MBB: Wake Forest 82, Duke 72 -- Post-Game Thread

[NSDukeFan]

Thanks for posting this, Tommy. But in looking at this list, I come away with the opposite conclusion. Looking these teams and using Pomeroy ratings, only 5 of those 40 Final Four teams list had what one would consider a bad (using the often-sited standard of sub-100) loss in February/March (2013 Michigan, 2013 Wichita State, 2011 Kentucky, 2011 VCU, 2006 UCLA). All of the others were to top-75 (most were top-60) teams. I don't think losing to essentially a "bubble" team that is clawing for their tourney lives is anywhere near the neighborhood of losing to a Wake Forest team that had lost 8 of their last 9.

So only 5 of the last 40 Final Four teams had a similarly bad late-season loss as our loss to Wake. To me, that's not exactly a reassuring stat. It doesn't mean we can't make the Final Four. But among teams that made the Final Four in the last 10 years, only 12.5% of them had a loss like ours to Wake. I'm not sure I see any reassurance in that stat.

Hopefully we figure things out soon (especially at the guard spot). But we're still seeing some of the same issues that we've seen throughout season (shaky defense on the perimeter, long scoring droughts against zone defenses, shaky guard play). It's hard to see this team, as we're currently playing, stringing together 3-4 straight wins against top-25-quality teams (which is the path we'll probably need to take as we're probably going to wind up a #3 seed) to get to the Final Four (or beyond).

Again, I certainly hope the light switch comes on. I think/hope there's still a ton of room for this team to grow. But for whatever reason, we haven't come close to challenging our ceiling, which makes me wonder if we're going to get near it at all this year.

I feel reassured by Tommy's research even if only 12.5% of final four teams had similar losses. No one is arguing against the Wake loss being horrible and something you wouldn't expect from a team ready to compete for a title. What it does show is that it would not be unprecedented for a final four team. I expect the team to have some poor games. Unfortunately, this year's team has had more poor games than many Duke teams, but they have certainly shown they can compete with anyone. The team has rebounded very well from some awful performances earlier in the year where some were putting a ceiling on the team's results (see Vermont, Clemson, Notre Dame, UNC post game threads.) Is it likely that a team that has a terrible loss like the Wake loss makes it to the final four? Probably not. Is it likely that any two seed will make the final four? If Duke beats UNC tonight, and I believe they will, we get to postseason play where Duke would have virtually no chance of winning all remaining games. Neither would anyone else. I will then like Duke's chances as much as anyone in the ACCT and each weekend afterwards. I hope it's a fun, long ride.

Note: if you believe in superstition, which I don't, we'll have to have tommy doing more of the phase reports than CDu based on the team's phase performances

I'm going to dispute the contention we're were all first time posters. I offer Mr. Jason "Post-a-matic" Evans as proof that it ain't necessarily so. Birthed on the board by multiple simultaneous posts* with never a single 'first' - and hasn't slowed down since.

Also, any chance of having a thread with 399 comments talking positively about the team after a win? Just once?

* Slight hyperbole, maybe, but very, very slight

The only way to have all positive comments is to win the national championship, but even then, so and so didn't play enough, the team shouldn't have let the other team be so close, it will be hard to match the result next year, etc.

[Saratoga2]

Based on what I've read in this thread, the elephant in the room to me is the coaching, in particular it's apparent inflexibility in adapting to unexpected situations. Not practicing against zone, when it has been used effectively against us by nearly every team the past month? Working on defense and rebounding because that wins championships, despite the fact our potential in those 2 areas seems suspect? Listening to Hood say we had bad practices all week but he didn't say anything? Does that mean the coaches either didn't see what he saw, or also decided to ignore it? Pushing our D past the 3-point line regardless of whether the opponent shoots 3's well, our perimeter D leaks like a sieve, our "bigs" aren't rim defenders and are easily susceptible to fouls? Even Marshall's emergence, which I believe is less because he suddenly "got it" but more because he was finally given the opportunity to prove himself in a game setting.

As K gets older, he naturally will be less effective than he was 20+ years ago. If he's not relying on his assistants to spot trends and patterns and ways we should be adjusting, that's a big problem imo.

