listen to K’s press conference. He talked a lot about learning and putting the team in a position to learn. He said they have to put them in these positions and sometimes Duke might lose. Because of that I believe that he perhaps didn’t play his bench (if that makes sense)

[Mtn.Devil.91.92.01.10.15]

a great win but I am surprised no one has talked about the outstanding play of the Duke bench. NOT! When Wendall and Marvin had three, then four, fouls -where were Javin and Marquis? If neither of them could play in this game when will they play in the future?

Well, when four guys have four fouls, but play effectively enough to score the final nine points of the game, you gotta think K made a good call.

[jv001]

Well, when four guys have four fouls, but play effectively enough to score the final nine points of the game, you gotta think K made a good call.

I saw nothing from Bolden or Javin today that screamed, play me. I don't think Bolden was/is quick enough to guard any of FSUs perimeter players and he would have to with the way switch in the man2man. Javin's injury seems to have slowed his progress. He just doesn't look the same. Alex and Goldwire were more suitable to play a few minutes in todays game. At least that's how it looked to me. GoDuke!

[flyingdutchdevil]

Well, when four guys have four fouls, but play effectively enough to score the final nine points of the game, you gotta think K made a good call.

Out of the country on holiday. But read a lot, watched a few highlights, etc. to sum up DBR:

-Duval is getting love? What? I’m so used to him being the whipping boy here...
-For those who said our defense looked good...okay. FSU scored 93 points in Cameron. They hit 15 3pts. That’s like saying I have a well behaved toddler despite the fact that he throws a tantrum every 20 minutes. Yeah - we all think our kids are well behaved...
-2 for 2 ACC opponents have now shot lights and many have said, “let’s see if BC/FSU shoot like that again.” Maybe the question should be, “will BC/FSU face a more inept defense all year?”
-Bagley is stupidly good.
-Our bench ain’t deep, huh?

[jimsumner]

Tough crowd.

[dukelifer]

They took 32 3s. For the season, they shoot 37.8%. Hence, on 32 attempts, they should make 12 on average. Hence my statement.

And it was more than “a few” that were open.

Again, I don’t want to sully a really fun win. But we don’t have to overstate things the other way either.

Our offense was amazing. Our defense... wasn’t. Thankfully, our offense was just that good today. And in crunch time, our defense was solid. Which all made for a really fun win.

This is ACC play. Guys were rested and this was a high level game. Duke had a ton of foul trouble. But the key to the win was Duval taking over late. You win in the ACC by executing late in the game. Duke did that. Defense needs a ton of work but winning in crunch time is what separates good from great team. This ending is more what they will expect in March.

[CDu]

The things I loved from this game, besides the win itself:

- We rebounded 23 of 49 offensive rebound chances. Against a solid ACC foe, that is comical. Bagley and Carter simply imposed their will on the boards. They were just awesome. We are so lucky!

- Duval bouncing back. His last few minutes were insanely good. The only complaint was that he didn’t slow things down off rebounds with under 75 seconds to go with a lead. At that point, I want to stall, and get the ball to Allen/Trent to ice it. But he pushed it and fed the bigs, once for a dunk and once for an almost dunk that fouled out an FSU shooter instead. So not awful results, even if bad decisions. Otherwise though, he was magnificent down the stretch.

The rebounding and Duval’s late awesomeness led to an offensive efficiency of around 118. And that is against a top-20 defense, and despite struggling from both the 3pt line and FT line. Really impressive offense.

The top four frosh playing the final minutes each with four fouls and dominating. That shouldn’t happen. It is a really impressive group.

[Saratoga2]

There were open threes and a couple of stupidly banked shots, but I can't really continue to say "well it's just that the other team is hitting ridiculous shots." The main difference is we aren't denying the shooters the ball. The ability to prevent passing outside to shooters has been a weakness that our historically great defensive teams are able to deny. I think it might have been Jason Evans who said this, or something to this effect in the DBR podcast, but the number of attempts is incredibly high. A good 3pt shooting team like FSU shouldn't be allowed to even attempt that many.

Now to end on a better note...wow this team has an impressive offense. I think Duval really took some great steps forward today. I still cringe every 3 he attempts, and even if he hit a great one today I still think he'd do better to drive and shoot or dish, that seems to be his clear strength. That being said it's nice to see some other players take the team on their back on occasion outside of GA and MBIII.

I haven't seen anyone mention this specifically, but Bagley had his 4th foul at 6:46, and then trent got his at 3:30. Nobody fouled out. The other 3 freshman played >6 minutes with 4 fouls and Trent for the last 3:30. Just impressive composure at the end there.

Villanova got lit up for 3's by Butler and they are considered a good defensive team. It happens.

[CDu]

Tough crowd.


This is ACC play. Guys were rested and this was a high level game. Duke had a ton of foul trouble. But the key to the win was Duval taking over late. You win in the ACC by executing late in the game. Duke did that. Defense needs a ton of work but winning in crunch time is what separates good from great team. This ending is more what they will expect in March.

Again, I am very pleased with the win. I am just saying that we don’t need to say that the defense was solid. It wasn’t. But thankfully, our offense was amazing, which made this ultimately a VERY fun win. That we could win a game like this without shooting well at all and without playing great defense is even more impressive.

[jv001]

Again, I am very pleased with the win. I am just saying that we don’t need to say that the defense was solid. It wasn’t. But thankfully, our offense was amazing, which made this ultimately a VERY fun win. That we could win a game like this without shooting well at all and without playing great defense is even more impressive.

If I'm reading KenPom correctly, we went from #71 to #78 in defense. Not surprising. GoDuke!

[Neals384]

Seeing Phil Cofer wear #0 for FSU took me back...way back to the late 80s when the 49ers had NCState grad Mike Coker as their kicker. He wasn't bad, but he was inconsistent and we ended up giving him the nickname 0-fer Cofer. The low point was a game I attended vs. the Broncos. In the 4th quarter O-fer hit the goalpost from short range and the 49ers lost in OT. FSUs Cofer was no O-fer despite his number, but at least he was 0-fer from the free throw line on that Flagrant foul.

[ipatent]

Tough crowd.

Yes it is. We have to keep in mind this is the freshmen's first ACC game in Cameron. The defense is a work in progress, but loved their energy and how they fed off the crowd. Loved Bagley's demonstrativeness, he's totally into the moment and not a prima donna.

FSU is a good team and they were playing at a high level today.

[DU82]

If you heard that Duke and FSU were playing, and one team hit 15 threes, and the other team had 15 more rebounds, I'm sure all of you would have thought Duke hit the threes, and FSU was the big rebounding team. Amazing how things change so quickly.

[TruBlu]

Props to the crowd today. This was the loudest non-student dominated crowd that I have ever seen in Cameron.

Question: What was the explanation for the play in the second half where Trent was handling the ball near the Duke bench and the FSU player hit the deck. Initially, from my vantage point, it looked like Trent was called for swinging his elbow. The refs reviewed the play and awarded the ball to Duke. Was it ruled a flop? Thanks for any explanation from someone who watched on TV.

[LasVegas]

Props to the crowd today. This was the loudest non-student dominated crowd that I have ever seen in Cameron.

Question: What was the explanation for the play in the second half where Trent was handling the ball near the Duke bench and the FSU player hit the deck. Initially, from my vantage point, it looked like Trent was called for swinging his elbow. The refs reviewed the play and awarded the ball to Duke. Was it ruled a flop? Thanks for any explanation from someone who watched on TV.

I had no clue you could even overturn something like that in a replay so I’m curious as well.

[Skydog]

I have to agree with CDU - incredible offense, still poor defense especially when in mtm. (Yes, FSU got lucky and made some long 3's they had no business making but that is a different point.) There were many instances where there was little communication on our part and two of our players stayed with one of theirs and left an FSU player with no defender within 10-15 feet. In a weird way it was fortunate we got in foul trouble at the end - it forced us to switch to zone and FSU quit getting open looks.

But our offensive rebounding is other-worldly. I remember when senior Koubek took us to the promised land with his incredible offensive rebounding - this team is similar except we have two Koubek's! Incredible game by Bagley and great game by Carter.

As far as Duval - after we get a turnover he beelines for the opposing basket relentlessly. And I think too predictably. He gets jammed up early but it works at the end of the games because our opponents are tired and can't shut him down. Plus he is a gutsy player.

Exciting win.

[MChambers]

Props to the crowd today. This was the loudest non-student dominated crowd that I have ever seen in Cameron.

Question: What was the explanation for the play in the second half where Trent was handling the ball near the Duke bench and the FSU player hit the deck. Initially, from my vantage point, it looked like Trent was called for swinging his elbow. The refs reviewed the play and awarded the ball to Duke. Was it ruled a flop? Thanks for any explanation from someone who watched on TV.

The announcers said it was ruled incidental contact. On the replay (and live), it appeared that the FSU player leaned into Trent, who just tried to raise the ball over his head and made contact with the defender’s chest and then his face. Trent wasn’t swinging his elbows at all. I thought no foul was the correct call. (And for all of the complaining about the officiating, I thought it was fine, especially with only two refs. I’m not a fan of Mike Eades, but he seemed pretty good today.)

[Skydog]

Question: What was the explanation for the play in the second half where Trent was handling the ball near the Duke bench and the FSU player hit the deck. Initially, from my vantage point, it looked like Trent was called for swinging his elbow. The refs reviewed the play and awarded the ball to Duke. Was it ruled a flop? Thanks for any explanation from someone who watched on TV.
The announcers said they reviewed the play and decided (correctly) there was no foul at all. I don't know if that is legal for the refs to do but that was the explanation.

[skysdad]

What can we do to cut down not only on 3 pointers taken by opponents but also keep them from shooting so many . I know Coach K has addressed it but why do these teams keep having so much success. It's already cost us the B.C. game and should have cost us the game today. We just can't keep on letting everyone shoot the 3 at will. The best way to stop 3 pointers is to not let teams shoot it. We need some work on free throws also. I'm really happy we won today and several guys rose to the occasion but we should have won this game by 15-20 points. We just can't keep this p and expect to win a natty.

[kmspeaks]

The announcers said they reviewed the play and decided (correctly) there was no foul at all. I don't know if that is legal for the refs to do but that was the explanation.

The only thing I can come up with is that they called a flagrant foul and then reviewed and decided it wasn't warranted. If they had called a common foul they could have left it as such or elevated it to a flagrant, but not erased it completely after review.

[Mtn.Devil.91.92.01.10.15]

What can we do to cut down not only on 3 pointers taken by opponents but also keep them from shooting so many .

Two different ways:

1- offer free lanes to the basket (see several recent short tournament runs). You don't shoot many threes when there are easy twos to be had. Of course, with Bagley/Carter, this is unlikely.

2- close out fast and don't give open looks. You don't shoot as many when there's a hand in your face.

FSU hit some ridiculous shots. Teams are going to take lots of threes against us, because we have beasts in the lane. It isn't nearly as attractive to drive on us this year.

[curtis325]

What can we do to cut down not only on 3 pointers taken by opponents but also keep them from shooting so many . I know Coach K has addressed it but why do these teams keep having so much success. It's already cost us the B.C. game and should have cost us the game today. We just can't keep on letting everyone shoot the 3 at will. The best way to stop 3 pointers is to not let teams shoot it. We need some work on free throws also. I'm really happy we won today and several guys rose to the occasion but we should have won this game by 15-20 points. We just can't keep this p and expect to win a natty.

There is no such thing as "should have" for an ACC game. Duke played hard and eventually won with some incredible offense. FSU went a little cold in the last 5 minutes--shift happens.

Nice win! Next play! Go Duke!

[Steven43]

Trae Young had 39 and 14 assists Incredible players! Some team will have a tough choice in the draft!!!!

Maybe not too tough. Bagley is a darn good college player, but his game doesn’t yet translate as well to today’s NBA as does Young’s. 10-20 years ago Bagley would go higher, no doubt. Perhaps even five years ago. But today? Young will likely be the more effective pro and probably should go higher in the draft. That being said it almost assuredly will come down to team need rather than best available talent. We’ll just have to wait and see which teams end up at the top of the draft. For example, if Dallas were deciding strictly between Young and Bagley they would likely take Bagley because they have Dennis Smith. Young and Smith on the same team would be redundant. We shall see.

[gofurman]

There is no such thing as "should have" for an ACC game. Duke played hard and eventually won with some incredible offense. FSU went a little cold in the last 5 minutes--shift happens.

Nice win! Next play! Go Duke!

Can anyone explain why the three is so open vs our D? I get that we are bigger this year and so nit as fast. Also we are young ... Still it would seem we could run a 3-2 zone and cover the 3 better or something. W Bagley and Cartr inside we should be able to sell out on perimeter D right ? Wouldnt having those two guys inside allow us to close out hard? Why are we allowing so many open threes? Just asking for an explanation. Thanks in advance

[duke2x]

It was a tough win, and I'm glad that we don't go down there. FSU was absolutely dominant at home last year. They need to party like it's 2012 down there on Wednesday night.

I'll split the difference with you all on the defense. I always look at holding opponents under their average (P5 preferred) as one of our goals. If the game was 91-84 like I predicted on TOS, I would have been OK. FSU has been shooting 3's well and scoring points easily in transition against most of their opponents. The defense wasn't good, but it was not realistic to expect that we would play a game in the 70s. We do have to start holding good opponents under 80 that are not named UVA to make a deep run in the tournament. Can we show them the tape of my favorite Michigan game to show how exciting Cameron can be when you play good defense?

I was at the game today. The crowd was good in stretches in the 2nd half (start, very end). In fact, I had to work pretty hard to get some of you to channel your inner student and cheer with me. :)

[drummerdevil]

Props to the crowd today. This was the loudest non-student dominated crowd that I have ever seen in Cameron.

