Duke improving or competition getting worse?

[TheLetterDGules]

Don’t get me wrong, I really like this team, but in the spirit of self introspection [you know what I mean] does anyone share the concern that the ACC just isn’t very good this year? And yes, I read the Featherston article.

Here’s the case:
We beat up on the early season cupcakes, but when faced with stiffer, non-conference competition, we struggled, see:
Marquette[RPI20],
Davidson[RPI 54],
Pitt [RPI 16],
and even Cornel [RPI 80].
We smoked Wisconsin, but they weren’t nearly as good at that point.

To date, our only win against a legitimate elite 8 team was UNC. And while it was a great win, objectively speaking, we barely beat them, whilst playing a nearly perfect game and without their all-conference point guard.

Knock against the ACC: Aside from Duke, UNC and Clemson, this is a VERY down year for the ACC.

ACC has 3 teams in the top 39 RPI
PAC10 has 5 teams
SEC has 4 teams
Big10 has 5 teams
Big East has 6 teams

Minus the conference’s historical reputation, only these three teams are really deserving of tourney invites based on this year’s play. Of course, a couple more will probably sneak in.

It certainly seems like we’ve improved dramatically since the loss to Pitt in December, but another explanation is that our competition has simply been much weaker.

So which is it?

[Wander]

We've gotten better. That simple.

[Classof06]

I don't think there's any question this team is leaps and bounds ahead of where they were when they walked off that court in MSG after losing to Pitt. IMO, if we played a 100% healthy Pitt today, we'd beat them by 5-10 points.

Overall, it comes down to experience. Believe it or not, Duke is still quite young. Pitt was our 11th game of the year and we just played our 23rd. Duke, like most other teams, is much further ahead in February than they were in December. That alone is reason enough to tell me we've improved.

[mr. synellinden]

this is a VERY down year for the ACC.



Yet UNC is a few points away from being below .500 in the conference - and they were pre-season #1. How down can the ACC be? If it's that down, UNC is VERY overrated - even ackowledging they have been without Lawson for a few games.

[Troublemaker]

Not mutually exclusive. The ACC is down AND Duke is improving.

[Channing]

while the ACC is down, fwiw, the ACC is the number one ranked conference according to the RPI.

http://www.kenpom.com/confrank.php?y=2008

[darthur]

1. Duke has won every ACC game by at least 9 points as I recall. That is flat-out amazing, and it doesn't happen unless you're playing at a very high level, down year or not for the conference.

2. Don't ever rely on the RPI for measuring conference strength. If you want to use computer stats, use ones that aren't terrible. Sagarin and Pomeroy both have the ACC as the 3rd best conference by average. Only the PAC-10 and Big 12 are higher. Definitely a down year for the ACC, but nothing like you are suggesting.

3. Maryland appears to be every bit as good as Clemson right now.

[MarkD83]

If you trace the "experts'" opinions of the ACC over the past 5-10 years the ACC is always down.

I am surprised that the conference even gets an automatic bid for the champion with the number of down years we have had in a row. :)

[Indoor66]

Don’t get me wrong, I really like this team, but in the spirit of self introspection [you know what I mean] does anyone share the concern that the ACC just isn’t very good this year? And yes, I read the Featherston article.

Here’s the case:
We beat up on the early season cupcakes, but when faced with stiffer, non-conference competition, we struggled, see:
Marquette[RPI20],
Davidson[RPI 54],
Pitt [RPI 16],
and even Cornel [RPI 80].
We smoked Wisconsin, but they weren’t nearly as good at that point.

To date, our only win against a legitimate elite 8 team was UNC. And while it was a great win, objectively speaking, we barely beat them, whilst playing a nearly perfect game and without their all-conference point guard.

Knock against the ACC: Aside from Duke, UNC and Clemson, this is a VERY down year for the ACC.

ACC has 3 teams in the top 39 RPI
PAC10 has 5 teams
SEC has 4 teams
Big10 has 5 teams
Big East has 6 teams

Minus the conference’s historical reputation, only these three teams are really deserving of tourney invites based on this year’s play. Of course, a couple more will probably sneak in.

It certainly seems like we’ve improved dramatically since the loss to Pitt in December, but another explanation is that our competition has simply been much weaker.

So which is it?

I call if trolling.

[Duvall]

I call if trolling.

No. It's a valid question - only one of Duke's wins during their current streak came against a ranked team, and that was a North Carolina team hobbled by the loss of its best player. That said, only one of Duke's wins during that stretch came against a team that was below average, and every one of those wins was in convincing fashion.

[OldPhiKap]

No. It's a valid question - only one of Duke's wins during their current streak came against a ranked team, and that was a North Carolina team hobbled by the loss of its best player. That said, only one of Duke's wins during that stretch came against a team that was below average, and every one of those wins was in convincing fashion.

