MBB: Duke 83, SF Austin 85 Post-Game Thread

[JBDuke]

Put your post-game thoughts here. And remember - no venting or bashing.

[ratamero]

Yikes.

[ChillinDuke]

Really terrible game. On every front. I don't know what happened but it was terrible.

I'm just gonna leave it there.

- Chillin

[BlueDevil16]

Last play was embarrassing but you could say that about all of OT and most of the game.

[WHOneedsSOX]

Why didn't Coach K call timeout to get Carey back in? And why did Tre drive with 8 seconds left? He was really bad in OT.

[fgb]

Congrats, lumberjacks. You earned that one.

[ndkjr70]

Strip the word a Duke from every single jersey in the locker room.

[kaufmjo]

Classy SFA coach. Those guys were impressive. How many turnovers when Tre drives this year? And he gave up on play and guy blew by him for layup. Should get reamed out for being lazy

[devildeac]

Pathetic on soooo many fronts: TO, non-existent interior D, FT, last minute coaching, *ffensive execution...

[ncexnyc]

Looks like they started their break a few hours early. Hopefully Coach K. pulls a Mr. Hand and gets some of his time back.

[JetpackJesus]

A really appropriate play for the game to end on, honestly. A microcosm of the whole. Learn from this and get better.

[WakeDevil]

All that last play needed was a dancing bear on a unicycle. Also, let's not forget the great defensive balance that allowed the layup at the other end.

[Bluedog]

Why didn't Coach K call timeout to get Carey back in? And why did Tre drive with 8 seconds left? He was really bad in OT.

I was wondering the same thing, but he did it at the end of regulation too so I assume it was the direction from K to give a chance for an offensive rebound. But, yeah, it's bad when you have the chance to take the last shot and somehow you lose on a layup at the other end. We are a good offensive rebounding team though, but I was thinking the same thing at the time. But, if we had hit some FTs and defended in the paint, it would have been a moot point.

Lots to learn from on this game at least...150 non-conference wins at home is over, unfortunately. Just BARELY enough time at the end for the layup. Stinks.

[J4Kop99]

The absolute most fitting way for that game to end. Horrible way to lose but man did we play poorly.

My main gripe (aside from free throws) was that Tre started attacking too early at the end of regulation and end of OT. There should be absolutely no way that the opposing team even gets a chance. Not only did they get a chance, they had enough time to dribble down to the entire end of the court and lay it in.

I said it in the game thread but such a strange game. Shake this one off over some good food and football!

Happy Thanksgiving to all and to all a good night.

[3rd Dukie]

Strip the word a Duke from every single jersey in the locker room.

Huh? What does that mean?

[bbosbbos]

Very hard to watch.

[rsvman]

Can't lose when the game is tied and there are 11 seconds left and you have the ball. Worst-case scenario should be a second overtime.

[SlapTheFloor]

What a dumb last play.

[dukebluesincebirth]

Could say so many things, but will just take my hat off to Stephen F Austin. Hard nosed and never quit. It hurts, but kudos to those kids. They deserved it tonight. Duke has to learn and get better.

[Bluedog]

The absolute most fitting way for that game to end. Horrible way to lose but man did we play poorly.

My main gripe (aside from free throws) was that Tre started attacking too early at the end of regulation and end of OT. There should be absolutely no way that the opposing team even gets a chance. Not only did they get a chance, they had enough time to dribble down to the entire end of the court and lay it in.

I said it in the game thread but such a strange game. Shake this one off over some good food and football!

Happy Thanksgiving to all and to all a good night.

I'm sure Coach K told him when to attack though. So, it was a coaching decision on that front, I'm sure. (But I agree as I said above.)

[devildeac]

Can't lose when the game is tied and there are 11 seconds left and you have the ball. Worst-case scenario should be a second overtime.

Took a play from the FB playbook at the Belk Bowl:mad:.

[Dub]

Just completely out toughed by a much grittier team. Terrible FT shooting, non-existent transition D, and over dribbling was our demise. A terrible loss but we’ll win plenty more and hopefully will be a teaching lesson. CBB is completely WIDE open this year. Enjoy the ride folks

[YmoBeThere]

Who is going to start the should K retire thread?

[weezie]

Two points in OT?

[Masterduff]

This one was on Tre.

[J4Kop99]

Could say so many things, but will just take my hat off to Stephen F Austin. Hard nosed and never quit. It hurts, but kudos to those kids. They deserved it tonight. Duke has to learn and get better.

Absolutely. They battled all night. And they now have a new fan on their bandwagon in Dan Bonner. So they have that going for them.

[kaufmjo]

Bain story about family in Bahamas puts a little perspective on everything honestly. Congrats to the better team today

[WHOneedsSOX]

I was wondering the same thing, but he did it at the end of regulation too so I assume it was the direction from K to give a chance for an offensive rebound. But, yeah, it's bad when you have the chance to take the last shot and somehow you lose on a layup at the other end. We are a good offensive rebounding team though, but I was thinking the same thing at the time. But, if we had hit some FTs and defended in the paint, it would have been a moot point.

Lots to learn from on this game at least...150 non-conference wins at home is over, unfortunately. Just BARELY enough time at the end for the layup. Stinks.

Probably should get your best offensive rebounder in the game if you're going for the offensive rebound. And maybe run a set play considering Duke had turned it over 5 out of 6 possessions before that. Oh well, that's why Coach K is the man and I'm sitting here watching at home.

[BlueDevil16]

Could easily have 3 losses by the end of next week. Early to start thinking about seeding in the tournament, but it might not be favorable for us.

[BigZ]

I expect lots of losses throughout college basketball like this during this season. It’s one of the worst years in recent memory

[barely]

Overtime offense was horrific. Two points (on a stickback). Three turnovers (check me on that). Two shot clock violations (is it just me or did it look like we were trying to run the clock out the last 10 minutes or so of the game?). Finally, I’m typically not one to criticize Jones (he’s one of my favorite players ever), but why aren’t we running the clock to get the last shot off, particularly when most of the important players on the other team are on the verge of fouling out? Very frustrating game to watch. We have a lot of work to do.

[moonpie23]

duke looked good...

[J4Kop99]

I'm sure Coach K told him when to attack though. So, it was a coaching decision on that front, I'm sure. (But I agree as I said above.)


Unless we have some video evidence or post game confirmation I just cannot imagine coach K had Tre Jones do that... twice.

[TKG]

K has to call a TO in that situation. 12 seconds to go and shot clock is off. Call the TO settle your freshmen and get the last shot. Worst case scenario you go to a second OT.

[jipops]

The better team won. It’s going to be a rough season.

[A-Tex Devil]

Eventually we were going to lose to a 27.5 point underdog at home. Those are just the odds.

[left_hook_lacey]

Strip the word a Duke from every single jersey in the locker room.

Very few of them would care. They'll strip it in 5 months on there own.

[barely]

I used to like Dan Bonner.... Why didn’t he just go ahead and put a SFA jersey on? That was horrible.

[UrinalCake]

Credit to SF Austin, they took us out of everything we usually do well. They didn't turn the ball over but instead forced us into doing so, they got the ball into the paint with ease and converted over and over. Our offense was really stagnant and predictable. Even when all their guys were in foul trouble we couldn't take advantage.

Our defense when we don't create turnovers is the biggest area of concern for me moving forward. For the first 30 minutes I might say we weren't taking our opponent seriously enough, but for the last 15 that shouldn't be an excuse.

[J4Kop99]

Was it just me or did that game winning full court lay up play out as if it was in slow motion?

Never seen anything like it

[Saratoga2]

SFA is a tough, gritty team that is well coached. They played tough defense and were smart in how they attacked Duke.

I saw several weaknesses in the Duke game that needs to be addressed and with a young team weaknesses are to be expected.

1. FT shooting was bad for the entire second half. Were they getting weary? Whatever, they win the game comfortably if they hit the FT's

2. Lots of careless turnnovers and lots more caused by SFA pressure. In OT Duke continued to have tough TO's. certainly over 20 and more than we forced.

3. Interior defense was unable to stop the drive to the basket. Often three would go to the driver, leaving a wide open cutter. Duke found no adjustment which worked.

Not the end of the world. Several of the guys played well but they played just a little better.

[Coballs]

This one was on Tre.

Tre played terrible down the stretch but he was gassed. This was a team loss which includes Coach K and the complete absence of leadership from most of the upperclassmen on the roster.

[scottdude8]

Of course this happened on a game I had to watch the last half hour on my phone on a weird stream. Wow. Ugh. Blech.

[mattman91]

Tre played terrible down the stretch but he was gassed. This was a team loss which includes Coach K and the complete absence of leadership from most of the upperclassmen on the roster.

Tre played terrible the entire game.

[DUKIE V(A)]

Bootsie Thornton is the saddest man in America.

[Bluedog]

Unless we have some video evidence or post game confirmation I just cannot imagine coach K had Tre Jones do that... twice.

You don't think K has told Tre when to attack the basket when holding for the last shot? Tre is a smart guy...I'm sure they've practiced that scenario many times. I would find it hard to believe Coach K hasn't given clear direction in those types of situations. Seems like Tre dribbles it out and starts to attack around 9-10 seconds, possibly also giving time for a pass to an open guy if available. Not saying Coach K called that exact play twice, but I'm sure has guidance on the timing of it.

[WHOneedsSOX]

Overtime offense was horrific. Two points (on a stickback). Three turnovers (check me on that). Two shot clock violations (is it just me or did it look like we were trying to run the clock out the last 10 minutes or so of the game?). Finally, I’m typically not one to criticize Jones (he’s one of my favorite players ever), but why aren’t we running the clock to get the last shot off, particularly when most of the important players on the other team are on the verge of fouling out? Very frustrating game to watch. We have a lot of work to do.

Three turnovers?? More like five out of seven possessions in OT.

I agree on Tre. My favorite player this year but he was awful in OT. If he didn't directly have the turnover then he would dribble for 20 seconds and give it to someone else in a bad position. And the shot to end regulation was just awful. It was like he didn't know the time on the clock.

[Fish80]

Sucks. But they beat us. Bottom line, the SFA wanted it more.

[Billy Dat]

A really appropriate play for the game to end on, honestly. A microcosm of the whole. Learn from this and get better.

Yeah, as the game was tight at the end of regulation and OT, I kept worrying that we’d give up a run out in a big moment because we’d given up so many during the game.

Tough way to lose the non con streak, but it had lost its luster due to pretty weak scheduling. Still, a game like tonight hadn’t happened in so many years so it’s sad to see it end.

We can be mad about Xs and Os, but we blew the game with sloppy play when we were up 15 in the first half and after that it was an all out war and no matter how weak SF Austin may be on paper, they traded blows with us for the final 35 minutes and deserved to win. Too many TOs, especially ones that led to run outs, missed FTs, and an inability to foul out any of their many players with 4 fouls.

[jipops]

2 points in overtime. At home. I cannot stand when K refuses to call plays. That is never going to work with a team like this. But K will keep going with it in tight games. Maybe he just doesn’t know what to run anymore?

[A-Tex Devil]

If we get to sweet sixteen or beyond this year, this game doesn’t matter. Next play.

[dukelifer]

Looked like a bunch of Freshman out there- wait.. If you make that many mistakes you get this result. 16 missed FTs. That will kill you. Time to regroup.

[Wahoo2000]

Bain story about family in Bahamas puts a little perspective on everything honestly. Congrats to the better team today

Yeah - if your streak has to be broken, hard to find a better story than this one when it happens.

Duke will be back, and you'll be fine. I read in the game thread where a fan said that Duke "is not a top 10 team this year". If that's really the case, I submit it's honestly because there are *NO* top ten teams this year - at least in terms of top 10 caliber in a TYPICAL year in college bb. Every game I watch like this, or the MSU and KY headscratchers make me think no highly ranked team is going to escape the noncon without a "WTF" loss.

[Chicago 1995]

K not calling timeout to get Vernon back in for the last possession in OT is more inexcusable than anything any of the players did tonight. It’s coaching malpractice.

Rough night for a lot of guys. Some if it was just mental. Some of it was bad luck. Tactically, I thought they did good work isolating Jack White on a screen and then rescreening him. Gave up a ton of layouts that way in the second half. Our rotations weren’t great either. Too many times three guys collapsed on the ball and left no one guarding the bucket.

We’re getting very little off ball screens for Tre, and he’s having trouble breaking down defenses with just his dribble. Needed him to find that the last 10 minutes or so. We also have to find a shooter or be more careful about our lineups. SFA did a good job collapsing on VC and making it hard for us. A lot of that correlated to spells where White was on the floor, not Hurt or AOC.

Too many missed FTs. Too many sloppy turnovers. We got out physicalled. They’re brand of “basketball” lead to some of the TOs.

[UrinalCake]

Tre was bad but this game exposes a larger issue which is that the team is too dependent on him. At times it feels like he's the only player on the court capable of dribbling the basketball. Every set involves him with the ball up top and the other four guys setting up around him. If a pass is made and the play breaks down, everyone gives the ball back to Tre and rewinds. I don't know what the box score will show but I'm guessing he played the full 45 minutes.

[sagegrouse]

Oh my! Was the last play a summary of the game? Tre passes to Hurt underneath -- he bobbles it like a first-grader -- SFA guy grabs the ball but is lying on his back -- we stand around watching -- he passes out to Bain, thank you very much, who dribbles the length of the court and makes a layup at the buzzer.

[WiJoe]

I used to like Dan Bonner... Why didn’t he just go ahead and put a SFA jersey on? That was horrible.

Bonner was nowhere near as bad as eric collins. He must have wet his pants three or four times.

[mkirsh]

Congrats to SFA - they were tough, played hard, and deserved to win

Duke can’t lose the turnover battle (20-14) and shoot 24-40 (60%) from the FT line and expect to win

Lots to work on - we’ll see how they progress and develop. Sucks to lose but there is plenty of season left and a lot of raw talent on this team

[WHOneedsSOX]

K not calling timeout to get Vernon back in for the last possession in OT is more inexcusable than anything any of the players did tonight. It’s coaching malpractice.

Rough night for a lot of guys. Some if it was just mental. Some of it was bad luck. Tactically, I thought they did good work isolating Jack White on a screen and then rescreening him. Gave up a ton of layouts that way in the second half. Our rotations weren’t great either. Too many times three guys collapsed on the ball and left no one guarding the bucket.

We’re getting very little off ball screens for Tre, and he’s having trouble breaking down defenses with just his dribble. Needed him to find that the last 10 minutes or so. We also have to find a shooter or be more careful about our lineups. SFA did a good job collapsing on VC and making it hard for us. A lot of that correlated to spells where White was on the floor, not Hurt or AOC.

Too many missed FTs. Too many sloppy turnovers. We got out physicalled. They’re brand of “basketball” lead to some of the TOs.

Remember just a week ago when these Duke players were priding themselves on being a defensive, physical team? Wake up call tonight against a bunch of upperclassmen.

[Kjeffrey]

SFA is a tough, gritty team that is well coached. They played tough defense and were smart in how they attacked Duke.

I saw several weaknesses in the Duke game that needs to be addressed and with a young team weaknesses are to be expected.

1. FT shooting was bad for the entire second half. Were they getting weary? Whatever, they win the game comfortably if they hit the FT's

2. Lots of careless turnnovers and lots more caused by SFA pressure. In OT Duke continued to have tough TO's. certainly over 20 and more than we forced.

3. Interior defense was unable to stop the drive to the basket. Often three would go to the driver, leaving a wide open cutter. Duke found no adjustment which worked.

Not the end of the world. Several of the guys played well but they played just a little better.

Having a go to shooter would be nice too. I miss having dependable upperclassmen.

[kAzE]

The book is out on Duke right now: pressure, bump, and bruise Tre Jones on the perimeter, use a second or even third defender if you have to, because Duke doesn’t have other great ball handling options. Georgetown did this to an extent, and SFA took it to an extreme.

Tre definitely looked winded down the stretch, and because of the way he was being defended, was making a lot of poor decisions all night. I give him a lot of credit, because he fought like hell, but it just wasn’t enough. You just can’t expect a guy to endure that kind of punishment on offense and still be the point of attack on defense for 45 minutes. It’s too much.

We’re going to have to figure something out to help relieve some of the pressure from him. I suspect it could mean a few extra minutes of Goldwire (in tandem with Jones), just give Tre a breather on offense here and there.

I hate to say it, but we really could have used Boogie Ellis on this team.

[WiJoe]

the entire coaching staff sits like mopes during most of the game. Explain that.

[heyman25]

Overtime offense was horrific. Two points (on a stickback). Three turnovers (check me on that). Two shot clock violations (is it just me or did it look like we were trying to run the clock out the last 10 minutes or so of the game?). Finally, I’m typically not one to criticize Jones (he’s one of my favorite players ever), but why aren’t we running the clock to get the last shot off, particularly when most of the important players on the other team are on the verge of fouling out? Very frustrating game to watch. We have a lot of work to do.
Damn that game ruined my night. I don't understand why their was not an effort to foul out some of the Stephen F Austin players. Shot clock violations in OT Fing awful. Could not set up Carey. Vern was a dreadful 4 for 11 on the foul line. Yep Duke did not deserve to win.

[moonpie23]

those guys brought the heat.....they play like that against the next team and they win......and the next....and the next....those guys can do some damage...


we had some serious weak spots tonight, against a very focused, well-coached team........hats off to those guys.....hope we don't play them again....lol

[left_hook_lacey]

To add insult to injury, we shot 40 free throws to their 17 and still lost. Let that sink in.

[azzefkram]

In the immortal words of Joe Girardi, it's not what you want. Duke looked pretty bad out there. SFA played tough and confident throughout. Go eat some turkey and play better on Friday.

[Devilwin]

Could say so many things, but will just take my hat off to Stephen F Austin. Hard nosed and never quit. It hurts, but kudos to those kids. They deserved it tonight. Duke has to learn and get better.

Kudoes to them, but they all looked 30 years old.We looked like first day of practice. Nothing good can come of getting your butt handed to you at home by a team like that. Tre was just awful, as was Stanley. They ought to be mortified. I just cannot see anything coming out of this but embarrassment. Getting punked all night inside.
Shooting fts like 10 year olds. Just an absolutely horrid performance all around. Rushing shots, poor decisions by our guards, especially Tre. No leadership..None..:mad:

[SCMatt33]

I think this is a good time to go back to something I said after Northwest Missouri State.


And that’s not to say these guys are underperforming either. There’s a real talent gap in the back court that Duke hasn’t seen in decades. Before you say “that’s a crazy exaggeration”, I did some research after thinking about it. Unless Joey Baker magically finds something and becomes a starter, Dukes back court will have two starters that meet the following description: either a 4 star freshman based on 247 composite or a player from any class who was outside the top 50 as a recruit. Not counting transfers (since they were recruited to Duke after showing they were better than their HS ranking) I couldn’t find a single season where Duke started two such players in the back court at the same time, and only 3 seasons where any such player started more than a small handful of games in the back court. They were 2007 (John Scheyer 4 star freshman started all but one game), 2012 (Tyler Thornton started 19 games as a not top 50 recruiting and Quinn Cook started 4 games as a 4 star freshman) and 2014 (Tyler Thornton started 25 games). That’s obviously not a good trend. It certainly doesn’t mean that this team is doomed to not win a game in tourney, but I do think it’s unfair to put expectations of hanging banners and being a top 5 ranking on this team based on talent alone, but those expectations are happening by default as you see from the preseason polls in both the league and nationally.

When looking at this team I still stand by the preseason expectations being completely unreasonable, and that only becomes doubly true when they reached number 1. Guys with similar ranking to Stanley and Moore are normally sitting on the bench mostly for at least half a year, and then it’s only the best ones who have forced their way into the rotation later on. Carey came in with a scouting report that highlighted some defensive and motor issues, which he’s done really admirably at outperforming but you saw the, tonight. Tre as a sophomore isn’t necessarily ready to be the superstar savior night in night out as a sophomore, but that’s what’s been put on him.

