Duke MBB vs. E. Kentucky Post-Game Thread

[JBDuke]

Post your post-game thoughts here.

[Lord Ash]

Please can someone give a REAL good summary, player by player, of the game? A lot of us Dukies missed it. Thanks! :)

[mgtr]

Except for Duke's run at the end of the first half and Taylor King's shooting, it was a pretty boring game. We have to be more "up" for the games against Wisconsin and Davidson or we will be in trouble. Of course, more time will have passed since our return from Maui -- I am sure that long trip following some tough games took a lot out of the starters.

[JBDuke]

Please can someone give a REAL good summary, player by player, of the game? A lot of us Dukies missed it. Thanks! :)

You should have joined us in chat!

[Indoor66]

Veni, vidi, vici

[DavidBenAkiva]

Being a statistician (or something close to one at least), I looked at the in-game stats. Scoring was not balanced. Taylor King had 27, and I think that Demarcus and Gerald were the other two in double figures with 12 and 10 points. Way to go Taylor!

Looking at just the shooting percentages, it didn't seem like anybody shot poorly or hoisted up a lot of poor shots - King was 6-11 from behind the arc, which is great. From those that were able to watch the game, did it seem at any time like anybody was forcing shots? Also, I didn't get numbers on assists. How was Duke doing passing the ball?

Time flies like an arrow
Fruit flies like a banana

[grossbus]

any status on marty? geez, that kid cannot catch a good break.

[RelativeWays]

It was a great defensive perfomance. Duke played real aggressive man to man and got a lot of turnovers.

Offensively, not the best, King was a monster and DMark and G were solid as well, everyone else seemed to be tentative and afraid to try to collapse the defense. FTs were terrible, like a last year game. Hopefully they'll shake that off. Zoubek played pretty poorly, which was disappointing because I thought he was excellent in the Maui Invitational. There is still work to be done.

[mgtr]

Being a statistician (or something close to one at least), I looked at the in-game stats. Scoring was not balanced. Taylor King had 27, and I think that Demarcus and Gerald were the other two in double figures with 12 and 10 points. Way to go Taylor!

Looking at just the shooting percentages, it didn't seem like anybody shot poorly or hoisted up a lot of poor shots - King was 6-11 from behind the arc, which is great. From those that were able to watch the game, did it seem at any time like anybody was forcing shots? Also, I didn't get numbers on assists. How was Duke doing passing the ball


If anything, we were overpassing the ball. We spent a lot of time passing around the perimeter (much as we did last year). EKU did a pretty good job clogging up the middle, so you didn't see Nelson or Henderson driving into the middle for easy shots. I don't know how many assists we had (of course, people passed the ball to King for his 3s), but we sure had a bunch of turnovers (although many less than EKU). This seemed like a game where Zoubek could clean up, but we didn't get the ball inside too much, and then he looked more like last year. Shelden Williams would have cleaned up! Scheyer probably ended up with the most minutes, including playing point for probably 4-5 minutes.

[delfrio]

Listening to the radio broadcast, it seemed like offensively we were a bit lazy, with a ton of turnovers. Seemed like Gerald didn't play that well, but made enough good defensive plays to cancel out his offensive problems. I expected more out of Zoubek, but wasn't to be.

Overall, we appeared to play great defensively. Got a lot of players in the game. Demarcus and Scheyer played around 30min, but everyone else was at ~20 or under.

[RelativeWays]

Oh, one positive, Dave McClure was in for a good bit of the second half and seemed to move well with the ball. He may be up to full speed after this week.

[CDu]

Just a fairly disjointed game. There seemed to be lots of turnovers committed by both teams (many more by EKU than Duke). When we did get a shot off, it usually went in. Duke's defense was very solid against a clearly inferior team. There was lots of pressure applied on the perimeter, and everyone seemed to be doing a good job of challenging the passing lanes whenever someone picked up their dribble up top.

Offensively, the half court offense never looked very crisp with regard to attacking the lane. That said, we hit a LOT of outside shots. King had a great shooting game, and took advantage of being left alone several times in the first half. In the second half, EKU paid a bit more attention, but King just stepped further out.

