MBB: Duke 86, Wofford 57 Post-Game Thread

[JBDuke]

Put your post-game thoughts here.

[TKG]

Nice team play/win.

[uh_no]

was hoping for an even 30. I'll take it. :)

[fisheyes]

Great team win.
Goldwire was excellent tonight.
Baker was amazing.
Great D!
No rust on these guys!

[proelitedota]

Our depth is incredible. It'll be a tall task for K to shrink the bench to 7/8 players.

[MChambers]

Our depth is incredible. It'll be a tall task for K to shrink the bench to 7/8 players.

A tall task for most coaches, but not for Coach K!

[curtis325]

I think Wofford’s season will be fine. This was a trap game for them. After all, they have a lot of tough conference games coming up and after knocking off that powerful team in Chappa Hole, it’s not surprising that they overlooked a team that couldn’t even beat Stephen Freakin Austin. Nice upset win by the Blue Devils.

[Saratoga2]

This Wofford team is undersized and not that athletic but they can shoot from deep. I can see where a team that doesn't play solid defense would find them a tough out (UNC for instance).

Our guys did play tight defense and switched. They mainly kept Wofford defended on the 3 point line and were just to big for them to consistently score inside.

Our offense was multifaceted with Vernon dominating inside. They tried doubling and tripling him but that just got them in foul trouble aand Vernon is now hitting his FTs. Good improvement there. Joey Baker put on his can't miss show tonight. He is an amazing shooter and as he improves his defense should get starters minute. Hurt also had a nice game offensively. He doesn't do well trying to dribble in a crowd but does find a way to score with his height, length and touch. Goldwire did a fine job defensively and showed he can get baskets at times when needed.

It was nice to see AOC hit a few. Maybe he will find himself as the season moves on and become a reliable contributor.

Good team game by all, especially coming off a layoff. No rust showed tonight.

[TKG]

As a team: 19 assists and 8 turnovers.

Goldwire: 5 and 0.

[fan345678]

Great game by Baker, but I think his sample size is still too small to know what works best for him. I'm interested in seeing what he does against Clemson and Wake Forest. Does he play best against teams that start with W? Teams from South Carolina? Hopefully it's W u SC and not W n SC...and hopefully there are other sets that apply.

Advanced metrics...

[mattyoung18]

A tall task for most coaches, but not for Coach K!

Coach will be down to 7 players by mid January's Acc grind unfortunately. Done seen this story before.K just trust 1 extra guard and and 1 forward during crunch time.

[Music man55]

Great team win.
Goldwire was excellent tonight.
Baker was amazing.
Great D!
No rust on these guys!

What he said!😀

[kydukie]

Any insight on why Cassius didn't play much in the second half? Not sure he got any minutes at all?

[Neals384]

Duke > Wofford by 29
Wofford > UNCheat by 4

therefore ...83 - 50?

[SkyBrickey]

Great team win. I’m starting to believe that Joey Baker will be a force for us and not just an early season hot streak.

My two Christmas wishes? Wendell starts using the glass to finish his strong drives to the bucket. And AOC warms up from 3.

Love how hard this team plays.

[Steven43]

A tall task for most coaches, but not for Coach K!

I saw what you did there. 😉

[OldPhiKap]

Duke > Wofford by 29
Wofford > UNCheat by 4

therefore ...83 - 50?

This may be new math, but it’s good math.

[proelitedota]

Duke > Wofford by 29
Wofford > UNCheat by 4

therefore ...83 - 50?


I've peer reviewed your algorithm and found it fundamentally sound.

[Troublemaker]

Duke > Wofford by 29
Wofford > UNCheat by 4

therefore ...83 - 50?

For maximum fun, I would add the frame of "let's compare how each team/coach responded to losing their star point guard before playing Wofford at home"

[mr. synellinden]

Don’t look now but there is a new number 1 KenPom team.

[Dukehk]

Our depth is incredible. It'll be a tall task for K to shrink the bench to 7/8 players.

I think we may legit go with 9 guys in our rotation this year. Maybe even the full 10 on the occasion the GOAT is in a good mood.

I can't even remember the last time we went this deep. Must have been 99 team with all those Mickey Ds.

[du_bb1]

Good, game, great defense, easy game to watch sipping a nice single malt-life is good !

Hope Tre is good

[OldPhiKap]

I think we may legit go with 9 guys in our rotation this year. Maybe even the full 10 on the occasion the GOAT is in a good mood.