None of that is to say that you “should” lose to SFA, but if you made me bet before the season on either entering December as #1 or losing the non-con home win streak this year, I would have bet the latter. I certainly wouldn’t have picked this game, but that it happened at some point shouldn’t be a shock. Judge these guys for who they are, not the name and ranking on the scoreboard. By that standard, they did a great job to overachieve for a few weeks and pick up some wins that’ll really look good later on, but they all had a very collective down night that they can’t overcome with raw talent like some recent lottery pick laden teams.

[Reddevil]

It's over.:rolleyes:

Good for those SFA kids. They showed a young Duke team what can happen in March, but it's only November. Good lessons and good tape to learn from. It's a journey. I like this team. They will be better for this.

[DUKIE V(A)]

A few thoughts:

1. Was surprised Carey did not play the entire OT. He was our best offensive player down the stretch.
2. Equally surprised that Tre shot so early at the end of regulation and OT. Easy to second guess after the result is known but that seems strange — especially since neither was a good look.
3. Our defensive court balance was poor throughout the game. Lots of free layups including on the last play.
4. Would love to see our guys shoot open 3s. We are hesitant.
5. Never fun to lose. I didn’t see this coming.

[gep]

I was wondering the same thing, but he did it at the end of regulation too so I assume it was the direction from K to give a chance for an offensive rebound. But, yeah, it's bad when you have the chance to take the last shot and somehow you lose on a layup at the other end. We are a good offensive rebounding team though, but I was thinking the same thing at the time. But, if we had hit some FTs and defended in the paint, it would have been a moot point.

Lots to learn from on this game at least...150 non-conference wins at home is over, unfortunately. Just BARELY enough time at the end for the layup. Stinks.

I'm not sure this is so important... to me, at least.


Could say so many things, but will just take my hat off to Stephen F Austin. Hard nosed and never quit. It hurts, but kudos to those kids. They deserved it tonight. Duke has to learn and get better.



It's over.:rolleyes: Coach K and his staff will have a GREAT example to keep pounding into the guys...

Good for those SFA kids. They showed a young Duke team what can happen in March, but it's only November. Good lessons and good tape to learn from. It's a journey. I like this team. They will be better for this.

Yes... I'm glad this happened now, instead of the NCAA...:cool:

[rsvman]

The book is out on Duke right now: pressure, bump, and bruise Tre Jones on the perimeter, use a second or even third defender if you have to, because Duke doesn’t have other great ball handling options. Georgetown did this to an extent, and SFA took it to an extreme.

Tre definitely looked winded down the stretch, and because of the way he was being defended, was making a lot of poor decisions all night. I give him a lot of credit, because he fought like hell, but it just wasn’t enough. You just can’t expect a guy to endure that kind of punishment on offense and still be the point of attack on defense for 45 minutes. It’s too much.

We’re going to have to figure something out to help relieve some of the pressure from him. I suspect it could mean a few extra minutes of Goldwire (in tandem with Jones), just give Tre a breather on offense here and there...

I said it in the in-game thread and I'll say it again here. Backing the defense off would've paid dividends. Going zone for a few possessions, or even for a few minutes, might've also paid off. They weren't beating us from the outside, and our guys were wasting a lot of energy chasing them around the perimeter.

[Dukehk]

Not a great loss in terms of seeding for March.

However, its a good wakeup call for the team. We've played a pretty tough schedule to date and I'd rather we learn our lessons now and peak in March.

This team was never a #1 team in the country, at least this early in the season. It doesn't mean they don't have a chance at winning the title though. We can still grow and improve.

[AZLA]

Much respect for Bain. Classy coach. SFA played tough and focused. Duke looked winded and confused. They just assumed when the ball was on the floor SFA would call timeout. Great presence of mind to push the ball and not panic. The top ranked team carousel continues to turn and burn.

[dyedwab]

1) SFA deserved every moment of joy from that win. They earned it. They outplayed us by a lot

2) That said, they were the 263rd ranked team in KenPom coming off a 12 point loss to Rutgers. This is Duke's worst loss in my more than 30 years as a Duke fan. Look, I get it, there are other bad performances, etc. But the relative talent differential here - I mean its not like SFA and Duke are in the same ballpark re: recruiting - and that it was it home makes it worse.

3) Even when we built our 15 point lead, we weren't really playing well. Sloppy turnovers, and our defense was letting them get to the rim at will

4) Again, they were great. But we shouldn't lost to that team

5) For those saying, "we will learn from this". OK. I agree. But learn what?. I thought the effort we gave was great. Some of our decisionmaking was careless, so that could improve. We could hit some more FTS. But, I meI gean, what do we learn?

6) I gave up taking real joy in rivals' losses years ago, because no one will remember in a week that Evansville beat Kentucky at Rupp, but we'll here about SFA's win for the next 20 years. I'm just hoping we get a good run out of this team so that this doesn't become the most memorable moment of the season.

7) This team plays hard. May not always play well, but they play hard. That's a good quality

[CameronDuke]

24-40 from the line.

Give SFAU credit, they made winning plays to keep them in the game the majority of the 2nd half and obviously in OT. Their interior big to big passing impressed me. They were very physical on the glass and deserved to win.

Duke needs more from their seniors and I know they can give them more. I have faith they’ll show some leadership after learning from this one.

150 straight non-conference home wins - I think that record will stand for a long time, and may never be touched. Anyone know who holds the longest home non-conference winning streak now? Thanks to the HUNDREDS of Duke players, and many coaches, who helped that streak stand for so long. Think about it - we were all 19+ years younger when the streak started.

We’ll be fine. Crazy things happen in college basketball, and one of them happened tonight.

[dukelifer]

It's over.:rolleyes:

Good for those SFA kids. They showed a young Duke team what can happen in March, but it's only November. Good lessons and good tape to learn from. It's a journey. I like this team. They will be better for this.

Just a lack of execution. The OT was very strange. In a game like this you need to get the ball to your best player and Carey did not get it. There will be some more and even worse losses for this team- but it is early. They will figure it out -well we can hope.

[DUKIE V(A)]

Oh my! Was the last play a summary of the game? Tre passes to Hurt underneath -- he bobbles it like a first-grader -- SFA guy grabs the ball but is lying on his back -- we stand around watching -- he passes out to Bain, thank you very much, who dribbles the length of the court and makes a layup at the buzzer.

Anyone else think Bain double dribbled on the break away?

Not trying to take away from SFA’s glory, but it seemed like they may have double dribbled.

[Furniture]

I started watching Duke in 2009 after my daughter got accepted there. This is the first time in ten years I have been blacked out and couldn’t find away around it. I asked in chat and got zero advice which pissed me off. Bottom line...the loss was bound to happen. Jinxed from the start.

[Bluedog]

2) That said, they were the 263rd ranked team in KenPom coming off a 12 point loss to Rutgers. This is Duke's worst loss in my more than 30 years as a Duke fan. Look, I get it, there are other bad performances, etc. But the relative talent differential here - I mean its not like SFA and Duke are in the same ballpark re: recruiting - and that it was it home makes it worse.

Hey, kenpom only gave us a 99.8% chance of winning this game. ;)

Yeah, this possibly could have been the biggest upset in the last 30 years, not sure. At least it's in November.

[BigDuke6]

Anyone else think Bain double dribbled on the break away?

Not trying to take away from SFA’s glory, but it seemed like they may have double dribbled.

He did. He dribbled the ball to gain possession. Then caught the ball with two hands. Then started dribbling again. Double dribble.

[devildeac]

Hey, kenpom only gave us a 99.8% chance of winning this game. ;)

Yeah, this possibly could have been the biggest upset in the last 30 years, not sure. At least it's in November.

UMBC might come close...

[rsvman]

He did. He dribbled the ball to gain possession. Then caught the ball with two hands. Then started dribbling again. Double dribble.

Can you imagine the backlash had they called that and Duke had gone on to win the game? I'd rather take the loss.

[Bluedog]

UMBC might come close...

Sorry, I was just talking about Duke upsets based on the post I was replying to, not anybody. I'm sure there have been bigger upsets elsewhere I've got to imagine.

[Mak P]

I fell asleep right after the 1st half ended and wake up to this?

SMH

Oh well... at-least we took our upset loss to OT and lost by 2. I said it before and will say it again, Tre is playing too many minutes. Carey 0 3pt attempts. Find a way to get him open from 3 he can shoot

[DUKIE V(A)]

He did. He dribbled the ball to gain possession. Then caught the ball with two hands. Then started dribbling again. Double dribble.

I thought so. No one in my house was willing to talk about anything after the game ended. Thanks for confirming.

[duke79]

I’ve never thought Duke was the number 1 team in the country and this game proved it. The last couple of years, our FT shooting has been sub-par and we’ve had no consistent outside shooters (where is JJ Redick?). I’ve seen high school teams that can shoot better - both at the FT line and from outside. SFA outplayed us for most of the game and deserved to win. Time to learn from this game and move on.

[devildeac]

Sorry, I was just talking about Duke upsets based on the post I was replying to, not anybody. I'm sure there have been bigger upsets elsewhere I've got to imagine.

Understood.

[heyman25]

Duke was 27.5 point favorite. What a pay off that would have been.
https://www.espn.com/mens-college-basketball/story/_/id/28173079/stephen-f-austin-hands-duke-first-nonconference-loss-home-2000

[UrinalCake]

Anyone else think Bain double dribbled on the break away? Not trying to take away from SFA’s glory, but it seemed like they may have double dribbled.

At the end of regulation the SFA player clearly stepped out of bounds before saving it back inbounds, prior to Stanley missing the jump shot. The announcer's take on this was that Duke was really fortunate that Stanley missed the shot, because had it gone in the win would have been mired with controversy over the ref missing the out of bounds. Of course, there was no mention of the fact that we should have been inbounding the ball with a couple seconds left on the clock.

[Coballs]

This biggest issue with this team can be found in the box score. 7 total points from the bench/upperclassmen. They are getting absolutely nothing from the guys who have been on the roster the longest and should be leaders.

[Acymetric]

I'll be honest, other than being disappointed about the home streak being broken, I'm just not that worked up about the loss. It was a sloppy but entertaining game, SFA played their guts out, and if it had been any team but Duke I would have been pulling hard for them. I don't think there is a lot to take from this game, other than that if our FT shooting doesn't improve that is going to be a real problem (if we hit our FTs we win by double digits).

Hats off to SFA, who appear to be a fun and likeable team. I'll probably be keeping an eye on them and casually pulling for them through March. Duke will learn a few things and regroup.

[Steven43]

Strip the word a Duke from every single jersey in the locker room.
Wait....what?? I was playing tennis 🎾 and recorded the game to watch later, but haven’t had time yet. What did the Duke players do that was so egregious as to warrant what you are suggesting? Honestly, it is shocking to hear comments such as this.

[rsvman]

At the end of regulation the SFA player clearly stepped out of bounds before saving it back inbounds, prior to Stanley missing the jump shot. The announcer's take on this was that Duke was really fortunate that Stanley missed the shot, because had it gone in the win would have been mired with controversy over the ref missing the out of bounds. Of course, there was no mention of the fact that we should have been inbounding the ball with a couple seconds left on the clock.
Lol. Sometimes the announcers seen to be in la-la land.

[DUKIE V(A)]

At the end of regulation the SFA player clearly stepped out of bounds before saving it back inbounds, prior to Stanley missing the jump shot. The announcer's take on this was that Duke was really fortunate that Stanley missed the shot, because had it gone in the win would have been mired with controversy over the ref missing the out of bounds. Of course, there was no mention of the fact that we should have been inbounding the ball with a couple seconds left on the clock.

I caught that. Let’s face it, we are lucky when we get all the calls and lucky when we don’t. 😂

[WHOneedsSOX]

This biggest issue with this team can be found in the box score. 7 total points from the bench/upperclassmen. They are getting absolutely nothing from the guys who have been on the roster the longest and should be leaders.

Those guys aren't scorers though. You're lucky to get 2 points out of Javin. You're lucky to get 2 points out of White. That's it. Baker can't do anything to earn minutes.

Forgot about O'Connell. He should be able to get at least 5-7 a game off the bench. Didn't see the first 30 minutes of the game so no idea why he only played 6 minutes.

[dukelifer]

1) SFA deserved every moment of joy from that win. They earned it. They outplayed us by a lot

2) That said, they were the 263rd ranked team in KenPom coming off a 12 point loss to Rutgers. This is Duke's worst loss in my more than 30 years as a Duke fan. Look, I get it, there are other bad performances, etc. But the relative talent differential here - I mean its not like SFA and Duke are in the same ballpark re: recruiting - and that it was it home makes it worse.

3) Even when we built our 15 point lead, we weren't really playing well. Sloppy turnovers, and our defense was letting them get to the rim at will

4) Again, they were great. But we shouldn't lost to that team

5) For those saying, "we will learn from this". OK. I agree. But learn what?. I thought the effort we gave was great. Some of our decisionmaking was careless, so that could improve. We could hit some more FTS. But, I meI gean, what do we learn?

6) I gave up taking real joy in rivals' losses years ago, because no one will remember in a week that Evansville beat Kentucky at Rupp, but we'll here about SFA's win for the next 20 years. I'm just hoping we get a good run out of this team so that this doesn't become the most memorable moment of the season.

7) This team plays hard. May not always play well, but they play hard. That's a good quality
Duke has not had a team quite like this since Johnny Dawkins Freshman year- so many young guys and not much upperclass leadership and scoring punch. SFA may not be at Duke’s level but those players have played more games together. This team is growing and when they play more experienced teams- their lack of playing time as a team will continue to be an issue. There is no one at the level of the best player on the last several Duke teams- no Zion, no Parker, no Tatum, no Ingram. This Duke team would be pummeled by those other teams at this point. Duke is an elite program compared to SFA but experience matters when you don’t have superstars. The team will get better but it will be a long process.

[dukelifer]

Duke was 27.5 point favorite. What a pay off that would have been.
https://www.espn.com/mens-college-basketball/story/_/id/28173079/stephen-f-austin-hands-duke-first-nonconference-loss-home-2000

Never bet on sports. Stuff happens.

[proelitedota]

Mechanically the biggest flaw with this year team is the lack of a secondary ball handler. Everything else that transpired tonight is immediately fixable. Lack of secondary ball handler is not.

[freshmanjs]

Mechanically the biggest flaw with this year team is the lack of a secondary ball handler. Everything else that transpired tonight is immediately fixable. Lack of secondary ball handler is not.

Free throw shooting is immediately fixable?

[Duke4life92]

Oh my! Was the last play a summary of the game? Tre passes to Hurt underneath -- he bobbles it like a first-grader -- SFA guy grabs the ball but is lying on his back -- we stand around watching -- he passes out to Bain, thank you very much, who dribbles the length of the court and makes a layup at the buzzer.

Well Bain did get to dribble out twice or was I seeing things? Think there's a word for that lol Oh well, next play.

[Duke4life92]

He did. He dribbled the ball to gain possession. Then caught the ball with two hands. Then started dribbling again. Double dribble.
Yup thought isaw that aswell.

[UrinalCake]

Mechanically the biggest flaw with this year team is the lack of a secondary ball handler. Everything else that transpired tonight is immediately fixable. Lack of secondary ball handler is not.

That is a much better statement of the point I was trying to make earlier, which is that we are too reliant on Tre to be the only guy who can initiate the offense. When he gets taken out of the game through double teams or just not being able to beat his man, we have no other offense.

I guess I would argue your point that everything else is immediately fixable. I don't think that players magically become better free throw shooters seven games into a season. I also think our interior defense is going to be an ongoing struggle all season.

[Steven43]

Sorry, I was just talking about Duke upsets based on the post I was replying to, not anybody. I'm sure there have been bigger upsets elsewhere I've got to imagine.

I don’t see why this should be considered such an upset, other than having the game at Cameron. The season is barely getting started. Duke has a bunch of freshmen playing major minutes. This Blue Devils team is hardly a juggernaut. You don’t win games by comparing recruiting class rankings.

Might turn out to be a blessing in disguise. We shall see.

[proelitedota]

That is a much better statement of the point I was trying to make earlier, which is that we are too reliant on Tre to be the only guy who can initiate the offense. When he gets taken out of the game through double teams or just not being able to beat his man, we have no other offense.

I guess I would argue your point that everything else is immediately fixable. I don't think that players magically become better free throw shooters seven games into a season. I also think our interior defense is going to be an ongoing struggle all season.

For the FT, today was a fluke. We're a decent team at the line before the game. As for interior defense, we just need coaching. Our defense have improved within the season. I also think tonight was a fluke defensively.

[Acymetric]

Maybe K was just trying to take some heat off of Coach Cut ;)

[KandG]

In the big picture, this is a pretty bad (but not totally inexplicable) loss by a flawed young team, one that can be overcome given it's early in the season. Especially with such a wide open field in college basketball.

For now though, it's Duke's equivalent of UMBC, losing a non-conference game at home to such a huge underdog with a massive streak finally broken. Social media is having a field day with the way the game ended. We're going to be seeing that footage of the game winning layup on a loop all season, whether we like it or not.

With any luck, we'll overcome it the same way Virginia did (though realistically I'd be happy to make it to the second weekend of the tournament given the issues this team has).

[kako]

5 thoughts...

1. SFA was clearly the better team all game. They deserved the win.

2. The non-con streak is gone. Sucks, really sucks. I was at the Vermont game in the Parker/Hood year, that was close, too. The streak was bound to end. But I believe Duke's record at home against non-con is xxx-3 dating back to 1983 (loss to Louisville). Time to start another streak.

3. FTs. Point to anything else if you want (individual players, coaching decisions, etc.), but being terrible from the line in the 2nd half is what lost this game.

4. I thought about it briefly today - is this a trap game? Just won in MSG, pulled out a solid win against the Hoyas. SFA isn't a great team, but they have had success over the years, going to the tourney. I don't know if any of these guys were on the team that won a game in 2015, but that kind of confidence would help... Nah, I said to myself. Can't happen... WRONG.

5. Ultimately, I think this loss helps this team. They now realize their sh*t actually does stink.

9F

[simplyluvin]

Trying desperately not to overreact, but this team is one of the most flawed I’ve seen in a while. Tre is many amazing things, but he is not a go-to offensive option when the game is on the line. We really don’t have one. This team feels somewhere between Scheyer’s freshman year and the 2016 team. Ten or eleven losses seems right. We are who we are. I don’t see massive improvement over the course of the season to be a legit contender. It’s going to be a long season.

[Steven43]

Maybe K was just trying to take some heat off of Coach Cut ;)

Wait just a minute there, pal. Is this your clever way of suggesting Duke replace BOTH of them?? Maybe with Matt Doherty and Jason Garrett? We kid because we care.

[uh_no]

Do you think there is an exception to the general TSA rules that would allow me to bring a bottle of vodka through security tomorrow morning at 5am? It may be necessary. I think they would understand. I'll wear a duke shirt.

[Steven43]

Trying desperately not to overreact, but this team is one of the most flawed I’ve seen in a while. Tre is many amazing things, but he is not a go-to offensive option when the game is on the line. We really don’t have one. This team feels somewhere between Scheyer’s freshman year and the 2016 team. Ten or eleven losses seems right. We are who we are. I don’t see massive improvement over the course of the season to be a legit contender. It’s going to be a long season.

Thank you, sir/madam, for the uplifting thoughts! 👍🏻

[Acymetric]

For the FT, today was a fluke. We're a decent team at the line before the game. As for interior defense, we just need coaching. Our defense have improved within the season. I also think tonight was a fluke defensively.

I'm going to challenge this a bit. This FT performance was only slightly worse than our season average, and not even our worset performance of the season.


Kansas: 60.9%
Colorado State 61.1%
Central Arkansas 85.7%
Georgia State 58.6%
California 74.2%
Georgetown 72.4%
Stephen F. Austin 60.0%

[ChillinDuke]

Can't sleep. Decided I needed to post to blow off some steam.

At the end of the day, I'm not super pissed about the loss. SFA played really well, on both sides. We played very poorly, on both sides. In the end, I don't care about KenPom rankings and names of schools, a loss like this is going to happen at some point in 20 years. From a statistical perspective, it's probably more a function of luck than anything that it hasn't happened to us in so long, taking nothing away from the many players, assistant coaches, etc that kept this streak alive for so long.