Duke led comfortably for almost the entire game, and EKU never really threatened in any way. Therefore, it's hard to really gauge much. It was nice to see the defense maintain their aggressiveness for 40 minutes.

King did what you can expect offensively when his shot is falling. He shot it quickly and often. He also hustled defensively and forced a few turnovers. He had a great game, due in large part to the fact that he got a lot of open looks and his shot was falling.

The rest of the team can be generally summed up by the assessment of "solid defensively, unimpressive offensively." Paulus had a less than stellar performance. He was solid defensively, but offensively he committed a few turnovers and really didn't generate a lot of offense. Thomas had a few nice moments, including a nice pump fake and baseline drive for a reverse layup. Henderson, Scheyer, and Nelson were all very solid defensively but didn't stand out offensively. Henderson did miss a breakaway dunk were he seemed to stumble on takeoff and failed to get enough lift to finish.

Sorry to not be able to provide more, but the game just was such an oddly nondescript display offensively. We forced a ton of turnovers, but those turnovers didn't translate to an offensive explosion (aside from King).

[wisteria]

Taylor King-- What a great shooter! quick release and sick range! That steal, behind the back dribble, and slam was super sweet too. I think he got a little too excited after one of his many 3s, and committed a foul immediately blocking the way of the EKU guard. Well, I can understand that. He even laughed at himself a bit, I think. Still a kid.

Lance Thomas--Like most of you, I like the progress he is making. Keep up the good work, Lance!

Zoubek--Just when we started to appreciate his improvement, he slipped right back where he was in the beginning. Sigh...

We need to at least knock down those free throws!!!

Anyway, we win, and the defense was pretty solid as always. I won't read too much into this game. First, EKU was just sooooo bad themselves. Second, our players might be dealing with the long trip and jet lag and issues like that...A sloppy game. We will have to step up against UW.

[DukeCO2009]

A couple of notes:

1. Great defensive game. I loved that we started pressing--that seemed to be missing a lot of the time in Maui. Great ball pressure from just about everyone, and DMark did an especially good job hitting the defensive glass (not sure if the stats confirm this, but he looked awesome in person). I know the zone has treated us fairly well so far this year and I like using it in spurts, but this team has the depth to press for 35ish minutes a game--fatigue should be a non-factor when you can play 9-11 guys..

2. Holy freakin' Taylor King! Hopefully K realizes that, although the kid's got great range, he can't shoot from the bench. He gave us a huge spark at the end of the first half when our offense was stagnating, and I really think he was the difference in the game. Without him, things would have been a bit more interesting--too interesting.

3. I really hope Marty is OK. Say what you will about him playing erratically and whatnot, but the kid hustles his tail off every second he's on the court. K was over there with him for a good amount of time while he was down, which was nice to see--you can tell Coach really appreciates Marty's fire. Here's hoping the ankle heals up quickly.

4. D-Mark is a great rebounder and can drive well when he keeps his head up, but he makes me nervous when he handles the ball. Several times this afternoon, most notably in the first half, he left his feet with absolutely no plan regarding what to do with the rock. Our offensive set for the first 10 minutes seemed to always flow through D-Mark, and I'm not sure that's a great idea against a team that puts a lot of ball pressure on the wings. Not saying he was the only one to screw up, but he appeared to turn it over more than others in the early going.

5. I like how we opened things up in the second half. We didn't hesitate as much on shots, we took it to the basket more, and we got out in transition faster. We seemed a bit perplexed by their defense in the first half, and K evidently solved the problem in the lockerroom. Good coaching, and good job by the players to execute and make K's adjustments work.

[Devilsfan]

his not playing in Mauii and having the freshest legs?

[Jumbo]

his not playing in Mauii and having the freshest legs?

There are all sorts of possible explanations:

1) Fresh legs.
2) Fired up by not playing much/playing poorly in Maui.
3) Had a good practice/film session.
4) Played against a weak opponent.
5) Something just "clicked."

[SilverHammer]

One of the reasons we had so many problems on offense, especially in the the first half, was Eastern Kentucky played darned good defense. It was a weird zone/man mix that took away the drives to the basket that generally feed both DeMarcus and Gerald. They had clearly watched the game tapes from Hawaii. We had 20 or so turnovers for the game and many came when we tried to drive into the teeth of that congested zone middle. Once we figured out how to drive and then kick out (especially to Taylor King), things changed. I felt that we moved the ball around the outside so much early because it took us a while to figure out how to attack their defense.