Question: What was the explanation for the play in the second half where Trent was handling the ball near the Duke bench and the FSU player hit the deck. Initially, from my vantage point, it looked like Trent was called for swinging his elbow. The refs reviewed the play and awarded the ball to Duke. Was it ruled a flop? Thanks for any explanation from someone who watched on TV.

People have given you the real explanation but it was a blatant flop, Cameron went nuts over it, the refs looked at it and realized it was a flop, gave the ball to us and should have been a tech for the flop

[MaxAMillion]

I am honestly not concerned about the defense. It will get better as the year goes on (like 2015 if the team can stay healthy). The two problems this team has which will be extremely difficult to overcome are free throw shooting and offense off the bench. You will play tough games in the tournament where free throw shooting at the end of a game will make a difference. Duke has 3 mediocre free throw shooters on the floor (Duval, Carter, and Bagley).

[drummerdevil]

I am honestly not concerned about the defense. It will get better as the year goes on (like 2015 if the team can stay healthy). The two problems this team has which will be extremely difficult to overcome are free throw shooting and offense off the bench. You will play tough games in the tournament where free throw shooting at the end of a game will make a difference. Duke has 3 mediocre free throw shooters on the floor (Duval, Carter, and Bagley).

Personally I feel it’s more likely that our free throw shooting improved than our defense. Free throw shooting is a lot easier to work on, as evidenced by the fact that Bagley is getting better. I need to see better defense so the free throws don’t matter because the defense just doesn’t come together every year.

[Bluedog]

Free throw shooting is a lot easier to work on, as evidenced by the fact that Bagley is getting better.

Bagley was 5/11 from the stripe today. (Obviously, he had a sensational game despite that. Just saying that I don't think we can state definitely that Bagley is getting better at FTs.) I hope so though. I feel like his stroke looks good and 70% is a reasonable goal rather than low 60s.

[drummerdevil]

Bagley was 5/11 from the stripe today. (Obviously, he had a sensational game despite that. Just saying that I don't think we can state definitely that Bagley is getting better at FTs.

Today hopefully was an anomaly. He went 9-10 once.

[CDu]

Today hopefully was an anomaly. He went 9-10 once.

For the season he is at 60.6%. So the 5/11 is probably no more anomalous than the 9/10.

[UrinalCake]

Can anyone explain why the three is so open vs our D?

In my unprofessional opinion it is because we overplay so much, bringing over an extra defender to cut off a ball-handler driving to the lane or having both defenders stay with the ball-handler after a screen is set. We also tend to go for steals when the ball is being passed around the perimeter, leaving guys out of position and open threes as a result. I actually think we need to stay at home more in the M2M, but overplay and trap more when we play zone.

I missed the first half due to CBS's inane online streaming coverage (my eventual solution was to install the CBS app on my iPhone, sign up for a month trial of CBS Now, then use airplay to stream from my phone to the AppleTV). But the encouraging takeaways from the second half for me were a.) a lot of possessions had us defending well for 20-25 seconds, only to have the play break down and eventually result in an open three b.) they did hit several NBA range threes that were reasonably well defended c.) Duval's play in the closing minutes was fantastic - hit a three, made a transition layup, got a tough defensive rebound, hit Carter for a dunk. We haven't really seen Duval take over a game offensively, as he's worked so hard on being a distributor, but we can't forget that he was an incredibly dynamic scorer in high school and still has that potential.

[ncexnyc]

I wonder if the Butler forum is complaining about their team's defense?

[BD80]

I wonder if the Butler forum is complaining about their team's defense?

They could have a few Duke alum who went to grad school at Butler ...

[Mtn.Devil.91.92.01.10.15]

I wonder if the Butler forum is complaining about their team's defense?

Nah. They are probably too busy whining about a lack of NCAA sanctions against their rival to enjoy the moment.

/s

[Kfanarmy]

Perimeter D was atrocious for 15-20 minutes in the middle of the game...Wide open three after wide open three...guys simply not staying on the shooters. Everyone doing the exact same thing. Perhaps a lack of communication on D?

[jwillfan]

People have given you the real explanation but it was a blatant flop, Cameron went nuts over it, the refs looked at it and realized it was a flop, gave the ball to us and should have been a tech for the flop

Was saying the same thing, vis soccer - because it seemed like a tech-worthy flop with incidental contact. Carter's last o-foul to me was also a flop by the defender. So what's the rule, if there is one, for an oscar-winning performance?

[duke4ever19]

I read many of our postgame threads and I get worried, even after a big win. Then I watch Coach K's postgame press conference and it makes me feel better.

Anybody else have that experience on occasion?

[sagegrouse]

Props to the crowd today. This was the loudest non-student dominated crowd that I have ever seen in Cameron.

Question: What was the explanation for the play in the second half where Trent was handling the ball near the Duke bench and the FSU player hit the deck. Initially, from my vantage point, it looked like Trent was called for swinging his elbow. The refs reviewed the play and awarded the ball to Duke. Was it ruled a flop? Thanks for any explanation from someone who watched on TV.

It appears the refs decided it was "incidental contact," to use a football term, and not a foul. Therefore, it was an inadvertent whistle, so we got the ball back. First time in NCAA history, I suspect.

Also, Duke got a couple of other calls that are appreciated from this corner of the universe but not wholly deserved.

[Saratoga2]

Bagley was 5/11 from the stripe today. (Obviously, he had a sensational game despite that. Just saying that I don't think we can state definitely that Bagley is getting better at FTs.) I hope so though. I feel like his stroke looks good and 70% is a reasonable goal rather than low 60s.

Bagley's free throw shot it pretty flat. My take is the shooters who put more air under the ball hit a higher percentage. Hope he adjusts this year as he will be fouled a lot.

[sagegrouse]

Out of the country on holiday. But read a lot, watched a few highlights, etc. to sum up DBR:

-Duval is getting love? What? I’m so used to him being the whipping boy here...


For 35 minutes, Duval was horrible. The the last five minutes he took over the game and was a main reason we won. I hope it is a turning point, but he was really good.

[weezie]

It’s tricky to rock a rhyme, to rock a rhyme that’s right on time...

Man, that was a fun moment. I think I startled the people sitting around me when I busted that rhyme with the older Crazies.

We also concluded that Mike Eades must have inherited his whistle from his great-great-grandfather who might have scrimmaged with James Naismith. Our Mike, Ref Extraordinaire, blew the hecky heck out of that thing. No call was too far away for eagle-eyed Mike Eades to insert himself into. He's a regular whistle virtuoso.

[jimsumner]

Like a lot of people, I basically had FSU pegged as a mid-tier ACC team this season after the loss of Isaacs, Bacon and Rathan-Mayes. Their beat-down of Florida opened my eyes and today's game confirmed to me that I had way underestimated them.

Give Leonard Hamilton and his staff lots of credit. They've helped turn role players like Cofer and Mann into really good college players.

Hamilton has long used his bench about as well as anyone. When you play them, you are going to get a tough, deep, physical opponent, with lots of upperclassmen.

Duke is neither deep nor experienced. Are they tough enough?

FSU threw a lot of haymakers today at a young team, a team in foul trouble that wasn't getting much from their bench.

But none of those potential knock-out punches knocked out Duke. I don't know how much of this came across on TV but from where I was sitting the intensity was almost frightening. These guys came to play and it seemed like every possession could decide the game.

Duke can sure get better, better on defense, better from the line, more from the bench. But more than any of that, this seemed like a gut-check game and Duke answered the call.

Seemed like a pretty good win to me.

[CDu]

I don’t think anyone has said it wasn’t a good win. Pretty much everyone has said it was a great win.

[weezie]

....When Wendall and Marvin had three, then four, fouls -where were Javin and Marquis? If neither of them could play in this game when will they play in the future?

Javin still looks like he has a hitch in his giddyup. He's not exactly limping but he's not fluid and his hops were MIA. Bolden came in with a spurt of energy, gave Carter brief rests to regroup but Bolden's attitude does come across as much improved on the court over last year's moments of bewilderment.

Work in progress folks. K was handing out high fives to the crowd as he exited, I felt like we earned it, too.

[jimsumner]

I don’t think anyone has said it wasn’t a good win. Pretty much everyone has said it was a great win.

Seems like lots of kvetching for a good win, e.g. should have won by 15-20 points.

YMMV.

[uh_no]

anybody have any idea where one could find a replay?

[jipops]

I haven't had the opportunity watch the game yet, but is the defense still as awful in person and on tv as it looks on paper?

I know the roster makeup is very different, but so far this is shaping up to be the 2014 season once again. I hope we don't play Mercer again.

[sagegrouse]

I haven't had the opportunity watch the game yet, but is the defense still as awful in person and on tv as it looks on paper?

I know the roster makeup is very different, but so far this is shaping up to be the 2014 season once again. I hope we don't play Mercer again.

Lessee... (1) You didn't watch the game.... (2) You wondered about the defense.... (3) You have concluded this team is going to be mediocre .... despite (1) and (2).

I disagree with your conclusion and am mystified by your reasoning. This is an amazingly talented team, which will improve throughout the season. FSU's Cofer was unconscious in the first half, Angola the same in the second. Stuff happens. We withstood the assault and pulled away in the last few minutes.

[jipops]

Lessee... (1) You didn't watch the game... (2) You wondered about the defense... (3) You have concluded this team is going to be mediocre ... despite (1) and (2).

I disagree with your conclusion and am mystified by your reasoning. This is an amazingly talented team, which will improve throughout the season. FSU's Cofer was unconscious in the first half, Angola the same in the second. Stuff happens. We withstood the assault and pulled away in the last few minutes.

Reasoning is because we've seen this before. And you jumped to a conclusion that I made a conclusion. The Mercer comment was levity. I think the concern expressed has some warrant. Seems a little more than coincidental that teams keep going unconscious from deep against us. Two FSU guys just had career highs...at Cameron. Do you think the D is going well? Looking at the box, 2 guys really did some damage. So again I ask, was it really that bad or no?

I'm still holding out hope the D will get better. Seems like it can't get much worse. Maybe it will come around late like it did in '15. But after having so much time to concentrate on D and then give up a bucket load of 3's my confidence took a dent. But yea, I'd like to see it first which is why I asked. Still mystified?

[UrinalCake]

Lost in all of the worrying about our three point defense is the fact that we actually defended the two point shots really well, holding them to 16-37 inside the arc. And I don't have the numbers in front of me but I suspect our two point defense on the season is pretty decent. We've had a number of seasons where our fans complained about constantly overplaying the three point line, defending the three really well while giving up easy buckets inside. Dozens of threads have been started in recent years begging Coach K to play a pack-line defense, shutting down the interior at the expense of giving up open threes. Which is essentially what we're now doing (not by playing pack-line, but by overplaying and helping on the interior, leaving the perimeter open).

In an ideal world we would perfectly defend the interior and also perfectly defend the three. But such a system doesn't really exist, at least not when you're starting four freshmen and having them play the bulk of the minutes. I think our defense right now fits our personnel, the guys do seem committed to playing D and they have the physical tools so I think we will continue to improve. And as Mr. Sumner so eloquently put it, there were plenty of positive intangibles to take away from this game.

[Furniture]

For 35 minutes, Duval was horrible. The the last five minutes he took over the game and was a main reason we won. I hope it is a turning point, but he was really good.

I think K expresses it much better in his press conference. You should probably listen to it and thank god he doesn’t tell Trevon that he is horrible.

[Furniture]

I read many of our postgame threads and I get worried, even after a big win. Then I watch Coach K's postgame press conference and it makes me feel better.

Anybody else have that experience on occasion?

YES. Almost every game these days. I don’t understand all the gloom and doom about this team. From what I remember over the years watching ACC basketball many of the games are really tough and close.

This is is it folks. Duke has one loss so far this season. One loss!!

A win is a win and a win is big.

[juise]

anybody have any idea where one could find a replay?

I was traveling during the game and am in a similar predicament. All I have been able to find so far is the BDN on goduke. Not sure I want to pay $10 for a month subscription, though.

[DukeinDC]

Exactly fellow fan. This team is somehow polarizing to its own fan base despite giving us multiple thrilling wins to date. Honestly, I think those fans need to adjust to a different way of playing and hopefully winning. Obvi tho we are all happy with the W and will take them any way we can get them!

[gam7]

Braian Angola was unconscious. An incredible performance by that kid.



Unconscious sure worked better for Angola than ...

7956

[accfanfrom1970]

I remember when senior Koubek took us to the promised land with his incredible offensive rebounding - this team is similar except we have two Koubek's!


Zoubek? Senior Koubek was great battling Larry Johnson too.

[YmoBeThere]

I remember the '98-'99 season well. Other than the horrid performances against Cincinnati and UConn, why can't we play like that ? All the time? Should we settle for anything less?


(I'm kidding of course...)

[Skydog]

YES. Almost every game these days. I don’t understand all the gloom and doom about this team. From what I remember over the years watching ACC basketball many of the games are really tough and close.

This is is it folks. Duke has one loss so far this season. One loss!!

A win is a win and a win is big.

Maybe I’m missing it but I don’t see much doom and gloom on this board about this team. A few of us question our defense but not the team overall. We are a great offensive team and a phenomenal rebounding team and we are strong mentally, which is remarkable for a mostly freshman team. Plus we have Bagley - truly a generational talent.

[devilnfla]

Maybe not too tough. Bagley is a darn good college player, but his game doesn’t yet translate as well to today’s NBA as does Young’s. 10-20 years ago Bagley would go higher, no doubt. Perhaps even five years ago. But today? Young will likely be the more effective pro and probably should go higher in the draft. That being said it almost assuredly will come down to team need rather than best available talent. We’ll just have to wait and see which teams end up at the top of the draft. For example, if Dallas were deciding strictly between Young and Bagley they would likely take Bagley because they have Dennis Smith. Young and Smith on the same team would be redundant. We shall see.