That said, the thing that struck me the hardest throughout most of the game was that K didn't seem to be doing anywhere near enough to free us up. Both offensively and defensively. This felt like a game where K would find a way to win, whether it was in the flow with a bench player that gives us a spark, or on a sideline out of bounds play, or underneath out of bounds play, or an offensive wrinkle, or zone, etc, etc, etc. That lack of trying something really stood out to me. It was painfully obvious to anyone watching that we were struggling and the guys out there for the last seemingly 15 minutes of game time just didn't have it.

I understand that in trying something, you could blow the game. And sometimes you just want to ride your best players and eek out a win. But this didn't feel like that to me.

Look, I'm no K. But it just felt like let's go down punching with something rather than fade a lineup that had nothing of substance going for it on either end of the ball. Me personally? I would have tried Jones, Goldwire, Stanley, White, and Carey, told the bigs to crash the boards along with Stanley, taken Jones off the main defensive assignment, thrown in some zone, and tried to free off ball threes with some screens and stop running pick and roll with Jones that was sticking the ball and coming up empty time and again. But what the heck do I know. I'm not really an X's and O's guy. But maybe that's the point. K is, and it felt like he just let these guys sink tonight.

In the end, major props to SFA for what really was a gutty, well played game. I take solace in the fact that it does appear to be wide open this year, that we already notched some solid wins (including the monster blowouts), and that this hopefully teaches these kids what a first round NCAAT matchup can look and feel like.

But man, that stunk. Time to get better.

- Chillin

[brevity]

This is the first time in ten years I have been blacked out and couldn’t find away around it. I asked in chat and got zero advice which pissed me off.

This surprised me, because I remember being under the impression your problem was taken care of. So I looked at the chat archive, and when you said "Thanks for the help" I did not detect the sarcasm and took it literally instead. I assumed someone had indeed helped you, but did not scroll up to make sure.

At the beginning of chat (when Notre Dame was playing Fairleigh Dickinson) I said that I was watching on my desktop using foxsportsgo.com, but that only worked because my cable provider was broadcasting the Notre Dame and Duke games on a pair of Fox Sports channels.

I don't know if I could have solved your problem -- a couple of ACCN games have streamed live on regular YouTube, for example -- but I would have tried. I'm sorry.

[proelitedota]

Look, I'm no K. But it just felt like let's go down punching with something rather than fade a lineup that had nothing of substance going for it on either end of the ball. Me personally? I would have tried Jones, Goldwire, Stanley, White, and Carey, told the bigs to crash the boards along with Stanley, taken Jones off the main defensive assignment, thrown in some zone, and tried to free off ball threes with some screens and stop running pick and roll with Jones that was sticking the ball and coming up empty time and again. But what the heck do I know. I'm not really an X's and O's guy. But maybe that's the point. K is, and it felt like he just let these guys sink tonight.
- Chillin

"The greatest teacher, failure is"
-K

[DUKIE V(A)]

Trying desperately not to overreact, but this team is one of the most flawed I’ve seen in a while. Tre is many amazing things, but he is not a go-to offensive option when the game is on the line. We really don’t have one. This team feels somewhere between Scheyer’s freshman year and the 2016 team. Ten or eleven losses seems right. We are who we are. I don’t see massive improvement over the course of the season to be a legit contender. It’s going to be a long season.

This team has exceeded my expectations so far in terms of how good it can be if our guys continue to develop. Carey is playing like an All-American, and Tre is as good an overall point guard as there is in the country. Lots of room for growth in Hurt, Moore, and Stanley. True that tonight’s loss was unexpected, but also true that college basketball is as wide open as ever. The team could lose 10 games and still win it all.

[proelitedota]

I am looking forward to Friday's game. I expect some adversity in the first half. How we overcome the adversity determines the season.

[Kedsy]

I didn't see the game, and I haven't read the thread, but it appears from the stats that this game was all about Duke's live ball turnovers.

OFFENSE

Possessions: 84.0 (translates to 74.7 in a 40 minute game)
oRtg: 0.99 (somewhat bad for the 2nd straight game)
eFG%: 54.6% (pretty good)
3pt%: 33.3% (not good, not horrible, for this Duke team)
2pt%: 56.4% (not bad)
%threes: 27.8% (low, but we weren't shooting them that well, so...)
FT rate: 74.1% (outrageously good; with this many free throws attempted, it's really unfortunate we only connected on 60%; despite that, fourth straight strong performance getting to the line)
OR%: 34.3% (not great, not terrible)
TO%: 26.2% (really bad, second straight worst TO performance of the season; fourth 20+ TO% of the season in seven games)
a/to: 0.95:1 (not good)
%assisted: 77.8% (more than three fourths of our baskets came off of assists)
fast break pts: 16 (19.3% of points; good not great)

DEFENSE

dRtg: 1.01 (second straight worst ppp of the season, first time we've been over 1 ppp)
eFG%: 50.0% (not good)
3pt%: 20.0% (great)
2pt%: 53.1% (poor; 2nd straight clunker in this regard; but I'm assuming this number was elevated due to fast breaks off of live ball turnovers)
%threes: 13.5% (outstanding; six of our seven opponents have taken fewer than 30% of their shots from three)
FT rate: 23.0% (pretty good)
DR%: 72.0% (only 2nd game we've gathered less than 77% of available defensive rebounds, but not bad)
TO%: 16.7% (by far our worst defensive TO performance of the season)
a/to: 1.21:1 (first time our opponents have been above 0.72:1 this season)
%assisted: 47.2%
stl%: 9.5% (fourth straight so-so steals performance)
blk%: 18.9% (21.9% of 2pt shots) (yowza)
fast break pts: 26 (30.6% of points; horrendous)


Like I say, I'm assuming we had lots of live ball turnovers which led to lots of fast breaks for SFA, which led to a higher-than-appreciated two-point FG%. We didn't force that many turnovers, either (at least compared to our previous six games). As we saw in our final game of last season, turning the ball over a lot while not turning over our opponent very much is a recipe for disaster.

That said, other than our turnover numbers on both sides of the ball (along with related numbers like fast break points and two-point FG%), our advanced numbers were actually pretty good. This was like the opposite of the Kansas game.

[KandG]

Look, I'm no K. But it just felt like let's go down punching with something rather than fade a lineup that had nothing of substance going for it on either end of the ball. Me personally? I would have tried Jones, Goldwire, Stanley, White, and Carey, told the bigs to crash the boards along with Stanley, taken Jones off the main defensive assignment, thrown in some zone, and tried to free off ball threes with some screens and stop running pick and roll with Jones that was sticking the ball and coming up empty time and again. But what the heck do I know. I'm not really an X's and O's guy. But maybe that's the point. K is, and it felt like he just let these guys sink tonight.

In the end, major props to SFA for what really was a gutty, well played game. I take solace in the fact that it does appear to be wide open this year, that we already notched some solid wins (including the monster blowouts), and that this hopefully teaches these kids what a first round NCAAT matchup can look and feel like.


- Chillin

Great post. I wasn't able to watch the game because of ACCN nonsense (not carried by my cable provider), but one thing that struck me was how limited Javin's contribution was statistically, and though he was decent vs Georgetown, I expected a bit more out of him then too. I knew we could struggle with our limited shooting, but before this season, I envisioned that Javin could anchor a defense-heavy small bench lineup with Carey out of the game, similar to Amile-led lineups in 2015 with Jah on the bench. I never envisioned we would give up 64 points in the paint to a bottom third non-conference team at home with the players we had, whatever their limitations.

Sounds like K didn't tinker too much, but I expect that will have to change from now on.

[Pomona]

Still waiting for Hurt to dive on that loose ball.


HIGH SCHOOL

Five-star recruit
Ranked No. 10 overall in the ESPN 100 and the No. 2 power forward
Top-ranked player in Minnesota
2019 McDonald’s All-American
Averaged 37.4 points and 12.4 rebounds per game as a senior
Earned Associated Press Player of the Year for the state of Minnesota
Finished with 3,550 career points and 1,451 career rebounds at John Marshall
Continues a recent trend of Duke players from the state of Minnesota with brothers Tyus and Tre Jones (Apple Valley) and Gary Trent Jr.,who played at Apple Valley HS before transferring to Prolific Prep in California
Chose Duke over North Carolina, Kentucky and Kansas

[Acymetric]

I didn't see the game, and I haven't read the thread, but it appears from the stats that this game was all about Duke's live ball turnovers.

OFFENSE

Possessions: 84.0 (translates to 74.7 in a 40 minute game)
oRtg: 0.99 (somewhat bad for the 2nd straight game)
eFG%: 54.6% (pretty good)
3pt%: 33.3% (not good, not horrible, for this Duke team)
2pt%: 56.4% (not bad)
%threes: 27.8% (low, but we weren't shooting them that well, so...)
FT rate: 74.1% (outrageously good; with this many free throws attempted, it's really unfortunate we only connected on 60%; despite that, fourth straight strong performance getting to the line)
OR%: 34.3% (not great, not terrible)
TO%: 26.2% (really bad, second straight worst TO performance of the season; fourth 20+ TO% of the season in seven games)
a/to: 0.95:1 (not good)
%assisted: 77.8% (more than three fourths of our baskets came off of assists)
fast break pts: 16 (19.3% of points; good not great)

DEFENSE

dRtg: 1.01 (second straight worst ppp of the season, first time we've been over 1 ppp)
eFG%: 50.0% (not good)
3pt%: 20.0% (great)
2pt%: 53.1% (poor; 2nd straight clunker in this regard; but I'm assuming this number was elevated due to fast breaks off of live ball turnovers)
%threes: 13.5% (outstanding; six of our seven opponents have taken fewer than 30% of their shots from three)
FT rate: 23.0% (pretty good)
DR%: 72.0% (only 2nd game we've gathered less than 77% of available defensive rebounds, but not bad)
TO%: 16.7% (by far our worst defensive TO performance of the season)
a/to: 1.21:1 (first time our opponents have been above 0.72:1 this season)
%assisted: 47.2%
stl%: 9.5% (fourth straight so-so steals performance)
blk%: 18.9% (21.9% of 2pt shots) (yowza)
fast break pts: 26 (30.6% of points; horrendous)


Like I say, I'm assuming we had lots of live ball turnovers which led to lots of fast breaks for SFA, which led to a higher-than-appreciated two-point FG%. We didn't force that many turnovers, either (at least compared to our previous six games). As we saw in our final game of last season, turning the ball over a lot while not turning over our opponent very much is a recipe for disaster.

That said, other than our turnover numbers on both sides of the ball (along with related numbers like fast break points and two-point FG%), our advanced numbers were actually pretty good. This was like the opposite of the Kansas game.

Good analysis, but I think the FT shooting is what doomed us. Yes, there were a lot of live-ball turnovers, but SFA was (if I recall correctly) the #1 team in TO% in the country. Obviously not against Duke-level competition, but I don't think it is surprising we turned the ball over more than we would like given that appears to be a key part of SFA's identity. Not making them pay for the many, many​ fouls was the killer.

[AZLA]

Well Bain did get to dribble out twice or was I seeing things? Think there's a word for that lol Oh well, next play.

Sorta... Jack clearly reached in and swatted the ball/arm harm -- then pulled back not wanting to draw a whistle. It's why he was out of position to contend the layup. In reality, it could/should have been a reach in foul by White. Two shots from the charity line. Same result. It wasn't like the Auburn/Virginia championship game last year. Now that was bad reffing. Auburn won the popular vote ;) .

[CarmenWallaceWade]

First Duke game for my 7 year old who has become a really big fan. Let’s call it a slightly difficult one to experience live. Guy two rows behind us caught the ball SFU player threw into the stands.

Those were my main takeaways.

[uh_no]

First Duke game for my 7 year old who has become a really big fan. Let’s call it a slightly difficult one to experience live. Guy two rows behind us caught the ball SFU player threw into the stands.

Those were my main takeaways.

was hoping for a tech there at the end :)

[Kedsy]

Could easily have 3 losses by the end of next week. Early to start thinking about seeding in the tournament, but it might not be favorable for us.


The better team won. It’s going to be a rough season.


Trying desperately not to overreact, but this team is one of the most flawed I’ve seen in a while. Tre is many amazing things, but he is not a go-to offensive option when the game is on the line. We really don’t have one. This team feels somewhere between Scheyer’s freshman year and the 2016 team. Ten or eleven losses seems right. We are who we are. I don’t see massive improvement over the course of the season to be a legit contender. It’s going to be a long season.

Can't wait to read what you guys say after Duke's second loss.


For the FT, today was a fluke. We're a decent team at the line before the game. As for interior defense, we just need coaching. Our defense have improved within the season. I also think tonight was a fluke defensively.

We came into the game ranked 214th in the country in free throw percentage, at 68.1%. So while it's true that if we'd shot our average from the stripe we'd theoretically had three more points and probably would have won the game, the difference between 68% and 60% doesn't sound fluky to me. It sounds like a fairly normal one-game variance.


Bootsie Thornton is the saddest man in America.

Post of the day.

[duke2x]

All that last play needed was a dancing bear on a unicycle.

Has Red Panda ever played halftime at Cameron? I've seen her just about everywhere else in the ACC.


Was it just me or did that game winning full court lay up play out as if it was in slow motion? Never seen anything like it

Too soon, but Tractor Traylor with Michigan in 1996. I've been to the last 4 non-conference losses. Michigan and SFA ended remarkably similar.


1) SFA deserved every moment of joy from that win. They earned it. They outplayed us by a lot

2) That said, they were the 263rd ranked team in KenPom coming off a 12 point loss to Rutgers. This is Duke's worst loss in my more than 30 years as a Duke fan. Look, I get it, there are other bad performances, etc. But the relative talent differential here - I mean its not like SFA and Duke are in the same ballpark re: recruiting - and that it was it home makes it worse.

4) Again, they were great. But we shouldn't lost to that team.

Again, too soon, but Wagner 1983 comes to mind. I think that was 36 years ago--the last time we lost to a midmajor in Cameron. I absolutely agree with #1 and #4.


First Duke game for my 7 year old who has become a really big fan. Let’s call it a slightly difficult one to experience live. Guy two rows behind us caught the ball SFU player threw into the stands. Those were my main takeaways.

It sounds like he may have a bright future as an assistant coach at Wake Forest. (1995 Wake game if you're wondering except the ball wasn't caught by the old couple.)

For those of you living in NC, you will want to remember Wofford (2017). That was UNC's last home loss to a midmajor, and I don't think any power will ever come close to that 36 year mark in my lifetime (nor the 2000-2019 overall streak). It was really painful to watch it end that way. I figured it would be safe until the next ACC-B10 challenge for sure. Next play.

[InSpades]

I can't say I watched the whole game (cause honestly, I couldn't bear to watch...) however...

Congrats to SFA for playing a really strong game. They deserved to win.

How do you constantly get beat inside by a team that shot 2 of 10 from 3? I get that we are a pressure defensive team but... pressure the guy w/ the ball in the lane. We also gave way too many easy transition baskets.

On offense... way too many turnovers and obviously the missed free throws.

Better to lose in November than in March... but we should never lose to SFA at home.

[mitch84]

Wagner 1983 comes to mind. I think that was 36 years ago--the last time we lost to a midmajor in Cameron.

So a loss a decade, four since I stood in the stands and watched us lose to Wagner (with their horrendously ugly green uniforms) as a junior. We were a young, inexperienced team, led by a young, mostly inexperienced head coach. Overall, it's kind of a good run, no?

This team has played and won big games on a big stage--the '83 team was almost incapable of winning. And oh, the coach is a bit better now.

I understand the pessimism some have posted, but as one of the older guys here, I'll tell you, it's ok. These guys are talented and Coach K will help them improve from the mistakes made tonight. A loss like this is fantastic for learning, and better to do that now than in February. Enjoy the evolution of this team and watch K develop it as the season moves forward. The bumps make it interesting! Happy Thanksgiving!

[HereBeforeCoachK]

So glad I was busy and didn't watch. Sounds like a LOT of problems tonight....but all the problems aside, you still win this game with any kind of decent FT shooting, and that's really an inexcusable performance. No way a college team should go 11-24 in a half. I mean, FT shooting is just not that hard. That's 13 points plus however many front ends they missed.....they left something like 17-20 points on the table just on that one factor alone. Get half of those, and there's almost no way to lose the game.

[Dukehk]

SF austin deserved to win that game, but I thought there was a kickball by their player when Tre Jones lost it on our last possession.

Nitpicking but it seemed clear to me.

Nonetheless, hopefully this is a wake up call for this team. We all knew there would be growing pains. Im just surprised it came against SF austin!

[mattyoung18]

Our good luck charm wasn't there.DAKICH!!!

[kshepinthehouse]

Credit to SF Austin, they took us out of everything we usually do well. They didn't turn the ball over but instead forced us into doing so, they got the ball into the paint with ease and converted over and over. Our offense was really stagnant and predictable. Even when all their guys were in foul trouble we couldn't take advantage.

Our defense when we don't create turnovers is the biggest area of concern for me moving forward. For the first 30 minutes I might say we weren't taking our opponent seriously enough, but for the last 15 that shouldn't be an excuse.

I agree with your second paragraph. I feel like a lot of people are excited about the D this year. I’m wondering if it’s really not as good as it looks. We’ve had stout defensive teams in November/December who couldn’t get stops to save their lives once they got into the conference schedule. We will start playing better and better teams who won’t turn the ball over as much, then what will we do? A couple of our games the other team shot really well when they didn’t turn it over.

The sky isn’t falling, but color me concerned about this particular Duke team.

[kshepinthehouse]

Tre played terrible down the stretch but he was gassed. This was a team loss which includes Coach K and the complete absence of leadership from most of the upperclassmen on the roster.

Our upperclassmen just aren’t that talented. In the old days, your upperclassmen were also your best players.

[lotusland]

I was afraid of this...

9979

[DevilYouKnow]

How many times did we not back on dee fast enough? I lost count at a hundred.

Was Vernon Carey sick? Coach K was subbing him in and out in the 2nd half like he had no energy. And his free throw shooting was illin’.

Why was I okay with their victory scrum back at the bench? They were celebrating a well earned win for the ages and I couldn’t help but feel a little joy for them, despite my overwhelming sports grief.

How will we respond to this? That will determine the real damage of this game, or show it as the blip it can be if we dig deep.

Yeah, I was there and it was a stunned Cameron.

[kshepinthehouse]

Thank you, sir/madam, for the uplifting thoughts! 👍🏻

Nothing wrong with being realistic. I agree, I see 10-11 losses realistically. And if we don’t have that many, I would think it would be more because college basketball is down, not this team being so good.

I’m just as big of a Duke fan as anyone on here, and I will cheer like heck for this team, but I don’t see anything wrong with being realistic. This team has more one dimensional players than I remember many other past Duke teams having.

[kshepinthehouse]

Can't sleep. Decided I needed to post to blow off some steam.

At the end of the day, I'm not super pissed about the loss. SFA played really well, on both sides. We played very poorly, on both sides. In the end, I don't care about KenPom rankings and names of schools, a loss like this is going to happen at some point in 20 years. From a statistical perspective, it's probably more a function of luck than anything that it hasn't happened to us in so long, taking nothing away from the many players, assistant coaches, etc that kept this streak alive for so long.

That said, the thing that struck me the hardest throughout most of the game was that K didn't seem to be doing anywhere near enough to free us up. Both offensively and defensively. This felt like a game where K would find a way to win, whether it was in the flow with a bench player that gives us a spark, or on a sideline out of bounds play, or underneath out of bounds play, or an offensive wrinkle, or zone, etc, etc, etc. That lack of trying something really stood out to me. It was painfully obvious to anyone watching that we were struggling and the guys out there for the last seemingly 15 minutes of game time just didn't have it.

I understand that in trying something, you could blow the game. And sometimes you just want to ride your best players and eek out a win. But this didn't feel like that to me.

