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View Full Version : Analyzing the Ryerson game (from my eyes)



iowansevenfooter
08-16-2018, 01:37 PM
The Duke basketball team has made it to Canada! Their first game of the Canadian tour was yesterday against Ryerson. While that may not be a team that excites many people there are a lot of things we can take away from this first look at the 2018-19 Blue Devils. The first things that will pop up on the box score to many people is the performance of the two premier freshman. Zion Williamson went off for 29 points and 13 rebounds. R.J. Barrett also performed well in his return to Canada. He had 34 points 2 assists and 5 rebounds. Some people will look at this and get very excited, and they may be right. I would caution them though.

Zion and R.J. combined to take 53 of Duke’s 81 shots in the game. Zion went 13-23 from the field which comes to 56.5%. R.J. went 12-30 from the field which is 40%. I think there are two things to take away from this. One obviously Ryerson isn’t going to be ACC competition. So when we get in the heat of the season these performances most likely will not come. However, I think that them getting most of the shots in these games is a good thing. This will start to get them acclimated to the college game. College basketball is much different than High School. So getting them their shots now could be essential to Duke’s success during the season. I think this is where Coach K’s head is at, but I’m not him so I don’t know.

The next thing that stuck out to me in the box score was that there wasn’t a stand out performance from an upperclassmen. It seems that Duke always has one upperclassmen that comes out to make the team better. In this game against Ryerson there really wasn’t one. Javin was the one who stood out the most with eleven points, but other than that there wasn’t much contribution. That will need to come though, there will eventually be a time when they need someone with experience to step up. Who will it come from though? My first two looks are to Javin and Marques. I think both of them will need to step up and take big roles. Both on the offensive and defensive ends.

Defensively there wasn’t much to be concerned about. They gave up 30 points in the paint, forced 11 turnovers, and scored 14 points off those turnovers. The one thing that did stand out to me defensively was that the held Ryerson to 34.3% shooting on 70 shots. I don’t know whether that was the defense, or Ryerson’s performance. With Coach K though the defense is usually something that is developed later. I look forward to seeing what the next game in Canada brings.

Kedsy
08-16-2018, 02:17 PM
Defensively there wasn’t much to be concerned about.

Our overall dRating (points per possession) was 0.89, which in general is very good, though it's difficult to gauge how good it is against the level of competition Ryerson offered.

FOUR FACTORS:

eFG% = 37.8%; this is a good defensive number, but I would note that it came almost entirely because Ryerson shot poorly on threes (16.1%). The Canadian team's 48.7% shooting on two-point shots is actually a little bit alarming.

Defensive Rebounding% = 70.0%; this is decent (about the same as our season numbers for the past two seasons), but against a lesser team like this, I would have hoped for better.

Free throw rate = 28.6%; this is OK but again I would have hoped for better (last year, for example, we averaged 22.3% for the season against better competition than this).

Turnover Pct = 14.6%; this is really bad, especially considering the competition.


So, overall, they shot a lot of threes (44.3% of their shots) and didn't hit many, perhaps giving a misleading impression of how good our defense was. Sure, it's not even the pre-season yet, and we were missing two key cogs, so maybe we have to give the kids a pass. Personally, I think we probably ought to ignore this data point altogether.

But if we're not going to ignore it, and instead we put this game on the scale of concerned/not concerned, I'd say it leans a lot closer to concerned than to not.

Put another way, if they'd hit 32% of their threes (exactly what Duke shot on threes in this game though still not very high) it would have been a four point game.

kAzE
08-16-2018, 02:27 PM
I actually thought Ryerson looked like a pretty good team. IMO, they would be pretty competitive in a few of the smaller D-1 conferences. They looked well-coached and played good team basketball. They simply couldn't match Duke's talent or athleticism, but they hung in there for most of the game.

Ryerson is by far the best of the 3 Canadian teams that we will face on this trip. We should beat U of Toronto by 30+ even without Cam, Tre, and Alex.

Kedsy
08-16-2018, 02:32 PM
I actually thought Ryerson looked like a pretty good team. IMO, they would be pretty competitive in a few of the smaller D-1 conferences. They looked well-coached and played good team basketball.