In the ACC, there are no easy outs and Duke always gets everyone's best shot. The fact that Duke has won these games handily (for the most part) says more about the strength of Duke's level of play than that of the opponents.

[DukeDude]

One could make an argument that all power conferences are down this year.

- Purdue(11-1) leads the Big 10, but somehow lost to Wofford.
- Stanford(9-2) is tied for the lead in the pac-10, but managed to lose to Siena.
- Kentucky(6-3) needed to get in to SEC play to pad their record.

I doubt any of these teams would be doing as well in the ACC.

[Bluedog]

ACC has 3 teams in the top 39 RPI
PAC10 has 5 teams
SEC has 4 teams
Big10 has 5 teams
Big East has 6 teams


I think Duke has improved and the ACC is slightly down this year. It's still one of the top 3 conferences, IMO. I like it how you used RPI stats to back up your argument and conveniently stopped at the random number 39 since Miami is 40. That would give the ACC 4 teams, the same as the SEC. In the top 25, the ACC has 3, Pac 10 has 4, SEC has 2, Big 10 has 1, Big 12 has 3, and Big East (with 16 teams) has 5. That makes the ACC look just fine. Heck, in the top 4 RPI, the ACC is the only conference with 2 ;) My point is that anybody can choose an arbitrary cut-off number to prove his/her point. And this is assuming the RPI is even a valid test, which I don't think it is.

[vango]

If memory serves (can't look it up right now) the following teams have been ranked this year:

Duke
UNC
NCSU
Miami
Clemson
Virginia (yes, early - at 3-0 or 4-0 I think, but still)

and MD and possibly FSU or GT (can't remember) received votes at some point.

This down year has only recently seen its first team (VA) have a losing record. The ACC went well past the half-way point in the season as being the only conference in the land with no team with a losing record.

Top to bottom - young, but strong....

That says something. We're not the strongest - but it is a good conference this year.

[4decadedukie]

Essentially continuous improvement, both individually and -- far more important -- as a team.

[MChambers]

Is that college basketball just doesn't have the players it had 20 years ago, with so many players going pro after one or two years.

[loran16]

We smoked Wisconsin, but they weren’t nearly as good at that point.


Can we stop repeating this point? This is the favorite point of Duke haters. Wisconsin did not go from being barely ranked/not ranked to a top 10 team during the season. A team doesn't improve that much like that.

Wisconsin was a top quality team when we faced em. We Smashed em, and while it was at home, we did it by a margin that was so big that i doubt anyone would call it home-court advantage.

This was a legit win over a legitimate really good team, though they were underappreciated at the time. It's not that they suddenly improved from nonranked quality play to a top 10 rank play, its that they were underrated by the polls at this point. Jeez.

[IStillHateJimBain]

What are the stats on road wins in the ACC this year? Obviously, no one has won in "The Cameron" as Brent Musberger calls it, but it sure seems like everyone else is giving it up at home this year. That seems to be a difference between now and when the ACC was really loaded. Maybe not.

[yancem]

I think that you have a legitimate question and while I think that Duke has improved dramatically over the past month or two, I don't feel that we have been overly tested. We played UNC without Lawson and on a night where we shot very well. Because of the way the game played out, I'm not sure that Lawson would have made a huge difference but it is hard to know how the dynamics of the game would have changed with him on the court. The other thing is that UNC has been taken down to the wire in a lot of games which means that they are either not as good as advertised or the rest of the ACC is tougher than they are getting credit for.

Even though we have trailed at half in a couple of games recently, we really haven't had much difficulty winning all of our conference games. Part of me wants to believe that this is a sign that we are truly a dominate team and worthy of our #2 ranking but part of me is still a little leery. I guess it is hard to reconcile preseason expectations with actual results. I can say two things with confidence 1) Duke is a very solid team and if we play defense the way we are capable of playing and the 3 ball is falling we can beat anyone and 2) I'll take the ACC in a head to head match up with any league out there. We have dismantled the Big 10 for years and honestly the PAC 10 doesn't scare me that much.

In the end I don't think we will have a real answer until the NCAA tourney rolls around and we see how the ACC in general and Duke specifically fair.

[Olympic Fan]

It always amazes me when somebody will use RPI for something like "the Pac 10 has five teams in the top 39 of the RPI/the ACC has just three teams in the top 39" as if its significant, then dismisses the RPI ranking of the ACC as the No. 1 conference as some kind of abberration.

Either the RPI matters or it doesn't.

Put me down as someone who thinks the first post is a troll ... how else do you explain "We smoked Wisconsin, but they weren’t nearly as good at that point."