On the other hand, our D was great, causing over 30 turnovers. Interestingly, one of our 2 best defenders today was Taylor King. He really hustled, caused a lot of turnovers, and perhaps had as good a game on defense as he did on offense. The other defender who had a really good game was Lance Thomas, who shut down the guy on EKU who was the point forward hub of their offense. He held him to no assists and four turnovers. A nice day for Lance.

[captmojo]

The team looked like, offensively, they started this game biologically at 10AM.

[Highlander]

2. Holy freakin' Taylor King! Hopefully K realizes that, although the kid's got great range, he can't shoot from the bench. He gave us a huge spark at the end of the first half when our offense was stagnating, and I really think he was the difference in the game. Without him, things would have been a bit more interesting--too interesting.

Well, Coach K did start King in the second half over Singler, recognizing he was the hot hand. King earned that, and had a lot of good minutes in both halves to boot. I do think this was a matchup that favored Taylor, since EKU was content to zone us and no one else was a threat from the outside tonight, but he definitely made the most of it.

Any way you slice it, King had a monster game.

[DukeUsul]

I'll echo a lot of what other posters have said:

EKU's zone "with mntmn principles" (TM Billy Raftery) really gave us fits (I think it was either a 2-1-2 or 2-3). There are two ways to attack a zone - shoot over it, or cut into the high post for a jumper. We chose the first. EKU was really pretty impressive with their smart help defense in the zone and their hands in the passing lanes. Every time we tried to cut to the hoop, they'd collapse and get their hands on the ball, and we had some trouble passing out of it. Thank goodness we were shooting well! There were a few sets in the early second half where we had 5 guys standing outside the arc playing catch..... seriously. It made me nervous (relying on the three is a good strategy against the zone, as long as you're making them - and thankfully we were).

Our defense was excellent, although one reason we didn't seem to get too many fast breaks off of it was EKU's ability to get back on D. I was really surprised we had fewer fast break points, considering the turnovers (I haven't seen the stats, but it really seemed like we didn't have many).

[jgehtland]

Hopefully K realizes that, although the kid's got great range, he can't shoot from the bench.

Of COURSE K knows this. Do people really think Coach K doesn't know how good of a shooter King is? I had the benefit of REALLY good tickets to the game today, and here are some of the things I learned by watching K closely:

1) The most excited he got in the first half (in a good way, anyway) was after Taylor made a great skip pass to Jon for an open three. Our ball movement was stagnant up to that point, and our guys were getting tired of swinging it around looking for an open shot and started forcing drives and contested jumpers. Then, Taylor comes in, gets doubled and kicks it across court to a wide open Jon for the three. K was ECSTATIC. He pointed out the pass to every other player and said "That's how I want to see you play." He was not nearly as excited about the made threes from Taylor. K knows which guys can score and which can't; he's interested in making sure that his players can help each other score, and defend. That's what gets you minutes, and praise.

2) When Marty is in the game, he is constantly talking to K about where he should be, who he should be guarding, etc. I don't know if this is his way of letting Coach know he wants to be involved, or whether it is because he knows he needs more coaching, or what, but K (and Collins) spent a lot of time talking to him. To me, this is a great example of the coaches and a player working together to find a fit for that player on the floor. Clearly, the coaches want to see him succeed.

3) The only time I saw K get upset about the offense was when we were getting pushed around in the first 10 minutes. He was really mad that our guys were letting EKU "stand you up" and stop drives/passes/cuts as designed. He saved most of his complaints for the defensive side of the ball, especially boxing out and talking.

Man, I wish I had tickets like that all the time. It is WAAAAY more interesting when you can hear what is going on on the bench. ;-)

[tbyers11]

The team looked like, offensively, they started this game biologically at 10AM.

If they were still on Hawaii time it was an 8am tipoff:)

[SMO]

"It was just the way the game was going on -- guys were playing well," King said. "Gerald and Kyle were playing unbelievable out there, and the whole team did, and (Krzyzewski) went with the rotation that he did. I was happy and just excited we won (the tournament). That's all that matters."