Look, I'm no K. But it just felt like let's go down punching with something rather than fade a lineup that had nothing of substance going for it on either end of the ball. Me personally? I would have tried Jones, Goldwire, Stanley, White, and Carey, told the bigs to crash the boards along with Stanley, taken Jones off the main defensive assignment, thrown in some zone, and tried to free off ball threes with some screens and stop running pick and roll with Jones that was sticking the ball and coming up empty time and again. But what the heck do I know. I'm not really an X's and O's guy. But maybe that's the point. K is, and it felt like he just let these guys sink tonight.

In the end, major props to SFA for what really was a gutty, well played game. I take solace in the fact that it does appear to be wide open this year, that we already notched some solid wins (including the monster blowouts), and that this hopefully teaches these kids what a first round NCAAT matchup can look and feel like.

But man, that stunk. Time to get better.

- Chillin

There in lies the problem with this team to me. If you put Goldwire and White out there, now you have two black holes offensively. Jones isn’t a great shooter so now you can sag off those three and really pack it in vs Carey. The problem is that too many of our players are one dimensional.

Javin-good at providing energy and fouling a lot
Goldwire-pressing/Helter/skelter defense
Baker-3 point shooting; not much else
Alex-shooting, not much else
Jack-defense/toughness/rebounding
Hurt-scoring

Jones may be our best all around player but even his D is better than his offense. I believe we have too many one dimensional players to fit together to make a great team.

[Saratoga2]

Back up early after a late night or restlessness. I think there have been many good points made throughout the thread. I try to summarize them here for my own purposes and don't suppose I know what to suggest in the way of fixes.

The point has been made that we looked like a tired team, especially in the second half and particularly Tre. Small wonder as he played the entire game and was under defensive pressure constantly and tried to remainn very actice defensively throughout. In the second half our coaches appeared to think that the main 5 contributors, who were tired, were a better group than using substitutions, like Goldwire, AOC, Baker and DeLaurier. Somehow, SFA looked fresher than we.

We appeared stagnant on offense and seemed to have no adjustments on defense to stop penetration, to slow their fast break and to defend the back cut. By we, I mean the team and that includes adjustments by the coaching staff. There was a brief try to zone. Nothing worked very well.

Offense:

Mainly Tre got the ball, dribbled to the right side often under pressure and had problems with TO's. It appeared the approach was to get the ball inside to Carey and we did that but SFA often countered by hard fouling and Carey was not efficient with his FT shooting. others tried to penetrate and SFA tightened up the perimeter and slapped the ball away or fouled. It doesn't appear we have players who are adept at penetrating when the defense is as active as they were. One good thing is that Hurt was efficient scoring last night although thephysicality botherred him and the others as well. SFA were getting back quickly so limited our fast break opportunities.

Poor FT shooting, and a lack of either penetration or many attempts to shoot over them made us appear stagnant and Tre appeared out on his feet toward the end and in OT.

Defense:

SFA was able to penetrate in the half court, even splitting double teams. We started running 3 guys at the penetrator leaving room for a cutter to get behind for easy baskets. Perhaps we are just young, but I saw no adjustment other than a short attempt at zoning. This is something Duke needs to fix as other teams will exploit us going forard. Our defenders need to rotate to pick up the pick up the back cutter.

We turned the ball over way to much and were caught flat footed on the defense with sfa sending a man or men and our defenders unable to get back. No adjustment there either and perhaps with no fresh legs and our guys caught up inside we were vulnerable. We also had only a small rebounding advantage (almost none) and SFA were even getting run outs on some of those. We looked tired.

Inside players for SFA were able to get some baskets the old fashioned back to the basket way, similar but not as often as Yurtseven did in the previous game. Are we playing soft inside to avoid fouls?

Seems like there are many areas to work on. The coaches can use the lessons learned from this game although I don't know what they can come up with. It was only a 2 point loss in OT so not the end of the earth but it did expose our weaknesses.

[rocketeli]

Didn't see that coming! I agree with a lot of the other posters--this one's on the coaching staff. No discernible game plan, no adjustments to stop the penetration, poor play calling, Danny Manning level of substitutions. Did K let some ambitious assistant fall on his face to shut him up? One wonders. But thank goodness it's November. Learn from this and get better.

[Devilwin]

We did beat Kansas. So maybe last night was an anomaly...

[accfanfrom1970]

SFA played 11 guys, 8 of them double digit minutes. None of the 8 was a freshman.

Duke only played 6 guys double digit minutes, 4 were freshman. Tre played all 45 minutes.

We got out hussled, out executed, out coached in that I don’t think any adjustments were made. Just an all around wretched performance exacerbated by awful 2nd half free throw shooting that was probably even worse when you factor in missed front half’s of one and ones.

All that to say who steps up? What does the staff do in response? All of the ACC teams will have equal or better talent than SFA, we need to figure out quickly who we are. Many were thinking we could hang our hat on being a strong defensive team, with depth. We got exposed defensively by SFA and resorted back to a 6 man rotation.

And free throws, again.

[HereBeforeCoachK]

I was afraid of this...

9979

Hah, especially since in today's parlance, F initial carries a particular connotation....

[uh_no]

How many times did we not back on dee fast enough? I lost count at a hundred. Live ball turnovers will do that for you


Was Vernon Carey sick? Coach K was subbing him in and out in the 2nd half like he had no energy. And his free throw shooting was illin’. Vernon isn't going to be able to go much more than 30, and I think it showed getting there is even a stretch. Expecting huge minutes from freshman big men is always a gamble, and we've been spoiled the past couple years in that regard....but get used to vernon needing rest.



Why was I okay with their victory scrum back at the bench? They were celebrating a well earned win for the ages and I couldn’t help but feel a little joy for them, despite my overwhelming sports grief. I can't imagine anyone would deny then that. you come into the most hallowed ground in college basketball and beat the #1 team in the country on a buzzer beater in OT? I won't say I wasn't hoping a little bit for a T for chucking the ball into the crowd, though.


How will we respond to this? That will determine the real damage of this game, or show it as the blip it can be if we dig deep.


hopefully having one of our upper classmen step up would be nice.

[Devilwin]

Double dribble for sure.
https://www.cbssports.com/college-basketball/news/duke-vs-sfa-score-no-1-blue-devils-upset-by-lumberjacks-in-stunning-overtime-loss-at-home/

[uh_no]

Double dribble for sure.
https://www.cbssports.com/college-basketball/news/duke-vs-sfa-score-no-1-blue-devils-upset-by-lumberjacks-in-stunning-overtime-loss-at-home/

he didn't have control/possession of the ball for the first "dribble" so it is not.

Also even if it were, the basketball gods sure as heck aren't going to get us that call after the way we played.

[TKG]

"The greatest teacher, failure is"
-K

Hopefully K and staff will learn from this....(snark face emoji)

[Billy Dat]

K's comments...

Opening Statement: “I want to congratulate Stephen F. Austin. They were better. Bottom line. They were tougher than we were. They played with great poise and we helped them. You can’t give up 64 points in the paint. We don’t even give up 64 points and we gave up so many lay-ups. You go 11-for-24 from the foul line in the second half, it’s just a recipe to lose. We weren’t deserving of winning. That team was deserving of winning and they won. To win in overtime on that last play – the last play was really symbolic of eight or nine plays that they had where they had free lay-ups. We did not respond well to winning at New York and no matter what we said to our team, my feeling is they thought they were going to win. I’m not going to say they thought it was going to be easy because nothing is ever easy, but they just assume you’re going to win instead of being in a fight to win. The way the first half went, you could tell that team was well prepared and tough. They’re old and good and well-coached. They have a good tradition. We didn’t respond at timeouts or halftime to a different level of emotion and we lost. It’s a very difficult loss, but if we would have won we would not have been deserving of winning. You’ve got to give credit to them. They were really good. [Kyle Keller]’s a good coach and has a good program. They out played us.”

When asked about SFA forced turnovers: “They won. They forced turnovers. That’s what they do. They force 25 or 26 a ball game. A key factor of the ball game is to be strong with the ball and we were not strong with the ball. That’s the easiest answer. You have to be strong. If someone is going after you hard, you better catch it hard. We were catching it with one hand and trying to make a move. If it’s physical that ball is not coming with you. It’s not a foul. It’s the physicality of the game. You have to catch it. It’s not a game where territory was easy, so you have to fight through. We were not good and they made us that way. This is not about us not showing up. They played really well. Sometimes when I’m talking about what we didn’t do, I don’t want to disrespect their performance. Their performance was outstanding and they deserve their recognition for that. They did it to us. They made us look bad.”

On Kevon Harris: “[Kevon] Harris was killing us. We just tried to do something different. The one kid who’s a good shooter we just left him alone, which is a mistake. He’s their shooter… guard him.”

On not finishing plays: “Some of the free throws... You got to the line for something right by the bucket. We didn’t finish. Vernon [Carey Jr.] was 8-for-10, but he got fouled a lot. When you miss on a foul it doesn’t count as a miss. You start adding free throws and your misses, even if we play the way we played, we win. It’s a matter of toughness. This is not about one play. This is about how we play, which was not very good.”

[Acymetric]

K's comments...


Assuming you didn't transcribe that yourself you should probably edit in a link the source.

[TKG]

In the post game press conference did anyone ask about K about why he chose not to call a timeout at the end of OT? Did anyone ask K why we seemed to ignore VC for long stretches on offense?

[Mtn.Devil.91.92.01.10.15]

Jeez. This is my punishment for not being able to get the game on FoxSportsSouthEasternTexas?

I guess for Thanksgiving this year I should add "I'm thankful this game wasn't four months later."

Disappointing loss, obviously. But November losses won't keep us out of the tournament, and if we learn our lessons, may fuel us to a top seed.

Anyone who thought we were the number one team in the nation has a pretty low opinion of other teams this year.

Next play.

[lotusland]

A TO isn’t always the best strategy when you need a score. Take SAF’s score to put the game in OT. They didn’t call a TO. In bounding the ball against set defense can be a challenge. Our half court offense is bad. There are advantages and disadvantages either way but it’s not a clear mistake. Trusting your experienced PG not to turn the ball over with time on the clock is not bad judgement no matter the result. Hindsight being 20/20 you can always second guess after the fact.

[CrazyNotCrazie]

Based on the excerpts above, I’m surprised K didn’t own this one more as I put much of this on the coaches. Particularly with a young team, I don’t think he put them in the best position to win. Several questionable decisions, poor game management, etc. Perhaps the SFA coach’s fingerprint should be granted access to the top of the tower for the next 24 hours because he was clearly the better coach last night.

And great reference upthread about Traylor for Michigan in 96 as that is exactly what I thought of.

Glad we don’t have much time to linger on this.

[CDu]

Double dribble for sure.
https://www.cbssports.com/college-basketball/news/duke-vs-sfa-score-no-1-blue-devils-upset-by-lumberjacks-in-stunning-overtime-loss-at-home/


he didn't have control/possession of the ball for the first "dribble" so it is not.

Also even if it were, the basketball gods sure as heck aren't going to get us that call after the way we played.

Correct. He didn’t fully gain possession until he grabbed it with both hands. He first “dribble” was just a stab at the loose ball to knock it away from our guys, and this not actually a dribble. The correct call (no-call) was made, unfortunately.

[HereBeforeCoachK]

Based on the excerpts above, I’m surprised K didn’t own this one more as I put much of this on the coaches..

Well, he owned it, but also allowed the players to own a bit of it too....from Wiseman's piece:

“It’s my responsibility, obviously,” Krzyzewski said. “We did not respond well to winning in New York. No matter what we said to our team, my feeling is they thought they were just going to win.”

The Blue Devils (6-1), dejectedly sitting in front of their lockers postgame, swore they didn’t think the game would be easy. Even Krzyzewski doesn’t think they thought that.

[Mtn.Devil.91.92.01.10.15]

Correct. He didn’t fully gain possession until he grabbed it with both hands. He first “dribble” was just a stab at the loose ball to knock it away from our guys, and this not actually a dribble. The correct call (no-call) was made, unfortunately.

At the end of the day, a potential 2OT victory over this team in late November instead of a last moment OT loss isn't worth a botched or controversial call at the buzzer.

We lost. We have a lot to work on. If we are ranked number one again this season, we will have earned it, not gotten it by default.

[Billy Dat]

Assuming you didn't transcribe that yourself you should probably edit in a link the source.

https://goduke.com/documents/2019/11/27//Duke_SFA_Coach_K_Quotes.pdf

[MaxAMillion]

People can focus on 10 different things if they like, but this team will ultimately be undone by free throws (just like last year). The free throw shooting was embarrassing and that will bite them in the tournament again.

[MarkD83]

So everyone is looking up how to spell. Nacogdoches. Coach Ks comments are very enlightening. It seems that the wins in New York made this team feel like they are destined to win and this loss was a good lesson. Over the past many years how many of these has duke won but did not deserve to win. Friday will be interesting to see how this team responds

[wsb3]

The day before Thanksgiving. Gratitude begins with.. Thank you ACCN for blacking out the game. No need to add any more disturbing images in my head. It was bad enough to just keep checking the score on my phone.

[WillJ]

I'd rather lose this game than just about any other game on our schedule. SFA played with great heart and intelligence and, as coach K said, both they and we got what we deserved. Also, my grandmother grew up in Nacogdoches:).
Kevon Harris played an unbelievable game for a guy who is shortish, slowish and doesn't have a jumpshot. Mad props to that guy.

[Kjeffrey]

Well, he owned it, but also allowed the players to own a bit of it too...from Wiseman's piece:

“It’s my responsibility, obviously,” Krzyzewski said. “We did not respond well to winning in New York. No matter what we said to our team, my feeling is they thought they were just going to win.”

The Blue Devils (6-1), dejectedly sitting in front of their lockers postgame, swore they didn’t think the game would be easy. Even Krzyzewski doesn’t think they thought that.

Maybe it wasn't only the players who thought they were just going to win. i kept hoping the coaches would change something up - besides the White and Hurt substitutions. Maybe the reality is there weren't any other viable offensive options. I just kept thinking why aren't we putting in a reliable shooter? And perhaps the answer is the team doesn't have one. I miss the days of a Singler, Scheyer, Reddick.

[TKG]

A TO isn’t always the best strategy when you need a score. Take SAF’s score to put the game in OT. They didn’t call a TO. In bounding the ball against set defense can be a challenge. Our half court offense is bad. There are advantages and disadvantages either way but it’s not a clear mistake. Trusting your experienced PG not to turn the ball over with time on the clock is not bad judgement no matter the result. Hindsight being 20/20 you can always second guess after the fact.

Lotus: While I agree with your message, philosophically, I think the no TO approach might work better with a veteran team; a team that had been through the experience a few times. I would expect a little more situational awareness from K (and staff) in last night's game. We are young, we have been playing poorly in this game (perhaps a bit too fast and disorganized) and the young guys might have benefited from moment to take a deep breath and have K express his confidence in them. IMO, there was no downside to taking a TO in that situation.

[lotusland]

So everyone is looking up how to spell. Nacogdoches. Coach Ks comments are very enlightening. It seems that the wins in New York made this team feel like they are destined to win and this loss was a good lesson. Over the past many years how many of these has duke won but did not deserve to win. Friday will be interesting to see how this team responds

“Everyone in Nacogdoches knew Tom Ames would come to some bad end
Well the sheriff had caught him stealing chickens and such by the time that he was 10
And one day his daddy took a $10 bill and tucked it in his hand
He said “I can tell your headed for trouble son and your momma wouldn’t understand”
So he took that money and his brother’s old Bay and left without a word of thanks,
Fell in with a crowd in some border town and took to robbing banks”

https://youtu.be/rrILtl54UvQ

[weezie]

Nacogdoches is famous for meat pies, too. That's all I gots.

[weezie]

...having one of our upper classmen step up would be nice.

Whatever is going on with White as far as shooting, I'd get him in to hypnosis or biofeedback. His defense is fine and the poor guy was seething on the last call against him. Just red-eyed angry, I've never seen him that furious.

Having a truly viable option for giving Tre a bit of rest wouldn't hurt either. I'm looking at you Goldwire. Heck, how about giving Stanley the ball at point once in a while?

Team, time to step it up big time. Run, run, run, then run some more. Then everybody take 200 FT every single day.
Then repeat.

[Mtn.Devil.91.92.01.10.15]

Whatever is going on with White as far as shooting, I'd get him in to hypnosis or biofeedback. His defense is fine and the poor guy was seething on the last call against him. Just red-eyed angry, I've never seen him that furious.

Having a truly viable option for giving Tre a bit of rest wouldn't hurt either. I'm looking at you Goldwire. Heck, how about giving Stanley the ball at point once in a while?

Team, time to step it up big time. Run, run, run, then run some more. Then everybody take 200 FT every single day.
Then repeat.

I like this. Let's embrace that hardnosed defensive identity that seems right there for the taking. If I wouldn't be banned by our filter, I would quote Marshawn Lynch.

[Gooch]

Nacogdoches is famous for meat pies, too. That's all I gots.

And all-time great US soccer legend Clint Dempsey. SFA played with Dempsey's intensity and toughness last night. They definitely deserved this win.

[SouthernDukie]

People can focus on 10 different things if they like, but this team will ultimately be undone by free throws (just like last year). The free throw shooting was embarrassing and that will bite them in the tournament again.

I won't focus on 10 things (just 3), but you are correct that despite us leveling out to just below our season average FT percentage, the truth is we lost the game in the 2nd half with absolutely abysmal FT shooting. First half we were great at the line as a team. But not after halftime. Started out with Tre making a great steal to open the half and he then misses both free throws. It went downhill from there. You can't shoot 40% (thereabouts) as a team in the 2nd half on FT and expect to win a close game.

Besides 2nd half FT's, I honestly thought we'd hear that the flu bug had hit. Several guys (especially Tre) just seemed to be gassed even early in the 2nd half. SFA ran us off the court, almost literally. I can't recall a game, especially at Cameron, where the opposing team had so many break out layups. It was staggering. And even in the half court, they got into the lane at will. If we weren't physically sick, then we were defensively sick tonight.

The final thing I'll mention, which Coach alluded to, was that we were not strong with the ball. Looked like men against boys much of the game in that regard. They played through contact and we often did not. The ripping of the ball away from Jack White (not picking on him, it happened multiple times) near the end of the game was symbolic of how strong they played all night long.

Tough loss, to say the least.

[OldPhiKap]

“Everyone in Nacogdoches knew Tom Ames would come to some bad end
Well the sheriff had caught him stealing chickens and such by the time that he was 10
And one day his daddy took a $10 bill and tucked it in his hand
He said “I can tell your headed for trouble son and your momma wouldn’t understand”
So he took that money and his brother’s old Bay and left without a word of thanks,
Fell in with a crowd in some border town and took to robbing banks”

https://youtu.be/rrILtl54UvQ

"It's just a country town but patients come
From Mobile to Moline from miles around
Nagodoches to New Orleans
In beat-up old cars or in limousines
To meet the doctor of soul, he's got his very own thing . . . ."

[Devilwin]

Learn from this and get better. I admit my post game comments were a bit rough on the boys. But I was in shock over what I saw last night. I never thought we were really the best team at this point, but we should have handled this team relatively easily. So, it is learn and get better..They better learn fast, because Winthrop may be even better than the Lumberjacks..

[lotusland]

"It's just a country town but patients come
From Mobile to Moline from miles around
Nagodoches to New Orleans
In beat-up old cars or in limousines
To meet the doctor of soul, he's got his very own thing . . . ."

“He was born in Nagodoches; That’s in East Texas, not far from the border. But he liked to tell everybody that he was from Lake Charles”

https://youtu.be/EP9ZFkqt5Lw

[freshmanjs]

I won't focus on 10 things (just 3), but you are correct that despite us leveling out to just below our season average FT percentage, the truth is we lost the game in the 2nd half with absolutely abysmal FT shooting. First half we were great at the line as a team. But not after halftime. Started out with Tre making a great steal to open the half and he then misses both free throws. It went downhill from there. You can't shoot 40% (thereabouts) as a team in the 2nd half on FT and expect to win a close game.

