MBB: Duke 75, Boston College 50 Post Game Thread

[loran16]

Not sure what many of you were watching...Duke won by 25 while playing incredibly poor defense and at times incredibly poor offense.

BC missed tons of open shots in both halves - they couldn't hit a lick. Now some of this may be strategic (You can leave your guy open at the 3 point line if he's a 25% 3 point shooter) but there were way too many for it to be strategic.

BC was beyond inept, but they were getting very close to the same looks as NC State. That's not a good sign for our D, despite the low points allowed.

[Duvall]

BC missed tons of open shots in both halves - they couldn't hit a lick. Now some of this may be strategic (You can leave your guy open at the 3 point line if he's a 25% 3 point shooter) but there were way too many for it to be strategic.

...

I don't follow.

[Cameron]

Austin took over the leadership role of this team tonight and it was a beautiful thing. He is starting to command the ball like J.J. once did and that's the type of presence that we lacked at certain points early in the year. If we need a big shot in the final moments of a game moving forward, I will be surprised if Austin doesn't make it. That's the level of competition he's playing at right now. That three he hit late in the first half, after motioning for Miles draw his man away and clear some space, was shades of Jason Williams. Some might call it brash or whatever, but it's the kind of confidence you need to be the best in your sport. And this kid has it.

I thought Andre had a really nice game as well. What a luxury to have the most explosive sixth man in the country coming off our bench, especially when you look around and see a team such as Ohio State struggling mightily due to underproductive shooting and lack of depth. Dre's 13 points and 3-of-7 shooting from three-point range give him 12 double-figure scoring games on the year through 27 games, matching his total from all of last season. It was even great to see Andre hit a jumper from inside the arc near the free-throw line in the closing seconds. He must have gotten lost.

Great W.

[Bob Green]

It was even great to see Andre hit a jumper from inside the arc near the free-throw line in the closing seconds. He must have gotten lost.

Great W.

Andre's first made basket tonight was also inside the arc.

[roywhite]

Official Boxscore

45-21 rebounding advantage!
Andre Dawkins with 13 points and 5 rebounds
Nice to see Gbinije get a few minutes and make a couple plays
Had some turnovers early and finished with 18 vs 14 assists

[mgtr]

I thought the smalls played well, the bigs did not. Austin, Seth and Andre were terrific. When they tried to involve the bigs, things broke down. That is OK, I guess, since bigs are normally pretty good. Second half was better, obviously, but seemed to take forever. All in all, probably not a very pleasant game for either side to watch.

[Cameron]

Andre's first made basket tonight was also inside the arc.

Ah, yes, I forgot that his opening field goal was a long two. I was more or less just being tongue-in-cheek, however. As much recognition has his three-point shot receives, Dre, like Seth, has a really nice mid-range touch.

[roywhite]

The offensive rebound tap-out to a shooter is again becoming a regular play.

With 3 bigs in the 6'10" range and several good 3-point shooters, this play makes a lot of sense.
Was a major staple of the championship run in 2010.

[Utley]

A nice chance to catch our breath as the homestretch begins.

A few thoughts:

Seth Curry can't have the ball in his hands enough or shoot enough as far as I am concerned. I know he's not a great athlete but his game has a real maturity and he just has a priceless basketball savvy.

I liked Mike G's time tonight too - he's been inconsistent, so its foolish to jump to conclusions, but experimenting with more time with him could be one of the most largest upside moves left to us.

Mason seems to have hit the wall. We've asked a lot of him and he's delivered big time all year long - but BC is a team he should have just owned and yet he seemed to have nothing in the tank- foul trouble notwithstanding.

Andre's game seems to be developing some real maturity. I like what I am seeing on defense and I like the 2 point shooting. Its like the light bulb has gone off. Let's hope that continues - it clearly raises our bar.

[mapei]

What I mainly saw was that BC is a really bad team. They couldn't score and couldn't rebound, and I think it had as much to do with them as with us. To me it loooked like our D was inconsistent but BC couldn't take advantage.

On our side, Kelly filled in well when Mason had to sit, and Austin continues to be phenomenal. He can drive to the hoop better than any Duke player since JWill, and I'm not sure that he isn't even better at that particular skill than Jason. He certainly gets cocky and restless at times, but it's worth it to get the spectacular plays.

Seth is a bit of an enigma to me. At times he seems average at best, and yet without him we lose to NC State - and tonight he had 19 points.

I'm really liking Miles lately.

[jimsumner]

One key going forward was the rebounding from the perimeter guys. Rivers, Curry and Dawkins were all effective on the boards. Duke isn't going to go deep into March if it relies on just the bigs to rebound.

[DukieInBrasil]

A nice chance to catch our breath as the homestretch begins.

A few thoughts:

Seth Curry can't have the ball in his hands enough or shoot enough as far as I am concerned. I know he's not a great athlete but his game has a real maturity and he just has a priceless basketball savvy.

I liked Mike G's time tonight too - he's been inconsistent, so its foolish to jump to conclusions, but experimenting with more time with him could be one of the most largest upside moves left to us.

Mason seems to have hit the wall. We've asked a lot of him and he's delivered big time all year long - but BC is a team he should have just owned and yet he seemed to have nothing in the tank- foul trouble notwithstanding.

Andre's game seems to be developing some real maturity. I like what I am seeing on defense and I like the 2 point shooting. Its like the light bulb has gone off. Let's hope that continues - it clearly raises our bar.

Seth had 6 turns tonight, some of which came from trying too hard. I'm super glad he has recovered his shooting touch, but i'm not sure i agree with having the ball in his hands as much as possible. I like the dynamic between he and Austin, and they both play better on offense with Andre than with Tyler, who couldn't handle the quickness of Daniels at all.
I think Mason's problem was mental, that he knew he was supposed to dominate them, and didn't do a lot of the stuff that has worked well for him lately. Like "a bull in a china shop" (although bulls are actually very agile in a china shop), he just pushed too hard to make the power game work. Miles played really well, although i was gonna hate it if he had blown the OHTD which he probably could have scored as a short jumper if he had gone up with 2 hands. Loved his follow-two-handed-slam though.