Thank goodness the players don't get as upset about their playing time as we do. They just want to win.

[jimsumner]

Defensively, Duke was really good. EKU lives on 3s and Duke just didn't give them many.

Offense was disjointed. My understanding is that the trip back from Hawaii was a rough, long one. Even if you're 20, there has to be some recovery time.

The early report is that Marty has a lower ankle sprain. Rolled it.

McClure played the last 7+ minutes and reported after the game that everything felt fine.

K very high on LT's defense today. Really took EKU out of what they wanted to do. Unsung hero.

I agree that Scheyer sometimes seems a reluctant to jack it up.

K seemed more than a bit miffed that none of the local papers staffed Maui. It was in a jocular mood but he brought it up more than once in the post-game, asking the media if everyone knew that Duke played in Maui last week. Made one reference to "back when we were important." The media response was "back when we had money." Like I said, it was all jocular but there's a recognition there.

[dukelifer]

It the last few games- Duke has struggled a bit in the half court. Today they were loose with the ball. Lots balls dribbled off the foot or simply poor interior passing. If there is a knock on Duke is that the guards have a tough time feeding the post. Singler could live all day down there if he can get the ball. Zoubek is still having problems catching the hard pass. While it looks like Nelson has really improved his ball handling- Henderson could be much stronger with the ball- as can just about everyone else out there. Duke needs to be a much better passing team.

As for the O, King was hot and is one of the those players that when he feels it can probably score 20 in his sleep. But he is streaky- and if he misses- the shots tend to bound long for fast breaks. But what impresses me about King is that he is not just a long range shooter. He passes well- he defends okay and has a mid range game. He is a work in progress but he will be a very good player at Duke- mark it down.

I thought Thomas played well today. He is definitely playing with more poise.
The big question mark is the play of Smith. He definitely is not comfortable out there at the moment but it is early.

So a good tuneup for Wisconsin- except for the loss of Pocius. The D continues to be very active and disruptive. But there were enough mistakes that K will have everyone's attention in practice tomorrow and look for Singler and Henderson to have big nights after two so-so performances today.

[Bob Green]

...Scoring was not balanced...

Scoring was balanced from one statistical perspective: Starters 39 points, Bench players 39 points.

[PallasAthena]

any status on marty? geez, that kid cannot catch a good break.

In the post-game interview with Bob Harris, Coach K said that it appeared to be a bad sprain, low rather than high (which is good). They think Marty rolled the ankle, rather than stepping on someone's foot, and that the roll-type injuries can heal better than the high, step-on-someone's-foot type. He said this is all tentative; they will look at the tape to see exactly what happened. Marty was in a lot of pain-- but did stay on the bench for the rest of the game, icing the ankle. He left the court on crutches.

Hope he heals quickly!

As usual, when Marty entered the game, someone with a Lithuanian flag unfurled it. :) Reminds me of hockey!

[DukeCO2009]

Of COURSE K knows this. Do people really think Coach K doesn't know how good of a shooter King is?

Pardon my sarcasm/hyperbole. K obviously knows that King can play--I was trying to hint at the fact that I was irritated with King's lack of PT down in Maui.

[devildeac]

Just a few other points-everything has been well covered so far.

1. K was REALLY happy with the D, especially TK with 3 steals and no TO, and we turned them over 31 times(post-game radio stats). He was also pleased with limiting them to only 14-3 point attempts.
2. K was not happy with our 20 TO.
3. TK's first comments in his post-game interview were complimenting his teammates and their effort on D.
4. Even K was not sure what zone(s) they were playing-looked like several zones:2/3, 3/2, 1/3/1, match-up and even 1/2/2.

Very good effort. Looking forward to the Badgers.