Disagree on Bagley's game translating to NBA. A big who can shoot (stretch the court), rebound, run like a deer, and finish around the basket is what the NBA loves. Young is an excellent talent, but let's see if he keeps this pace up against superior talent.

[MarkD83]

I am optimistic that this team can win an acc regular season championship but can see the razor thin edge that this team is playing on. Since it is hard for them to get stops games like the BC and Fsu games will be the norm not the exception. That means even with the dominance of our bigs the games are coming down to one or two missed / made shots at the end.

[ChapelHillDevil]

I think every season is different but we can be really good by march. Most are freshmen and I think K can get them in fine form by march. Defense is great but thank God we don't play like Virginia. Acc games are tough! We will lose 4or 5 Acc games during this process. That may still be enough to get the reg season ribbon

[dukelifer]

I haven't had the opportunity watch the game yet, but is the defense still as awful in person and on tv as it looks on paper?

I know the roster makeup is very different, but so far this is shaping up to be the 2014 season once again. I hope we don't play Mercer again.

I thought this was a high level game. Duke is struggling defending the three but I thought aspects of the D was pretty good at times. I was following the game on my phone and watched after the fact. Knowing the outcome I thought Duke was better than they were in that Nov tourney - but a couple of Florida State kids went nuts from deep. They contained Mann pretty well. All in all some progress but much work to do.

[Saratoga2]

Javin still looks like he has a hitch in his giddyup. He's not exactly limping but he's not fluid and his hops were MIA. Bolden came in with a spurt of energy, gave Carter brief rests to regroup but Bolden's attitude does come across as much improved on the court over last year's moments of bewilderment.

Work in progress folks. K was handing out high fives to the crowd as he exited, I felt like we earned it, too.

Coach k mentioned in his press conference that he probably should have given Alex more playing time, particularly in the first half, as he made a couple of excellent plays while in.

[uh_no]

I think every season is different but we can be really good by march. Most are freshmen and I think K can get them in fine form by march. Defense is great but thank God we don't play like Virginia. Acc games are tough! We will lose 4or 5 Acc games during this process. That may still be enough to get the reg season ribbon

I'd play like UVA if it meant we could win a regular season title.

Obviously there are other things I'd like more and unbalanced schedule blah blah blah....but they've been pretty consistent in ACC play....certainly more so than duke has most of the past few years.

[dukelifer]

I read many of our postgame threads and I get worried, even after a big win. Then I watch Coach K's postgame press conference and it makes me feel better.

Anybody else have that experience on occasion?

The best thing he said is that he should have played Alex more in the first half. They need to develop a bench that can get points and OConnell has shown he can play against any team despite being pretty skinny. He is unafraid and makes great decisions under pressure. K needs to work him into the rotation.

[dukelifer]

I'd play like UVA if it meant we could win a regular season title.

Obviously there are other things I'd like more and unbalanced schedule blah blah blah...but they've been pretty consistent in ACC play...certainly more so than duke has most of the past few years.

And also consistent in the big dance where they have consistently under performed. UVA is built for the regular season. That said if Duke played D like UVA - that would be a pretty scary team.

[obowl1955]

I was traveling during the game and am in a similar predicament. All I have been able to find so far is the BDN on goduke. Not sure I want to pay $10 for a month subscription, though.
You tube has the full game.

[CDu]

Seems like lots of kvetching for a good win, e.g. should have won by 15-20 points.

YMMV.

One can be both very happy with a great win and concerned about some aspects of our team. The two are not mutually exclusive. With the exception of after the last game of the season, there should always be room for discussion of areas for the team to improve.

[sagegrouse]

Quote Originally Posted by sagegrouse View Post
For 35 minutes, Duval was horrible. The the last five minutes he took over the game and was a main reason we won. I hope it is a turning point, but he was really good.


I think K expresses it much better in his press conference. You should probably listen to it and thank god he doesn’t tell Trevon that he is horrible.

Fair enough. I was responding to FDD's question about his amazement at praise for Duval on the Board: "Duval is getting love? What? I’m so used to him being the whipping boy here..."

For the first 30+ minutes, Duval was committing fouls and then MIA while sitting on the bench. He played only 22 minutes. When inserted back in the lineup, as K said, he was tentative. I can defend "horrible," but as I among others have said, this is a Duke fan site, and the players should be defended.

[Sixthman]

I am honestly not concerned about the defense. It will get better as the year goes on (like 2015 if the team can stay healthy). The two problems this team has which will be extremely difficult to overcome are free throw shooting and offense off the bench. You will play tough games in the tournament where free throw shooting at the end of a game will make a difference. Duke has 3 mediocre free throw shooters on the floor (Duval, Carter, and Bagley).

I think this team presents a unique situation in which we don’t really need offense off the bench. We need defense and ball handling. I do not recall a Duke team which had so many genuine offensive go to guys in the starting five. Every one of our starters is capable of showing up as our leading scorer on any given night. You don’t play the bench five guys at a time. Two or three of the starters will always be in the game. Of course you want the best bench you can get, but I’d suggest there isn’t anyone we can’t beat with three points off the bench.

Depth is a relative thing. Every team in America, no matter how good their starting five, would be deemed to have more depth if their starters were not as good.

[jv001]

I'm afraid that I've let myself fall into the woe is me attitude regarding the Duke defense. This morning I thought to myself, what a great game I watched yesterday and here I am concerned about the defense more than I'm excited about a great game. A game that brought to mind the NC State vs. Maryland game way back when. I still rank that game as one of the all-time greats. Yesterday's game was very close to the State-Terps game. There were great players in that game just like yesterdays FSU game. From today forward I'm going to enjoy every minute of every game and hope that Duke does what State did that year. GoDuke!

[Sixthman]

I apologize if this has been mentioned previously in this thread, but we held them to two point nets the last 3:40. We won the game because we scored and they did not during this stretch. We have to credit this either to our superior defense or toughness. It didn’t actually seem like we were playing particularly good defense during this stretch. FSU suddenly looked tired and were ragged in their mental and physical execution. But they were the team full of upper classmen. If anything, Duke’s freshmen played will more skill and focus under the stress of the finish of a tough game than they did earlier in the game. They’ve done this all season.

[lotusland]

anybody have any idea where one could find a replay?

https://youtu.be/4LbY-XqwTac

[weezie]

I apologize if this has been mentioned previously in this thread, but we held them to two point nets the last 3:40. We won the game because we scored and they did not during this stretch. We have to credit this either to our superior defense or toughness. It didn’t actually seem like we were playing particularly good defense during this stretch. FSU suddenly looked tired and were ragged in their mental and physical execution. But they were the team full of upper classmen. If anything, Duke’s freshmen played will more skill and focus under the stress of the finish of a tough game than they did earlier in the game. They’ve done this all season.

I don't usually quote entire posts because it's tiresome to read some of them twice but THIS is absolutely spot on. Excellent observations.

[Mtn.Devil.91.92.01.10.15]

I don't usually quote entire posts because it's tiresome to read some of them twice but THIS is absolutely spot on. Excellent observations.

Yeah, it is a real half-full/half-empty thing. Either we are lucky not to have five losses on our docket already, or our team repeatedly shows the grit to pull out close games.

[Wander]

And he made FSU pay for leaving him open for 3 on a crucial possession. Loved seeing that go in.

I feel sort of silly for worrying about any aspect of our offense given that it's ranked #1 in kenpom, but I've always been afraid that Duval's lack of 3 point shooting is a huge weakness for us. So Duval making that when FSU was daring him to shoot was the most important play of the game to me.

[lotusland]

The best thing he said is that he should have played Alex more in the first half. They need to develop a bench that can get points and OConnell has shown he can play against any team despite being pretty skinny. He is unafraid and makes great decisions under pressure. K needs to work him into the rotation.

I think Duval’s foul trouble is probably what favored Goldwire over Alex in the first half. Grayson is the back up PG and he’s actually not bad at it but, without Duval, we need a ball handler when Grayson sits. I wouldn’t characterize JGold’s PG ability any better than “serviceable” and Alex certainly seems to have a much higher ceiling than Goldwire but K doesn’t seem to trust either Alex or Trent as the primary ball handler.

[superdave]

I think Duval’s foul trouble is probably what favored Goldwire over Alex in the first half. Grayson is the back up PG and he’s actually not bad at it but, without Duval, we need a ball handler when Grayson sits. I wouldn’t characterize JGold’s PG ability any better than “serviceable” and Alex certainly seems to have a much higher ceiling than Goldwire but K doesn’t seem to trust either Alex or Trent as the primary ball handler.

Grayson is out backup pg, but when Duval sat and FSU pressed 3/4 court, it made sense to put in a stronger ball-handler.

I would expect Goldwire to see very limited action, as necessary.

[budwom]

I was heartened to see Bagley and Carter doing so much exemplary cleanup work on the boards...it certainly looked to be a huge strength of this team coming into the season, but in some games they've
drifted a lot around the arc. I don't mind them shooting some threes to keep defenses honest, but I think Duke is at its best when guys like Allen, Trent, O'Connell and even Duval are hoisting the threes and
Carter and Bagley are down low to put back the misses.

[CDu]

I think Duval’s foul trouble is probably what favored Goldwire over Alex in the first half. Grayson is the back up PG and he’s actually not bad at it but, without Duval, we need a ball handler when Grayson sits. I wouldn’t characterize JGold’s PG ability any better than “serviceable” and Alex certainly seems to have a much higher ceiling than Goldwire but K doesn’t seem to trust either Alex or Trent as the primary ball handler.

It is true that Duval’s foul trouble drove Goldwire in, but not for the bolded reason. Allen played all 40 minutes, so he didn’t sit.

I think the reason Goldwire played is because he is better defensively and a better ballhandler. Coach K wanted two ballhandlers in against FSU’s pressure. And since we were leading for much of the half, Goldwire’s lack of offense wasn’t as much a concern. Goldwire also allows Allen to play more off ball, where he is a dangerous scoring threat.

In the second half, we were trailing and needed offense, so O’Connell came in.

[GeneBanksManCrush]

Not that I'm any kind of an expert...far from it...but it looked to me like FSU's game plan was to play tight defense inside and challenge Duval to hit the open 3. Pretty good game plan as it turned out. I'd expect to see more teams giving him the open 3 while closing off passing opportunities. What a game, though, and what redemption for Duval in the end!

[freshmanjs]

It is true that Duval’s foul trouble drove Goldwire in, but not for the bolded reason. Allen played all 40 minutes, so he didn’t sit.

I think the reason Goldwire played is because he is better defensively and a better ballhandler. Coach K wanted two ballhandlers in against FSU’s pressure. And since we were leading for much of the half, Goldwire’s lack of offense wasn’t as much a concern. Goldwire also allows Allen to play more off ball, where he is a dangerous scoring threat.

In the second half, we were trailing and needed offense, so O’Connell came in.

Agree -- Grayson got a turnover trying to bring the ball up against their pressure. Goldwire immediately came in as another ball handler.

[MaxAMillion]

One can be both very happy with a great win and concerned about some aspects of our team. The two are not mutually exclusive. With the exception of after the last game of the season, there should always be room for discussion of areas for the team to improve.

As long as you don’t go the other way and start acting like UVA is better.

[Papa John]

Was saying the same thing, vis soccer - because it seemed like a tech-worthy flop with incidental contact. Carter's last o-foul to me was also a flop by the defender. So what's the rule, if there is one, for an oscar-winning performance?

Carter’s last foul wasn’t a flop by the defender—Wendell lowered his shoulder and moved into the defender. That said, I thought the replay clearly showed that the defender was in the restricted area in the lane, and my understanding is you cannot, by rule, draw a charge there. Oh well...

[MChambers]

Carter’s last foul wasn’t a flop by the defender—Wendell lowered his shoulder and moved into the defender. That said, I thought the replay clearly showed that the defender was in the restricted area in the lane, and my understanding is you cannot, by rule, draw a charge there. Oh well...

That only applies to secondary defenders.

[House G]

Not that I'm any kind of an expert...far from it...but it looked to me like FSU's game plan was to play tight defense inside and challenge Duval to hit the open 3. Pretty good game plan as it turned out. I'd expect to see more teams giving him the open 3 while closing off passing opportunities. What a game, though, and what redemption for Duval in the end!

No question about it. Kellogg even commented (after DeLaurier bricked a 3) that just because you’re open doesn’t mean you should be shooting threes. Guys shooting 15% from beyond the arc probably shouldn’t be shooting five of them in a game. FSU packed their zone inside and it worked early on. I kept wondering why we didn’t flash a guy to the free throw area ( a la Jack Givens :() Early, Carter missed a wide open look from this area and I thought he would be a good one to feed here. However, later they positioned Bagley here and FSU soon abandoned their zone. With him here and Carter in the low post, Bagley didn’t have to shoot the 12-15 footer. He could drive, dish down low, or kick out to Allen or Carter. As Kellogg said, the offense needs to run through Bagley and Allen. Duke obviously won this game in the paint and on the boards, where we absolutely crushed them. I believe this happened because our big guys spent most of the game in the paint. I know Bagley and Carter like to shoot the three, but that is not the strength of their game.
And with regard to our D, I believe we should play zone the majority of the game—it appears to me to be the lesser of two evils. I suspect teams have more trouble scoring from beyond the arc against our zone than our man to man but have no facts to support this. But then again, it may not matter when teams are banking in 25 footers.