I can't even remember the last time we went this deep. Must have been 99 team with all those Mickey Ds.

Is it that we are super deep, or that we have few dominant one-and-done draft picks?

I mean that in a good way — I think this is more a team of really good players than a team of some superstars and some supporting folks to fill things out.

Again, I hope that is taken in the positive way it is meant.

[Kedsy]

Duke without our PG is clearly better than UNC without their PG.

OFFENSE

Possessions: 60.0 (very slow; we lost the pace battle for the 2nd straight game)
oRtg: 1.43 (1.39 adjusted; excellent, best offensive performance of the season, which is crazy when you consider we played without our star PG)
eFG%: 61.0% (great; our 3rd best eFG of the season)
3pt%: 40.0% (very good)
2pt%: 61.5% (excellent; 3rd best 2pt marksmanship of the season)
%threes: 33.9% (if we're going to shoot this well, this is probably a sweet spot)
FT rate: 30.5% (not bad, not great)
OR%: 53.3% (fab; 3rd best OR% of the season)
TO%: 13.3% (excellent, especially (again) factoring in that we played without our PG; 3rd best offensive TO% of the season)
a/to: 2.38:1 (best a/to of the season, amazing considering (broken record alert) we did it without Tre)
%assisted: 59.4%
fast break pts: 10 (meh)

DEFENSE

dRtg: 0.95 (last six games have been our six worst unadjusted defensive ppp of the season; that said, our adjusted dRtg of 88.6 is pretty good)
eFG%: 43.5% (in general, this is the worst part of our defense but not bad tonight; our 4th best defensive eFG)
3pt%: 41.7% (not good)
2pt%: 31.6% (excellent; our best opposing 2pt% of the season)
%threes: 38.7% (our highest %3 of the season, but still much lower than Wofford's 51.4% coming into the game)
FT rate: 8.1% (outstanding, best FTR of the season for the second straight game)
DR%: 67.5% (pretty lousy, considering how much bigger we were than Wofford; 2nd worst DR% of the season)
TO%: 15.0% (not great, but considering we were without Tre and Wofford has the 49th lowest TO% in the country, I guess it's not terrible either)
a/to: 1.22:1 (more opposing assists than TOs for the fifth time in six games)
%assisted: 40.9%
stl%: 6.7% (poor, but again, we were without Tre Jones)
blk%: 9.7% (15.8% of 2pt shots) (decent, not great; especially when you consider Justin Robinson had half our blocks, and by the time he came in the game was pretty much over)
fast break pts: 4 (7.0% of points; fabulous; third straight game allowing 4 or fewer fast break points)


Overall, considering the absence of Tre Jones, this was a top shelf performance on both sides of the ball. Missing Tre seemed to hurt us most in failing to get many steals. Other than that, you can't really tell he was out from the statistical profile. And while this was against an overmatched team, that team is ranked #131 by Pomeroy, and that's after this game.

[Kedsy]

Funny thing. Since we had that contentious debate about whether Javin DeLaurier could ever stop fouling, he has only committed one (1) foul in his last 47 minutes on the floor.

Also, Javin has successfully converted his last ten (10) FG attempts.

[Billy Dat]

Is it that we are super deep, or that we have few dominant one-and-done draft picks?
I mean that in a good way — I think this is more a team of really good players than a team of some superstars and some supporting folks to fill things out.
Again, I hope that is taken in the positive way it is meant.

K has cited the lack of separation of talent among the players as justification for going deeper than usual. It's working so far.

We played way better than I thought we would without Tre. Our defensive gameplan was excellent. While Wofford missed some bunnies early that might have allowed them to keep pace longer, we absolutely denied them 3s for the first 25-30 minutes of the game. What a great effort.

I also enjoyed how balanced the scoring was early. Everyone got into the act. Vernon produced and then Joey exploded. Man, if he can keep shooting like that....

Really pleasant surprise...I expected rust and I expected to really miss Tre. A mature win. Now, we wait some more.

[OldPhiKap]

Duke is clearly better than UNC


Simplified it for you.

[sagegrouse]

Coach will be down to 7 players by mid January's Acc grind unfortunately. Done seen this story before.K just trust 1 extra guard and and 1 forward during crunch time.

Disagree but understand your viewpoint.