I on the other hand think you are saying things here that a lot of us have not said. We haven't adapted very well to the zone and the 1-3-1 gives us the most trouble of all. Our perceived strength of 3 point shooting hasn't been there as Rodney, Quinn, Andre and possibly Jabari's inside/outside lacked the outside.

Marshall has provided a spark and perhaps he could have helped earlier in some of our losses. Semi might have provided a spark and been more of a factor. Matt could well have provided more than he has been allowed to do. The coaching may have become somewhat inflexible.

All those are surely items for discussion, but as supporters and fans of long standing, we know we have an excellent program and because of that we need to look forward and hope for a good result. We still have Jabari, who is a legitimate star offensive player and rebounder. We have Rodney, who is also a legitimate scorer and difficult for other teams to defend. Marshall has emerged to really help the team inside, although I believe coach K when he says that Marshall's stamina is not up to more than about 18 minutes a game. Amile is a very clever and hard working player who can get a few points, rebound well but as we know he is not yet strong enough to bang with the bigger centers. Semi is intriguing but untried. From the little we have seen, he might well help with energy and fouls to give and he even looks like a potential scorer. Josh hasn't performed all that well this year but will definitely be needed during the ACC tournament grind.

The question remains about our many guards. Quinn has had superb games but has had a tendency to dribble too much and make questionable passes aand hang his head becoming his own worst enemy. I don't think he works well in concert with Tyler. Both are small and average athletically. I have recommended the coach split their duty at the PG position for better results. If that were to happen would we be a better team tonight and going forward? Matt is much bigger, has a handle that is decent and has shown himself to be a very good defender. I still think with encouragement, he could be a decent scorer. He is still a freshman so we shouldn't expect the world from him. Rasheed runs hot and cold. He has the fire and is a good slasher, but against the zone, that is not working out well. His three point shot is average but perhaps his best offensive talent is the willingness to dish since the defense has to honor his drives. Andre can either sub at guard or for Rodney. Why has his shot been off? If they can run him and set screens he might well be able to put up 50% 3 point shooting plus his defense isn't all that bad and he has shown the ability to get inside and score.

Will the coaching staff get the best out of our guard play of will they stick with what didn't work in the last game. I hope that they find an improved approach since we do have a lot of talent. Lets get it playing as a team.

[Kedsy]

Not to stoke the dying embers, but I just thought I’d provide a little more information on teams suffering late-season losses to inferior teams and then rebounding to make the Final Four. The point was made upthread, by Kedsy I believe, but not really followed-up on by anyone, that it’s not just Duke’s eleven Final Four teams that should be looked at, but rather all teams’ experience that is relevant, because why would one think that Duke would be uniquely unable to get past a late, bad loss, whereas other programs would be more able to do so? No reason. So I looked at the last ten years. That’s 40 teams, but taking Duke’s two FF’s out of the mix, that makes 38 to look at.

I looked only at losses on February 15 or later, to unranked teams, and then I looked up the final RPI’s of those teams. I know all of these are not exactly as late as the Wake loss, and some are not as low-rated as Wake (some are lower), but still, they seem to be relevant to the issue at hand.

What I found is that quite a few of the 38 FF teams suffered “bad” “late” losses, including two of the FF teams from just last season. So it seems to me that suffering a late February or even an early March loss to a far inferior team is in no way necessarily any kind of “omen” or “bad sign” or “signal” that a team is doomed to an early tournament exit.

Thanks, tommy. I'd done the same research, but after the last round of bickering I was hesitant to post it.

I agree that talking about Duke separately makes little sense. While it's true the only Duke Final Four team that lost to a team as lowly as this year's Wake team was the 1988 team that lost to a 14-15 (4-10) Clemson, it's also true that Duke non-Final Four teams haven't had any loss that bad this late, either, going back at least 25 years. So splitting out Duke or especially splitting out Duke Final Four teams can't possibly prove anything.