[freshmanjs]

Carter’s last foul wasn’t a flop by the defender—Wendell lowered his shoulder and moved into the defender. That said, I thought the replay clearly showed that the defender was in the restricted area in the lane, and my understanding is you cannot, by rule, draw a charge there. Oh well...

Primary defender can draw a charge anywhere.

[CDu]

Carter’s last foul wasn’t a flop by the defender—Wendell lowered his shoulder and moved into the defender. That said, I thought the replay clearly showed that the defender was in the restricted area in the lane, and my understanding is you cannot, by rule, draw a charge there. Oh well...


That only applies to secondary defenders.


Primary defender can draw a charge anywhere.

Correct. If you are guarding your man (and not rotating over as help defense on a driver), you can take a charge anywhere. Otherwise, guys would just camp out in the restricted area and bowl over their man once they got the ball for easy layups and dunks.

[budwom]

I think it's very good that we're playing some experienced, well coached teams right now. Fascinating to watch things evolve...right now you have some ultra talented but young teams like
Duke facing some very good veteran teams...as the year goes on, I'd like to think a lot of lessons will be learned, and things like defense, and for some shot selection, will improve.

[OldPhiKap]

From Jim’s front page article:

“That was a tough game and a tough win,” Duval said.” If every game is like this, then we need to prepare for a fight every game.”

Yeah, every game is like that Tre. And some are gonna be a whole lot more intense that that one.

[CajunDevil]

The breathless back-and-forth of this game reminded me of the Duke-Kentucky game in '92... for 36 minutes. It was a game played at a very high level. I can only imagine the criticism of Duke's D if this board existed in '92. Of course, Duke's D needs to improve, and I am confident it will improve. These kids are young, and they are getting better at closeouts, at rotations, at positioning. Additionally, the free throw shooting will improve as we play games more regularly again - see how Marvin's FTs improved as he played games on a more regular basis pre-exams.

My takeaways:

1. Bagley is amazing - first ever Duke player in K-era to have 30/20. Only K-era 30/15s are Bagley (3x) and Laettner (1x). Nuts.
2. Duval playing fearlessly is such a beautiful thing.
3. K to play more AOC!

[Duke76]

Man, that was a fun moment. I think I startled the people sitting around me when I busted that rhyme with the older Crazies.

We also concluded that Mike Eades must have inherited his whistle from his great-great-grandfather who might have scrimmaged with James Naismith. Our Mike, Ref Extraordinaire, blew the hecky heck out of that thing. No call was too far away for eagle-eyed Mike Eades to insert himself into. He's a regular whistle virtuoso.

that's the unvarnished truth Weezie...what a marked difference in calling a game from others this season....hate it when a game is called like that and hasn't really seen it all season. stupid touch calls...I hate it

[richardjackson199]

What can we do to cut down not only on 3 pointers taken by opponents but also keep them from shooting so many . I know Coach K has addressed it but why do these teams keep having so much success. It's already cost us the B.C. game and should have cost us the game today. We just can't keep on letting everyone shoot the 3 at will. The best way to stop 3 pointers is to not let teams shoot it. We need some work on free throws also. I'm really happy we won today and several guys rose to the occasion but we should have won this game by 15-20 points. We just can't keep this p and expect to win a natty.

I think FSU shooting 3's should have won us the game, and did.

In the last 5 minutes or so of the game, we had 4 starters in foul trouble. If FSU had been driving and attacking the rim, we would have probably been forced to give up easy 2's or foul out studs. We should have been in trouble.

But FSU bailed us out by continuing to hoist 3's without ever going inside, and they finally cooled off.

Some of their 3's, especially to start the first half, were too wide open. But if our young team continues to work on defensive principles, they will continue to improve and could win it all.

They're learning to just expect every team's best shot (and best 3 point shot). Embrace it. We're learning to win tough, high-pressure games. We're learning that to get W's we also have to give our best effort and fight like hell. There is no better preparation for March and April.

Enjoy this team and this time in Duke history.

[buddy]

I think FSU shooting 3's should have won us the game, and did.

In the last 5 minutes or so of the game, we had 4 starters in foul trouble. If FSU had been driving and attacking the rim, we would have probably been forced to give up easy 2's or foul out studs. We should have been in trouble.

But FSU bailed us out by continuing to hoist 3's without ever going inside, and they finally cooled off.

Some of their 3's, especially to start the first half, were too wide open. But if our young team continues to work on defensive principles, they will continue to improve and could win it all.

They're learning to just expect every team's best shot (and best 3 point shot). Embrace it. We're learning to win tough, high-pressure games. We're learning that to get W's we also have to give our best effort and fight like hell. There is no better preparation for March and April.

Enjoy this team and this time in Duke history.

Exactly. We played 3 1/2 minutes with four (freshmen) starters each with 4 fouls, and FSU DID NOT SCORE!!! Once we made it a two possession game FSU seemed to panic. Of course, Carter drawing the charge was HUGE. Maybe FSU thought they wouldn't get any more whistles.

[Mtn.Devil.91.92.01.10.15]

I think that by Bagley's senior year, he could make All-ACC

[Spanarkel]

Re FSU's 3 Point Shooting:
Rewatching all of FSU's made threes yesterday shows that 4(or 5)were what could be reasonably termed "wide open" or unguarded(Cofer@19:18 and @1:10 in 1st half/CJ Walker@18:09 and Terance Mann@10:58 of 2nd half), with Trent Jr. standing in close proximity to Angola@2:36 in 1st half without raising his arm/jumping potentially being the 5th. All of the 'Noles' other threes involved standard or signficant defensive effort from Duke imo. Not sure if Duke didn't intentionally left T. Mann wide open given his 20% 3 pt. average this season(and average of a three ball every 110 minutes in his career). Other posters have stated that most of FSU's made threes were "wide open," which I did not find upon review. Let's go, Duke!

[BandAlum83]

I remember when senior Koubek took us to the promised land with his incredible offensive rebounding - this team is similar except we have two Koubek's!


Zoubek? Senior Koubek was great battling Larry Johnson too.

Honest question here. Zoubek was amazing with his ability to get tap outs off missed shots to our more than capable 3 PT shooters that year. I don't remember him pulling down lots of balls. Did he get credit for a rebound when he had tap out "passes?" Or does the player who ultimately controls the ball get credit for the rebound?

[jimsumner]

Honest question here. Zoubek was amazing with his ability to get tap outs off missed shots to our more than capable 3 PT shooters that year. I don't remember him pulling down lots of balls. Did he get credit for a rebound when he had tap out "passes?" Or does the player who ultimately controls the ball get credit for the rebound?

Judgment call by the scorer. If it is deemed a controlled tap, then the tapper gets the rebound. If deemed flailing around, then the tapee would get credit for the rebound.

[Furniture]

Re FSU's 3 Point Shooting:
Rewatching all of FSU's made threes yesterday shows that 4(or 5)were what could be reasonably termed "wide open" or unguarded(Cofer@19:18 and @1:10 in 1st half/CJ Walker@18:09 and Terance Mann@10:58 of 2nd half), with Trent Jr. standing in close proximity to Angola@2:36 in 1st half without raising his arm/jumping potentially being the 5th. All of the 'Noles' other threes involved standard or signficant defensive effort from Duke imo. Not sure if Duke didn't intentionally left T. Mann wide open given his 20% 3 pt. average this season(and average of a three ball every 110 minutes in his career). Other posters have stated that most of FSU's made threes were "wide open," which I did not find upon review. Let's go, Duke!

In the Trevon thread somebody else said the same thing which seems appropriate here.

“Dont let the facts get in the way of a good (?) story”.

[Kedsy]

Lost in all of the worrying about our three point defense is the fact that we actually defended the two point shots really well, holding them to 16-37 inside the arc. And I don't have the numbers in front of me but I suspect our two point defense on the season is pretty decent. We've had a number of seasons where our fans complained about constantly overplaying the three point line, defending the three really well while giving up easy buckets inside. Dozens of threads have been started in recent years begging Coach K to play a pack-line defense, shutting down the interior at the expense of giving up open threes. Which is essentially what we're now doing (not by playing pack-line, but by overplaying and helping on the interior, leaving the perimeter open).

In an ideal world we would perfectly defend the interior and also perfectly defend the three. But such a system doesn't really exist, at least not when you're starting four freshmen and having them play the bulk of the minutes. I think our defense right now fits our personnel, the guys do seem committed to playing D and they have the physical tools so I think we will continue to improve. And as Mr. Sumner so eloquently put it, there were plenty of positive intangibles to take away from this game.

Our two-point percentage for the season is 44.5% (including last night's 43.2%). That's good but I'm not sure it's good enough to make up for all the threes.

Here are Duke's top ten opposing two-point percentages since the three-pointer was introduced:

2005: 41.3%
1999: 42.2%
2011: 43.2%
2004: 43.5%
2000: 43.7%
2001: 43.9%
2010: 44.1%
1989: 44.6%
1998: 44.7%
1997: 44.7%

So, it's a solid top ten performance. Unfortunately, our opponents' three-point percentage, 36.0%, is the third-highest Duke has allowed since the three-pointer was legal, behind only 1992 (37.7%) and 1995 (39.0%). It's worth noting the the high percentages in those two seasons were somewhat ameliorated by the fact that our 1995 opponents only took threes 24.2% of the time and our 1992 opponents only 20.4% of the time.

This year's team's opponents take 38.1% of their shots from the three-o-verse. That's the most ever allowed by a Duke team, by far -- the second highest such season percentage by Duke's opponents is 28.8% (which happened last season). This is the real issue, along with our anemic turnover percentage of 16.3%, the lowest turnover percentage since they started keeping that stat in 1987.

Seems to me, if we're going to let opponents take three-pointers at a historically high rate, and they're making them at a very high clip, and we're not forcing many turnovers, we need to stop two-pointers a lot better than we have so far, if we want to have a really good defense.

[devildeac]

I know some of this has been discussed to some degree upthread, but our younger son-in-law just informed me that MB3's 32/21 yesterday was the first 30/20 game since 1969 when Randy Denton registered those stats (actually 33/21 vs Bill & Mary at Indoor Stadium on 12/31/69) and Randy happened to be in attendance at the game yesterday. Pretty awesome.

[DukieInBrasil]

I think that by Bagley's senior year, he could make All-ACC

just lay off putting too many expectations on the young man. each player runs their own race. sheesh.

[Skydog]

Re FSU's 3 Point Shooting:
Rewatching all of FSU's made threes yesterday shows that 4(or 5)were what could be reasonably termed "wide open" or unguarded(Cofer@19:18 and @1:10 in 1st half/CJ Walker@18:09 and Terance Mann@10:58 of 2nd half), with Trent Jr. standing in close proximity to Angola@2:36 in 1st half without raising his arm/jumping potentially being the 5th. All of the 'Noles' other threes involved standard or signficant defensive effort from Duke imo. Not sure if Duke didn't intentionally left T. Mann wide open given his 20% 3 pt. average this season(and average of a three ball every 110 minutes in his career). Other posters have stated that most of FSU's made threes were "wide open," which I did not find upon review. Let's go, Duke!

Thanks for bringing actual data brought into the discussion! Four or five wide open threes might sound like a low # but its important to remember that your sample only included made 3's. If that is true then your data shows that approximately a third of FSU's 45 points from behind the arc were scored by "wide open" players. That fits pretty closely with my impressions during the game.

[Skydog]

I know some of this has been discussed to some degree upthread, but our younger son-in-law just informed me that MB3's 32/21 yesterday was the first 30/20 game since 1969 when Randy Denton registered those stats (actually 33/21 vs Bill & Mary at Indoor Stadium on 12/31/69) and Randy happened to be in attendance at the game yesterday. Pretty awesome.

I don't understand why this "once-in-a-half-century" feat didn't get more attention in the college bball sports coverage. It should have been a story on Sports Center (Trae Young certainly got plenty of time) but was largely ignored. Even our own N&O barely mentioned it.

[Skydog]

I remember when senior Koubek took us to the promised land with his incredible offensive rebounding - this team is similar except we have two Koubek's!


Zoubek? Senior Koubek was great battling Larry Johnson too.

Oops. Zoubek of course. Senioritis strikes again.

[LasVegas]

I don't understand why this "once-in-a-half-century" feat didn't get more attention in the college bball sports coverage. It should have been a story on Sports Center (Trae Young certainly got plenty of time) but was largely ignored. Even our own N&O barely mentioned it.

He couldn’t even win a unanimous “Man of the Match” here on DBR.

[DukieInBrasil]

Re FSU's 3 Point Shooting:
Rewatching all of FSU's made threes yesterday shows that 4(or 5)were what could be reasonably termed "wide open" or unguarded(Cofer@19:18 and @1:10 in 1st half/CJ Walker@18:09 and Terance Mann@10:58 of 2nd half), with Trent Jr. standing in close proximity to Angola@2:36 in 1st half without raising his arm/jumping potentially being the 5th. All of the 'Noles' other threes involved standard or signficant defensive effort from Duke imo. Not sure if Duke didn't intentionally left T. Mann wide open given his 20% 3 pt. average this season(and average of a three ball every 110 minutes in his career). Other posters have stated that most of FSU's made threes were "wide open," which I did not find upon review. Let's go, Duke!

in addition to this: even though many of those 3s were not "wide open", several (most?) of the made 3s were caught and shot in perfect rhythm with a defender getting a hand up or being close enough to negate being "wide open". Disrupting the rhythm of the catch n shoot process is just as important as contesting the eventual shot. I remember one Angola 3 made in the 2nd half in which the defender was right with him, but had his back turned to the pass, so Angola caught n shot with no pressure on the shot. It wasn't a wide open shot, but his sightline and rhythm were not impeded at all by the defender.