Besides 2nd half FT's, I honestly thought we'd hear that the flu bug had hit. Several guys (especially Tre) just seemed to be gassed even early in the 2nd half. SFA ran us off the court, almost literally. I can't recall a game, especially at Cameron, where the opposing team had so many break out layups. It was staggering. And even in the half court, they got into the lane at will. If we weren't physically sick, then we were defensively sick tonight.

The final thing I'll mention, which Coach alluded to, was that we were not strong with the ball. Looked like men against boys much of the game in that regard. They played through contact and we often did not. The ripping of the ball away from Jack White (not picking on him, it happened multiple times) near the end of the game was symbolic of how strong they played all night long.

Tough loss, to say the least.

At least we are carrying on the tradition of saying the team was sick after every tough loss. That's something!

[FerryFor50]

Well, that game was... something.

I was surprisingly calm after it. Why? Well, it was pretty immediately obvious why Duke lost - FTs and turnovers. They had built a 15 point lead and then started coasting and getting sloppy with the ball.

After that, SFA smelled blood and played as physically as the refs allowed them to play. Lots of bloody jerseys after this one... the best news from this is that despite all the shots taken and awkward falls, no one got hurt. So there's that...

As Bain streaked for the layup, I was of the same opinion as others on this thread... "yup, this is the way they should lose."

Every time Duke made a big shot (the Hurt 3, the Stanley 3, the Jones 3, the Carey putback), SFA came right back with an answer. The heavily contested 3 (shades of Antonio Lang/Scotty Thurman) by Kachelries was kind of the harbinger for things to come.

I do wonder why they weren't attacking Kensmil more with Carey after Kensmil picked up his 4th. Best case scenario, he picks up a 5th and we no longer have to deal with him lowering his shoulder on offense or pushing in the back on rebounds anymore. Worst case, Carey gets an easy layup because Kensmil is backing off. It just seemed like they weren't trying hard enough to get it to Carey in the post, and I don't really recall seeing Carey getting the ball for any face ups to drive against him. Instead, we settled for a couple of shot clock violations in OT. :mad: And there's no way Hurt should have been in there in OT at the end over Carey.

What's promising is that, despite missing 16 FTs and turning it over 22 times, Duke still had a chance to pull it out. Sometimes you run out of rabbit's feet...

As for the complaints about the announcers, sure they were in the bag for SFA. But I didn't feel like it was out of Duke hate - I think that, if you're a broadcaster, you wait for upsets like this your entire career. You might not ever get one as big as SFA over #1 Duke at Cameron. I can't begrudge them because, like SFA, this is their defining moment.

I don't think this is the "worst loss in Duke history" though. It wasn't a loss to UNC. It wasn't a loss in the first round or second round of the NCAAs to Mercer or Lehigh. It wasn't a heartbreaking loss on a missed foul call like the one to Indiana (Boozer was fouled!). I personally don't even think it was as bad as Kentucky losing to Evansville - at least Duke went into OT with a chance to win.

[YmoBeThere]

In the post game press conference did anyone ask about K about why he chose not to call a TO? Did anyone ask K why we seemed to ignore VC for long stretches on offense?

He had seen too many TOs already? So, another one would have been giving tje bqll away unneccessarily?

Yes, I do crack myself up.

[CDu]

I mentioned after the Georgia State game that I was a bit nervous that they had laid out the blueprint for how to play Duke this year: overplay Tre Jones off the ball and attack EVERYONE's dribble. Well, SFA went with that strategy, and it paid off. Tre Jones is the only guy on the team with the confidence and ability to attack off the dribble. Stanley might have the ability but lacks the confidence to do so; Moore has the confidence but might not have the ability to do so; O'Connell is just a wild card at this point. Nobody else appears competent at it. If you can force the ball out of Jones' hands, this team can be had on offense. Last night, that's what happened.

I don't know that I agree with Coach K's implication that the team didn't want it enough last night, simply expecting to win. I mean, I'm sure they expected to win; they were SUPPOSED to win. But I don't think that they played entitled. They played really hard. It's just that SFA did to them what Georgetown and Ga St did, and we just didn't shoot quite as well as we did against Georgetown and we didn't force as many turnovers as we did against either Georgetown or Ga St (especially relative to pace against Ga St). I don't think it was a lack of effort that our forced turnovers were down; SFA just did a better job protecting the ball.

Yes, Jones had a rough night. Several of his turnovers were just bad passes, but most of them were just him trying to create through really aggressive defense because nobody else could create. I agree with others that he was just exhausted. He played 45 minutes, carrying the load on offense and applying full-court defensive pressure. You could see late in the second half and in overtime that he was gassed, and his level of play dropped off. But he was giving it everything he had. You just can't expect a guy to go all-out for 45 minutes (or even 40 minutes) at the most demanding position on the floor without dropoff. Even still, his numbers were pretty darn good: 17 points on 10 FGA, 12 assists, 5 rebounds, 4 steals. The only real negative was the 8 turnovers. But credit to SFA for their defensive aggression, and chide to the Duke team for forcing him to carry the load. Hopefully he rests as much as he can on off-days, because this isn't the last time we're going to ask him to play all-out for 40 minutes in a tough game.

Carey is just a beast. He punishes undersized opponents consistently. But he, too, was getting gassed in the second half. Still, I'm thrilled with what he brings each night. If we can get 30+ minutes out of him a night, that will go a long way towards our success. It's not rocket science to say that he's really good.

Moore had a brutal start to the game, committing 3 first-half turnovers. But he really settled down after that and played under control. He also was really active on defense, getting a ton of deflections. Unfortunately, we just couldn't convert any of those into forced turnovers.

Stanley also seemed to throw it all on the floor tonight, pulling down 5 rebounds, getting 4 blocks and two steals, and making several non-stat hustle plays here and there (one example: saving Jones from a turnover on a tipped entry pass for skying over 2 SFA players to get the ball in the lane). Adding 15 points on 12 FGA and hitting 2 3s was nice as well. He continues to impress. We may need him to start being more aggressive off the dribble, because Jones is still carrying way too much of the load as noted above.

Hurt had a decent game. He hit a few nice shots posting against smaller defenders, and got a nice pick near half court that he calmly converted into a layup. He didn't shoot well from the perimeter, and doesn't add much in other areas of the game though. And he had a few really shaky moments with the ball as SFA attacked his dribble. Still, it was a solid bounceback game overall from him. He's just not likely to ever be a physical presence for us. We just have to hope his shooting/scoring prowess holds up. His biggest value (aside from the shot) is going to be floating on the perimeter to clear space for Carey inside.

White did what White does. Rebounds, toughness, hard work. He doesn't provide much of a threat on offense, though, which got exploited a bit last night. We're going to have to figure out a way to make that work, because his interior toughness is the yin to Hurt's shooting/floor-spacing yang.

Nobody else made their presence felt, unfortunately. DeLaurier played sparingly, but rebounded solidly and blocked a shot. That's about all you can ask. He's just there to give Carey a breather. Baker continued his pattern of being a shooter and nothing more: in games decided by less than 30 points, he has literally generated no rebounds, assists, blocks, or steals in 28 minutes of action. It's hard to see him getting consistent minutes until he can provide more on the floor than just a spot-up shooter (which he has done very well this year).

I will say that the coaches did try a few things. One was switching the assignment on Harris a few times. Originally, Moore was guarding him. That was obviously not working, so they went to Stanley instead. Stanley did okay for a bit. But eventually he got in foul trouble, so they went to Jones. Unfortunately, that only further wore down Jones due to Harris' physicality, and it probably cut down our turnovers forced. I don't know if we generated a single live-ball turnover for the last 15 minutes of regulation or overtime. We even went zone at one point, though that did result in a made 3 for SFA. The only criticism I'd say is that the extended pressure defense against a team that can't shoot but can dribble was probably not the best play when you are only going to play 6 deep.

But, ultimately, I give SFA a ton of credit. They came in with a great gameplan (overplay Jones, be very aggressive against everyone's dribble, run as much as possible) and they executed it. I hope there is a lesson to be learned from this, but I'm not sure what it is. Other than "we need to shoot better" and "we need more guys capable of handling the basketball", neither of which seem likely to improve in the next 3-4 months. Maybe Carey can continue to improve his conditioning to be able to play 30+ mpg in regulation, and we figure out easier ways to get him looks. Maybe Stanley and Moore get more confident and/or poised with their ballhandling to help Jones out. It's gonna be interesting to see how the next few games go.

[Devilwin]

He had seen too many TOs already? So, another one would have been giving tje bqll away unneccessarily?

Yes, I do crack myself up.

We were saving Carey for Winthrop...Cut

[FerryFor50]

He had seen too many TOs already? So, another one would have been giving tje bqll away unneccessarily?

Yes, I do crack myself up.

To be fair, the TO did seem like the only set play they were running all night.

[CDu]

As for the complaints about the announcers, sure they were in the bag for SFA. But I didn't feel like it was out of Duke hate - I think that, if you're a broadcaster, you wait for upsets like this your entire career. You might not ever get one as big as SFA over #1 Duke at Cameron. I can't begrudge them because, like SFA, this is their defining moment.

I agree, and I'll even say that I don't think they were in the bag for SFA either. They screamed positively at times when Duke made big plays too. But, like you said, Duke winning a close game at home against a huge underdog isn't an interesting story. SFA winning in Cameron to break a forever-long streak in a huge upset IS a big story. So it is only natural for the tenor to be a little higher when the underdog does something impressive. SFA's play is what made this game interesting. It's only natural that they would get more of the lauding from the announcers.

[wavedukefan70s]

Well i was a bit in shock .rough 5 days in sports for me.every team of mine lost.my kids team 11-0 gets hammered out the playoffs .my cowboys lose again.now my Devils drop one honestly i took for granted .time to fire the grill up have a few beers and reset .remind myself theres no zion and company.no laettners ,hills ,battier or brands.
Basketball season now begins....

[TKG]

He had seen too many TOs already? So, another one would have been giving tje bqll away unneccessarily?

Yes, I do crack myself up.


My bad. I forgot, for a moment, that this is a Duke board populated by a bunch of folks who either did, or are, majoring in smart I'm a real wanker for saying this.I'm a real wanker for saying this.I'm a real wanker for saying this.. :)

https://www.washingtonpost.com/archive/sports/1984/01/15/devils-advocates-are-out-of-order/f0e4b468-a824-42d7-a901-7beb41cb943c/

[FerryFor50]

I agree, and I'll even say that I don't think they were in the bag for SFA either. They screamed positively at times when Duke made big plays too. But, like you said, Duke winning a close game at home against a huge underdog isn't an interesting story. SFA winning in Cameron to break a forever-long streak in a huge upset IS a big story. So it is only natural for the tenor to be a little higher when the underdog does something impressive. SFA's play is what made this game interesting. It's only natural that they would get more of the lauding from the announcers.

When I say "in the bag," I just meant, "obviously rooting for the upset." I didn't feel like early on they cared either way for SFA. But SFA's effort and play won them over (rightfully so). A lot of people didn't like it because it's bad enough to watch Duke struggle on the floor, but to hear the announcers going gaga over it? Blech.

[azzefkram]

I am surprisingly calm this morning. I do wonder about a few things. I know people are focusing on the FTs and TOs but to me this game was lost at the rim. Duke allowed SFA to take 53 shots at the rim. Some of that was fast break but SFA spent most of the second half driving to the rim. I thought we spent too much effort trying to run them off the 3pt line and not enough protecting the paint. I also thought Vernon was a bit too passive back there, possibly an over-reaction to the foul trouble he got into versus Georgetown.

Maybe I'm missing something, but Duke never seems to run plays on offense. It certainly looked like Tre could have used some help shaking his defender as opposed to pounding the air out of the ball 3ft past the 3pt line. It seems like ball movement is something Duke struggles with.

SFA deserved to win. They played hard. They fouled a ton and dared the refs to call them all. They were faster to the ball, especially in the 2nd half and OT. They saw that Duke couldn't stop them going to the rim so they kept doing it.

Duke is still a top 10, maybe top 5, team in my view. They have an awful lot of talent. Anyone writing off their National Championship possibilities is just being silly in my book. Enjoy Thanksgiving people.

[Chicago 1995]

Can't sleep. Decided I needed to post to blow off some steam.

At the end of the day, I'm not super pissed about the loss. SFA played really well, on both sides. We played very poorly, on both sides. In the end, I don't care about KenPom rankings and names of schools, a loss like this is going to happen at some point in 20 years. From a statistical perspective, it's probably more a function of luck than anything that it hasn't happened to us in so long, taking nothing away from the many players, assistant coaches, etc that kept this streak alive for so long.

That said, the thing that struck me the hardest throughout most of the game was that K didn't seem to be doing anywhere near enough to free us up. Both offensively and defensively. This felt like a game where K would find a way to win, whether it was in the flow with a bench player that gives us a spark, or on a sideline out of bounds play, or underneath out of bounds play, or an offensive wrinkle, or zone, etc, etc, etc. That lack of trying something really stood out to me. It was painfully obvious to anyone watching that we were struggling and the guys out there for the last seemingly 15 minutes of game time just didn't have it.

I understand that in trying something, you could blow the game. And sometimes you just want to ride your best players and eek out a win. But this didn't feel like that to me.

Look, I'm no K. But it just felt like let's go down punching with something rather than fade a lineup that had nothing of substance going for it on either end of the ball. Me personally? I would have tried Jones, Goldwire, Stanley, White, and Carey, told the bigs to crash the boards along with Stanley, taken Jones off the main defensive assignment, thrown in some zone, and tried to free off ball threes with some screens and stop running pick and roll with Jones that was sticking the ball and coming up empty time and again. But what the heck do I know. I'm not really an X's and O's guy. But maybe that's the point. K is, and it felt like he just let these guys sink tonight.

In the end, major props to SFA for what really was a gutty, well played game. I take solace in the fact that it does appear to be wide open this year, that we already notched some solid wins (including the monster blowouts), and that this hopefully teaches these kids what a first round NCAAT matchup can look and feel like.

But man, that stunk. Time to get better.

- Chillin

SFA would have given that lineup real problems defensively. They'd have taken away space on the offensive end because they could ease off White and Goldwire. There'd have been very little space for Carey in the paint, and Tre wouldn't have had any space to create off the dribble. Last night at least, we needed shooters, IMO.

[FerryFor50]

I am surprisingly calm this morning. I do wonder about a few things. I know people are focusing on the FTs and TOs but to me this game was lost at the rim. Duke allowed SFA to take 53 shots at the rim. Some of that was fast break but SFA spent most of the second half driving to the rim. I thought we spent too much effort trying to run them off the 3pt line and not enough protecting the paint. I also thought Vernon was a bit too passive back there, possibly an over-reaction to the foul trouble he got into versus Georgetown.


A couple of times, I saw Vernon Carey, who is listed at 6'10" and blocked 7 shots last night, try to take a charge by getting into the "soccer free kick" stance.

https://d2s0f1q6r2lxto.cloudfront.net/pub/ProTips/wp-content/uploads/2017/10/How-to-set-up-a-wall-in-soccer.jpg

Instead, he should have stood still with his arms straight up to make SFA shoot over him.

But I thought, other than the run outs and offensive rebound putbacks, the SFA shots at the rim were contested pretty well. They were just making a lot of tough shots. Harris hit a couple with 3 guys surrounding him. Then one guy hit one without even looking at the rim as he got fouled.

The run outs, I thought, were mostly a product of the turnovers. Occasionally, they'd get one off a miss, but it was mostly an errant pass that let them outrun the Duke defense because they got a head start. That's why the TOs were so crucial - they killed the ability to defend as effectively.

[SupaDave]

3 Seniors and 5 juniors dominated SFAs playing time. That's all you really need to know. It's precisely the kind of team that's given us problems in this era.

[BigDuke6]

Correct. He didn’t fully gain possession until he grabbed it with both hands. He first “dribble” was just a stab at the loose ball to knock it away from our guys, and this not actually a dribble. The correct call (no-call) was made, unfortunately.

I understand what you are saying but anytime you push the ball to the floor it is a dribble. He pushed a live ball out of the air to the floor. That is an intent to gain possession by dribbling. Which would have been completely legal if he kept dribbling. Instead he took control of the ball with both hands which forfeited his dribble. He then began dribbling again. Double Dribble.

If I am standing and somebody passes me a chest high pass in which I immediately push down to the ground and then grab with two hands. Can I then take off dribbling? No. This case is only different because this pass was deflected. He wasn't trying to knock the ball away as a means to prevent possession, he pushed the ball to advance it because he was moving with the ball.

It doesn't matter we deserved to lose.

[pamtar]

I know we get every team’s best shot but if SFA plays like that on a regular basis they can compete with anyone in the country. Besides FTs and TOs we didn’t play that bad. Stat lines for our starters were off the charts. Vernon and Tre had double-doubles and Carey was 3 blocks shy of a triple double. We out rebounded them and forced our fair share of turnovers as well. SFA just had more energy. They were quicker to the ball throughout the second half.

It also didn’t help that they fouled the crap out of us all night. We should have made the FTs but it’s hard to get a rythym going when your being hacked. Why we didn’t take advantage of their foul trouble is not necessarily on the players. To Their credit though, SFA did a good job of hedging on Carey late and gambling on our shooters.

All in all I’m not too disappointed with this loss. Yeah, it would be better if it wasn’t a mid-major at Cameron but I think there’s a lot to learn here if the players can absorb it.

Last point, K has done a great job of recruiting OADs that have a winner’s mentality. RJ and Zion were probably the best examples of this but Parker, AR, and others fit the bill as well. I think our freshman are great people but I don’t really get the same vibe from this crop, other than from Stanley. It’s almost like their just going through the motions. Hopefully this loss gets them fired up.

[nmduke2001]

Obviously it’s difficult to win when you miss that many free throws and commit so many turnovers, but I still put this solely on the coaching staff. There were multiple occasions when SFA had 2 on 0 or 3 on 0 fast breaks after Duke missed shots. Not turnovers, missed shots. It happened after a missed free throw once. How can that happen? The coaching staff needs to remind the guards to rotate and defend against the break.

Also, when Comeaux (their point guard) got in foul trouble and had to leave the game, why not full court press? Put in Goldwire and O’Connell and just press the backup guard. The press was impressive in early games. I think it was Kansas where Bilas Of course that means letting your bench get some minutes but isn’t that why you have those guys on scholarship? If you’re a Duke scholarship player you should be OK to play a few minutes at home against SFA. Heck, none of their guys were Duke scholarship level players and they did alright in Cameron.

SFA had multiple starters in foul trouble. Use some creative screening action to get Carey open and foul those guys out. By the way, before Zion got hurt, New Orleans was using off ball screens to free Zion in the post. It was beautiful and it was against NBA level guys. Why can’t Duke do the same thing?

The two end of game scenarios were disasters. In regulation, Tre took a terrible shot with 7 seconds on the shot clock. Given that memory, why not call the time out in overtime. Remind everyone that the game is tied and we want to get off the shot with about three seconds left in order for an offensive rebound chance and that’s it. Put in Carey, who is your best offensive weapon. Set a play. Run the play. If you miss, go into double overtime. How is any of this excusable? I understand that sometimes you let it play out so the opposition can’t set their defense, but Duke was clearly confused and THE BEST OFFENSIVE PLAYER was sitting on the bench.

[UrinalCake]

At the end of the day, a potential 2OT victory over this team in late November instead of a last moment OT loss isn't worth a botched or controversial call at the buzzer.

I had the same thought - even if we had won the game, the flaws in our team that were exposed would still be there. That's the bigger concern to me, not losing the #1 ranking or the streak being broken.

Also keep in mind that Harris was cramping up in the second half and that really affected him after he killed us in the first, and that SFA missed numerous easy layups around the rim. We could have lost by 10 in regulation had those not happened.

[Chicago 1995]

3 Seniors and 5 juniors dominated SFAs playing time. That's all you really need to know. It's precisely the kind of team that's given us problems in this era.

We've beaten plenty of senior and junior dominated teams this era too. Badly. Maybe the difference in strength between a 22 year old and an 18 year old mattered last night, but our upperclassmen struggled every bit as much with that strength as our upperclassmen did. Experience? I don't think that mattered last night. We didn't adjust - and that's a problem for the really experienced guy on the sideline.