(a) There is logic for each of the ten players currently getting 10+ minutes. The four freshmen are gonna play. Then there's Tre. Jack White is a fixture in the rotation. Javin is the second big and is playing pretty darn well right now. That's seven. Goldwire has made his case for playing time. Joey Baker is now our best shooter. O'Connell will have to be productive to get significant playing time -- but he started tonight, and I was pleased he made his last three shots.

(b) Coach K said he was likely to play ten players at the beginning of the season, not something he has ever said before. Of course, a number of us have been sending waves in his direction for years (decades?) about spreading playing time.

[Kedsy]

Any insight on why Cassius didn't play much in the second half? Not sure he got any minutes at all?

Cassius played 4 minutes in the 2nd half.


I think we may legit go with 9 guys in our rotation this year. Maybe even the full 10 on the occasion the GOAT is in a good mood.

I can't even remember the last time we went this deep. Must have been 99 team with all those Mickey Ds.

In the 1998-99 season, in games after January 1 decided by fewer than 20 points, Duke only had two games in which more than 7 players played 10+ minutes. I strongly suspect this year's team will have a lot more than that.

FWIW, the seasons since Coach K's lost 1995 season that we "went deepest" were 2008 (11 games after January 1 decided by fewer than 20 points in which more than 7 players played 10+ minutes), 2012 (also 11 games), 1997 (8 games), and 2014 (7 games). Unfortunately, we won a total of two NCAA games combined in those four seasons. Hopefully, this year's team will do better come tournament time.

[DUKIE V(A)]

In my view, this was our most consistent and best overall game. The pieces on this team fit well together, and these players are quite enjoyable to watch. It seems new guys step up every game. Coach K and his staff are doing an excellent job of developing this group. I am sensing a special season in the making.

[roywhite]

Great game by Baker, but I think his sample size is still too small to know what works best for him. I'm interested in seeing what he does against Clemson and Wake Forest. Does he play best against teams that start with W? Teams from South Carolina? Hopefully it's W u SC and not W n SC...and hopefully there are other sets that apply.

Advanced metrics...

I'm leaning to Joey is legit:

He's 6'7" and shoots quickly with a high release point
So far, he has shot well when open and shot well when defended
Has good shooting numbers overall 54% FG and a perfect 10-10 from the FT line
Not afraid to pull the trigger and in fact looks for his shot; seems to be a hard worker
He's 16 for 30 from 3-points on the season.

[Furniture]

Looks like Baker should be starting. Anyway he reminds me so much of Seth Curry...brill.....

[CoachJ10]

K continues to go 10 deep this year. You can see that these guys all are cogs working for the greater good...and I get the sense that they all (presumably to varying degrees) have bought into the Team First approach to the personnel this year. Everyone is getting subbed in and out...and it seems that the egos are embracing it. It is great to see.

On a different note, and I loathe to pick a scab...but man, where was that Joey Buckets last year?? That 3 point shooting would have been the coup de grace with Z and RJ.

[jimsumner]

K continues to go 10 deep this year. You can see that these guys all are cogs working for the greater good...and I get the sense that they all (presumably to varying degrees) have bought into the Team First approach to the personnel this year. Everyone is getting subbed in and out...and it seems that the egos are embracing it. It is great to see.

On a different note, and I loathe to pick a scab...but man, where was that Joey Buckets last year?? That 3 point shooting would have been the coup de grace with Z and RJ.

Duke didn't have THAT Joey Baker last season. K made the point in the post-game that as recently as this September he wasn't sure Baker could play at this level. But Baker went to the woodshed and just worked his way into the rotation.

His offensive game is improving by leaps and bounds. But the rest of his game is improving by baby steps. He still needs to do better on D, rebounding and passing. He's getting there. But he's still not as well-rounded as he needs to be to maximize his considerable potential.

[BandAlum83]

Don’t look now but there is a new number 1 KenPom team.

Ok. I’ll wait until tomorrow.

[DevilYouKnow]

Great game, everyone played from pretty good to excellent. G-Wire, Joey Maker and Mount Vernon notably awesome.

Biggest complaint: above court scoreboard never showed individual stats, just a few replays, then defaulted to the throbbing five rings with trophies backdrop.

-spoiled Duke fan

[Nrrrrvous]

Duke didn't have THAT Joey Baker last season. K made the point in the post-game that as recently as this September he wasn't sure Baker could play at this level. But Baker went to the woodshed and just worked his way into the rotation.