[Skydog]

He couldn’t even win a unanimous “Man of the Match” here on DBR.

Here is an example. ESPN recaps the game with a few hundred words but never mentions the Bagley record or the fact that no player in Coach K's history has had these numbers, much less a freshman. And ESPN - get this - picks FSU's Cofer as their "Star Watch" player based on the game:

http://www.espn.com/mens-college-basketball/recap?gameId=400986171

[devildeac]

I don't understand why this "once-in-a-half-century" feat didn't get more attention in the college bball sports coverage. It should have been a story on Sports Center (Trae Young certainly got plenty of time) but was largely ignored. Even our own N&O barely mentioned it.

Didn't involve a tripping incident :rolleyes::mad:.

Seriously, I have no idea when this may have occurred last in men's D1 college basketball. My reference was to the Duke program. Guess we should offer some sporks to someone willing to do the research to find out how many times it's been accomplished in D1 men's basketball and who/when/where was the most recent feat. ;)

[Kjeffrey]

Re FSU's 3 Point Shooting:
Rewatching all of FSU's made threes yesterday shows that 4(or 5)were what could be reasonably termed "wide open" or unguarded(Cofer@19:18 and @1:10 in 1st half/CJ Walker@18:09 and Terance Mann@10:58 of 2nd half), with Trent Jr. standing in close proximity to Angola@2:36 in 1st half without raising his arm/jumping potentially being the 5th. All of the 'Noles' other threes involved standard or signficant defensive effort from Duke imo. Not sure if Duke didn't intentionally left T. Mann wide open given his 20% 3 pt. average this season(and average of a three ball every 110 minutes in his career). Other posters have stated that most of FSU's made threes were "wide open," which I did not find upon review. Let's go, Duke!

I believe there was at least one more which I referenced in the in game thread. It happened with about 4:40 left in the first half. Both Carter and Trent were chasing Walker? to the baseline and left Cofer open. The ball was passed to someone at the FT line and then kicked out to Cofer who was pretty wide open if I am remembering correctly. While I don't have the exact stats, to my eye far too many FSU threes were not guarded effectively.

[CDu]

I believe there was at least one more which I referenced in the in game thread. It happened with about 4:40 left in the first half. Both Carter and Trent were chasing Walker? to the baseline and left Cofer open. The ball was passed to someone at the FT line and then kicked out to Cofer who was pretty wide open if I am remembering correctly. While I don't have the exact stats, to my eye far too many FSU threes were not guarded effectively.

I suspect that there is some “eye of the beholder” in that previous poster’s analysis. I recall there being more open looks too. But I will have to rewatch to confirm/deny.

[-jk]

Man, that was a fun moment. I think I startled the people sitting around me when I busted that rhyme with the older Crazies.

We also concluded that Mike Eades must have inherited his whistle from his great-great-grandfather who might have scrimmaged with James Naismith. Our Mike, Ref Extraordinaire, blew the hecky heck out of that thing. No call was too far away for eagle-eyed Mike Eades to insert himself into. He's a regular whistle virtuoso.

I think they consciously got whistle happy in the second half down one ref...

-jk

[richardjackson199]

I think they consciously got whistle happy in the second half down one ref...

-jk

Yep, and after the timout technical on Hamilton, they called 7 fouls in a row on Duke's starters in Cameron. Didn't Gregg Doyel imply something like that would be impossible? And yet it happened in Cameron, to Duke. Kinda blows his conspiracy theory up a bit. But shouldn't stop him.

[Skydog]

I suspect that there is some “eye of the beholder” in that previous poster’s analysis. I recall there being more open looks too. But I will have to rewatch to confirm/deny.

Again he was only counting open looks on made threes. There were a few missed open looks as well.

[BandAlum83]

I've been rewatching. It's hard to believe we had 84 points at the 5 minutes mark before Duval hit his 3. We scored 16 points in the last 4 minutes without an end game FT feat with tons of points made while the clock was stopped.

Watching again, it really was an amazing last 5 minutes for Duval. 9 points, 3 assists, one rebound, another great pass that resulted in a made FT. Wendell also has a great finish with two buckets and a big charge taken.

It was actually 14 points in four minutes. Incredible finish.

[CDu]

Again he was only counting open looks on made threes. There were a few missed open looks as well.

I know what he was saying. I just remember more open makes.

[tropical storm]

It appeared to be the correct call (or non-call) to me as it appeared the FSU player had entered the vertical cylinder of Trent and hence Trent is entitled to make a basketball move without incurring a foul. Note it does not matter whether contact is made, the rule specifically indicates the most common occurrence is player A's Elbow will make contact with player B's face. It is also worth noting that if player B is deemed to have been within Player A's vertical cylinder the correct call at the time would have been a foul on player B (despite them also having a banged up face for their efforts)... It comes down to whether you feel watching the replay that the FSU player was more in front of Trent than to the side (the cylinder to the side extends only to Trent's hip) and whether you feel his basketball movement was more vertical than horizontal.

for those interested this is the rule.


"...An official calls a player control foul on A1 for swinging his elbows and contacting B1 who is
defending A1 in the front. The officials elect to use instant replay to determine if the elbow contact by A1
was flagrant. After review, the officials determine that B1 was invading A1’s cylinder at the time of the
contact and that A1 was attempting a normal basketball move with his arms more vertical than horizontal
when the elbow contact occurred. What are the official’s options?
RULING- The officials may use instant replay to determine if a flagrant foul occurred. After review, the
officials may determine if the foul was flagrant, or if the player control foul was the correct call or if, by
indisputable evidence, there was no foul. If the officials determine that the foul should have been assessed
against B1 because of B1 invading the cylinder of A1 when the contact occurred, the foul call against A1
should be rescinded. However, no common foul may be assessed against B1 by the use of instant replay.
Play shall resume with a throw-in by A1 where the stoppage of play occurred to review the act with no
adjustment to either the game clock or shot clock (Rule 11-2.1.d.1, 11-1.4.a and 4-27.1.a)..."

[jv001]

Agree -- Grayson got a turnover trying to bring the ball up against their pressure. Goldwire immediately came in as another ball handler.

One of Grayson's two turnovers came on a play where he started to pass the ball to a player on the wing but the player was not looking for the pass. Grayson dragged his pivot foot trying to pull up. I don't remember the other turnover. Goldwire is a serviceable backup point guard and should get better with experience. GoDuke!

[plimnko]

I know what he was saying. I just remember more open makes.

several of those "open" 3's were WAY out there. and are you also counting the ones that were banked in??

[OldPhiKap]

While there certainly were some open threes, I seem to recall Angola and Cofer both making some sick shots with a hand in the face or from a full stride behind the line.

Could the defense be better? Yes, obviously.

Do you also have to give credit to FSU shooting the lights out? Yes, just as obviously. FSU was 15-32 from deep. We were only 8-30. Normalize those numbers even a bit, and we win walking away,

Anyway, hard for me to get real negative about that win. This is conference play, in a strong conference year. We play one senior and a bunch of freshmen. I’m tickled pink.

[MChambers]

It appeared to be the correct call (or non-call) to me as it appeared the FSU player had entered the vertical cylinder of Trent and hence Trent is entitled to make a basketball move without incurring a foul. Note it does not matter whether contact is made, the rule specifically indicates the most common occurrence is player A's Elbow will make contact with player B's face. It is also worth noting that if player B is deemed to have been within Player A's vertical cylinder the correct call at the time would have been a foul on player B (despite them also having a banged up face for their efforts)... It comes down to whether you feel watching the replay that the FSU player was more in front of Trent than to the side (the cylinder to the side extends only to Trent's hip) and whether you feel his basketball movement was more vertical than horizontal.

for those interested this is the rule.


"...An official calls a player control foul on A1 for swinging his elbows and contacting B1 who is
defending A1 in the front. The officials elect to use instant replay to determine if the elbow contact by A1
was flagrant. After review, the officials determine that B1 was invading A1’s cylinder at the time of the
contact and that A1 was attempting a normal basketball move with his arms more vertical than horizontal
when the elbow contact occurred. What are the official’s options?
RULING- The officials may use instant replay to determine if a flagrant foul occurred. After review, the
officials may determine if the foul was flagrant, or if the player control foul was the correct call or if, by
indisputable evidence, there was no foul. If the officials determine that the foul should have been assessed
against B1 because of B1 invading the cylinder of A1 when the contact occurred, the foul call against A1
should be rescinded. However, no common foul may be assessed against B1 by the use of instant replay.
Play shall resume with a throw-in by A1 where the stoppage of play occurred to review the act with no
adjustment to either the game clock or shot clock (Rule 11-2.1.d.1, 11-1.4.a and 4-27.1.a)..."
Yes, that's clearly what happened. The FSU player definitely invaded Gary's cylinder (sounds awful) and Gary was simply raising the ball.

[OldPhiKap]

The FSU player definitely invaded Gary's cylinder

Pretty sure that’s still against the law in North Carolina.

[uh_no]

While there certainly were some open threes, I seem to recall Angola and Cofer both making some sick shots with a hand in the face or from a full stride behind the line.

Could the defense be better? Yes, obviously.

Do you also have to give credit to FSU shooting the lights out? Yes, just as obviously. FSU was 15-32 from deep. We were only 8-30. Normalize those numbers even a bit, and we win walking away,

Anyway, hard for me to get real negative about that win. This is conference play, in a strong conference year. We play one senior and a bunch of freshmen. I’m tickled pink.

roll snake-eyes enough times, and you start having to question whether the dice are weighted.

FSU and BC are two of the best shooting teams in the ACC....so something to keep an eye on.

[chrishoke]

roll snake-eyes enough times, and you start having to question whether the dice are weighted.

FSU and BC are two of the best shooting teams in the ACC...so something to keep an eye on.

BC was 7-21 from three at Virginia Saturday and lost by one ith a chance to win at the buzzer.

[OldPhiKap]

roll snake-eyes enough times, and you start having to question whether the dice are weighted.

FSU and BC are two of the best shooting teams in the ACC...so something to keep an eye on.

I hear what you’re saying. But we get everyone’s best shot.

[tteettimes]

I hear what you’re saying. But we get everyone’s best shot.


I’m just glad we get all the calls 🙉🙉

[devildeac]

Pretty sure that’s still against the law in North Carolina.

7958

Only if it's >15% ABV.

(Sorry. At least no pun involved. :p)

[devildeac]

BC was 7-21 from three at Virginia Saturday and lost by one ith a chance to win at the buzzer.

Duke curse.

<kidding>

<sort of>

[uh_no]

I hear what you’re saying. But we get everyone’s best shot.

puns aside, i'm skeptical that exerting extra effort in big games boosts shooting ability. it would be simple to check whether other top teams see a similar "bump" in their opponents 3 point output.

duke gives up a lot of three point shots. BC and FSU are good shooting teams. Duke will be susceptible to teams that are intrinsically good shooting teams.

[Neals384]

Bagley was 5/11 from the stripe today. (Obviously, he had a sensational game despite that. Just saying that I don't think we can state definitely that Bagley is getting better at FTs.) I hope so though. I feel like his stroke looks good and 70% is a reasonable goal rather than low 60s.

Don't forget that Bagley had that amazing putback for a 3 pt play on one of his misses. Really, it was 7 points on 11 feeree throws, not too bad.


Was saying the same thing, vis soccer - because it seemed like a tech-worthy flop with incidental contact. Carter's last o-foul to me was also a flop by the defender. So what's the rule, if there is one, for an oscar-winning performance?
It's called the Hansbrough Award?:cool:


I was traveling during the game and am in a similar predicament. All I have been able to find so far is the BDN on goduke. Not sure I want to pay $10 for a month subscription, though.
If you're not sure seeing this game would be worth $10, schedule an extra session with your shrink.:cool:


The best thing he said is that he should have played Alex more in the first half. They need to develop a bench that can get points and OConnell has shown he can play against any team despite being pretty skinny. He is unafraid and makes great decisions under pressure. K needs to work him into the rotation. Alex had a heady play at 14:12 of the first half. He had a wide open three from the corner, but drove the baseline instead, passing to Allen for a wide open three. Neat assist!


One of Grayson's two turnovers came on a play where he started to pass the ball to a player on the wing but the player was not looking for the pass. Grayson dragged his pivot foot trying to pull up. I don't remember the other turnover. Goldwire is a serviceable backup point guard and should get better with experience. GoDuke! 7:43 of the 2nd half. He drove into two players in the lane, and either lost the handle or tried to pass to one of our bigs.

[Neals384]

Since Duke used lots of zone, as well as our evolving M2M, I was curious to see which one worked better. So I rewatched the game, checking the D on each FSU possession. I noticed something I hadn't seen before. Usually, Duke changes D after a timeout or other stoppage of play. But about three times, they changed it up during live play. Won't swear to this, but I'm pretty sure Grayson is the one signalling for the change in D (getting his cue from K, no doubt). You can see this at 10:41 of the first half, when he holds both hands out with a finger pointing ("M2M, guys"), and at 16:35 of the 2H, when he holds out two fists ("Zone!"). Maybe this is something everyone knows, but I've never noticed before, not that there would have been many opportunities given the rare use of the zone over the years.

So, what was the result of my zone vs. M2M analysis?
M2M - 60 FSU points on 47 possessions, 1.27 per
Zone - 33 points on 33 possessions, 1.00 per (including 12 points on 14 possession at end of game.

[tropical storm]

While there certainly were some open threes, I seem to recall Angola and Cofer both making some sick shots with a hand in the face or from a full stride behind the line.

Could the defense be better? Yes, obviously.