[Chicago 1995]

I know we get every team’s best shot but if SFA plays like that on a regular basis they can compete with anyone in the country. Besides FTs and TOs we didn’t play that bad. Stat lines for our starters were off the charts. Vernon and Tre had double-doubles and Carey was 3 blocks shy of a triple double. We out rebounded them and forced our fair share of turnovers as well. SFA just had more energy. They were quicker to the ball throughout the second half.

It also didn’t help that they fouled the crap out of us all night. We should have made the FTs but it’s hard to get a rythym going when your being hacked. Why we didn’t take advantage of their foul trouble is not necessarily on the players. To Their credit though, SFA did a good job of hedging on Carey late and gambling on our shooters.

All in all I’m not too disappointed with this loss. Yeah, it would be better if it wasn’t a mid-major at Cameron but I think there’s a lot to learn here if the players can absorb it.

Last point, K has done a great job of recruiting OADs that have a winner’s mentality. RJ and Zion were probably the best examples of this but Parker, AR, and others fit the bill as well. I think our freshman are great people but I don’t really get the same vibe from this crop, other than from Stanley. It’s almost like their just going through the motions. Hopefully this loss gets them fired up.

Haven't seen that at all. Defense, which until last night, has been our calling card and why we'd beaten Kansas and Georgetown, is largely about effort and intensity. When the offense has struggled, the defensive effort from the team hasn't waned. They aren't as demonstrative -- although Vernon's coming out of his shell -- but they've played their tails off.

[dukebluesincebirth]

I keep going back and forth about how much this game worries me. I was highly impressed with SFA’s effort, they were mentally tough and it transitioned to their play. So we got beat by a mentally/physically tough team, which can always happen if you don’t match the level of toughness. So oh well, we can be beat. On the other hand, there’s a few things about last night that REALLY bothered me: 1) the run-out layups for SFA again and again and again!! Seriously? That’s effort, not talent! Run back on D as hard as you can every possession!! Inexcusable. 2) it was WAY to easy for SFA to score... like taking candy from a baby. Dribble drive, dump off to a teammate for an easy bucket from 2-3 feet. Repeat. And repeat again the next possession. And again and again. It was like a scrimmage. Again, effort guys!! Take some pride and get a stop! Hell, commit a hard foul and get a technical! Do something!! These things particularly bother me. Of course sloppy turnovers and free throws are frustrating, but I can expect that from a young team. Credit to SFA.. they took advantage of a weaker opponent regardless of the name on the shirt or the court. They seized the moment. A moment that shouldn’t have existed.

[DarkstarWahoo]

“Everyone in Nacogdoches knew Tom Ames would come to some bad end
Well the sheriff had caught him stealing chickens and such by the time that he was 10
And one day his daddy took a $10 bill and tucked it in his hand
He said “I can tell your headed for trouble son and your momma wouldn’t understand”
So he took that money and his brother’s old Bay and left without a word of thanks,
Fell in with a crowd in some border town and took to robbing banks”

https://youtu.be/rrILtl54UvQ

I'm kind of amazed Nacogdoches doesn't appear in the best song about East Texas. It's probably because it doesn't rhyme with anything.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9j2OFDDbBcc

[CDu]

I am surprising calm this morning. I do wonder about a few things. I know people are focusing on the FTs and TOs but to me this game was lost at the rim. Duke allowed SFA to take 53 shots at the rim. Some of that was fast break but SFA spent most of the second half driving to the rim. I thought we spent too much effort trying to run them off the 3pt line and not enough protecting the paint. I also thought Vernon was a bit too passive back there, possibly an over-reaction to the foul trouble he got into versus Georgetown.

By my count they took 43 shots at the rim (not including fouls on misses). Of those, 10 were breakaways off of turnovers. Another 9 were taken by their big guy. Another 7 came off of offensive rebounds. Another 7 were transition buckets off of long rebounds. So there were only 10 shots off of half-court drives by the shooter, compared with 10 3s and some other jumpers. That's not too bad a distribution considering SFA's style of play. Ultimately, the turnovers were the problem, as it inflated SFA's opportunities at the rim dramatically. At least 17 of their shots inside were in transition.

SFA is a team that likes to drive to the basket. Combine that with our overplay on-ball defense on the perimeter, and you're going to get shots in the paint. Pressuring the ball will lead to higher turnover rates, but it also leads to more layups when you miss on the turnovers.

As for Carey, yes, he was probably trying to avoid fouls. And given how critical he is on offense, that's probably understandable. Expecting freshmen bigs to have a good feel for the appropriate level of defensive aggression is... well... not a good thing to expect. Sometimes it happens. Usually it doesn't.


Maybe I'm missing something, but Duke never seems to run plays on offense. It certainly looked like Tre could have used some help shaking his defender as opposed to pounding the air out of the ball 3ft past the 3pt line. It seems like ball movement is something Duke struggles with.

Yes, Duke runs sets not plays. Each set has several possible reads. As for the lack of help Jones got, the problem is that they were aggressively trapping Jones every time he got a high ball screen, really attacking his dribble and daring him to make the right pass. And we don't have anyone else who can consistently attack successfully off the dribble, nor do we have a ton of shooters. So there wasn't much penalty to be had unless Jones could find Carey near the basket.

I'm sure that the coaching staff will work on strategies to beat that kind of ball pressure moving forward. Because I'm sure we haven't seen the last of that. It will be interesting to see what solutions they come up with.

[CrazyNotCrazie]

By my count they took 43 shots at the rim (not including fouls on misses). Of those, 10 were breakaways off of turnovers. Another 9 were taken by their big guy. Another 7 came off of offensive rebounds. Another 7 were transition buckets off of long rebounds. So there were only 10 shots off of half-court drives by the shooter, compared with 10 3s and some other jumpers. That's not too bad a distribution considering SFA's style of play. Ultimately, the turnovers were the problem, as it inflated SFA's opportunities at the rim dramatically. At least 17 of their shots inside were in transition.

SFA is a team that likes to drive to the basket. Combine that with our overplay on-ball defense on the perimeter, and you're going to get shots in the paint. Pressuring the ball will lead to higher turnover rates, but it also leads to more layups when you miss on the turnovers.

As for Carey, yes, he was probably trying to avoid fouls. And given how critical he is on offense, that's probably understandable. Expecting freshmen bigs to have a good feel for the appropriate level of defensive aggression is... well... not a good thing to expect. Sometimes it happens. Usually it doesn't.



Yes, Duke runs sets not plays. Each set has several possible reads. As for the lack of help Jones got, the problem is that they were aggressively trapping Jones every time he got a high ball screen, really attacking his dribble and daring him to make the right pass. And we don't have anyone else who can consistently attack successfully off the dribble, nor do we have a ton of shooters. So there wasn't much penalty to be had unless Jones could find Carey near the basket.

I'm sure that the coaching staff will work on strategies to beat that kind of ball pressure moving forward. Because I'm sure we haven't seen the last of that. It will be interesting to see what solutions they come up with.

Carey seemed to be playing to avoid fouls. And he was probably overly successful at this. He finished the game with one foul. Towards the end of the game they should have reminded him that he only had one foul and could be a little more aggressive. I kept having to remind myself how few fouls he had because I could not figure out why he kept getting taken out - I assumed it was to control fouls but that clearly wasn't the case. If it was for fitness then unless there is a bigger issue here someone should have recognized his lack of fitness a long time ago and told him to get in better shape before coming to Duke.

[Reddevil]

I know people are focusing on the FTs and TOs but to me this game was lost at the rim. Duke allowed SFA to take 53 shots at the rim. Some of that was fast break but SFA spent most of the second half driving to the rim. I thought we spent too much effort trying to run them off the 3pt line and not enough protecting the paint. I also thought Vernon was a bit too passive back there, possibly an over-reaction to the foul trouble he got into versus Georgetown.



I kept thinking Knight would have blown a gasket. His mantra is "stop the ball". Duke failed to stop the ball all night. That is a failure of the coaching staff. The team was not prepared for SFA. Can't be mad at the players. I thought they played hard, but their energy was misplaced. Teach them how to stop the ball and get them shooting more FT's in practice. I still feel good about this team. Winthrop's coach has heartburn about now.

[uh_no]

I understand what you are saying but anytime you push the ball to the floor it is a dribble. He pushed a live ball out of the air to the floor. That is an intent to gain possession by dribbling. Which would have been completely legal if he kept dribbling. Instead he took control of the ball with both hands which forfeited his dribble. He then began dribbling again. Double Dribble.

If I am standing and somebody passes me a chest high pass in which I immediately push down to the ground and then grab with two hands. Can I then take off dribbling? No. This case is only different because this pass was deflected. He wasn't trying to knock the ball away as a means to prevent possession, he pushed the ball to advance it because he was moving with the ball.

It doesn't matter we deserved to lose.
you can't dribble if you don't have possession. simply touching the ball does not constitute possession. and it happens frequently enough that someone muffs a pass, picks up the ball, then dribbles. of course you're at the mercy of the ref at that point as possession is a judgment call.

[budwom]

oh well, these things happen.
I'll only note, FWIW, that (apropos to previous discussions of playing time) K got back into basically a 6.5 man rotation (six guys with >10 minutes, two guys with eight and six)....let's see how that evolves, I admit I have no idea.

[jv001]

I mentioned after the Georgia State game that I was a bit nervous that they had laid out the blueprint for how to play Duke this year: overplay Tre Jones off the ball and attack EVERYONE's dribble. Well, SFA went with that strategy, and it paid off. Tre Jones is the only guy on the team with the confidence and ability to attack off the dribble. Stanley might have the ability but lacks the confidence to do so; Moore has the confidence but might not have the ability to do so; O'Connell is just a wild card at this point. Nobody else appears competent at it. If you can force the ball out of Jones' hands, this team can be had on offense. Last night, that's what happened.

I don't know that I agree with Coach K's implication that the team didn't want it enough last night, simply expecting to win. I mean, I'm sure they expected to win; they were SUPPOSED to win. But I don't think that they played entitled. They played really hard. It's just that SFA did to them what Georgetown and Ga St did, and we just didn't shoot quite as well as we did against Georgetown and we didn't force as many turnovers as we did against either Georgetown or Ga St (especially relative to pace against Ga St). I don't think it was a lack of effort that our forced turnovers were down; SFA just did a better job protecting the ball.

Yes, Jones had a rough night. Several of his turnovers were just bad passes, but most of them were just him trying to create through really aggressive defense because nobody else could create. I agree with others that he was just exhausted. He played 45 minutes, carrying the load on offense and applying full-court defensive pressure. You could see late in the second half and in overtime that he was gassed, and his level of play dropped off. But he was giving it everything he had. You just can't expect a guy to go all-out for 45 minutes (or even 40 minutes) at the most demanding position on the floor without dropoff. Even still, his numbers were pretty darn good: 17 points on 10 FGA, 12 assists, 5 rebounds, 4 steals. The only real negative was the 8 turnovers. But credit to SFA for their defensive aggression, and chide to the Duke team for forcing him to carry the load. Hopefully he rests as much as he can on off-days, because this isn't the last time we're going to ask him to play all-out for 40 minutes in a tough game.

Carey is just a beast. He punishes undersized opponents consistently. But he, too, was getting gassed in the second half. Still, I'm thrilled with what he brings each night. If we can get 30+ minutes out of him a night, that will go a long way towards our success. It's not rocket science to say that he's really good.

Moore had a brutal start to the game, committing 3 first-half turnovers. But he really settled down after that and played under control. He also was really active on defense, getting a ton of deflections. Unfortunately, we just couldn't convert any of those into forced turnovers.

Stanley also seemed to throw it all on the floor tonight, pulling down 5 rebounds, getting 4 blocks and two steals, and making several non-stat hustle plays here and there (one example: saving Jones from a turnover on a tipped entry pass for skying over 2 SFA players to get the ball in the lane). Adding 15 points on 12 FGA and hitting 2 3s was nice as well. He continues to impress. We may need him to start being more aggressive off the dribble, because Jones is still carrying way too much of the load as noted above.

Hurt had a decent game. He hit a few nice shots posting against smaller defenders, and got a nice pick near half court that he calmly converted into a layup. He didn't shoot well from the perimeter, and doesn't add much in other areas of the game though. And he had a few really shaky moments with the ball as SFA attacked his dribble. Still, it was a solid bounceback game overall from him. He's just not likely to ever be a physical presence for us. We just have to hope his shooting/scoring prowess holds up. His biggest value (aside from the shot) is going to be floating on the perimeter to clear space for Carey inside.

White did what White does. Rebounds, toughness, hard work. He doesn't provide much of a threat on offense, though, which got exploited a bit last night. We're going to have to figure out a way to make that work, because his interior toughness is the yin to Hurt's shooting/floor-spacing yang.

Nobody else made their presence felt, unfortunately. DeLaurier played sparingly, but rebounded solidly and blocked a shot. That's about all you can ask. He's just there to give Carey a breather. Baker continued his pattern of being a shooter and nothing more: in games decided by less than 30 points, he has literally generated no rebounds, assists, blocks, or steals in 28 minutes of action. It's hard to see him getting consistent minutes until he can provide more on the floor than just a spot-up shooter (which he has done very well this year).

I will say that the coaches did try a few things. One was switching the assignment on Harris a few times. Originally, Moore was guarding him. That was obviously not working, so they went to Stanley instead. Stanley did okay for a bit. But eventually he got in foul trouble, so they went to Jones. Unfortunately, that only further wore down Jones due to Harris' physicality, and it probably cut down our turnovers forced. I don't know if we generated a single live-ball turnover for the last 15 minutes of regulation or overtime. We even went zone at one point, though that did result in a made 3 for SFA. The only criticism I'd say is that the extended pressure defense against a team that can't shoot but can dribble was probably not the best play when you are only going to play 6 deep.

But, ultimately, I give SFA a ton of credit. They came in with a great gameplan (overplay Jones, be very aggressive against everyone's dribble, run as much as possible) and they executed it. I hope there is a lesson to be learned from this, but I'm not sure what it is. Other than "we need to shoot better" and "we need more guys capable of handling the basketball", neither of which seem likely to improve in the next 3-4 months. Maybe Carey can continue to improve his conditioning to be able to play 30+ mpg in regulation, and we figure out easier ways to get him looks. Maybe Stanley and Moore get more confident and/or poised with their ballhandling to help Jones out. It's gonna be interesting to see how the next few games go.

This is a great summary of the game I watched last night(CDu). As I was reading each comment this morning, I saw many posts that I agreed with and some I unfortunately didn't agree with. I'll just add a few of my thoughts.
I thought Coach K made a good coaching move by putting Tre on Harris. Their big guy had a harder time getting to the basket with Tre on him. But I also thought that K made a big mistake when after a timeout, he went zone and SFA made a big 3 pointer. But if they would have missed the 3, I guess everyone would be saying what a good move Coach made. Another coaching moment that puzzled me was not calling a timeout for the last play and putting Carey back in the game. If we're trying to go for an offensive rebound off a miss, it would be great to have our best rebounder in the game. Maybe the GOAT thought a timeout would end up like a previous timeout where we turned the ball over without getting a shot off.
However the game was not lost by coaching decisions. It was lost on poor execution(turnovers), missed free throws and giving up so many fast break points. It seemed that the foul trouble on SFA was not a positive for us but a negative because we didn't make the free throws and we missed several shots around the basket where we were fouled. Stronger put backs sure would have helped our cause.
We are not getting what we need from our upper classmen. Jack is just not a positive on offense except for offensive rebounding, Javin is just a body to give Carey rest, Goldwire is only good in helter skelter games and O'Connell is good if his shot is on but a negative on defense. For Baker, read O'Connell.
What we really need is a Tatum kind of player that can take some of the ball handling pressure off Tre. I hope that Stanley and Moore can be that kind of player as the year goes on but neither have the confidence right now. Moore looked better in the 2nd half last night but he needs to be consistent. If Cassius and Wendell can make plays, it would give us 2 more options in getting the offense started.

Carey had another good game with: 20 pts(8-10), 11 rebounds, 7 blocks, 4-11 on FTs and only 1 foul. Stanley had: 15 pts(5-12), 5 rebounds, 4 blocks, was 2-3 on threes, 3-4 on FTs in 40 minutes. Jones had: 17 pts(4-10), 5 rebounds, 12 assists, 1 steal, 8 turnovers, 2-4 on threes, 7-10 FTs, 4 steals, in 45 minutes(yeh the entire game). Hurt had: 15 pts(5-10), 2 rebounds, 4-4 FTs, 1-3 on threes, 2 turnovers, 2 assists, 1 block, 1 steal in 22 minutes. Jack had 3 pts(1-3), 6 rebounds, 3 assists, 2 turnovers, 1 steal, in 29 minutes. Javin had 0 pts, 2 rebounds, 2 fouls, 0-1 FTs, 1 block in 6 minutes. Goldwire had: 2 pts(1-1), 2 assists and 0 turnovers, 1 block in 8 minutes. Baker had 1 foul and zeros in all other categories in 3 minutes.

These stats tell me that Hurt needs to pick up on some of the things that Jack does well. In other words the tough plays, the gutty plays. Jack played 7 more minutes than Hurt and that hurts the offense. But Jack has to play because he's doing some of the things that our other captain is not doing. Javin has not improved very much over this 3 years and counting. If he could be a small offensive force when he spells Vernon, that would help immensely. Not to mention, if he could play along side Vernon for 3-4 minutes. But Javin is just not strong enough or athletic enough to perform on offense. I love him, but he's what he is.

Moore and Stanley are the keys to our season in my opinion. If they can develop into wings that can attack the basket and not turn the ball over and finish at the rim we can be a very good team by tournament time. Tre can not be playing 40 minutes and be asked to do all the heavy lifting. I can't imagine how sore and tired he is today after playing 45 minutes of demolition derby basketball last night and Carey is going to have to hit a better percentage of his FTs because other teams will try the same strategy that SFA used last night. Foul him and put him on the line. Plus, it would help if he can go "and one" on some of those shots.

I'm not as upset as I usually am after a loss because I think we have the team that can get better. A lot better. We have the players and we have the coaching staff to get it done. The upper classmen must step up and lead this team. That's, O'Connell, Goldwire, White, Javin and Tre. I don't count Baker because he's really a freshman.

Next Play and GoDuke!

[BigDuke6]

you can't dribble if you don't have possession. simply touching the ball does not constitute possession. and it happens frequently enough that someone muffs a pass, picks up the ball, then dribbles. of course you're at the mercy of the ref at that point as possession is a judgment call.

Simple touch is different then pushing the ball forward. He wasn’t “simply touching” the ball in the direction of his basket. He was trying to dribble it forward. At what point do you consider it possession, when he begins to push the ball to the floor to dribble or after the first dribble? As explained earlier, you can initiate and establish a dribble prior to possessing the ball in your hand which means you can double dribble in the sequence. Yes, it happens on loose balls all the time. It’s still a violation. This one was clearer to me than most others but will never get called. Especially in that situation, with swallowing whistles.

[Kedsy]

By my count they took 43 shots at the rim (not including fouls on misses). Of those, 10 were breakaways off of turnovers. Another 9 were taken by their big guy. Another 7 came off of offensive rebounds. Another 7 were transition buckets off of long rebounds. So there were only 10 shots off of half-court drives by the shooter, compared with 10 3s and some other jumpers. That's not too bad a distribution considering SFA's style of play. Ultimately, the turnovers were the problem, as it inflated SFA's opportunities at the rim dramatically. At least 17 of their shots inside were in transition.

I was just about to look at the box score to see if I could do this exact analysis. Thanks, CDu.

Do you know how many of those 17 transition shots that they converted? The box score says they had 26 "fast break" points. If that means they made 13 of 17, then on their halfcourt two-point shots they shot 44.7%, which isn't so bad for halfcourt two-point defense. Our block rate was fantastic, and our defensive rebounding was good (though not great). Without having seen the game, all these numbers suggest the game was not "lost at the rim," as azzefkram suggests but was really lost in transition.