[Madrasdukie]

Of COURSE K knows this. Do people really think Coach K doesn't know how good of a shooter King is? I had the benefit of REALLY good tickets to the game today, and here are some of the things I learned by watching K closely:

1) The most excited he got in the first half (in a good way, anyway) was after Taylor made a great skip pass to Jon for an open three. Our ball movement was stagnant up to that point, and our guys were getting tired of swinging it around looking for an open shot and started forcing drives and contested jumpers. Then, Taylor comes in, gets doubled and kicks it across court to a wide open Jon for the three. K was ECSTATIC. He pointed out the pass to every other player and said "That's how I want to see you play." He was not nearly as excited about the made threes from Taylor. K knows which guys can score and which can't; he's interested in making sure that his players can help each other score, and defend. That's what gets you minutes, and praise.

2) When Marty is in the game, he is constantly talking to K about where he should be, who he should be guarding, etc. I don't know if this is his way of letting Coach know he wants to be involved, or whether it is because he knows he needs more coaching, or what, but K (and Collins) spent a lot of time talking to him. To me, this is a great example of the coaches and a player working together to find a fit for that player on the floor. Clearly, the coaches want to see him succeed.

3) The only time I saw K get upset about the offense was when we were getting pushed around in the first 10 minutes. He was really mad that our guys were letting EKU "stand you up" and stop drives/passes/cuts as designed. He saved most of his complaints for the defensive side of the ball, especially boxing out and talking.

Man, I wish I had tickets like that all the time. It is WAAAAY more interesting when you can hear what is going on on the bench. ;-)

Thanks for the "bench/ in-huddle" recap. It was interesting just reading it.

[DU82]

There are all sorts of possible explanations:

1) Fresh legs.
2) Fired up by not playing much/playing poorly in Maui.
3) Had a good practice/film session.
4) Played against a weak opponent.
5) Something just "clicked."

I voted for #2 midway through the first half, not so much for his shooting, but for his effort on defense. He was very aggressive defending, as if not playing in the second half against Marquette sent him a message that defense wins you playing time on this team, not the fact that you can hit shots halfway to Chapel Hill.

[Indoor66]

ESPN says:

http://sports.espn.go.com/ncb/recap?gameId=273290150&campaign=rss&source=NCBHeadlines

[Patrick Yates]

There are all sorts of possible explanations:

1) Fresh legs.
2) Fired up by not playing much/playing poorly in Maui.
3) Had a good practice/film session.
4) Played against a weak opponent.
5) Something just "clicked."

I think TK's performance may have been a compilation of the above, but I would suggest an amendment to No. 4. I think that this could be changed to
"favorable" opponent, as opposed to weak opponent.

This will be the main factor in TK's performance this year. He is a solid athlete (those Go-Go Gadget Arms help him compensate well), but by no means spectacular. When we play teams with athletic 6-5 to 6-7 players, or a highly mobile post player, King may have trouble. Now, they need more than one of these type of players, cause you would not put your only athletic swing on Taylor and leave Nelson or Gerald to be covered by a lesser talent, same with a big and Singler.

Much like JJ, Taylor will be susceptable to athletic, MOTIVATED, defenders. Still, opponents will have to account for him at all times. I think there will be more games like Maui than EKU this year, but many more in between games. And sometimes he will just go off. I cannot wait until he gets older. By his Jr and Sr year, he could be the most hated player in Duke history. Except Laetner.

Patrick Yates

[captmojo]

If they were still on Hawaii time it was an 8am tipoff:)

Hawaii is a six hour difference. They've made up three hours since then, at least.

[Saratoga2]

I voted for #2 midway through the first half, not so much for his shooting, but for his effort on defense. He was very aggressive defending, as if not playing in the second half against Marquette sent him a message that defense wins you playing time on this team, not the fact that you can hit shots halfway to Chapel Hill.

The situation was right for TK to get PT this afternoon and he made the best of it. Coach K uses games against lesser opponents to develop his lineups so that in the tougher games he will have a good feel of indiviual player capabilities and of the capability of combinations as well.

We will need everyone clicking well Tuesday night. TK has probably earned the right to get additional PT in a competitive game after his showing today.

[jipops]

There are all sorts of possible explanations:

1) Fresh legs.
2) Fired up by not playing much/playing poorly in Maui.
3) Had a good practice/film session.
4) Played against a weak opponent.
5) Something just "clicked."

It did help that he posted up against a 6-2 guy.