His offensive game is improving by leaps and bounds. But the rest of his game is improving by baby steps. He still needs to do better on D, rebounding and passing. He's getting there. But he's still not as well-rounded as he needs to be to maximize his considerable potential.

This! I agree completely.
Can you help me with this question? I didn't get to see the SFA game (not complaining) but I notice that Joey only played 3 minutes in that game. Before that he was steady around 15 and after that he was steady around 20. Could anyone who actually saw it give me any reasoning? Maybe I need to go back and read the post game thread. (don't really want to torture myself that way)

Did he miss a couple of assignments on D? Take a couple stupid shots? Injury/illness? Just curious.

[dukelifer]

Duke didn't have THAT Joey Baker last season. K made the point in the post-game that as recently as this September he wasn't sure Baker could play at this level. But Baker went to the woodshed and just worked his way into the rotation.

His offensive game is improving by leaps and bounds. But the rest of his game is improving by baby steps. He still needs to do better on D, rebounding and passing. He's getting there. But he's still not as well-rounded as he needs to be to maximize his considerable potential.

I agree. Joey has a beautiful shot with a quick release. He is a weapon. He has a lot to work on D and in bounding the ball but he is gaining confidence in one important area- shooting the ball quickly. He did not show this last year. Just goes to show- players do get better.

[arnie]

I agree. Joey has a beautiful shot with a quick release. He is a weapon. He has a lot to work on D and in bounding the ball but he is gaining confidence in one important area- shooting the ball quickly. He did not show this last year. Just goes to show- players do get better.

Best evidence - Jordan Goldwire. Based on his HS ranking and freshman year, doubt anyone forecasted this level of contribution on a “loaded” team.

[TeacherTom]

I am so happy for Joey. That was an extremely enjoyable game to watch. Plus, not being on the blurry ACC Network tripled the enjoyment!

[Ggallagher]

Don’t look now but there is a new number 1 KenPom team.

There's a new number 40 too. Aww.... isn't that nice?

[Billy Dat]

Joey Maker and Mount Vernon

Nice monikers, I will try and incorporate them.

[TKG]

For all you kids out there, do yourself a favor and listen to K’s press conference and his comments about Joey Baker’s work ethic. As important is K’s observation that JB’s teammates notice his hard work as well.

[killerleft]

Funny thing. Since we had that contentious debate about whether Javin DeLaurier could ever stop fouling, he has only committed one (1) foul in his last 47 minutes on the floor.

Also, Javin has successfully converted his last ten (10) FG attempts.

Great stats! I would have bet against either of these things ever happening. Go Javin!

[dukebluesincebirth]

What a fun game to watch! I was expecting a rusty team coming off exam break, then found out our PG leader would not be playing, so expecting a very difficult game. I am super proud of the way Jordan Goldwire handled his moment. I know it was Wofford at Cameron, but I thought he'd still have lots of pressure on him considering he's the only primary ballhandler left after Tre. Jordan far exceeded my expectations-- he was the floor general, did a great job of leading/controlling tempo, setting the tone (all the things a PG is supposed to do), put pressure defense on the opponent, handled the ball and ran the offense well without turnovers, and even scored and rebounded some!! And he conserved his energy while doing so because he knew he'd have to play longer minutes tonight. Perfect execution from our backup PG in a big moment for him. He's come a long way, plays now with confidence and is a real contributor on this team. GREAT JOB JORDAN G!!!!

[Devilwin]

The team may be coming together. Goldwire really was impressive last night.. Baker was off the hook. Vernon did what Vernon does. My only concern is why AOC and Jack can't seem to hit a bull in the butt with a bass fiddle. Jack redeems himself with defense and rebounding however. AOC did have a little flurry at mop up time, but his on ball defense is suspect to say the least.

[BD80]

Our depth is incredible. It'll be a tall task for K to shrink the bench to 7/8 players.

Deano was able to hold MJ under 20 ppg ...

[dukebluesincebirth]

The team may be coming together. Goldwire really was impressive last night.. Baker was off the hook. Vernon did what Vernon does. My only concern is why AOC and Jack can't seem to hit a bull in the butt with a bass fiddle. Jack redeems himself with defense and rebounding however. AOC did have a little flurry at mop up time, but his on ball defense is suspect to say the least.

AOC is getting into the bad habit of a little flurry at mop up time every game now... which tells me it could be a mental thing- he can make shots in practice and when games are already decided, but not under real pressure. It's a common flaw of talented athletes, and he has to make the mental jump. Hopefully soon.