Do you also have to give credit to FSU shooting the lights out? Yes, just as obviously. FSU was 15-32 from deep. We were only 8-30. Normalize those numbers even a bit, and we win walking away,

Anyway, hard for me to get real negative about that win. This is conference play, in a strong conference year. We play one senior and a bunch of freshmen. I’m tickled pink.

Since i was planning on rewatching the game anyway i decided to pay some attention to our three point defense. I took a look at the 32 FSU three point shots and broke them into 3 categories, shots that were "Wide Open", shots that were "In Rhythm" e.g. defender closing out, hand up but shooter still got clean look and shots that were "highly contested" great defense. With that criteria here was the breakdown

FSU Wide Open threes

10 attempts out of which they made 7

FSU "In Rhythm" threes

11 attempts out of which they made 4

FSU Highly Contested threes

11 attempts of which they made 4

For kicks let's assume a very good shooter would make 60% when wide open, 40% under essentially normal pressure and 20% when blanketed by a defender. By that standard FSU made one more wide open 3 than average, .4 under average on normal shooting conditions and about 1.8 over average on highly contested shots. So about 2.4 above average in general and helping to explain why we remember giving up lots of open shots and them "shooting the lights out ones".

In contrast Duke made

Duke Wide open

18 attempts 6 made

Duke in rhythm

10 attempts 2 made

Duke contested

2 attempts 0 made

Now 8 of the wide open shots were taken by guys who are not "very good" shooters, so expecting 10.8 makes there is not realistic. That said, it is interesting that we were collectively far more below our "mean average" than FSU was above theirs given the types of shots both team took. It is also interesting to note that anyone not named Grayson was basically being "given" an open/normal three pointer if they were willing to work for it a bit. In fact we passed on taking several other wide open looks during the game. This was clearly an FSU strategy that had something to do with picking their poison since Bagley and Carter were basically tearing them apart down low.

[pamtar]

Anybody got a link to a full game replay? Finally have time to watch but apparently it was on CBS so espn is a no-go. Much appreciated!

[CDu]

Okay, I just got done watching ALL of FSU's 3pt attempts. I break them down like this:
WIDE open = nobody within 10 feet of position to defend the shot when the shooter begins his shot
fairly wide open = nobody within 5 feet of the shooter when he begins his shot. You could also call this "in rhythm" shooting
semi-open = somewhere between fairly wide open and semi-covered
semi-covered = defender nearby, but not in front of the shooter (giving him a clear sightline and setup), but contesting by the time of release
covered = in position to defend the shot from the outset

19:20 WIDE open Cofer make
18:33 WIDE open Cofer miss
14:40 WIDE open 23ft MJ Walker miss (defense was standing at 3pt line; not covering shooter)
14:06 fairly wide open MJ Walker make
13:38 fairly wide open MJ Walker miss
13:14 fairly wide open 23ft Savoy miss (defense was standing at 3pt line; not covering the shooter)
11:48 fairly wide open Cofer make (Bagley didn’t go out to defend him; stopped around 15 feet leaving plenty of space)
10:38 fairly wide open 23ft make by MJ Walker (defense not extending beyond 3pt line)
4:43 WIDE open Cofer make
4:27 fairly wide open MJ Walker miss from corner after Allen bites on the pump fake, winding up behind Walker
2:32 fairly wide open Angola make
2:02 fairly wide open Angola miss (defender dove in the passing lane, leaving nobody in position to defend shot).
1:10 WIDE open Cofer make (this one banked, but whatever)
0:01 covered 30ft Angola miss at the end of the half

19:42 fairly wide open Cofer make
18:10 fairly wide open CJ Walker make
16:54 semi-covered Angola miss (O’Connell slid over a split second late, giving Angola room to rise up with nobody in front of him, but was in the neighborhood. This is the closest contest of a 3 so far besides the last-second heave at the end of the first half)
15:54 semi-covered corner make by Cofer (Bagley recovers late in the 2-3 zone, but is in the neighborhood at the time of release)
15:13 semi-covered Cofer miss (defense was rotating back into position, giving Cofer room to shoot. Bagley closed out, perhaps rushing the shot)
14:13 semi-covered Kabengele miss (Bolden was hesitant coming out, giving Kabengele room to rise. But he was generally nearby at the time of the shot)
10:52 WIDE open Mann make
9:50 fairly wide open Angola miss
9:25 WIDE open Angola make
7:11 semi-covered Angola make (Allen is coming in from the side, but is close by at the release)
5:32 fairly wide open 23ft Angola make
4:01 fairly wide open 23ft Angola make
3:34 fairly wide open 23ft Angola miss
2:32 WIDE open CJ Walker miss
1:29 semi-open 23ft Angola fadeaway miss. Technically, nobody was within 5 ft of him as he rose to shoot, but that’s only because he rushed a fadeaway catch and shoot attempt
1:10 covered Cofer miss (Bagley got out very quickly to contest)
0:16 covered Angola miss
0:10 fairly wide open Cofer miss (defense barely cared at this point though, and Cofer rushed his shot anyway)

So, I see the following shooting:
WIDE open: 5-8
fairly wide open: 8-15
semi-open: 0-1
semi-covered: 2-5
covered: 0-3

So, the 'Notes shot 8 times with essentially no defense, making 5. They shot 15 more times with poor defense not really affecting the shot, and they made 8. They were 2-9 on all other attempts.

You should expect good shooters to hit 60+% of 3pt shots with nobody near them. FSU hit 62.5% of those. I would expect "in rhythm" fairly wide open shots to go down 40-50% of the time. They hit 53.3%, or probably 1 more than they should have made. They shot about how you'd expect when covered or somewhat covered (i.e., poorly).

Basically, the reason they made so many shots is that we allowed a team of very good 3pt shooters (MJ Walker, Angola, Savoy, and Cofer are all over 40% from 3) way too many absolutely wide open (8) or fairly wide open (15 more) looks. They made probably one more of these than they "should have" given how open they were.

Ideally, I'd like to see about 2-3 fewer WIDE open looks allowed. There are going to be some of those in any game against teams with good movement and ball movement. But the 15 fairly wide open looks are where the problem was. In these cases, the defense was not wildly out of position, but most often just didn't put in enough effort to get there.

Worth noting that the defense did get better as the game went on. In the second half, it was about 50/50 contested versus open shot attempts. That's more appropriate. And the results lined up. After CJ Walker's make early in the second half, FSU went just 6-16 the rest of the way. That's right on their season average. If we had defended like that in the first 22 minutes of the game, I suspect that FSU's 3pt percentage wouldn't have looked so ridiculous. But our defense just allowed way too many good looks over the first 22 minutes, and FSU punished us to the tune of 9-16 in that stretch.

That being said, I'm glad the defense did perk up in the second half. They played much better for large stretches of that second half, and the results eventually went their way. If they could just tune in a little bit sooner, that'd be great.

Still, it was a fantastic win. The offensive effort was ridiculous. And the defense stepped up just in time.

[Mtn.Devil.91.92.01.10.15]

Okay, I just got done watching ALL of FSU's 3pt attempts. I break them down like this:
WIDE open = nobody within 10 feet of position to defend the shot when the shooter begins his shot
fairly wide open = nobody within 5 feet of the shooter when he begins his shot. You could also call this "in rhythm" shooting
semi-open = somewhere between fairly wide open and semi-covered
semi-covered = defender nearby, but not in front of the shooter (giving him a clear sightline and setup), but contesting by the time of release
covered = in position to defend the shot from the outset

19:20 WIDE open Cofer make
18:33 WIDE open Cofer miss
14:40 WIDE open 23ft MJ Walker miss (defense was standing at 3pt line; not covering shooter)
14:06 fairly wide open MJ Walker make
13:38 fairly wide open MJ Walker miss
13:14 fairly wide open 23ft Savoy miss (defense was standing at 3pt line; not covering the shooter)
11:48 fairly wide open Cofer make (Bagley didn’t go out to defend him; stopped around 15 feet leaving plenty of space)
10:38 fairly wide open 23ft make by MJ Walker (defense not extending beyond 3pt line)
4:43 WIDE open Cofer make
4:27 fairly wide open MJ Walker miss from corner after Allen bites on the pump fake, winding up behind Walker
2:32 fairly wide open Angola make
2:02 fairly wide open Angola miss (defender dove in the passing lane, leaving nobody in position to defend shot).
1:10 WIDE open Cofer make (this one banked, but whatever)
0:01 covered 30ft Angola miss at the end of the half

19:42 fairly wide open Cofer make
18:10 fairly wide open CJ Walker make
16:54 semi-covered Angola miss (O’Connell slid over a split second late, giving Angola room to rise up with nobody in front of him, but was in the neighborhood. This is the closest contest of a 3 so far besides the last-second heave at the end of the first half)
15:54 semi-covered corner make by Cofer (Bagley recovers late in the 2-3 zone, but is in the neighborhood at the time of release)
15:13 semi-covered Cofer miss (defense was rotating back into position, giving Cofer room to shoot. Bagley closed out, perhaps rushing the shot)
14:13 semi-covered Kabengele miss (Bolden was hesitant coming out, giving Kabengele room to rise. But he was generally nearby at the time of the shot)
10:52 WIDE open Mann make
9:50 fairly wide open Angola miss
9:25 WIDE open Angola make
7:11 semi-covered Angola make (Allen is coming in from the side, but is close by at the release)
5:32 fairly wide open 23ft Angola make
4:01 fairly wide open 23ft Angola make
3:34 fairly wide open 23ft Angola miss
2:32 WIDE open CJ Walker miss
1:29 semi-open 23ft Angola fadeaway miss. Technically, nobody was within 5 ft of him as he rose to shoot, but that’s only because he rushed a fadeaway catch and shoot attempt
1:10 covered Cofer miss (Bagley got out very quickly to contest)
0:16 covered Angola miss
0:10 fairly wide open Cofer miss (defense barely cared at this point though, and Cofer rushed his shot anyway)

So, I see the following shooting:
WIDE open: 5-8
fairly wide open: 8-15
semi-open: 0-1
semi-covered: 2-5
covered: 0-3

So, the 'Notes shot 8 times with essentially no defense, making 5. They shot 15 more times with poor defense not really affecting the shot, and they made 8. They were 2-9 on all other attempts.

You should expect good shooters to hit 60+% of 3pt shots with nobody near them. FSU hit 62.5% of those. I would expect "in rhythm" fairly wide open shots to go down 40-50% of the time. They hit 53.3%, or probably 1 more than they should have made. They shot about how you'd expect when covered or somewhat covered (i.e., poorly).

Basically, the reason they made so many shots is that we allowed a team of very good 3pt shooters (MJ Walker, Angola, Savoy, and Cofer are all over 40% from 3) way too many absolutely wide open (8) or fairly wide open (15 more) looks. They made probably one more of these than they "should have" given how open they were.

Ideally, I'd like to see about 2-3 fewer WIDE open looks allowed. There are going to be some of those in any game against teams with good movement and ball movement. But the 15 fairly wide open looks are where the problem was. In these cases, the defense was not wildly out of position, but most often just didn't put in enough effort to get there.

Worth noting that the defense did get better as the game went on. In the second half, it was about 50/50 contested versus open shot attempts. That's more appropriate. And the results lined up. After CJ Walker's make early in the second half, FSU went just 6-16 the rest of the way. That's right on their season average. If we had defended like that in the first 22 minutes of the game, I suspect that FSU's 3pt percentage wouldn't have looked so ridiculous. But our defense just allowed way too many good looks over the first 22 minutes, and FSU punished us to the tune of 9-16 in that stretch.

That being said, I'm glad the defense did perk up in the second half. They played much better for large stretches of that second half, and the results eventually went their way. If they could just tune in a little bit sooner, that'd be great.

Still, it was a fantastic win. The offensive effort was ridiculous. And the defense stepped up just in time.

So... They shot worse when we defended the shot? Get K on the horn!

Just kidding... Thanks for the breakdown. Sort of kills the narrative that they were hittting ridiculous shots.

[CDu]

So... They shot worse when we defended the shot? Get K on the horn!

Just kidding... Thanks for the breakdown. Sort of kills the narrative that they were hittting ridiculous shots.

Yeah, I think folks just latched on to the banked makes and the fact that guys were making NBA 3s. Add in a couple of makes with semi-coverage, and the confirmation bias sets in pretty quickly.

But really, it was a case really good shooters getting a lot of open looks. We would expect Grayson Allen to take and make many of those shots. Well, those guys all shoot the 3s like Grayson Allen. Cofer shoots over 50% from 3. MJ Walker shoots 45% from 3. Angola shoots 42%. You can't give sharpshooters 5+ feet of space and expect them not to make 50+% of those shots. You certainly can't give sharpshooters 10+ feet of space and expect them to shoot below 50%.

When the defense figured out that they had to work harder to contest those good shooters, things fell back to what they should have. Hopefully, it's a lesson learned. And it is always nice to have a really exciting win be the learning opportunity rather than a loss.