[jipops]

This game seemed like a bit of a hangover from Maui which would possibly be attributed to all the turnovers / wasted possessions. The defense in the 1st half was stellar, however, holding eku to 12 pts. We gave them absolutely no passing lanes.

If King doesn't have to put it on the floor, he's pretty deadly on offense.

Henderson racked up 4 assists which is nice, also had 5 turnovers which is not so nice.

[jgehtland]

Pardon my sarcasm/hyperbole. K obviously knows that King can play--I was trying to hint at the fact that I was irritated with King's lack of PT down in Maui.

I got the sarcasm (I'm not THAT dumb ;-) ) but I just failed to see the point. His lack of PT in Maui, I'm guessing, has nothing whatsoever to do with his ability to drop the ball in the bucket from the BC walkway. But, since K went WELL out of his way to praise his passing, I'm guessing it has a lot to do with his ability to be part of the overall team effort.

BTW, this is my second game at Cameron this year, and watching TK warm up is way more fun than should be allowed before the horn. He hits EVERYTHING, from EVERYWHERE. It is nuts.

[DukeCO2009]

I got the sarcasm (I'm not THAT dumb ;-) ) but I just failed to see the point. His lack of PT in Maui, I'm guessing, has nothing whatsoever to do with his ability to drop the ball in the bucket from the BC walkway. But, since K went WELL out of his way to praise his passing, I'm guessing it has a lot to do with his ability to be part of the overall team effort.

BTW, this is my second game at Cameron this year, and watching TK warm up is way more fun than should be allowed before the horn. He hits EVERYTHING, from EVERYWHERE. It is nuts.

I get what you're saying. TK obviously had a good week of practice that translated into more playing time than he had in Maui--whatever K didn't like about his game a week ago has apparently been corrected. Glad to see that he's coachable. Also, I agree--I love watching the dude warm up. I can't help but ignore everyone else on the court during the shoot-around; it's kind of like JJ.

[RelativeWays]

After today's performance, TK gets his own bobble head and he can change his cell phone plan whenever!

[ACCBBallFan]

Defensively, Duke was really good. EKU lives on 3s and Duke just didn't give them many.

Offense was disjointed. My understanding is that the trip back from Hawaii was a rough, long one. Even if you're 20, there has to be some recovery time.

The early report is that Marty has a lower ankle sprain. Rolled it.

McClure played the last 7+ minutes and reported after the game that everything felt fine.

K very high on LT's defense today. Really took EKU out of what they wanted to do. Unsung hero.

I agree that Scheyer sometimes seems a reluctant to jack it up.

K seemed more than a bit miffed that none of the local papers staffed Maui. It was in a jocular mood but he brought it up more than once in the post-game, asking the media if everyone knew that Duke played in Maui last week. Made one reference to "back when we were important." The media response was "back when we had money." Like I said, it was all jocular but there's a recognition there.Seeing your name Jim reminded me that the radio announcers called you out for ducking when the ball came your way out of bounds rather than catching it. So no game ball for Jim Sumner.

[dcarp23]

Does anyone know a link where I can find highlights/video clips from yesterday's game? I didn't get to see the game, nor did I see any on Sportscenter.

[Cameron]

Sorry to bring this back to the top, but I was unable to post yesterday and I wanted give Taylor King, formerly known as King Taylor:( (before the public outrage), his props. It was Eastern Kentucky, sure, but who cares. He put on one hell of a display and showed what he will be capable of at times this season: coming in and getting hot off the bench behind the arc. 27 points and six triples. Impressive. He didn't get much PT out in Maui so I'm glad his confidence could be sky-rocketed yesterday. He's going to be a great situational player for us this year. Maybe not the 10 PPG guy I expected, but he'll be good.

I was beginning to worry you were going to win our friendly little contest in a runaway, jumbo;) Maybe Taylor has a few tricks of his sleeves just yet. I still think he can close in on or at least come close to 80 triples on the season. TK has 14 treys through six games (an average of 2.3 threes per game). Say we play a conservative 35 games this year and he continues to hit at a 2.3 per game clip, Taylor would have exactly 80 triples on the season. Obviously we are going to run into much tougher competition--the entire ACC schedule, games with Wisconsin and Pitt, ACC Tournament, NCAA Tournament, etc--which will most likely decrease King's playing time quite a bit (going off what we have seen so far this season), but he still has the kind of talent that can produce these "make up" type of performances where he can hit 5, 6, 7 triples in a game to make up for a couple of contests where he didn't get much time. But I certainly don't think that 80 triples is out of the realm of possibiltiy like some made it sound when I first presented it.