Well, by that logic, nobody Duke played is any good, I guess ... at least when Duke beat them. Poor Wisconsin, they were a struggling 5-0 and ranked No. 20 when they came to Durham and lost by 24 to Duke. They then struggled to win 11 of their next 12.

Yeah, and when last-place Virginia beat Arizona on their home floor, they weren't very good either. And when Clemson beat Purdue, I guess they weren't any good either.

And when Duke beat Maryland twice in the last two weeks, the Terps weren't that good either -- just because they've won 10 of their last 13 (with two of the three losses at the hands of Duke), that's no reason to be impressed.

How good are the teams Duke is beating?

If you believe the RPI, Duke has played the nation's 5th best schedule (better than Memphis, Kansas, UNC, UCLA, Georgetown, Stanford or Michigan State). If you prefer Pomeroy's rankings, Duke has played the 9th best schedule. If you believe Sagarin (which has Duke as the No. 1 team), Duke has played the 20th best schedule.

I don't think enough credit has been given for the fact that Duke has been winning without going down to the wire in games. One ACC game under 10 points ... and that one by nine points. Duke has played three games all year that were closer than nine at the end -- the one-point OT loss to Pitt, the four-point win over Marquette and a six-point win over Davidson.

Who else is winning consistently by that kind of margin? Memphis -- against a MUCH weaker schedule. But that is it. In the last month, UCLA, Kansas, Tennessee and anybody else you can name has pulled out its share of close ones. UNC can blame its recent string of close wins on the absence of Lawson, but they had him at Clemson for an OT thriller and at Georgia Tech for a one-point win and in Chapel Hill for the loss to Maryland. They had him (albiet in foul trouble) when they beat Davidson by four and when they escaped Nichols State by 10 on their home floor.

Now, I'm not knocking North Carolina for their ability to win close games -- without that talent, they'd be in much the same shape Duke was in a year ago -- only trying to point out how significant what Duke is doing really is. I think only the 1999 Duke team that finished 16-0 in the league was more consistently dominant in ACC play -- ironically, that was a year when everybody said the ACC was "down".

[stickdog]

Here is a computer ranking (http://teamrankings.com/ncb/16powerratings.php3) that measures the performance of teams (considering winning percentage, point differential and strength of competition) over just the last 10 games played.

Duke is ranked first, and second (Memphis) isn't even close. Duke is more than 10 points ahead of the 4th ranked team (Louisville). Basically, Duke, Memphis and Purdue have been playing consistently well recently, and of the three, Duke has faced the best competition.

It is possible to construct an argument like yours questioning every team in the NCAA. Name one team that you think has been tested and has been improving if not Duke.

[The1Bluedevil]

You could argue that Duke has as many quality wins as anyone outside of Texas.

UNC- Best win 2x Clemson only ranked team they have beat
KU - neutral floor win against USC, best conference win is at home vs OU
G-Town- Beat ND and UCONN at home ( both completely different teams now)
no quality road win
Memphis- Home win vs G-town and neutral cort win vs UCONN in November
Tennessee- @ Xavier, @ Miss ST, vs Gonzaga, vs Arkansas, vs Vandy
UCLA- @ Stanford, Mich State @ Wazzou
Indiana haha
Stanford @ Arizona @ Wazzou

Only team I can say other then Texas that has better wins then Duke is UCONN. Beating ND, Marquette, Indiana, Pitt, Syracuse and Louisville is better in my opinion.

[CameronBornAndBred]

I think Duke has gotten so much better this year. The Pitt loss was great, if they had won that game, I don't think we'd be where we are at now. The guys really toughened up after that one. I've watched lots of other teams in the ACC this year, too. I think because of parity, that once again the conference is beating each other up. For the casual box score reader outside the conference, that translates into an "ACC Down year". I was at the Va. game, and also watched them vs. UNC on tv.
Those guys are at the bottom of the barrel, but the team I saw play (and almost beat Carolina) sure wasn't one I'd want to play often. It's too bad we won't have more teams in the dance this year, I think it will be 4 only. At least Duke will be one of them, and we are going deeeeep this year!

[HK Dukie]

Yet another reason why there should be a post minimum before you get to post a new thread (say 5?)

This is a troll if I ever saw one.

But the answer to the question is actually quite simple: Competition is getting better, not worse...We are in ACC season and clearly the competition there is tougher than out of conference on average.

Also, you have to love when data miners post things like "in the top 39". Hmm, I wonder why that poster didn't use top 40 which would have been a more logical demarcation point? Could it be that there is an ACC team at #40 RPI? Then the ACC would look basically the same as the other major conferences, so best not to put that fact in right Mr data miner?