[uh_no]

Okay, I just got done watching ALL of FSU's 3pt attempts. I break them down like this:
WIDE open = nobody within 10 feet of position to defend the shot when the shooter begins his shot
fairly wide open = nobody within 5 feet of the shooter when he begins his shot. You could also call this "in rhythm" shooting
semi-open = somewhere between fairly wide open and semi-covered
semi-covered = defender nearby, but not in front of the shooter (giving him a clear sightline and setup), but contesting by the time of release
covered = in position to defend the shot from the outset

19:20 WIDE open Cofer make
18:33 WIDE open Cofer miss
14:40 WIDE open 23ft MJ Walker miss (defense was standing at 3pt line; not covering shooter)
14:06 fairly wide open MJ Walker make
13:38 fairly wide open MJ Walker miss
13:14 fairly wide open 23ft Savoy miss (defense was standing at 3pt line; not covering the shooter)
11:48 fairly wide open Cofer make (Bagley didn’t go out to defend him; stopped around 15 feet leaving plenty of space)
10:38 fairly wide open 23ft make by MJ Walker (defense not extending beyond 3pt line)
4:43 WIDE open Cofer make
4:27 fairly wide open MJ Walker miss from corner after Allen bites on the pump fake, winding up behind Walker
2:32 fairly wide open Angola make
2:02 fairly wide open Angola miss (defender dove in the passing lane, leaving nobody in position to defend shot).
1:10 WIDE open Cofer make (this one banked, but whatever)
0:01 covered 30ft Angola miss at the end of the half

19:42 fairly wide open Cofer make
18:10 fairly wide open CJ Walker make
16:54 semi-covered Angola miss (O’Connell slid over a split second late, giving Angola room to rise up with nobody in front of him, but was in the neighborhood. This is the closest contest of a 3 so far besides the last-second heave at the end of the first half)
15:54 semi-covered corner make by Cofer (Bagley recovers late in the 2-3 zone, but is in the neighborhood at the time of release)
15:13 semi-covered Cofer miss (defense was rotating back into position, giving Cofer room to shoot. Bagley closed out, perhaps rushing the shot)
14:13 semi-covered Kabengele miss (Bolden was hesitant coming out, giving Kabengele room to rise. But he was generally nearby at the time of the shot)
10:52 WIDE open Mann make
9:50 fairly wide open Angola miss
9:25 WIDE open Angola make
7:11 semi-covered Angola make (Allen is coming in from the side, but is close by at the release)
5:32 fairly wide open 23ft Angola make
4:01 fairly wide open 23ft Angola make
3:34 fairly wide open 23ft Angola miss
2:32 WIDE open CJ Walker miss
1:29 semi-open 23ft Angola fadeaway miss. Technically, nobody was within 5 ft of him as he rose to shoot, but that’s only because he rushed a fadeaway catch and shoot attempt
1:10 covered Cofer miss (Bagley got out very quickly to contest)
0:16 covered Angola miss
0:10 fairly wide open Cofer miss (defense barely cared at this point though, and Cofer rushed his shot anyway)

So, I see the following shooting:
WIDE open: 5-8
fairly wide open: 8-15
semi-open: 0-1
semi-covered: 2-5
covered: 0-3

So, the 'Notes shot 8 times with essentially no defense, making 5. They shot 15 more times with poor defense not really affecting the shot, and they made 8. They were 2-9 on all other attempts.

You should expect good shooters to hit 60+% of 3pt shots with nobody near them. FSU hit 62.5% of those. I would expect "in rhythm" fairly wide open shots to go down 40-50% of the time. They hit 53.3%, or probably 1 more than they should have made. They shot about how you'd expect when covered or somewhat covered (i.e., poorly).

Basically, the reason they made so many shots is that we allowed a team of very good 3pt shooters (MJ Walker, Angola, Savoy, and Cofer are all over 40% from 3) way too many absolutely wide open (8) or fairly wide open (15 more) looks. They made probably one more of these than they "should have" given how open they were.

Ideally, I'd like to see about 2-3 fewer WIDE open looks allowed. There are going to be some of those in any game against teams with good movement and ball movement. But the 15 fairly wide open looks are where the problem was. In these cases, the defense was not wildly out of position, but most often just didn't put in enough effort to get there.

Worth noting that the defense did get better as the game went on. In the second half, it was about 50/50 contested versus open shot attempts. That's more appropriate. And the results lined up. After CJ Walker's make early in the second half, FSU went just 6-16 the rest of the way. That's right on their season average. If we had defended like that in the first 22 minutes of the game, I suspect that FSU's 3pt percentage wouldn't have looked so ridiculous. But our defense just allowed way too many good looks over the first 22 minutes, and FSU punished us to the tune of 9-16 in that stretch.

That being said, I'm glad the defense did perk up in the second half. They played much better for large stretches of that second half, and the results eventually went their way. If they could just tune in a little bit sooner, that'd be great.

Still, it was a fantastic win. The offensive effort was ridiculous. And the defense stepped up just in time.

I can't spork you enough.

[arnie]

Yeah, I think folks just latched on to the banked makes and the fact that guys were making NBA 3s. Add in a couple of makes with semi-coverage, and the confirmation bias sets in pretty quickly.

But really, it was a case really good shooters getting a lot of open looks. We would expect Grayson Allen to take and make many of those shots. Well, those guys all shoot the 3s like Grayson Allen. Cofer shoots over 50% from 3. MJ Walker shoots 45% from 3. Angola shoots 42%. You can't give sharpshooters 5+ feet of space and expect them not to make 50+% of those shots. You certainly can't give sharpshooters 10+ feet of space and expect them to shoot below 50%.

When the defense figured out that they had to work harder to contest those good shooters, things fell back to what they should have. Hopefully, it's a lesson learned. And it is always nice to have a really exciting win be the learning opportunity rather than a loss.

Hooefully we won’t see the Pack light us up from 3. Their best 3 pt shooter (with at least 10 attempts for the season) is shooting 39% and he’s suspended. They average making less than 7 3’s a game.

Yurtseven has made 6 of 8, so our bigs need to pay attention to him. If they shoot like BC or FSU, then I’d agree our 3-pt D is a major problem.

[Skydog]

I know what he was saying. I just remember more open makes.

My bad- didn't mean to offend.

[Skydog]

Okay, I just got done watching ALL of FSU's 3pt attempts. I break them down like this:
WIDE open = nobody within 10 feet of position to defend the shot when the shooter begins his shot
fairly wide open = nobody within 5 feet of the shooter when he begins his shot. You could also call this "in rhythm" shooting
semi-open = somewhere between fairly wide open and semi-covered
semi-covered = defender nearby, but not in front of the shooter (giving him a clear sightline and setup), but contesting by the time of release
covered = in position to defend the shot from the outset

19:20 WIDE open Cofer make
18:33 WIDE open Cofer miss
14:40 WIDE open 23ft MJ Walker miss (defense was standing at 3pt line; not covering shooter)
14:06 fairly wide open MJ Walker make
13:38 fairly wide open MJ Walker miss
13:14 fairly wide open 23ft Savoy miss (defense was standing at 3pt line; not covering the shooter)
11:48 fairly wide open Cofer make (Bagley didn’t go out to defend him; stopped around 15 feet leaving plenty of space)
10:38 fairly wide open 23ft make by MJ Walker (defense not extending beyond 3pt line)
4:43 WIDE open Cofer make
4:27 fairly wide open MJ Walker miss from corner after Allen bites on the pump fake, winding up behind Walker
2:32 fairly wide open Angola make
2:02 fairly wide open Angola miss (defender dove in the passing lane, leaving nobody in position to defend shot).
1:10 WIDE open Cofer make (this one banked, but whatever)
0:01 covered 30ft Angola miss at the end of the half

19:42 fairly wide open Cofer make
18:10 fairly wide open CJ Walker make
16:54 semi-covered Angola miss (O’Connell slid over a split second late, giving Angola room to rise up with nobody in front of him, but was in the neighborhood. This is the closest contest of a 3 so far besides the last-second heave at the end of the first half)
15:54 semi-covered corner make by Cofer (Bagley recovers late in the 2-3 zone, but is in the neighborhood at the time of release)
15:13 semi-covered Cofer miss (defense was rotating back into position, giving Cofer room to shoot. Bagley closed out, perhaps rushing the shot)
14:13 semi-covered Kabengele miss (Bolden was hesitant coming out, giving Kabengele room to rise. But he was generally nearby at the time of the shot)
10:52 WIDE open Mann make
9:50 fairly wide open Angola miss
9:25 WIDE open Angola make
7:11 semi-covered Angola make (Allen is coming in from the side, but is close by at the release)
5:32 fairly wide open 23ft Angola make
4:01 fairly wide open 23ft Angola make
3:34 fairly wide open 23ft Angola miss
2:32 WIDE open CJ Walker miss
1:29 semi-open 23ft Angola fadeaway miss. Technically, nobody was within 5 ft of him as he rose to shoot, but that’s only because he rushed a fadeaway catch and shoot attempt
1:10 covered Cofer miss (Bagley got out very quickly to contest)
0:16 covered Angola miss
0:10 fairly wide open Cofer miss (defense barely cared at this point though, and Cofer rushed his shot anyway)

So, I see the following shooting:
WIDE open: 5-8
fairly wide open: 8-15
semi-open: 0-1
semi-covered: 2-5
covered: 0-3

So, the 'Notes shot 8 times with essentially no defense, making 5. They shot 15 more times with poor defense not really affecting the shot, and they made 8. They were 2-9 on all other attempts.

You should expect good shooters to hit 60+% of 3pt shots with nobody near them. FSU hit 62.5% of those. I would expect "in rhythm" fairly wide open shots to go down 40-50% of the time. They hit 53.3%, or probably 1 more than they should have made. They shot about how you'd expect when covered or somewhat covered (i.e., poorly).

Basically, the reason they made so many shots is that we allowed a team of very good 3pt shooters (MJ Walker, Angola, Savoy, and Cofer are all over 40% from 3) way too many absolutely wide open (8) or fairly wide open (15 more) looks. They made probably one more of these than they "should have" given how open they were.

Ideally, I'd like to see about 2-3 fewer WIDE open looks allowed. There are going to be some of those in any game against teams with good movement and ball movement. But the 15 fairly wide open looks are where the problem was. In these cases, the defense was not wildly out of position, but most often just didn't put in enough effort to get there.

Worth noting that the defense did get better as the game went on. In the second half, it was about 50/50 contested versus open shot attempts. That's more appropriate. And the results lined up. After CJ Walker's make early in the second half, FSU went just 6-16 the rest of the way. That's right on their season average. If we had defended like that in the first 22 minutes of the game, I suspect that FSU's 3pt percentage wouldn't have looked so ridiculous. But our defense just allowed way too many good looks over the first 22 minutes, and FSU punished us to the tune of 9-16 in that stretch.

That being said, I'm glad the defense did perk up in the second half. They played much better for large stretches of that second half, and the results eventually went their way. If they could just tune in a little bit sooner, that'd be great.

Still, it was a fantastic win. The offensive effort was ridiculous. And the defense stepped up just in time.

Nice job. Confirms what some of were saying - we still have a way to go with our 3pt defense.

[plimnko]

Anybody got a link to a full game replay? Finally have time to watch but apparently it was on CBS so espn is a no-go. Much appreciated!

you tube has it. just search duke vs florida state basketball game 30/12/2017. if it doesn't pop up first, just scroll through and you should find it

[Saratoga2]

I think this team presents a unique situation in which we don’t really need offense off the bench. We need defense and ball handling. I do not recall a Duke team which had so many genuine offensive go to guys in the starting five. Every one of our starters is capable of showing up as our leading scorer on any given night. You don’t play the bench five guys at a time. Two or three of the starters will always be in the game. Of course you want the best bench you can get, but I’d suggest there isn’t anyone we can’t beat with three points off the bench.

Depth is a relative thing. Every team in America, no matter how good their starting five, would be deemed to have more depth if their starters were not as good.

I'm not with you on this one as both Carter and Duval tend to foul enough so they spend time out of the game. When O'Connell came in he helped by having another ball handler in but also being a threat, both with his shooting and passing. DeLaurier isn't as much of an offensive threat as Carteer but at least needs to be accounted for. Goldwire is more of a handler at this point in his development.

[Kjeffrey]

Okay, I just got done watching ALL of FSU's 3pt attempts. I break them down like this:
WIDE open = nobody within 10 feet of position to defend the shot when the shooter begins his shot
fairly wide open = nobody within 5 feet of the shooter when he begins his shot. You could also call this "in rhythm" shooting
semi-open = somewhere between fairly wide open and semi-covered
semi-covered = defender nearby, but not in front of the shooter (giving him a clear sightline and setup), but contesting by the time of release
covered = in position to defend the shot from the outset

19:20 WIDE open Cofer make
18:33 WIDE open Cofer miss
14:40 WIDE open 23ft MJ Walker miss (defense was standing at 3pt line; not covering shooter)
14:06 fairly wide open MJ Walker make
13:38 fairly wide open MJ Walker miss
13:14 fairly wide open 23ft Savoy miss (defense was standing at 3pt line; not covering the shooter)
11:48 fairly wide open Cofer make (Bagley didn’t go out to defend him; stopped around 15 feet leaving plenty of space)
10:38 fairly wide open 23ft make by MJ Walker (defense not extending beyond 3pt line)
4:43 WIDE open Cofer make
4:27 fairly wide open MJ Walker miss from corner after Allen bites on the pump fake, winding up behind Walker
2:32 fairly wide open Angola make
2:02 fairly wide open Angola miss (defender dove in the passing lane, leaving nobody in position to defend shot).
1:10 WIDE open Cofer make (this one banked, but whatever)
0:01 covered 30ft Angola miss at the end of the half

19:42 fairly wide open Cofer make
18:10 fairly wide open CJ Walker make
16:54 semi-covered Angola miss (O’Connell slid over a split second late, giving Angola room to rise up with nobody in front of him, but was in the neighborhood. This is the closest contest of a 3 so far besides the last-second heave at the end of the first half)
15:54 semi-covered corner make by Cofer (Bagley recovers late in the 2-3 zone, but is in the neighborhood at the time of release)
15:13 semi-covered Cofer miss (defense was rotating back into position, giving Cofer room to shoot. Bagley closed out, perhaps rushing the shot)
14:13 semi-covered Kabengele miss (Bolden was hesitant coming out, giving Kabengele room to rise. But he was generally nearby at the time of the shot)
10:52 WIDE open Mann make
9:50 fairly wide open Angola miss
9:25 WIDE open Angola make
7:11 semi-covered Angola make (Allen is coming in from the side, but is close by at the release)
5:32 fairly wide open 23ft Angola make
4:01 fairly wide open 23ft Angola make
3:34 fairly wide open 23ft Angola miss
2:32 WIDE open CJ Walker miss
1:29 semi-open 23ft Angola fadeaway miss. Technically, nobody was within 5 ft of him as he rose to shoot, but that’s only because he rushed a fadeaway catch and shoot attempt
1:10 covered Cofer miss (Bagley got out very quickly to contest)
0:16 covered Angola miss
0:10 fairly wide open Cofer miss (defense barely cared at this point though, and Cofer rushed his shot anyway)

So, I see the following shooting:
WIDE open: 5-8
fairly wide open: 8-15
semi-open: 0-1
semi-covered: 2-5
covered: 0-3

So, the 'Notes shot 8 times with essentially no defense, making 5. They shot 15 more times with poor defense not really affecting the shot, and they made 8. They were 2-9 on all other attempts.

