Team Chemistry

[moonpie23]

look...I'm not sayin', i'm just sayin'.


watch this video (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cWdY06w9gW8) and decide for yourself what was missing this year...



(especially @ 2:01)

[CDu]

look...I'm not sayin', i'm just sayin'.


watch this video (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cWdY06w9gW8) and decide for yourself what was missing this year...



(especially @ 2:01)

I think we were missing just one more made wide open 3 by Trent or Allen. Or a made bank shot by Allen. Or Duval not getting hurt against UNC in the ACCs. I am not going to agree that chemistry was the problem.

[fraggler]

I think we were missing just one more made wide open 3 by Trent or Allen. Or a made bank shot by Allen. Or Duval not getting hurt against UNC in the ACCs. I am not going to agree that chemistry was the problem.

This. One more lucky bounce and half the recent threads wouldn't exist.

I do miss some of the toughness that came with experience, though.

[szstark]

look...I'm not sayin', i'm just sayin'.


watch this video (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cWdY06w9gW8) and decide for yourself what was missing this year...



(especially @ 2:01)
The video certainly shows how much those guys enjoyed playing together. We did see a little of that this year, but not like the 2010 team. Another thing that seemed to be missing this year was a killer instinct. They wouldn’t put teams away once they got the lead. In addition, there was no Laettner, or Battier, or Singler, or Jones who just wouldn’t let the team lose. Allen tried, but just couldn’t quite pull it off. This is not a knock on Grayson, just a part of why those other guys were so special.

[moonpie23]

my point was not that we didn't have team chemistry, rather, we didn't have THAT kind of team chemistry....

[CDu]

my point was not that we didn't have team chemistry, rather, we didn't have THAT kind of team chemistry...

I don’t know that we did or didn’t have THAT kind of chemistry. Chemistry is the type of thing that only gets talked about retrospectively. I don’t know that anyone was talking happily about the 2010 team chemistry cerca January 2010.

[HereBeforeCoachK]

This. One more lucky bounce and half the recent threads wouldn't exist.

I do miss some of the toughness that came with experience, though.

I would agree on all that... and just have the tiniest quibble of a slight minuscule distinction on Allen's last shot...:cool:

... we didn't need one more lucky bounce...we needed just one less UNlucky bounce...just a normal bounce. ...and we win by 2.

Or if Trent and Allen had hit even a below average (but above horrible) number of open threes, we win fairly easy. If they hit average or above, we rout them.

[Wander]

I don’t know that we did or didn’t have THAT kind of chemistry. Chemistry is the type of thing that only gets talked about retrospectively. I don’t know that anyone was talking happily about the 2010 team chemistry cerca January 2010.

I usually agree with this feeling, but even if Grayson's shot went down and we then beat Villanova and Michigan by 30 points each, I would think that the 2010 team was better at the "this team was greater than the sum of its parts" metric than the 2018 team. I don't think we ever fully figured out how to maximize the effectiveness of Bagley and Carter together or how to most efficiently cover for Duval's weaknesses. I don't think it's crazy to call that "chemistry" as long as you remove the junk about whether everyone liked each other or was thinking about the NBA or whatever.

[CDu]

I would agree on all that... and just have the tiniest quibble of a slight minuscule distinction on Allen's last shot...:cool:

... we didn't need one more lucky bounce...we needed just one less UNlucky bounce...just a normal bounce. ...and we win by 2.

Or if Trent and Allen had hit even a below average (but above horrible) number of open threes, we win fairly easy. If they hit average or above, we rout them.

Yep. It took one of our worst shooting games AND one of our worst rebounding games to lose. And even with that, we were an inch or so from winning in regulation. Against a top-10 team with a semi-home crowd behind it.

[ncexnyc]

look...I'm not sayin', i'm just sayin'.


watch this video (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cWdY06w9gW8) and decide for yourself what was missing this year...



(especially @ 2:01)

So while you were at it, maybe you could have posted a video from 2015. It's tough to win it all even when you have the best talent in a given year.