To me, the real question is what are people trying to "prove" when evaluating the impact of a late loss to a bad team? To answer that, there are two sub-questions that need to be answered to frame the issue. First, what constitutes a "bad team"? Presumably we're saying that if a team isn't good enough to beat a team outside the top "X," it's not good enough to win four games in a row in the NCAAT. If that's the case, why is losing to the #115 team any more a harbinger of tournament failure than a loss to the #90 team (as 2007 national champ Florida did on February 24, 2007)? Where do you draw the line? With all due respects to CDu, a team with an RPI above 50 isn't a bubble team fighting for its tournament life. And certainly not a team in the 70s. The current #74 and #75 RPI teams are Boise State and Delaware. Would anyone feel better about a loss to one of those teams than they do about Wake Forest?

With that in mind, here are the aggregate numbers for the worst losses after February 15 (I didn't fudge to take losses on Feb. 10 like you did, so the numbers will be slightly different) for all 40 Final Four teams in the last 10 years at varying levels of opponent's end-of-season RPI:

AFTER FEBRUARY 15

Losses to 100+: 3 (7.5%)
Losses to 75+: 9 (22.5%)
Losses to 50+: 18 (45%)

The second sub-question is what's the significance of the "late" loss? If a team's capable of losing to the #294 RPI team on February 3 (as national runner up Butler did in 2011) why is that OK but not losing to the #115 team on March 5? With that in mind, here are the aggregate numbers at varying RPI levels for the worst losses over the course of the season for all 40 Final Four teams in the last 10 years:

ALL SEASON

Losses to 100+: 11 (27.5%) [including 2 losses (5%) to 200+ and 5 losses (12.5%) to 150+]
Losses to 75+: 20 (50%)
Losses to 50+: 36 (90%)

Fully half of Final Four teams over the past ten years have lost to teams outside the top 75, so clearly it's possible to get past that kind of bad loss and succeed in the Tournament. Presumably, however, the argument for using late losses is at this late date there's little chance to improve. But that's only right if you believe a bad loss means the team has some fatal flaw that needs correction (as opposed to simply having had a really bad day). What I think is Final Four caliber teams don't lose so often to really bad teams, so choosing any three-week period is going to have just a few such teams suffering bad losses. With that in mind, here are the aggregate numbers at varying RPI levels for the worst losses in November/first week of December for all 40 Final Four teams in the last 10 years:

BEFORE DECEMBER 10

Losses to 100+: 4 (10%)
Losses to 75+: 5 (12.5%)
Losses to 50+: 10 (25%)

So, one more loss to 100+ teams in the first three weeks of the season than in the last three weeks, but actually many fewer losses to 75+ and 50+ teams. I'm not about to do the research, but my guess is any three-week period you choose wouldn't have a substantially worse distribution than we see in the last three weeks of the season. So maybe the late loss isn't any different from a loss any other time. Or maybe not. I'm not sure how we could conclusively prove or disprove the "no time to fix the problem" theory, but I'm certain nobody around here has yet presented any data that particularly supports it.

In sum, last Wednesday, Duke arguably suffered its worst "bad" late-season loss in at least 25 years. Based on the data we have, (a) other Final Four teams have suffered similar losses, so clearly the loss doesn't preclude Duke from post-season success; and (b) there are too many uncontrolled variables to measure how much (if at all) the late loss affects our chances to make the Final Four this season.

[Wildling]

My god you two. If you watch Wake Forest and can't come to the conclusion they are a bad team, maybe basketball isn't your sport. They are horrible. You can throw as many stats and history as you want at the argument, it doesn't hide the fact Duke lost to a really bad basketball team. And if that doesn't concern you being so close to the NCAA tournament, then all the power to ya!

It's concerning to a lot of people, including me. The Wake loss is hardly the only loss that I would consider a bad loss. They have a bunch of them. It's a problem. Sometimes it is just that simple.

[Papa John]

To me, the real question is what are people trying to "prove" when evaluating the impact of a late loss to a bad team? To answer that, there are two sub-questions that need to be answered to frame the issue. First, what constitutes a "bad team"? ...

The second sub-question is what's the significance of the "late" loss?