You should expect good shooters to hit 60+% of 3pt shots with nobody near them. FSU hit 62.5% of those. I would expect "in rhythm" fairly wide open shots to go down 40-50% of the time. They hit 53.3%, or probably 1 more than they should have made. They shot about how you'd expect when covered or somewhat covered (i.e., poorly).

Basically, the reason they made so many shots is that we allowed a team of very good 3pt shooters (MJ Walker, Angola, Savoy, and Cofer are all over 40% from 3) way too many absolutely wide open (8) or fairly wide open (15 more) looks. They made probably one more of these than they "should have" given how open they were.

Ideally, I'd like to see about 2-3 fewer WIDE open looks allowed. There are going to be some of those in any game against teams with good movement and ball movement. But the 15 fairly wide open looks are where the problem was. In these cases, the defense was not wildly out of position, but most often just didn't put in enough effort to get there.

Worth noting that the defense did get better as the game went on. In the second half, it was about 50/50 contested versus open shot attempts. That's more appropriate. And the results lined up. After CJ Walker's make early in the second half, FSU went just 6-16 the rest of the way. That's right on their season average. If we had defended like that in the first 22 minutes of the game, I suspect that FSU's 3pt percentage wouldn't have looked so ridiculous. But our defense just allowed way too many good looks over the first 22 minutes, and FSU punished us to the tune of 9-16 in that stretch.

That being said, I'm glad the defense did perk up in the second half. They played much better for large stretches of that second half, and the results eventually went their way. If they could just tune in a little bit sooner, that'd be great.

Still, it was a fantastic win. The offensive effort was ridiculous. And the defense stepped up just in time.

Thank you for analyzing the FSU threes in more detail. It felt like too many were poorly defended and your analysis certainly supports that.

[-jk]

In the second half, I seem to remember seeing Bagley on Cofer a lot - and not cheating off much, either.

-jk

[skysdad]

I love Duke basketball. Can't wait until the next game. Good board. You guys are class.

[UrinalCake]

FSU Wide Open threes
10 attempts out of which they made 7




So, I see the following shooting:
WIDE open: 5-8

Slight discrepancy in the analyses of these fine gentlemen who put in some serious legwork to give us these numbers. The wide open looks are the ones I'm most interested in. Particularly, I'm wondering how many of these wide open looks came from Cofer and Angola. Part of our defensive game plan has to be to identify the shooters and know who we need to guard tight and who we can gamble on leaving open. If the non-shooters are the ones getting open looks, then I can live with that. But my gut tells me that we're not doing a good job of identifying personnel and defending accordingly.

I guess it should also be noted that Terance Mann is their leading scorer at 14.6PPG and we held him to 9 points on 2-6 shooting, with most of his scoring coming late in the game. So he did a good job containing their leading scorer, which has always been a staple of our defensive strategy.

[Mtn.Devil.91.92.01.10.15]

I love Duke basketball. Can't wait until the next game. Good board. You guys are class.

We aren't always so well behaved. Thanks!

[CDu]

Slight discrepancy in the analyses of these fine gentlemen who put in some serious legwork to give us these numbers. The wide open looks are the ones I'm most interested in. Particularly, I'm wondering how many of these wide open looks came from Cofer and Angola. Part of our defensive game plan has to be to identify the shooters and know who we need to guard tight and who we can gamble on leaving open. If the non-shooters are the ones getting open looks, then I can live with that. But my gut tells me that we're not doing a good job of identifying personnel and defending accordingly.

I guess it should also be noted that Terance Mann is their leading scorer at 14.6PPG and we held him to 9 points on 2-6 shooting, with most of his scoring coming late in the game. So he did a good job containing their leading scorer, which has always been a staple of our defensive strategy.

In my analysis, four of the wide open looks were by Cofer, one by Angola, and one by MJ Walker. Those are FSU’s three best 3pt threats. The others were one each for Mann (leading scorer but not good from 3) and CJ Walker (a 37% 3pt shooter). In short, those were not strategic wide open looks allowed.

[uh_no]

finally got around to watching. i was really pretty pleased.

the scariest thing I see, however, is NOT 3pt defense, but fouls. if the plan is to play the same 5 guys most of the time, and play a high tempo....then we're going to run into depth issues.

The guys did great last night not to pick up 5....but would kansas, or villanova be able to better take advantage of the foul trouble we were in? I expect so. Even against a team that took a gazillion threes, we had 4 guys with 4.

I don't think it's something to worry too much about, per se, but just something we're exposed to. Especially if we depend on scoring buckets all the time to win, when any sub is a far less offensive threat than the starter.

[moonpie23]

I love Duke basketball. Can't wait until the next game. Good board. You guys are class.
hold my beer....

[OldPhiKap]

hold my beer...

Not so fast, young fella . . . .

[duketaylor]

1 VT 42.7%
2 ND 39.7
3 UVA 39.2
4 unc 39.0
5 FSU 38.7
5 Wake 38.7
7 Klem 36.8
8 UM 36.5
9 Duke 36.4
10 BC 36.2
11 Louis 33.8
12 Pitt 33.7
13 NCSU 33.1
14 GT 31.8
15 Cuse 30.0

Food for thought.

That VT average is quite astounding.

[UrinalCake]

.I don't think it's something to worry too much about, per se, but just something we're exposed to.

I’d say keeping guys out of foul trouble is a legitimate concern. We played much of the Texas game without Grayson and much of the Florida game without Carter due to foul trouble. It seems like something that comes up almost every game against high-level opponents. K talked about this some in his post-game presser, said that guys playing through foul trouble in that kind of environment is just something you cannot practice, guys have to experience it. So hopefully we’ll get better. Carter is the player I’m most worried about with regards to picking up fouls, followed by Duval.

[uh_no]

I’d say keeping guys out of foul trouble is a legitimate concern. We played much of the Texas game without Grayson and much of the Florida game without Carter due to foul trouble. It seems like something that comes up almost every game against high-level opponents. K talked about this some in his post-game presser, said that guys playing through foul trouble in that kind of environment is just something you cannot practice, guys have to experience it. So hopefully we’ll get better. Carter is the player I’m most worried about with regards to picking up fouls, followed by Duval.

carter can get there. so many of his are silly fouls. like the lowering of the shoulder in a big mismatch. the commentators railed on him for that, and they were right.

[Dr. Rosenrosen]

1 VT 42.7%
2 ND 39.7
3 UVA 39.2
4 unc 39.0
5 FSU 38.7
5 Wake 38.7
7 Klem 36.8
8 UM 36.5
9 Duke 36.4
10 BC 36.2
11 Louis 33.8
12 Pitt 33.7
13 NCSU 33.1
14 GT 31.8
15 Cuse 30.0

Food for thought.

That VT average is quite astounding.
So BC shot 58% against us and we lost by 5. FSU shot 47% and we won by 7. So, it seems as long as we hold a team under 50% on 3P%, we should win every game! :rolleyes:

[wobatus]

1 VT 42.7%
2 ND 39.7
3 UVA 39.2
4 unc 39.0
5 FSU 38.7
5 Wake 38.7
7 Klem 36.8
8 UM 36.5
9 Duke 36.4
10 BC 36.2
11 Louis 33.8
12 Pitt 33.7
13 NCSU 33.1
14 GT 31.8
15 Cuse 30.0

Food for thought.

That VT average is quite astounding.

V-Tech has a really good O, but their opponent D ranks 343rd in kenpom. They still lit up Kentucky from 3, though. UVa held them to 33% from 3.

[wobatus]

V-Tech has a really good O, but their opponent D ranks 343rd in kenpom. They still lit up Kentucky from 3, though. UVa held them to 33% from 3.

Ack, screwing up posts all over. Syracuse held Va tech to 33% from 3. Wahoos on-deck for them. Sheesh.

[Billy Dat]

it always seems like lateral deficiencies with the feet that cause us trouble

There were many instances where there was little communication on our part and two of our players stayed with one of theirs and left an FSU player with no defender within 10-15 feet. In a weird way it was fortunate we got in foul trouble at the end - it forced us to switch to zone and FSU quit getting open looks.

Perimeter D was atrocious for 15-20 minutes in the middle of the game...Wide open three after wide open three...guys simply not staying on the shooters. Everyone doing the exact same thing. Perhaps a lack of communication on D?

In re-watching the game, I was trying to key in on this stuff, and it is a little bit of all these things. With us playing two bigs, we are in the unfamiliar position of having other teams go small on which forces Marvin and Wendell to guard the perimeter and they just aren't used to it. Marvin has proven adept at it for stretches, but this is a work in progress. I also saw what Skydog/Kfanarmy noted, perimeter defenders leaving their man at the 3 point line to help off a drive when it wasn't their responsibility (as far as I could tell). I saw Grayson doing that more than a few times, and he's a senior. But, upon rewatching, we had two stretches that really hurt our D that had nothing to do with rotations or leaving shooters. There was a stretch when bad offense led to a succession of run-outs where they were able to get easy baskets, and then that aforementioned stretch where we kept fouling and fouling and we mucked up our momentum and lead. I felt like giving up transition baskets and our foul trouble were bigger culprits, but it all added up.


It will be good to get a week of practice in before their next game. Plus I could use the recovery time.

I am going to go counter and say that I think the best thing for us is to hit our 2-game-a-week stride so that we can balance practice and games and get some momentum. These huge breaks are annoying at this point. The schedule to date has been so unbalanced in terms of number of games per week.


Gary missed a bunch of wide open threes. He seems like too good a shooter to miss shots like that. Grayson was alternating loud and quiet, but he made some really smart decisions with the ball in the second half.

I also expected Gary to knock down a few more of those clean looks he got in the second half, and I wish Grayson had pulled up for some mid-range jumpers instead of going all the way to the rim - but I get that he was trying to draw fouls. Enough comments on the offense, we are fine there.


a great win but I am surprised no one has talked about the outstanding play of the Duke bench. NOT! When Wendall and Marvin had three, then four, fouls -where were Javin and Marquis? If neither of them could play in this game when will they play in the future?

Javin's injury seems to have slowed his progress. He just doesn't look the same.

K is reverting to form, but I agree that Javin doesn't look right. I think K's attitude at the end was that he'd sub when forced to sub, meaning when one of the guys fouled out. FSU let us off the hook by taking some bad shots down the stretch, but that's what got them in a position to win. I am glad they started missing. Our bench is 3 guys and it looks like they'll all play regular first half minutes but nothing is guaranteed in the second half if the game is close.


Trevon hitting the 3 was the turning point in the game for me...and then he started penetrating...

I think Duval gives off a vibe of professionalism. To me, he doggedly goes about his work, recognizes his deficiencies, and keeps trying to get better. I don't get a whiff of entitlement or "why me?" from him when he's out there and things aren't going right. The way he carried us in the end, after having a bad game, was inspiring. When he hit that decisive 3, I wonder if the coaches were yelling at him to shoot it. He had been tentative up to that point, including the same spot a possession or two before, and he even hesitated a little at that juncture, but then he just stepped up an nailed it. My heart wants it to be that K yelled "Shoot it!" to boost the confidence of the kid. Maybe that's too Hollywood, but I want it to be true.

As for the kid who really did carry us...Big Bad Marvin...Gary Parrish of CBS made the point on his 12/31 pod that we are in real danger of normalizing these performances. Marvin goes 30/20 and there isn't a huge reaction because Trae Young had himself an equally amazing game on the road against a top 10 team, but even that performance was a bit normalized by his previous games...this aint normal. We see you Marvin, WE SEE YOU!!!!!!!!


I know the roster makeup is very different, but so far this is shaping up to be the 2014 season once again. I hope we don't play Mercer again.

This one hit a nerve because as a rabid fan since 1991, I consider the 2013/14 team to be the most disappointing Duke team I ever watched. How a squad with that talent wound up performing as the did will always baffle me, but then I am reminded that K lost his big brother Bill right around New Year's and it was like a meteor rocking his world. PLEASE don't attach this team to that team, I beg you.

[Mtn.Devil.91.92.01.10.15]

So... They shot worse when we defended the shot? Get K on the horn!

Just kidding... Thanks for the breakdown. Sort of kills the narrative that they were hittting ridiculous shots.

Somehow, this earned me my first ever flames. Maybe someone hit the wrong button by accident? Or maybe someone misunderstood the snark.

[sagegrouse]

Somehow, this earned me my first ever flames. Maybe someone hit the wrong button by accident? Or maybe someone misunderstood the snark.

Just a "trial by fire" -- you seem to be holding up well.

[Mtn.Devil.91.92.01.10.15]

Just a "trial by fire" -- you seem to be holding up well.

Just a mildly bruised ego. I had a ten year streak going, I believe!