[mkline09]

That first half was one of the worst displays of basketball I've seen in some time. But Duke came out focused and intent on putting BC away in the second half and that I really enjoyed seeing.

BC is just bad. At one point mid way to late in the second half Duke had more rebounds than BC had points. I'm really liking Austin Rivers and Seth Curry coming to the top as the go to scorers with the ball. Would like to see Mason start playing more consistently down the stretch. Foul trouble hurt him tonight but seeing as Duke was so much bigger in the post than BC it would have been nice to see him post a double double. Miles was at least one missed free throw away from doing that. Quinn had a nice game in limited minutes and it was nice to see Mike Gbinije get in the game and play limited bue solid minutes and contribute. Any road win is a good road win and it is nice for a game not to have to come down to the wire or require a major comeback. My heart can't take that anymore. On to Florida State. Big game ahead.

[devildeac]

Interesting that Alex Murphy got into the game. Lots of combinations for coach K to look at and some rest for the starters.

Alex did not get into the game. The box score you were looking at must be incorrect as they often are during the game. Silent G did though, which was nice. I certainly liked his dunk and his D. Hard to tell if our defense was really good or BC's offense is just really bad. Either way, enjoyable win. Blowouts are a lot less stressful to watch.

Murphy still had his warmup on at the end. Zaf was in the game at the end.

Murphy played??

Murphy did not get in the game.

ESPN has been listing him time after time this season. I'm not sure what the foulup is.

Game tracker listed Alex Murphy in the game for a couple of minutes. Was that wrong or did you miss him?

Marshall was also credited for one rebound. Must have had him confused with one of the other twins.

[devildeac]

Even though BC is a bad team, Duke did a nice job on defense tonight. The communication, switching, and rotations were sharp on the whole. They closed on shooters quickly as well. Amazing how the guys play much better defense on the road than they do at home. That is a bizarre trait with this team. 6 ACC road wins for this team is darn impressive. If they can somehow steal one at FSU and run the table on the road it will be a special accomplishment.

It took awhile, but the offense finally got going tonight. Austin was solid the entire game (lob pass to the shot clock notwithstanding ) and can I just state that Austin continues to get hosed on his drives! The charge call on him in the first half was ridiculously horrible. He split the defenders, neither of whom were set or had any kind of position established. It was obvious the ref made up his mind that it was going to be charge. He got hammered several other times with no calls either.

Seth was good again after a slow start, and I thought Miles and Andre had solid games on both ends. In Miles defense on the Thunder Dumb, he got fouled pretty hard in mid-air there, an actually it may be a blessing he did not have two hands on the ball when he got bumped. He used his left hand to catch himself there. I would much prefer the two hand dunk as well, but he might have taken a nasty fall there had he tried that. The dunk to end the half was one of the better plays of his career though. That was amazing.

Mason never got it going after getting in foul trouble, but thankfully we did not need him tonight. Glad to see Silent G get some run, and played well for the most part. Nice baseline dunk and a couple of strong rebounds. Also glad to see Quinn get a 3 to go down. It had been awhile since he his last make there.

All in all, a solid road win, nobody got hurt, no current or former players got tossed (where was Flutie? ) and Daniel Ewing did not get a technical!

Sure would have been nice to see jared dudley (?) get a well-deserved T, even if if would have been a few years too late.

[SoCalDukeFan]

How did BC beat FSU?

SoCal

[Cameron]

How did BC beat FSU?

SoCal

After tonight, I'm beginning to think that David Copperfield must have been involved. Maybe it was one of those prime-time specials, only instead of an airplane, he made Leonard Hamilton disappear.

BC is young, but they are plain-vanilla.

[JNort]

Is there a way I can re-watch this game online or on tv? I was on my way home from the mountains and could not watch. Prefer it to be free btw...

[Dukehky]

BC's team this year is one of the worst that the ACC has ever had. I am simply amazed at the fact that they beat FSU. I can't help but think/hope that Mason's foul trouble in the first half is going to be a bit of a blessing for the FSU game. Didn't have to play as long or as hard as he did against State. That being said I would have liked to have seen him be a little more consistent with some of his finesse shots. I love it when the guards rebound well, it really is nice to see, but BC is one of the few teams with a smaller guard line-up than Duke.

Not exactly jazzed about our coming confrontation with the Noles in Tallahassee. All I ever think of when we play there is the court getting stormed, I don't like it. We're really gonna need to pack it in and focus on defensive rebounding. They're not a great scoring team, so limiting their OR's is really the key in this game, even more so than it is in most. Need to get their bigs in foul trouble as well.

[Billy Dat]

That first half was one of the worst displays of basketball I've seen in some time. But Duke came out focused and intent on putting BC away in the second half and that I really enjoyed seeing. BC is just bad.

I have to agree with this, they were truly one of the more inept ACC teams I have seen in some time. The middle 10 minutes of the half were basically unwatchable. I, too, credit our D for dictating the game but they missed a lot of wide open 3s and were throwing he ball all over the gym.

Still, we haven't put a beating on anyone in the league like that, a game where there were 5 solid minutes of real scrub time. I thought Austin was the best playmaker, even if his passes still tend to be a second too late. We seemed a little crowded on the baseline - our bigs didn't have lot of space to operate. We did a much better job looking inside in the second half.

Maybe BC was bad because we were so good? Split the difference? Did we learn anything about our team from this game, aside from our league road warrior status?

Nice W. HUGE game on Thursday!