They are by far the best of the 3 Canadian teams that we will face on this trip. We should beat U of Toronto by 40+ even without Cam, Tre, and Alex.

I didn't see the game. But if they were the equivalent of a decent Big South or America East team, other than the 3-point shooting we wouldn't have been too happy with those defensive numbers against, e.g., NC A&T or Vermont, right?

And my guess is they're really not even that good, which if true makes it worse.

kAzE
08-16-2018, 02:36 PM
I didn't see the game. But if they were the equivalent of a decent Big South or America East team, other than the 3-point shooting we wouldn't have been too happy with those defensive numbers against, e.g., NC A&T or Vermont, right?

And my guess is they're really not even that good, which if true makes it worse.


No, of course not, but as the announcers pointed out, some of that was due to this not being meaningful game. Guys weren't sprinting back in transition on defense, which (hopefully) won't be the case by the regular season.

But also, Ryerson made it to the Canadian national championship last season, beating the #1 seed in the tournament in the semis, and are one of the favorites to win the national championship this year. They are a good team, with a lot 4th and 5th year guys who are older and experienced. I don't think they are as bad as you believe they are.

Our guys aren't in mid-season shape from a conditioning standpoint yet, and these games don't count, so I'm okay with this for now. The positive greatly outweighed the negatives IMO.

Kedsy
08-16-2018, 02:49 PM
Our guys aren't in mid-season shape from a conditioning standpoint yet, and these games don't count, so I'm okay with this for now.

I agree. Because actually we're not even in early-season shape yet. And we were missing two starters and (for almost all the game) our top perimeter sub. I said in my earlier post that I think we should probably ignore this data point.

But, if we are going to discuss the defense, I wouldn't say "not much to be concerned about." I'd say, "we weren't very good but hopefully we'll get better."

BigZ
08-16-2018, 03:18 PM
I think RJ and Cam maybe the two best prospects but I think Zion will be the best for Duke. Dude is going to be unguardable He is a lot better of a basketball player than he is given credit for he is far from just a dunker. I was amazed by his all around game

thedukelamere
08-16-2018, 03:46 PM
I think RJ and Cam maybe the two best prospects but I think Zion will be the best for Duke. Dude is going to be unguardable He is a lot better of a basketball player than he is given credit for he is far from just a dunker. I was amazed by his all around game

He uses his body very well; knowing that defenders will simply bounce off of him, he had a lot of easy layups by not rushing up a shot in traffic. Thought he tried forcing a few questionable passes, but when you're a human highlight reel it's gotta be a tough switch to turn off.

proelitedota
08-16-2018, 03:50 PM
No sure how players will be able to guard him 1 on 1 unless you match him in size and speed. Little at 6'7 230lbs is the only matchup that I think Zion will have trouble with.

Billy Dat
08-16-2018, 03:54 PM
So, overall, they shot a lot of threes (44.3% of their shots) and didn't hit many, perhaps giving a misleading impression of how good our defense was. Sure, it's not even the pre-season yet, and we were missing two key cogs, so maybe we have to give the kids a pass. Personally, I think we probably ought to ignore this data point altogether.

But if we're not going to ignore it, and instead we put this game on the scale of concerned/not concerned, I'd say it leans a lot closer to concerned than to not.

Put another way, if they'd hit 32% of their threes (exactly what Duke shot on threes in this game though still not very high) it would have been a four point game.

In truth, Ryerson did miss a lot of wide open 3s. A lot.


Ryerson is by far the best of the 3 Canadian teams that we will face on this trip. We should beat U of Toronto by 30+ even without Cam, Tre, and Alex.

This reminds me of just hearing about the BEST Canadian college team, Carleton, who Ryerson upset in last year's semis but have won 13 of the last 16 titles in Canada and have routinely been thumping D1 US Teams on Summer Tours. I am guessing we decided NOT to challenge these guys, but maybe the timing didn't work out.

https://sports.yahoo.com/canadian-powerhouse-carleton-destroying-american-151529083.html

dukelifer
08-16-2018, 04:04 PM
I think RJ and Cam maybe the two best prospects but I think Zion will be the best for Duke. Dude is going to be unguardable He is a lot better of a basketball player than he is given credit for he is far from just a dunker. I was amazed by his all around game

There are many examples of big guys dominating at the college level and not being able to do that at the next level. Not to say Zion is that guy given other gifts- but he may have a much better 1 year at Duke than Cam or R.J. because he is so big and powerful.