However, with that said, Taylor will probably hit somewhere around 65 to 70 triples on the season, IMO.

Anyway, great game yesterday and my hat is tipped to TK:)

[jimsumner]

Ducked? No way. I blocked it with my right arm.

[jjasper0729]

I will say that Zoubek fell back as compared to his three days in Maui. However, he had a nice little play in the second half where he got the pass from a drive, kept the ball up and laid it in and got fouled. If only he could keep the ball up all the time.

There was a play in the first half where he got the ball in the low post (scorer's table side) from a pass that came from the wing in front of the EKU bench. First thing he did was a two handed dribble that was subsequently stripped by the guard collapsing from the top of the zone and then they were off and running.

1) the guards should work a little more on their entry passes to him so that he gets it and is in a position to move up immediately with the ball when it's a bounce pass

2) he needs to work on his positioning a little better it seems to maybe get the lob pass from the wing. It looks liek the wings are looking to throw the lob sometimes, but the fact that he gets a pass and tries the dribble and then loses the ball makes them gunshy to throw it in more than likely.

I think Zoubek could be a monster on the glass with clean up points right now and if he can figure out to keep the ball up then he'd be able to contribute more offensively.

just my impressions on him from my vantage point on the floor.

[Patrick Yates]

1) the guards should work a little more on their entry passes to him so that he gets it and is in a position to move up immediately with the ball when it's a bounce pass

2) he needs to work on his positioning a little better it seems to maybe get the lob pass from the wing. It looks liek the wings are looking to throw the lob sometimes, but the fact that he gets a pass and tries the dribble and then loses the ball makes them gunshy to throw it in more than likely.

I think Zoubek could be a monster on the glass with clean up points right now and if he can figure out to keep the ball up then he'd be able to contribute more offensively.

just my impressions on him from my vantage point on the floor.


I think you have hit on a weakness shared by all of Duke's players. Unfortunately, it is something of a moebius loop.

Duke's guards are hesitant when making their entry passes. Often times, a post will "flash" open. By this point, it is too late to make the entry pass. A guard must anticipate this and see that it is about to occur given player movement, defensive spacing, etc. The Post player is still "open" in the sense that it is possible to pass to him, but the defense has shifted to the point where the post no longer has an easy move to the hoop, and/or a double down is in place.

Duke's guards seem to hesitate before making the entry pass, thus shortening the odds of a successful post move.

This is not entirely the fault of the guards. I think that they lack faith in the ability of a post player to make a successful move. This is somewhat less when it is Kyle, but there is some hesitancy when he is DEEP in the post. This hesitancy is justified by our posts not always being able to finish plays. Our guards are fearful of passing into a situation that might turn into a turnover. It might not, but the confidence is not there, or more precisely, the players are far more confident in the ability of the perimeter players. Conversely, it is harder to make a successful post move if the ball is late in arriving.

It is a chicken or the egg sort of situation. I think this may continue until the guys get more faith in each other, be that later this year or after a summer playing pickup games, I don't know.

Patrick Yates

[Bay Area Duke Fan]

Hawaii is a six hour difference. They've made up three hours since then, at least.

Hawaii is only a five-hour time difference from the East Coast. You may be thinking of spring/summer....Hawaii stays on standard time all year, so it's a six-hour time difference when most of the country goes to daylight time.

[captmojo]

Hawaii is only a five-hour time difference from the East Coast. You may be thinking of spring/summer....Hawaii stays on standard time all year, so it's a six-hour time difference when most of the country goes to daylight time.

Yes. you are correct sir. We have daylight savings so long now I forget changing clocks. Also, I have a cold.

[Dukefanatic]

any status on marty? geez, that kid cannot catch a good break.

He will be fine . . . out the Wisconsin game, but you will never see anyone with more drive and ambition that Martynas Pocius! Coach K needs to play him more!