Going into the tournament I didn't believe we could win 6 straight against top-flight competition as I felt the consistency just wasn't there and honestly I thought Trevon would be our downfall.

After the 1st weekend I started feeling somewhat optimistic that we could make a decent run, especially with all of the upsets that were taking place.

My confidence really went up several notches after we came away with the win against Syracuse, even though we didn't shoot very well. After all, there wasn't anyway we'd shoot that poorly against Kansas:( Lo and behold our shots didn't fall against Kansas and Trevon has arguably his best game of the year in a loss.

Had we won that game I'm not sure we could have beaten Nova as they've looked awesome, but you never know what can happen in a one and done situation. So if you feel chemistry was an issue with our team this year that's fine. Having an experienced group of kids play together for several years may indeed be what's wrong with us, but considering Duke has 5 championships during Coach K's tenure, the years we come-up short far outweigh the years we win it all, so I doubt chemistry really is that much of a factor.

[HereBeforeCoachK]

Yep. It took one of our worst shooting games AND one of our worst rebounding games to lose. And even with that, we were an inch or so from winning in regulation. Against a top-10 team with a semi-home crowd behind it.

Yep, agreed with all that - and it's why I think Duke's a significantly better team than Kansas...Duke had a C or C- game and Kansas had a solid B or B+ game with a home crowd. I mean, it's on Duke they had that C- game....but dang, Duke's better....

[jv001]

[QUOTE=ncexnyc;1061125]So while you were at it, maybe you could have posted a video from 2015. It's tough to win it all even when you have the best talent in a given year.

Going into the tournament I didn't believe we could win 6 straight against top-flight competition as I felt the consistency just wasn't there and honestly I thought Trevon would be our downfall.

After the 1st weekend I started feeling somewhat optimistic that we could make a decent run, especially with all of the upsets that were taking place.

My confidence really went up several notches after we came away with the win against Syracuse, even though we didn't shoot very well. After all, there wasn't anyway we'd shoot that poorly against Kansas:( Lo and behold our shots didn't fall against Kansas and Trevon has arguably his best game of the year in a loss.

I was concerned that we wouldn't shoot good against Syracuse, but I was more concerned that our confidence would take a hit because we probably wouldn't shoot well against the Orange. I was hoping we would play Michigan State rather than Syracuse.

As for the video, I really liked it. It took me back to a time that I felt I knew those guys. I'm not saying I didn't like this team(2018) but didn't see the same type of hustle from everyone on the team. Sure, Grayson hit the floor for loose balls and Trevon did as well. The 2010 team had a bunch of guys that really went after it. Sure there were some low points in the season but I felt after each game, the players left it all out there on the court. The 2015 team did to a degree because of Winslow and Quinn but the 2010 team was a group of guys that seemed to really enjoy playing together. I guess that's what experience will do for a team. I love all the Duke teams but I have a special fondness for some of those Duke teams. GoDuke!

[wavedukefan70s]

I thought we just couldn't figure the D out soon enough. so we didnt have time to adjust to playing
a little tired than we were used to on offense. defense takes energy, tired legs don't make shots.
our offense so great at the beginning of the year because we wasted no energy on defense.
the only team that I thought had bad chemistry was the rivers year.but I never posted it.not that I could remember.

[lotusland]

look...I'm not sayin', i'm just sayin'.


watch this video (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cWdY06w9gW8) and decide for yourself what was missing this year...



(especially @ 2:01)

God I loved that team. That was the last great man to man defense at Duke. And, not coincidentally, every one of them had a senior night. When we lost to Arizona the following year I was crushed. I’m already over this year’s exit. Bring in the next batch.

[weezie]

We didn't have that "patented" Duke luck this year. Sure, the lack of M2M pretty much negated the lightening runs after opposing team turnovers, the sense of "here they come" that used to be considered a birth right on Duke teams.

Just no luck when it counted.