[CDu]

I understand what you are saying but anytime you push the ball to the floor it is a dribble. He pushed a live ball out of the air to the floor. That is an intent to gain possession by dribbling. Which would have been completely legal if he kept dribbling. Instead he took control of the ball with both hands which forfeited his dribble. He then began dribbling again. Double Dribble.

Except that, by rule, that's not the case. He didn't have possession when he first touched the ball. It was a loose ball. Heck, the ball was knocked of his own leg in the process. You are, by rule, allowed to establish possession before your dribble is considered to have started. It was not a dribble by rule.

[throatybeard]

I can no longer say Duke hasn't lost at home to a noncon opponent since Shalay and I were married. (5 March 2000, a weekend after Saint John's). Rats.

[Music man55]

Lot's of bad turnovers and lackluster free throw shooting from Duke. Made some bad decisions with the ball at end of regulation and OT. SFA deserved to win because they seemed to just out tough us when it mattered. Now we get to see what this team will do and how much they will learn from this. I'm confident they will get the message and improve. Go Duke!

[CDu]

I was just about to look at the box score to see if I could do this exact analysis. Thanks, CDu.

Do you know how many of those 17 transition shots that they converted? The box score says they had 26 "fast break" points. If that means they made 13 of 17, then on their halfcourt two-point shots they shot 44.7%, which isn't so bad for halfcourt two-point defense. Our block rate was fantastic, and our defensive rebounding was good (though not great). Without having seen the game, all these numbers suggest the game was not "lost at the rim," as azzefkram suggests but was really lost in transition.

They scored on 14 of those 17 possessions, and drew a foul (making 1 of 2 free throws). There were actually 19 attempts in that, as two possessions included offensive rebounds. So 14-19 on transition possessions. Which is really close to the 13-17 you tossed out as a guesstimate. My numbers include a possession or two that were not considered true fast-breaks, but were still very quick possessions and I would argue are transition baskets.

Against a set defense, we were much better. It really was a matter of giving them WAY too many transition baskets (mostly off of live-ball turnovers) and missing too many free throws.

[Steven43]

I can no longer say Duke hasn't lost at home to a noncon opponent since Shalay and I were married. (5 March 2000, a weekend after Saint John's). Rats.

Daaaang. That’s unbelievable. I moved from Austin, TX to Durham in August of 2000. Now my Duke in Cameron Indoor winning streak is over, too. I feel sad 😞

[azzefkram]

I was just about to look at the box score to see if I could do this exact analysis. Thanks, CDu.

Do you know how many of those 17 transition shots that they converted? The box score says they had 26 "fast break" points. If that means they made 13 of 17, then on their halfcourt two-point shots they shot 44.7%, which isn't so bad for halfcourt two-point defense. Our block rate was fantastic, and our defensive rebounding was good (though not great). Without having seen the game, all these numbers suggest the game was not "lost at the rim," as azzefkram suggests but was really lost in transition.

Barttorvik.com has SFA going 3-4 on Dunks and 30-49 at the rim. If you back out the transition shots and makes, you get 20-36 (55%). SFA had 3 players take more than 10 shots at the rim (Harris, Kensmil and Johnson). Duke didn't have one. SFA took 74 shots of which nearly half were non-transition at the rim. That's not good. Transition and TOs were definitely an issue but that many shots at the rim puts a boatload of pressure on the defense.

At the end of the day, it seems like there were a bunch of things that went rather poorly for Duke.

[kAzE]

I mentioned after the Georgia State game that I was a bit nervous that they had laid out the blueprint for how to play Duke this year: overplay Tre Jones off the ball and attack EVERYONE's dribble. Well, SFA went with that strategy, and it paid off. Tre Jones is the only guy on the team with the confidence and ability to attack off the dribble. Stanley might have the ability but lacks the confidence to do so; Moore has the confidence but might not have the ability to do so; O'Connell is just a wild card at this point. Nobody else appears competent at it. If you can force the ball out of Jones' hands, this team can be had on offense. Last night, that's what happened.

This is the problem. I've harping on this as well. This team is entirely way too reliant on Tre Jones, on both sides of the ball. Once Tre gets fatigued, we can't score, and we can stop the opposing team's ball handlers from getting in the paint. Either someone steps up and becomes a pressure outlet on offense, or someone steps up to guard the ball on defense to allow Tre a breather every once in awhile. It's just not feasible to ask Tre Jones to do everything on both ends for 40 minutes a game. It's asking way too much of one player.

It's really disappointing, because we had a chance to have either RJ Hampton or Boogie Ellis run the show on offense, but they got scared off because they thought Tre would dominate the ball . . . and he's just not that kind of player. Tre is a lockdown defender, but he needs a ball dominant scorer (like RJ Barrett) to do the heavy lifting on offense. Now, he can't even do what he's good at on defense, because he's so tired from carrying the team on offense . . .

But even so, I believe this is a down year across the board in college basketball, and this team is still near the top in terms of overall talent. Despite our flaws, we have what it takes to make the Final Four. I have faith the coaching staff will figure out a way to answer this problem.

[BobBender]

In earlier iterations of a OAD-laden rosters, we were led by tough players who had grown each year in the program ( i.e multiple Plumlees and Amile Jefferson). What has happened to Javin and Jack that they are arguably no better than they were as sophs? In fact, one can argue they have regressed as players, if not as leaders. You can't have Seniors be virtual non-factors to go far.

[arnie]

We've beaten plenty of senior and junior dominated teams this era too. Badly. Maybe the difference in strength between a 22 year old and an 18 year old mattered last night, but our upperclassmen struggled every bit as much with that strength as our upperclassmen did. Experience? I don't think that mattered last night. We didn't adjust - and that's a problem for the really experienced guy on the sideline.

Well we have one senior that should be able to contribute against grown men, but can’t. I don’t recall any Top 50 K-recruited players that were healthy, but unable to provide major minutes in a close game. Maybe Josh Hairston? Anyway, Javin is struggling and don’t know that he will improve during ACC play. Got to be frustrating for all involved. Raise your hand if You thought he’d make the front end at the FT line in the 2nd half.

[kAzE]

In earlier iterations of a OAD-laden rosters, we were led by tough players who had grown each year in the program ( i.e multiple Plumlees and Amile Jefferson). What has happened to Javin and Jack that they are arguably no better than they were as sophs? In fact, one can argue they have regressed as players, if not as leaders. You can't have Seniors be virtual non-factors to go far.

Completely disagree on Jack. He is an incredible role player, and does everything a glue guy should do. He can defend 4 positions, he's a very good rebounder on both ends, and gets his hands on every loose ball. He's just not an offensively skilled player. But he's very tough (something this team lacks), and plays with extremely high IQ. Given time and space, he can also hit perimeter shots. You know what you're getting from him every time out, and he consistently makes winning plays. It's no mystery why he's playing starter's minutes.

Unfortunately, your post is true for Javin. He's fouling just as much as ever, and hasn't developed a single offensive skill in 4 years. I would also add Alex O'Connell to the disappointing upperclassmen conversation. This team could really use someone with his skill set, and it just hasn't happened for him.

[ncexnyc]

If anyone was in a hermetically sealed bubble yesterday and came to the forum today looking for the outcome of last night's game it would be easy to tell we lost as we are up to 11 pages and counting.

An early season loss to a supposed cupcake will bring out the best of the hand wringers and the woe is me crowd.

[HereBeforeCoachK]

Unfortunately, your post is true for Javin. He's fouling just as much as ever, and hasn't developed a single offensive skill in 4 years.

To whom much is given, much will be required......

Whether you take that from the Book of Luke, or as a secular and logical tenet of life, Javin has flunked on this score. He was given height of close to seven feet, length and athleticism....SMH

[OldPhiKap]

If anyone was in a hermetically sealed bubble yesterday and came to the forum today looking for the outcome of last night's game it would be easy to tell we lost as we are up to 11 pages and counting.

An early season loss to a supposed cupcake will bring out the best of the hand wringers and the woe is me crowd.

It's over.

[Steven43]

Completely disagree on Jack. He is an incredible role player, and does everything a glue guy should do. He can defend 4 positions, he's a very good rebounder on both ends, and gets his hands on every loose ball. He's just not an offensively skilled player. But he's very tough (something this team lacks), and plays with extremely high IQ. Given time and space, he can also hit perimeter shots. You know what you're getting from him every time out, and he consistently makes winning plays. It's no mystery why he's playing starter's minutes.
kAzE, you speak the truth about Jack White. And did you notice how he came THIS CLOSE to blocking the game-winning shot? He made up a ton of ground and very nearly saved the game. He can play on my team any time.

[BobBender]

Completely disagree on Jack. He is an incredible role player, and does everything a glue guy should do. He can defend 4 positions, he's a very good rebounder on both ends, and gets his hands on every loose ball. He's just not an offensively skilled player. But he's very tough (something this team lacks), and plays with extremely high IQ. Given time and space, he can also hit perimeter shots. You know what you're getting from him every time out, and he consistently makes winning plays. It's no mystery why he's playing starter's minutes.

Unfortunately, your post is true for Javin. He's fouling just as much as ever, and hasn't developed a single offensive skill in 4 years. I would also add Alex O'Connell to the disappointing upperclassmen conversation. This team could really use someone with his skill set, and it just hasn't happened for him.

....Not arguing with you, Jack does a lot of the 'dirty work' that doesn't show up in box scores. My point is he always did those things when given the chance earlier in his Duke career. He has regressed offensively. His confidence has not been the same since the 0-28 shooting slump, and that's just not what I'd expect with the coaching and physical skill set he has.
It will be a really interesting transition to more traditional '4-year players' being signed for next year.

[ehdg]

After last night’s loss we should all be happy that there’s a early signing period! If not for that think how many of our signed recruits would have moved on to another school!

[DukieInBrasil]

Although the last play was not the whole reason we lost last night, the same reason why Hurt didn't play hardly at all vs G'Town is the same reason why the play unfolded the way it did, he's just gotta get stronger. I also share the befuddlement as to why Carey was not on the floor for the last play.
Truly baffling game, with Duke doing exactly enough to lose. We can congratulate SFA, and they did everything they needed to do, but Duke lost this game at the FT line, plain and simple.

[weezie]

Isn't it fun to be hearing from ALL sorts of old acquaintances, distant family members, gas station attendants, folks at stop lights?

And Thanksgiving dinner should be a blast with that irritating cousin...

And the horrible Lions are on tomorrow, too. Maybe that's it. The last straw.

NEXT!

[OldPhiKap]

After last night’s loss we should all be happy that there’s a early signing period! If not for that think how many of our signed recruits would have moved on to another school!

When does the transfer portal open?

[Kfanarmy]

I said it in the in-game thread and I'll say it again here. Backing the defense off would've paid dividends. Going zone for a few possessions, or even for a few minutes, might've also paid off. They weren't beating us from the outside, and our guys were wasting a lot of energy chasing them around the perimeter.
Guess we’ll see just how much of that energy was wasted come March.


….
Maybe I'm missing something, but Duke never seems to run plays on offense. It certainly looked like Tre could have used some help shaking his defender as opposed to pounding the air out of the ball 3ft past the 3pt line. It seems like ball movement is something Duke struggles with….

I think the amount of coaching from the sideline on-the-whole and scripted/set plays at Duke became minimized coincidental to Coach K’s involvement with the NBA pros in the Olympics. At least that has been my impression. Young inexperienced teams, however, seem to need those when talent alone isn’t getting the job done.


oh well, these things happen.
I'll only note, FWIW, that (apropos to previous discussions of playing time) K got back into basically a 6.5 man rotation (six guys with >10 minutes, two guys with eight and six)...let's see how that evolves, I admit I have no idea.
It will be a unfortunate in the long run if this team, with what seems to be more evenly talented players across the board than in past years, doesn’t take advantage of and build the talents of as many players as possible to ready itself for the future.

[UrinalCake]

Completely disagree on Jack.... Unfortunately, your post is true for Javin.

White was also ranked #236 in the RSCI coming out of high school. I'd say he's exceeded expectations by becoming a rotation player and borderline starter as a senior, even if his offense is limited to standstill threes, rebounds and putbacks.

Javin was #35, ahead of guys like Shamorie Ponds, Ty Jerome, and Nick Ward. He has all the physical tools to be an excellent college 4 like Amile or Lance, but hasn't developed at all. His first two years I could argue that he wasn't getting enough playing time to develop because of the OAD's, but now he's had 3+ years in the program and doesn't have any excuses.

[BandAlum83]

I used to like Dan Bonner... Why didn’t he just go ahead and put a SFA jersey on? That was horrible.

Come on, he was witnessing a piece of history. It was an exciting game to see. Bonner was privileged to be there.

It’s not on the level of ND breaking the UCLA streak, but this was a big deal. It was by far the biggest win in the history of SFA.

And how about their coach? How impressive was he after the game? Talk about “act like you’ve been here before! So calm and complimentary of Coach K for giving them the chance and playing them. So complimentary of his team tomorrow to bottom. Just... impressive. I will root for them. It made me happy that it wasn’t an obnoxious winner. I was actually happy for them/him.

Congratulations to SFA.

[WakeDevil]

I went to the Big Lead, one of my regular sites, and had the opportunity to replay the final moments. We all see the bobbled pass. What nobody has seem to remark on is the defensive rotation. Jones drove into the lane area. Who was supposed to rotate? It seems that White did so. Then he made the fatal mistake of trying to intercept the pass. There would not been a layup had he stayed back.

For those saying it was a double dribble, the player does seem to have gained control of the pass, but White reached in and may have interrupted the dribble. That allowed the SFA player to start a new one. White was in the way of the trail official having a great view, and the center official probably was not going to make that call because he closed down to help with the baseline play. I can't be sure even after running it multiple times.

https://www.thebiglead.com/posts/video-nathan-bain-layup-gives-stephen-f-austin-ot-win-over-duke-01dtnj2j8d3m

[OldPhiKap]

Come on, he was witnessing a piece of history. It was an exciting game to see. Bonner was privileged to be there.

It’s not on the level of ND breaking the UCLA streak, but this was a big deal. It was by far the biggest win in the history of SFA.

And how about their coach? How impressive was he after the game? Talk about “act like you’ve been here before! So calm and complimentary of Coach K for giving them the chance and playing them. So complimentary of his team tomorrow to bottom. Just... impressive. I will root for them. It made me happy that it wasn’t an obnoxious winner. I was actually happy for them/him.

Congratulations to SFA.

All of this, yes.

Tip my hat to SFA and its coach.

Next play for us.

[Kedsy]

Barttorvik.com has SFA going 3-4 on Dunks and 30-49 at the rim. If you back out the transition shots and makes, you get 20-36 (55%). SFA had 3 players take more than 10 shots at the rim (Harris, Kensmil and Johnson). Duke didn't have one. SFA took 74 shots of which nearly half were non-transition at the rim. That's not good. Transition and TOs were definitely an issue but that many shots at the rim puts a boatload of pressure on the defense.

Are you certain you're not double counting the dunks (I thought they were included in "at the rim")? Either way, I'm not sure 55% (or 53% if you double-counted) is particularly strong for layups/dunks. Put another way, if SFA had 26 points on 17 transition possessions, that's 1.53 points per possession. Thus they scored 59 points in 67 non-transition possessions, or 0.88 ppp, which is pretty good defense no matter how many of those 67 possessions ended up with shots at the rim.

Put yet another way, allowing fast breaks on 20% of our opponent's possessions is probably what killed us. The rest should have been manageable.


Well we have one senior that should be able to contribute against grown men, but can’t. I don’t recall any Top 50 K-recruited players that were healthy, but unable to provide major minutes in a close game. Maybe Josh Hairston?

Josh Hairston played fewer minutes per game than Javin has played this season. Andre Dawkins as a senior played around the same number of minutes per game. Casey Sanders played a few more minutes as a senior, but played a lot fewer as a junior and sophomore. Joey Baker (though of course he's not a senior) is also a top 50 recruit and is playing less than Javin. Marty Pocius was ranked #53, so not top 50 but close, and he played a lot less than Javin.

Plus we've had at least nine top 50 players transfer out before they became upperclassmen, most of whom because they couldn't get playing time. If Chase Jeter or Alex Murphy or Taylor King or Eric Boateng or Michael Thompson were on Duke's team right now, you think they'd be playing more than Javin?


To whom much is given, much will be required...

Whether you take that from the Book of Luke, or as a secular and logical tenet of life, Javin has flunked on this score. He was given height of close to seven feet, length and athleticism...SMH

Javin has shot very poorly so far this season, and his foul rate is astronomical. That said, his rebounding is way up (both OR and DR); his free throw rate is way up; his usage is way up; his steals and blocks are very strong; his turnover rate is down. In other words, other than shooting percentage and foul rate, his play is much improved this season.

Based on his career, his FG% should improve drastically over the course of the season. Thus the only things that are keeping him from being a very productive player this season are foul rate and K's willingness to put him on the floor. And as far as foul rate goes, I would like to remind people (for the zillionth time) that for the first 24 games of 2009-10, Brian Zoubek committed 8.8 fouls per 40 minutes but he managed to cut that down significantly for the last 16 games, proving that it can be done.


After last night’s loss we should all be happy that there’s a early signing period! If not for that think how many of our signed recruits would have moved on to another school!

Ding, ding, ding. We have a clear leader for most absurd post of the season.

[lotusland]

I'm kind of amazed Nacogdoches doesn't appear in the best song about East Texas. It's probably because it doesn't rhyme with anything.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9j2OFDDbBcc

Sweet - love adding new tunes to my Americana playlist!

[dukelifer]

In earlier iterations of a OAD-laden rosters, we were led by tough players who had grown each year in the program ( i.e multiple Plumlees and Amile Jefferson). What has happened to Javin and Jack that they are arguably no better than they were as sophs? In fact, one can argue they have regressed as players, if not as leaders. You can't have Seniors be virtual non-factors to go far.

Upper class leadership matters in these types of games. But Jack has done critical Jack things to help win games this year so I think he is much improved. He is just not a better shooter. The point is a fair one but not solvable - Duke has lost players who could have provided that - Bolden would have been better than Javin. Just think about senior Frank Jackson last night. But alas we don’t have that. Maybe senior Matt Hurt or Tre Jones could be a difference maker down the road. We can dream.

[lotusland]

When does the transfer portal open?

Good question. I may enter the fan portal if Duke doesn’t straighten up and win the rest of their games by 20 points or more.

[Mtn.Devil.91.92.01.10.15]

Isn't it fun to be hearing from ALL sorts of old acquaintances, distant family members, gas station attendants, folks at stop lights?

And Thanksgiving dinner should be a blast with that irritating cousin...

And the horrible Lions are on tomorrow, too. Maybe that's it. The last straw.

NEXT!

I should have known something had gone awry when I woke up to a cavalcade of text messages.

[Mtn.Devil.91.92.01.10.15]

All of this, yes.

Tip my hat to SFA and its coach.

Next play for us.

I feel much more comfortable complimenting SFA than VaTech.

[azzefkram]

Are you certain you're not double counting the dunks (I thought they were included in "at the rim")? Either way, I'm not sure 55% (or 53% if you double-counted) is particularly strong for layups/dunks. Put another way, if SFA had 26 points on 17 transition possessions, that's 1.53 points per possession. Thus they scored 59 points in 67 non-transition possessions, or 0.88 ppp, which is pretty good defense no matter how many of those 67 possessions ended up with shots at the rim.

Put yet another way, allowing fast breaks on 20% of our opponent's possessions is probably what killed us. The rest should have been manageable.

That makes sense. Thank you.



Javin has shot very poorly so far this season, and his foul rate is astronomical. That said, his rebounding is way up (both OR and DR); his free throw rate is way up; his usage is way up; his steals and blocks are very strong; his turnover rate is down. In other words, other than shooting percentage and foul rate, his play is much improved this season.