HereBeforeCoachK
08-16-2018, 04:08 PM
He uses his body very well; knowing that defenders will simply bounce off of him, he had a lot of easy layups by not rushing up a shot in traffic. Thought he tried forcing a few questionable passes, but when you're a human highlight reel it's gotta be a tough switch to turn off.

This is what has struck me....for all his high flying dunk videos....and they are astonishing...his bread and butter might be driving, and powering up and under, with everyone so focused on a potential dunk attempt. He finishes so easily through contact on those plays.

Newton_14
08-16-2018, 06:31 PM
I’ll keep saying it... Zion is a much better all around basketball player than most people think. The kid can handle, shoot, and defend. He is far more than a dunker.

I didn’t see the game but was concerned by the box score. Two guys taking that many shots is not good basketball. Bolden getting one shot attempt is not good basketball.

That said, we were missing 3 key players including our PG so I would expect much better balance offensively when we get everyone back on the court.

One thing is for sure though in that we have two studs who can score on just about any defense or defender thrown at them.

Go Duke!!!

Bob Green
08-16-2018, 06:37 PM
I’ll keep saying it... Zion is a much better all around basketball player than most people think. The kid can handle, shoot, and defend. He is far more than a dunker.

Not an original comparison here, I'm borrowing from a friend - Williamson is Larry Johnson plus three inches and 30 pounds.

Newton_14
08-16-2018, 07:05 PM
Not an original comparison here, I'm borrowing from a friend - Williamson is Larry Johnson plus three inches and 30 pounds.
Plus 30 inches vertical leap also Bob. I don’t think the game of basketball has ever seen anyone like this kid Mr. Bob. He’s just a very unique young man.

Bob Green
08-16-2018, 07:11 PM
Plus 30 inches vertical leap also Bob. I don’t think the game of basketball has ever seen anyone like this kid Mr. Bob. He’s just a very unique young man.

I agree 100 percent but I still think the Larry Johnson comparison is as close as you can get. Johnson at UNLV was both unique and dominant.

JasonEvans
08-16-2018, 08:37 PM
I agree 100 percent but I still think the Larry Johnson comparison is as close as you can get. Johnson at UNLV was both unique and dominant.

Naah, Zion ain't afraid to take the big shot.

8574

CDu
08-16-2018, 08:44 PM
Not an original comparison here, I'm borrowing from a friend - Williamson is Larry Johnson plus three inches and 30 pounds.

Young LJ is a pretty good comp. I actually think they are about the same height; I think Zion is probably about 6’6” like LJ. Williamson is bigger weightwise and jumps a little higher (LJ could jump before the back problems). But he is about as close as it gets.

Unfortunately, I worry that Williamson’s shelf life may be similarly limited. Guys that size aren’t meant to do what Williamson can do. So there is a good chance his body rebels on him at some point. Hopefully that point is several years away, but you never know.

UrinalCake
08-16-2018, 09:06 PM
We've talked about so many impressive things that we saw in Zion's game yesterday, but one that I don't think has been mentioned is his ability to avoid contact while driving towards the rim. There were several plays where a defender was in position to take a charge and Zion side-stepped around him or spun away from contact. He's certainly strong enough to simply bowl over his defender but I think he knows his man is likely to get a charge call more often than not given Zion's size. The fact that he is already adept at avoiding contact while still finishing is really encouraging.

Mtn.Devil.91.92.01.10.15
08-16-2018, 09:33 PM
We've talked about so many impressive things that we saw in Zion's game yesterday, but one that I don't think has been mentioned is his ability to avoid contact while driving towards the rim. There were several plays where a defender was in position to take a charge and Zion side-stepped around him or spun away from contact. He's certainly strong enough to simply bowl over his defender but I think he knows his man is likely to get a charge call more often than not given Zion's size. The fact that he is already adept at avoiding contact while still finishing is really encouraging.

Lucky for future defenders...

Newton_14
08-16-2018, 10:15 PM
Lucky for future defenders...