[camion]

Okay, I'm smiling over most of this game. We played overall a very good game and didn't let Wofford get a whiff of an upset after the first ten minutes. My only quibble is that we, several players, still seem to drive into traffic too much.

I loved the games from Carey, Baker and Goldwire. Of course with Vernon it's come to be expected. The other two rose to the occasion.

I am still a bit in shock over the transformation of Javin from athlete to basketball player. I kept hoping he would be able to channel his physical talents to become an efficient/effective player on the court. That appears to have happened in the last few games like the proverbial light turning on. I'm ecstatic for him and hope it continues.

[SkyBrickey]

I'm leaning to Joey is legit:

He's 6'7" and shoots quickly with a high release point
So far, he has shot well when open and shot well when defended
Has good shooting numbers overall 54% FG and a perfect 10-10 from the FT line
Not afraid to pull the trigger and in fact looks for his shot; seems to be a hard worker
He's 16 for 30 from 3-points on the season.

I'm leaning there with you. And if the opposing coach has to put his best defender on Buckets and says "don't give him an inch", well then the court really opens up for other guys and we're almost playing 4 vs 4. Advantage Duke.

[SkyBrickey]

Okay, I'm smiling over most of this game. We played overall a very good game and didn't let Wofford get a whiff of an upset after the first ten minutes. My only quibble is that we, several players, still seem to drive into traffic too much.

I loved the games from Carey, Baker and Goldwire. Of course with Vernon it's come to be expected. The other two rose to the occasion.

I am still a bit in shock over the transformation of Javin from athlete to basketball player. I kept hoping he would be able to channel his physical talents to become an efficient/effective player on the court. That appears to have happened in the last few games like the proverbial light turning on. I'm ecstatic for him and hope it continues.

Javin is playing on offense again now like he did during that long consecutive field goal streak last year. Not a surprise to me - it's what I expected out of our senior captain.

But the leap he appears to be making is on dialing back his fouls by just playing smarter, controlled, position-based defense. He's so athletic that I always felt like it was just a mental hurdle he had to get over. I saw a reference to him saying that Coach Nolan counseled him on "staying in the moment" while out on the court - maybe it's just finally clicked. Fingers crossed. It's always fun to watch when Duke players reach their full potential as upperclassmen (Zoubek).

[HereBeforeCoachK]

I'm leaning there with you. And if the opposing coach has to put his best defender on Buckets and says "don't give him an inch", well then the court really opens up for other guys and we're almost playing 4 vs 4. Advantage Duke.

...maybe too bad someone else wasn't leaning towards legit say, last seaon??????

[Steven43]

Funny thing. Since we had that contentious debate about whether Javin DeLaurier could ever stop fouling, he has only committed one (1) foul in his last 47 minutes on the floor.

Also, Javin has successfully converted his last ten (10) FG attempts.

Whoa, that’s very impressive stuff. Way to go, Javin! Kedsy, you often come through with stats that get my attention. Nice work.

[Troublemaker]

Don’t look now but there is a new number 1 KenPom team.

#1 in Sagarin and #1 in BPI as well. So #1 in the three most well-known computer rankings. (Doesn't mean they have to be right, of course).

Who would've thunk this is where we'd be after that first exhibition game against NW Missouri St.

Lots of games to play, but this could go down as one of Coach K's greatest seasons.

[UrinalCake]

Really impressive win especially given no Tre and the extended time off with all the disruptions around finals. The team’s defensive intensity is off the charts, they really have an old school feel to them and it’s a pleasure to watch. Wofford wasn’t getting any open looks all game, we kept pressure on the ball and rotated well and didn’t get caught switching unnecessarily. Lots of contributions from all around once again. Offensively we’re just so balanced and the three ball was dropping as well which makes us really hard to beat.

Goldwire’s line was impressive: 8 points on 3-3 shooting (1-1 from three), 5 assists, 3 rebounds, no turnovers in 28 minutes. Hopefully this gives him confidence moving forward and gives K confidence that he can sit Tre for a breather and not have as big of a drop off.

Big Duke win over a team that beat UNC. Kentucky loses to another unranked team. Life is good!

[Steven43]

Great game, everyone played from pretty good to excellent. G-Wire, Joey Maker and Mount Vernon notably awesome.

Biggest complaint: above court scoreboard never showed individual stats, just a few replays, then defaulted to the throbbing five rings with trophies backdrop.