Based on his career, his FG% should improve drastically over the course of the season. Thus the only things that are keeping him from being a very productive player this season are foul rate and K's willingness to put him on the floor. And as far as foul rate goes, I would like to remind people (for the zillionth time) that for the first 24 games of 2009-10, Brian Zoubek committed 8.8 fouls per 40 minutes but he managed to cut that down significantly for the last 16 games, proving that it can be done.

At this point in the season and given his playing time (or lack there of), most of Javin's numbers are subject to small sample size noise. Even with his propensity to get blocked, I can't imagine Javin shooting less than 40% from 2 all season. I am not the biggest Javin fan but I am a bit surprised by his lack of playing time. Also, I think Javin had a significantly worse foul rate during the first half of the 2019 season and got it under control as the season wore on. I'm expecting better things from Javin as the season goes on.

[Kedsy]

Also, for years around here, a lot of people have been begging for K to recruit some lower-rated recruits who will stay 3 or 4 years. Now some of those same people are complaining about our lower-rated recruits that have stayed 3 or 4 years (or probably will, in Joey Baker's case).

The thing is, lower-rated recruits who stay 3 or 4 years more often than not end up playing like Javin DeLaurier and Joey Baker and Alex O'Connell and Jack White and Jordan Goldwire. You can get lucky every once in awhile, but in general you can't really have it both ways.

[ncexnyc]

A number of posts have pointed out the shortcomings of Jack and Javin as players, however I can think of several Duke players who had waaaaaaay more talent than either of these young men who weren't quite able to get the job done when they were asked to move from a being a Pip to taking the role of Gladys Knight.

Chris Duhon was handed the keys to the team upon JWills departure. A lot was expected from Chris as a junior as he had logged plenty of playing time in his first two seasons with Duke and even had a couple of huge moments during that time. Things didn't quite pan out that junior year, but he bounced back his senior year.

Seth Curry, Ryan Kelly, and Mason Plumlee were three players who were also expected to do big things their junior year for Duke and while they showed solid improvement from their previous years they couldn't or wouldn't provide the leadership that team needed as it somehow morphed into Austin's team.

I also recall how many on here, myself included used to knock Lance Thomas for his play. The term spastic energy was often used to describe Lance's effort on the court. I see a lot of that in Javin's play. Can he turn it around like Lance and Brian did in 2010, that's a question that remains to be answered.

As for our resident Aussie, I applaud Jack for the way he transformed his body from his freshman year to his sophomore year. He's become the classic glue guy and a player like that should never be expected to carry a team.

Since I'm venting I'll throw Alex into this post as well. It's clear he's got talent, but for whatever reason that talent isn't manifesting itself in games. I'd go so far as to say he's a victim of the OAD scenario. He's a player who's not quite ready for primetime, but doesn't get the chance to play through his mistakes.

I'll shut-up for now and close by wishing everyone a Happy Thanksgiving.

[uh_no]

Also, for years around here, a lot of people have been begging for K to recruit some lower-rated recruits who will stay 3 or 4 years. Now some of those same people are complaining about our lower-rated recruits that have stayed 3 or 4 years (or probably will, in Joey Baker's case).

The thing is, lower-rated recruits who stay 3 or 4 years more often than not end up playing like Javin DeLaurier and Joey Baker and Alex O'Connell and Jack White and Jordan Goldwire. You can get lucky every once in awhile, but in general you can't really have it both ways.

to some degree it's a numbers game. if we had 4 more 4 year players, obviously there's a better chance one of them will be good.

I think the more pressing issue is that if you're a "higher" rated 4 year player, why would you go to duke only to have to sit behind the 1 and done-ers? Why not go to, say, uva, and get more playing time in the few years in preparation for being "the guy." I suspect we don't get that kind of player like we used to, though I'd have trouble defining a range of recruit ranks for such a class of player....and I suspect that's why "just recruit some players who will stay 3-4 years" may not be as easy as it sounds.

[CDu]

The thing is, lower-rated recruits who stay 3 or 4 years more often than not end up playing like Javin DeLaurier and Joey Baker and Alex O'Connell and Jack White and Jordan Goldwire. You can get lucky every once in awhile, but in general you can't really have it both ways.

I don't think that this is necessarily true. At least I don't think it is true outside of Duke. UVa, for example, has made a consistent habit of getting guys who perform above their recruiting rankings with time in their system. Ditto Villanova. Even UNC has tended to consistently get more from the 30-100 range than we do. Kansas too. MSU too.

Now, that's not to say that I want to trade programs. Just that there is plenty of evidence that good programs can get really talented players pretty regularly even from the not-top-20.

Now, the logical next question may be "why does Duke not tend to see this where others do?" I guess my hypothesis is that, because we don't run a system but rather change the team's identity each year based on its best players, it's hard for the lesser-rated players to develop. Whereas at UVa or UNC or Villanova, you know the role a player at your position is going to play, because the system doesn't change. At Duke? That can change depending upon the year and your teammates. So it's hard to build that player up for a specific role 2-3 years from now, because you don't know what you're going to be running 2-3 years from now.

There are pros and cons to this. Being flexible allows you to go after the very best players every year, knowing that you'll just build the team around the strengths of the guys you get. But you do lose in continuity, which I think is most evidenced by the complementary guys. Conversely, system-based programs don't always align with the top talent every year, but they have the advantage of being able to develop lesser-rated guys over 2-3 years for a specific role.

But, back to the original point, I don't think it's incongruous logic for someone to want to recruit and develop players over 3-4 years rather than the one-and-done. It would just require a different type of program than what we are currently running. We'd almost have to redevelop a consistent year-to-year program identity (or a system), which is something we've gone away from over the last 10-15 years.

[rtnorthrup]

I don't think that this is necessarily true. At least I don't think it is true outside of Duke. UVa, for example, has made a consistent habit of getting guys who perform above their recruiting rankings with time in their system. Ditto Villanova. Even UNC has tended to consistently get more from the 30-100 range than we do. Kansas too. MSU too.

Now, that's not to say that I want to trade programs. Just that there is plenty of evidence that good programs can get really talented players pretty regularly even from the not-top-20.

Now, the logical next question may be "why does Duke not tend to see this where others do?" I guess my hypothesis is that, because we don't run a system but rather change the team's identity each year based on its best players, it's hard for the lesser-rated players to develop. Whereas at UVa or UNC or Villanova, you know the role a player at your position is going to play, because the system doesn't change. At Duke? That can change depending upon the year and your teammates. So it's hard to build that player up for a specific role 2-3 years from now, because you don't know what you're going to be running 2-3 years from now.

There are pros and cons to this. Being flexible allows you to go after the very best players every year, knowing that you'll just build the team around the strengths of the guys you get. But you do lose in continuity, which I think is most evidenced by the complementary guys. Conversely, system-based programs don't always align with the top talent every year, but they have the advantage of being able to develop lesser-rated guys over 2-3 years for a specific role.

But, back to the original point, I don't think it's incongruous logic for someone to want to recruit and develop players over 3-4 years rather than the one-and-done. It would just require a different type of program than what we are currently running. We'd almost have to redevelop a consistent year-to-year program identity (or a system), which is something we've gone away from over the last 10-15 years.

Pure guess, but Duke has had a few players that it did not think would leave after one year declare anyway. It has been hard, especially now with the earlier recruiting cycle, to anticipate who is staying and who is leaving.

[CDu]

Barttorvik.com has SFA going 3-4 on Dunks and 30-49 at the rim. If you back out the transition shots and makes, you get 20-36 (55%). SFA had 3 players take more than 10 shots at the rim (Harris, Kensmil and Johnson). Duke didn't have one. SFA took 74 shots of which nearly half were non-transition at the rim. That's not good. Transition and TOs were definitely an issue but that many shots at the rim puts a boatload of pressure on the defense.

I don't think it's quite that simple. First, "at the rim" is a pretty loose definition. I love me some Torvik, but I'm not sure I'm ready to buy into it just yet.

Second, as I noted, they appear to have gone 14-19 on transition buckets as layups or dunks. So they were 16/30 on the others, or right about 50%.

Third, several (like 7 or 8) those other 30 were off of offensive rebounds. Those tend to be made at a higher percentage too, but I haven't done the math.

I would guess that their FG% on contested 2s near the basket was below 50%, and I'd guess there were below 20 half-court, first-shot attempts in the lane. Given that they are a team that drives and feeds the post a lot, I don't think that's unreasonable at all. If we'd cut our turnovers in half, we probably win by 15 or so, because they would have lost out on a bunch of fast break points, and they were not at all efficient in the half court.


This is the problem. I've harping on this as well. This team is entirely way too reliant on Tre Jones, on both sides of the ball. Once Tre gets fatigued, we can't score, and we can stop the opposing team's ball handlers from getting in the paint. Either someone steps up and becomes a pressure outlet on offense, or someone steps up to guard the ball on defense to allow Tre a breather every once in awhile. It's just not feasible to ask Tre Jones to do everything on both ends for 40 minutes a game. It's asking way too much of one player.

But even so, I believe this is a down year across the board in college basketball, and this team is still near the top in terms of overall talent. Despite our flaws, we have what it takes to make the Final Four. I have faith the coaching staff will figure out a way to answer this problem.

Yeah, I remain hopeful that Moore and Stanley continue to grow. I was intrigued by the possibility of O'Connell making the jump, too, because he has the right type of tools as well. But it doesn't appear as hopeful for him at the moment. But if Moore can get better control (his game feels very Carrawell-esque right now) or Stanley can get more aggressive, that may help take some of the burden off of Jones. Similarly, if those guys can up the defense, it would help. And of course finding more/better/easier ways of using Carey would help.

Matthew Hurt remains the wild card to me. He has the most polished scoring arsenal of the bunch. But he's also really weak and not athletic. So it's a matter of him figuring out how to make it work against better, more physical athletes. If he can figure that out, maybe we can work more of the offense through him and Carey.

There are lots of potentially awesome pieces. But few of the pieces are polished gems at this point. Hopefully the staff and players can work to get those guys to a point where Jones isn't asked to play 40 minutes of non-stop effort on both ends.

[Steven43]

Also, for years around here, a lot of people have been begging for K to recruit some lower-rated recruits who will stay 3 or 4 years. Now some of those same people are complaining about our lower-rated recruits that have stayed 3 or 4 years (or probably will, in Joey Baker's case).

The thing is, lower-rated recruits who stay 3 or 4 years more often than not end up playing like Javin DeLaurier and Joey Baker and Alex O'Connell and Jack White and Jordan Goldwire. You can get lucky every once in awhile, but in general you can't really have it both ways.

Who is complaining about our lower-rated recruits that have stayed 3 or 4 years? I’m certainly not. And by the way, DBR posters complained PLENTY about #1-ranked recruit RJ Barrett (he plays hero ball, he can’t shoot from 3, he isn’t a great passer, he can’t shoot free throws, his defense is mediocre, etc.) and #3-ranked recruit Cam Reddish (he was supposed to be a better shooter; he has no handles; his passing, decision-making and court awareness are poor; he is a turnover machine; he can’t drive to the basket, etc.). So I don’t think your point is valid. People complain either way.

[CDu]

Pure guess, but Duke has had a few players that it did not think would leave after one year declare anyway. It has been hard, especially now with the earlier recruiting cycle, to anticipate who is staying and who is leaving.

Surely true. I don't think Duke expected Tyus Jones to leave after his freshman year, which through the program into a bit of a tailspin (pushing Thornton to take summer school and come a year early but behind in the development curve, which may have contributed to a transfer). I don't think they expected Kennard to leave after two years, though that was offset by Allen staying all 4 years. They probably didn't expect Frank Jackson to leave after one. Of course, those were all top-25 types. So not really the kinds of guys one should be expecting to be 3-4 year guys.

But, yeah, with this approach, there is really no way to plan even more than a year in advance how the program is going to be set up. I mean, as late as last Spring, we had Ellis and didn't have Stanley or Hurt, and we may or may not have been sure about Jones. There was a ton of variability to this season's identity just 8 months ago, to say nothing of 2-3 years ago.

[CDu]

So I don’t think your point is valid. People complain either way.

I am pretty sure the bolded part was exactly Kedsy's point, actually.

As for who is complaining about our 3-4 year guys, umm, have you seen the complaints about DeLaurier? What about Bolden last year? Matt Jones? O'Connell? There have been plenty complaining about those guys. About the only guys that folks aren't complaining much about are Jack White and Goldwire, but that's because those guys came in with basically no expectations.

[kAzE]

I don't think that this is necessarily true. At least I don't think it is true outside of Duke. UVa, for example, has made a consistent habit of getting guys who perform above their recruiting rankings with time in their system. Ditto Villanova. Even UNC has tended to consistently get more from the 30-100 range than we do. Kansas too. MSU too.

Now, that's not to say that I want to trade programs. Just that there is plenty of evidence that good programs can get really talented players pretty regularly even from the not-top-20.

Now, the logical next question may be "why does Duke not tend to see this where others do?" I guess my hypothesis is that, because we don't run a system but rather change the team's identity each year based on its best players, it's hard for the lesser-rated players to develop. Whereas at UVa or UNC or Villanova, you know the role a player at your position is going to play, because the system doesn't change. At Duke? That can change depending upon the year and your teammates. So it's hard to build that player up for a specific role 2-3 years from now, because you don't know what you're going to be running 2-3 years from now.

There are pros and cons to this. Being flexible allows you to go after the very best players every year, knowing that you'll just build the team around the strengths of the guys you get. But you do lose in continuity, which I think is most evidenced by the complementary guys. Conversely, system-based programs don't always align with the top talent every year, but they have the advantage of being able to develop lesser-rated guys over 2-3 years for a specific role.

But, back to the original point, I don't think it's incongruous logic for someone to want to recruit and develop players over 3-4 years rather than the one-and-done. It would just require a different type of program than what we are currently running. We'd almost have to redevelop a consistent year-to-year program identity (or a system), which is something we've gone away from over the last 10-15 years.

I don't totally buy this. Some programs do develop players better than others, but I think Duke does a fine job. I just think some players develop, and some don't. It's not based on the way Duke runs its program. Guys like Amile Jefferson, Ryan Kelly, the Plumlees, Nolan Smith, Jon Scheyer, Kyle Singler, Seth Curry, Grayson Allen, Matt Jones, Quinn Cook, Lance Thomas, Tyler Thornton, and Jack White all developed over their 4 year careers into very good players as seniors. Some became stars, other became reliable role players. This is usually how things play out.

Some guys, like Luke Kennard, develop faster than anticipated and go pro earlier than expected.

But sometimes, players don't improve. This happens much less often. Josh Hairston, Andre Dawkins, Rasheed Sulaimon, Chase Jeter, Marques Bolden (somewhat), Javin, and Alex O'Connell are really the only ones I can think of over the past decade or so who didn't vastly improve over a period of 3-4 years. It just so happens that 2 of those guys are on this year's roster.

[jv001]

Yeah, I remain hopeful that Moore and Stanley continue to grow. I was intrigued by the possibility of O'Connell making the jump, too, because he has the right type of tools as well. But it doesn't appear as hopeful for him at the moment. But if Moore can get better control (his game feels very Carrawell-esque right now) or Stanley can get more aggressive, that may help take some of the burden off of Jones. Similarly, if those guys can up the defense, it would help. And of course finding more/better/easier ways of using Carey would help.

Matthew Hurt remains the wild card to me. He has the most polished scoring arsenal of the bunch. But he's also really weak and not athletic. So it's a matter of him figuring out how to make it work against better, more physical athletes. If he can figure that out, maybe we can work more of the offense through him and Carey.

There are lots of potentially awesome pieces. But few of the pieces are polished gems at this point. Hopefully the staff and players can work to get those guys to a point where Jones isn't asked to play 40 minutes of non-stop effort on both ends.

This was what I was referring to in an earlier post. Moore and Stanley appear to be the wild cards in our hope for championships this season. Moore has seemed to improve already from his early season mistakes and is now a starter but I don't know about his outside shooting ability. Cassius is a stud and seems to have the ability to make 3s but doesn't look comfortable driving the ball all the way to the basket and that's a shame with his jumping ability. Working a floater into his game might work and finishing stronger would be good as well. Hurt like you mentioned is weak and not very athletic. He reminds me of Ryan Kelly when he was a freshman. GoDuke!

[Steven43]

I am pretty sure the bolded part was exactly Kedsy's point, actually.

As for who is complaining about our 3-4 year guys, umm, have you seen the complaints about DeLaurier? What about Bolden last year? Matt Jones? O'Connell? There have been plenty complaining about those guys. About the only guys that folks aren't complaining much about are Jack White and Goldwire, but that's because those guys came in with basically no expectations.
True, Kedsy is correct in stating that some posters complain about the 3-4 year guys. I did not mean to imply otherwise. However, what is the point of saying that posters complain about the 3-4 year guys if they also complain equally or greater about the OADs? Case in point: look at what is already being said by many posters about Wendell Moore and Matthew Hurt.

[kAzE]

This was what I was referring to in an earlier post. Moore and Stanley appear to be the wild cards in our hope for championships this season. Moore has seemed to improve already from his early season mistakes and is now a starter but I don't know about his outside shooting ability. Cassius is a stud and seems to have the ability to make 3s but doesn't look comfortable driving the ball all the way to the basket and that's a shame with his jumping ability. Working a floater into his game might work and finishing stronger would be good as well. Hurt like you mentioned is weak and not very athletic. He reminds me of Ryan Kelly when he was a freshman. GoDuke!

We don't really need either of them to become knockdown shooters, but we desperately need one of them to become a steady second play maker.

Moore looks like the guy the coaching staff is trying to develop in that role, but he has a ways to go, in terms of taking care of them ball and making good decisions. His development in that respect is what will take this team to the next level.

Honestly, Cassius is perfect in his current role. He's a very good finisher and has shown the ability to shoot off the catch. I love that he's a great rebounding guard, and he's active on defense, too. But if he can also develop as a playmaker/pick and roll ball handler, it couldn't hurt.

[rsvman]

We definitely could've used Bolden last night!

[OldPhiKap]

Sweet - love adding new tunes to my Americana playlist!

You probably know this one, but since we’re talking Texas:


https://youtu.be/8-cFtSPIF4Q

[accfanfrom1970]

Matthew Hurt remains the wild card to me. He has the most polished scoring arsenal of the bunch. But he's also really weak and not athletic. So it's a matter of him figuring out how to make it work against better, more physical athletes. If he can figure that out, maybe we can work more of the offense through him and Carey.


There were times in the game where I felt Hurt had a mismatch and could post up a smaller player, and Carey might go outside. I feel like we can run through them in some way.

[arnie]

Josh Hairston played fewer minutes per game than Javin has played this season. Andre Dawkins as a senior played around the same number of minutes per game. Casey Sanders played a few more minutes as a senior, but played a lot fewer as a junior and sophomore. Joey Baker (though of course he's not a senior) is also a top 50 recruit and is playing less than Javin. Marty Pocius was ranked #53, so not top 50 but close, and he played a lot less than Javin.

Plus we've had at least nine top 50 players transfer out before they became upperclassmen, most of whom because they couldn't get playing time. If Chase Jeter or Alex Murphy or Taylor King or Eric Boateng or Michael Thompson were on Duke's team right now, you think they'd be playing more than Javin?



Javin has shot very poorly so far this season, and his foul rate is astronomical. That said, his rebounding is way up (both OR and DR); his free throw rate is way up; his usage is way up; his steals and blocks are very strong; his turnover rate is down. In other words, other than shooting percentage and foul rate, his play is much improved this season.

Based on his career, his FG% should improve drastically over the course of the season. Thus the only things that are keeping him from being a very productive player this season are foul rate and K's willingness to put him on the floor. And as far as foul rate goes, I would like to remind people (for the zillionth time) that for the first 24 games of 2009-10, Brian Zoubek committed 8.8 fouls per 40 minutes but he managed to cut that down significantly for the last 16 games, proving that it can be.

Brian Zoubek proved that Brian Zoubek could improve dramatically in the last year of his senior season. That doesn’t likely translate to Javin (do hope a miracle is out there though). Javin also has major issues with FT shooting - Brian not as much.

I do think Chase Jeter would contribute more than Javin if he’s was on the roster this year; but that’s useless speculation on my part.