My thoughts exactly MD5x..

Like Mr T so eloquently opined: I pity the fool that steps in front of Zion Williamson to take that charge.

Or like Dr Harry: Go ahead. Make my day!

😎

brevity
08-16-2018, 11:22 PM
ESPN has posted Zion Williamson highlights of the Ryerson game on YouTube:


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WjO4zweaD2w

JNort
08-17-2018, 02:02 AM
Our overall dRating (points per possession) was 0.89, which in general is very good, though it's difficult to gauge how good it is against the level of competition Ryerson offered.

FOUR FACTORS:

eFG% = 37.8%; this is a good defensive number, but I would note that it came almost entirely because Ryerson shot poorly on threes (16.1%). The Canadian team's 48.7% shooting on two-point shots is actually a little bit alarming.

Defensive Rebounding% = 70.0%; this is decent (about the same as our season numbers for the past two seasons), but against a lesser team like this, I would have hoped for better.

Free throw rate = 28.6%; this is OK but again I would have hoped for better (last year, for example, we averaged 22.3% for the season against better competition than this).

Turnover Pct = 14.6%; this is really bad, especially considering the competition.


So, overall, they shot a lot of threes (44.3% of their shots) and didn't hit many, perhaps giving a misleading impression of how good our defense was. Sure, it's not even the pre-season yet, and we were missing two key cogs, so maybe we have to give the kids a pass. Personally, I think we probably ought to ignore this data point altogether.

But if we're not going to ignore it, and instead we put this game on the scale of concerned/not concerned, I'd say it leans a lot closer to concerned than to not.

Put another way, if they'd hit 32% of their threes (exactly what Duke shot on threes in this game though still not very high) it would have been a four point game.

Put another way if Duke wasn't missing 3 of its top 6 guys this game would have been more of a blowout. Missing our pg didn't help with the turnovers obviously, as well as our 2nd best defacto pg in AOC.

HereBeforeCoachK
08-17-2018, 07:30 AM
We've talked about so many impressive things that we saw in Zion's game yesterday, but one that I don't think has been mentioned is his ability to avoid contact while driving towards the rim..

....yes, avoid contact, or play through some contact, on some up and under shots off the glass....

Bluedog
08-17-2018, 09:27 AM
In truth, Ryerson did miss a lot of wide open 3s. A lot.



This reminds me of just hearing about the BEST Canadian college team, Carleton, who Ryerson upset in last year's semis but have won 13 of the last 16 titles in Canada and have routinely been thumping D1 US Teams on Summer Tours. I am guessing we decided NOT to challenge these guys, but maybe the timing didn't work out.

https://sports.yahoo.com/canadian-powerhouse-carleton-destroying-american-151529083.html

Carleton's coach said that they really really wanted to play Duke, but Duke wasn't interested...(and neither was Kentucky apparently). I think Coach K wants to play against decent competition, but didn't want to risk hurting his team's confidence before the season even begins.

Billy Dat
08-17-2018, 10:13 AM
Carleton's coach said that they really really wanted to play Duke, but Duke wasn't interested...(and neither was Kentucky apparently). I think Coach K wants to play against decent competition, but didn't want to risk hurting his team's confidence before the season even begins.

Matt Norlander brought this up on the Eye on College Basketball podcast, as a way to tweak Duke by comparing it to the trend of Duke never agreeing to play true home and home non-conference series and the perception that is K's way of ducking losses (as opposed to making big $ at big venues). Gary Parish laughed and basically said, "When Cincinnatti loses to Carleton, only guys like us are aware. If Duke loses to Carleton, it's on SportsCenter. I don't blame K for not going there."

Kedsy
08-17-2018, 12:20 PM
Put another way if Duke wasn't missing 3 of its top 6 guys this game would have been more of a blowout. Missing our pg didn't help with the turnovers obviously, as well as our 2nd best defacto pg in AOC.

Well, if you read my whole post, and not just the last sentence, I mentioned we were missing guys and that we should probably ignore this data point. That doesn't mean that the statement, "Defensively there wasn’t much to be concerned about" isn't really true, which was the point of my post. And missing our PG on offense had no relevance to that, either.