-spoiled Duke fan

Yeah, what was up with the scoreboard? I kept reflexively looking up to see how many points Joey had or how many rebounds Carey had or whatnot. I’ve become so used to the scoreboard stats feature in Cameron that I was kind of lost.

When the old scoreboard was replaced I was really upset about it. It took me a few years to get over it. And it seemed to coincide with Duke beginning to advertise in Cameron, so I was doubly upset. I loved how Cameron Indoor had been a basketball shrine, untarnished by commercialism or modernism. I still don’t like the advertising, but I’ve gotten used to the new scoreboard and I like it. It’s also really nice to be able to see replays.

Along with not liking the advertising, I’m not a fan of the extremely loud piped-in music. I much prefer to just hear our Duke band play. That’s part of what makes college sports stand out from the professionals. Extremely loud music on a massive stereo system is much more like professional sports. But hey, what are you gonna do, you know? You take the bad with the good and you move on. So here we are.

[robed deity]

#1 in Sagarin and #1 in BPI as well. So #1 in the three most well-known computer rankings. (Doesn't mean they have to be right, of course).

Who would've thunk this is where we'd be after that first exhibition game against NW Missouri St.

Lots of games to play, but this could go down as one of Coach K's greatest seasons.

And WITH the home loss to SFA, which I thought would be an absolute computer ratings killer at the time.

[MCFinARL]

This! I agree completely.
Can you help me with this question? I didn't get to see the SFA game (not complaining) but I notice that Joey only played 3 minutes in that game. Before that he was steady around 15 and after that he was steady around 20. Could anyone who actually saw it give me any reasoning? Maybe I need to go back and read the post game thread. (don't really want to torture myself that way)

Did he miss a couple of assignments on D? Take a couple stupid shots? Injury/illness? Just curious.

I can't answer your specific question about Joey, but I think it is worth noting that in the SFA game, only 6 players played 10 minutes or more, even though the game went to OT. This is dramatically different from all other games so far this year (except for Georgetown, where there were 7 players with 10 or more minutes), and I didn't understand (and still don't) why that decision was made in that game.

The rest of the year we have played 10 players 10 minutes or more twice, 9 players 10 minutes or more 6 times, and 8 players 10 minutes or more once (against MSU, when Cassius Stanley was not available). It doesn't feel like an accident to me that the shortest rotation game was the worst, though I am certainly not a coach. In any case even Coach K may have a hard time shortening this rotation to 6 or 7 in conference play.

[ratamero]

There's a new number 40 too. Aww... isn't that nice?

You're being too harsh on them - they're now the best 5-loss team on Kenpom!

[DevilHorse]

Funny thing. Since we had that contentious debate about whether Javin DeLaurier could ever stop fouling, he has only committed one (1) foul in his last 47 minutes on the floor.


Could it be that Javin has finally reached the mythical Zoubek Inflection Point where "value" (Rebounds/Points) per minute divided by fouls/turnovers per minute finally exceeds one?

Larry
DevilHorse

[fisheyes]

Could it be that Javin has finally reached the mythical Zoubek Inflection Point where "value" (Rebounds/Points) per minute divided by fouls/turnovers per minute finally exceeds one?

Larry
DevilHorse

I love it when our bigs channel their inner Zoubek!!!

[dukebluesincebirth]

You're being too harsh on them - they're now the best 5-loss team on Kenpom!

says Jay Bilas

[BD80]

Funny thing. Since we had that contentious debate about whether Javin DeLaurier could ever stop fouling, he has only committed one (1) foul in his last 47 minutes on the floor.

Also, Javin has successfully converted his last ten (10) FG attempts.


If you were an announcer on the air, you would have just ensured that Javin would miss his next shot and foul on his next defensive possession.

[TKG]

If you were an announcer on the air, you would have just ensured that Javin would miss his next shot and foul on his next defensive possession.

Back in the day, this phenomenon was known as the Curt Gowdy Curse (you younguns go look him up on the Google machine).

[BD80]

Did I miss the Tre Jones foot vigil?

[Listen to Quants]

I'm leaning to Joey is legit:

He's 6'7" and shoots quickly with a high release point
So far, he has shot well when open and shot well when defended
Has good shooting numbers overall 54% FG and a perfect 10-10 from the FT line
Not afraid to pull the trigger and in fact looks for his shot; seems to be a hard worker
He's 16 for 30 from 3-points on the season.
Reasonable. The standard deviation for that proportion is about 9% so the classic two standard deviations on the low side reaches only down to 35%. That suggests he is a very legit shooter. Of course going forward defenses will pay more attention to him but that makes him a valuable floor spacer for everybody else.