Also (and again, it wouldn't affect our defense, either way), I'll be very surprised if Alex is "our 2nd best defacto pg" this season.

mattman91
08-17-2018, 12:30 PM
Matt Norlander brought this up on the Eye on College Basketball podcast, as a way to tweak Duke by comparing it to the trend of Duke never agreeing to play true home and home non-conference series and the perception that is K's way of ducking losses (as opposed to making big $ at big venues). Gary Parish laughed and basically said, "When Cincinnatti loses to Carleton, only guys like us are aware. If Duke loses to Carleton, it's on SportsCenter. I don't blame K for not going there."

AND Sports Centre.

Tooold
08-17-2018, 12:33 PM
My one concern with the amazing Zion is free throw shooting. He took (and missed) one FT, and I thought his shot looked a little unorthodox. Does anyone know what his FT history has been?

fraggler
08-17-2018, 01:08 PM
According to the internet (Maxpreps), he was a career 63% shooter from the free throw line.

JayZee
08-17-2018, 03:16 PM
To recap

Dunking - all time
Rebounding - excellent
Ball handling - surprisingly good
Power - staggering
Shiftness/body control - eye opening
Passing/vision - promising
Defense - hard to say
Shooting - better than expected, but clearly work to be done
Personality - Joyful and charismatic

Now maybe it's because his forearms are like 16" in diameter, but his hands look kind of small. While it clearly doesn't affect his dunking, wonder if that has an effect on his FT and 3pt shooting?

Acymetric
08-17-2018, 03:27 PM
To recap

Dunking - all time
Rebounding - excellent
Ball handling - surprisingly good
Power - staggering
Shiftness/body control - eye opening
Passing/vision - promising
Defense - hard to say
Shooting - better than expected, but clearly work to be done
Personality - Joyful and charismatic

Now maybe it's because his forearms are like 16" in diameter, but his hands look kind of small. While it clearly doesn't affect his dunking, wonder if that has an effect on his FT and 3pt shooting?

I thought players with unusually large hands were typically found to be worse free throw shooters?

JayZee
08-17-2018, 04:09 PM
I thought players with unusually large hands were typically found to be worse free throw shooters?

It could be true that either extreme would have an effect on shooting.

Now I'm not saying that Zion has unusually small hands. Just that proportionally they don't look like, say Kawhi sized hands.

CDu
08-17-2018, 04:20 PM
It could be true that either extreme would have an effect on shooting.

Now I'm not saying that Zion has unusually small hands. Just that proportionally they don't look like, say Kawhi sized hands.

I don’t think his hands are nearly small enough for them to be a detriment to his shooting. I mean, 5’11” high school kids can shoot 90%. The MUCH more likely reason is that he is just a mediocre shooter at this point in his development.

ice-9
08-17-2018, 08:26 PM
I agree 100 percent but I still think the Larry Johnson comparison is as close as you can get. Johnson at UNLV was both unique and dominant.

I think of Dejuan Blair but with a better jump shot and way more athleticism. Remember that guy? Short for a center but with a lot of mass, could dominate the post at the college level.

kAzE
08-18-2018, 03:35 AM
I think of Dejuan Blair but with a better jump shot and way more athleticism. Remember that guy? Short for a center but with a lot of mass, could dominate the post at the college level.

You mean the guy who had no ACLs and could only get 2 inches off the ground? Only a 43 inch difference in vertical, but other than that, they are basically twins :)

CajunDevil
08-18-2018, 04:11 AM
Zion is a mix of Superman’s athletic ability plus Christopher Nolan’s Batman’s toughness with a little Chris Mullin craftiness.

NSDukeFan
08-18-2018, 10:22 AM
My favourite comparison so far has been from Atldukie? who said Zion was a combination of Barkley and Dominique Wilkins.

DukieInBrasil
08-18-2018, 04:27 PM
DBR's really letting me down here in the comments about this game. 2 whole pages and not a single Needle-nose Ned, Ned the Head, or otherwise Groundhog Day reference. I expected so much more of y'all. Isn't one of y'all a movie critic?

bullettoothtony
08-18-2018, 06:07 PM
^ Someone did in the Toronto game thread. And I'm exceptionally disappointed that I didn't think of it first.

Am I right or am I right or am I right? Right... right...