[camion]

Reasonable. The standard deviation for that proportion is about 9% so the classic two standard deviations on the low side reaches only down to 35%. That suggests he is a very legit shooter. Of course going forward defenses will pay more attention to him but that makes him a valuable floor spacer for everybody else.

Excellent.

As far as the eye test is concerned I was impressed that most of his makes didn't touch the rim. It was just SPLASH. :D

[OldPhiKap]

Did I miss the Tre Jones foot vigil?

K said in the post-game presser that if it was an ACC game, Tre would have played. It’s just a tweak but sitting him gives an extended rest.

[jimsumner]

Yeah, what was up with the scoreboard? I kept reflexively looking up to see how many points Joey had or how many rebounds Carey had or whatnot. I’ve become so used to the scoreboard stats feature in Cameron that I was kind of lost.

.

I think it's a software problem.

[MChambers]

Excellent.

As far as the eye test is concerned I was impressed that most of his makes didn't touch the rim. It was just SPLASH. :D

Absolutely right. I replayed one of Baker's 3s for my son, who said "looks like JJ."

Now if he can improve his defense and rebounding . . .

[uh_no]

And WITH the home loss to SFA, which I thought would be an absolute computer ratings killer at the time.

sfa has shot up the rankings, from 300+ to knocking on top 150....to the point where a close loss at home isn't the bondoogle it might have been, and offset by relative wollopings of MSU and VT on the road, and the beatdown of epic proportions last night over a team ranked similarly to SFA.

[dukelifer]

#1 in Sagarin and #1 in BPI as well. So #1 in the three most well-known computer rankings. (Doesn't mean they have to be right, of course).

Who would've thunk this is where we'd be after that first exhibition game against NW Missouri St.

Lots of games to play, but this could go down as one of Coach K's greatest seasons.

The one thing about this team is that the bench is really capable. Two seniors and one junior who understand their roles- one junior that has shown flashes and a soph who is beginning to find his game and his shooting with confidence. This team can wear opponents out because K can mix and match players on the floor- he has teams for D and teams for O and on any given night a different guy (other than Tre or Vern) could have a big night. I am very happy with the passing of late- Goldwire has a few nifty assists. The team is better than I expected at this stage. I hope the growth continues.

[BLPOG]

Don't think it was posted yet. Worth a watch/listen. Available here (https://goduke.com/watch/?Archive=2137).

[JayZee]

Excellent.

As far as the eye test is concerned I was impressed that most of his makes didn't touch the rim. It was just SPLASH. :D

Totally. His FTs too. Such a beautiful arc. Some shooters are so good that the ball just hits the net differently. And Joey seems like one of those guys.

[AZLA]

Absolutely right. I replayed one of Baker's 3s for my son, who said "looks like JJ."

Now if he can improve his defense and rebounding . . .

Yup. And actually his defense/hustle is as good if not better than JJ's. Baker is first to dive for a loose ball on the floor.

[roywhite]

Don't think it was posted yet. Worth a watch/listen. Available here (https://goduke.com/watch/?Archive=2137).

Strong comments from the GOAT.

I think he sees championship potential for this group. Not that some recent teams haven't had that potential also, but K is very complimentary of this team's work ethic and toughness; recognizes the contributions the veterans are making.

[Neals384]

AOC got burned at least once by watching the ball while his man made a cut for the basket and scored a layup. By junior year one should know there's a reason God (or Darwin) designed us with our head on a swivel. May end up as the odd man out when the rotation is shortened.

[lotusland]

Totally. His FTs too. Such a beautiful arc. Some shooters are so good that the ball just hits the net differently. And Joey seems like one of those guys.

Baker has a nice stroke but his shots usually have a very slow and slightly cockeyed rotation. I don’t recommend that he change it though. Seems to work well.

[Saratoga2]

Baker has a nice stroke but his shots usually have a very slow and slightly cockeyed rotation. I don’t recommend that he change it though. Seems to work well.

Clearly he is the best shooter from distance and may also be the best from the line and from mid range. It sounds like he is a natural boosted by a lot of practice. AOC has nice form but has been inconsistent. Some say its in his head. I don't know what the issue is but hope it clicks for him as the season progresses.