I respect your thoughtful analysis... To me, the answers are quite simple. Wake is a bad team. Our loss to Wake was a bad loss, no question about it. Does it mean we are preordained to a fate of postseason failure? Certainly not... But it sure as heck doesn't fill me with a whole lot of warm fuzzies regarding our potential for postseason success... We have a boatload of talent and potential, we just seem to be having a difficult time getting that talent all on the same page to fully realize their collective potential... There's still time to do so, but time is running out rather quickly...

[Kedsy]

My god you two. If you watch Wake Forest and can't come to the conclusion they are a bad team, maybe basketball isn't your sport. They are horrible. You can throw as many stats and history as you want at the argument, it doesn't hide the fact Duke lost to a really bad basketball team. And if that doesn't concern you being so close to the NCAA tournament, then all the power to ya!

It's concerning to a lot of people, including me. The Wake loss is hardly the only loss that I would consider a bad loss. They have a bunch of them. It's a problem. Sometimes it is just that simple.

When determining how much this loss affects our Final Four chances, I hadn't considered applying the "Wildling is concerned" test. My mistake. Probably because basketball isn't my sport.

Though if it's just that simple, how come last season Michigan lost to a team significantly worse than Wake Forest, on February 27, and still managed to play for the national championship?

Also, please tell me, when we got absolutely clobbered by NC State (a team not very much better than this year's Wake team) and then Georgetown in the same 10-day stretch in 2010, were you more concerned or less concerned than you are now?

[roywhite]

My god you two. If you watch Wake Forest and can't come to the conclusion they are a bad team, maybe basketball isn't your sport. They are horrible. You can throw as many stats and history as you want at the argument, it doesn't hide the fact Duke lost to a really bad basketball team. And if that doesn't concern you being so close to the NCAA tournament, then all the power to ya!

It's concerning to a lot of people, including me. The Wake loss is hardly the only loss that I would consider a bad loss. They have a bunch of them. It's a problem. Sometimes it is just that simple.

I guess we'll not know for a bit whether the loss to Wake was an outlier or a sign of impending doom.

Having watched Wake some this year -- they are NOT a bad team when they play at home, and played very well vs Duke. It happens.

[Kedsy]

I respect your thoughtful analysis... To me, the answers are quite simple. Wake is a bad team. Our loss to Wake was a bad loss, no question about it. Does it mean we are preordained to a fate of postseason failure? Certainly not... But it sure as heck doesn't fill me with a whole lot of warm fuzzies regarding our potential for postseason success... We have a boatload of talent and potential, we just seem to be having a difficult time getting that talent all on the same page to fully realize their collective potential... There's still time to do so, but time is running out rather quickly...

Unfortunately, the response, "Wake is a bad team" doesn't answer my question, "What constitutes a bad team?"

I posed the question not to explore the extent of Wake's badness, but because I think LSU in 2007 (#90 in the RPI) was essentially just as bad and yet Florida lost to them on February 24, 2007 still won the 2007 national championship. Because I think Boise State and Delaware and Manhattan are just as bad as Wake Forest and yet they all have RPIs in the mid-70s -- and lots of Final Four teams have had losses to teams with RPIs in the mid-70s.

Duke lost to Wake Forest. Syracuse recently lost to both BC and Georgia Tech. Kansas just lost to West Virginia, a team with a similar resume to Wake. I bet fans of those teams aren't teeming with warm fuzzies, either. Doesn't mean Syracuse or Kansas won't go on a run in the NCAA tournament.

In other words, I'm not suggesting you feel good about the loss to Wake. I'm suggesting that the loss doesn't have a lot of bearing on how well or how poorly we fare in the Tournament.

[tommy]

I guess we'll not know for a bit whether the loss to Wake was an outlier or a sign of impending doom.

Or, more likely, we'll never know, or more likely, it was neither . Say we run into some team in the 2nd or 3rd round that just shoots lights out, deals well with the pressure, protects the ball, and just plays their best game of the season, and they beat us. But they don't play zone (or we attack their zone well), we play with energy, we take care if the ball too -- all the things we didn't do against Wake. But we get beat anyway by a team that just plays really really well on that day.

In such a circumstance, the performance against Wake would not have been a sign of impending doom, because the problems we had in that game were not present in this hypothetical NCAA game but we just lose anyway. Everyone would cry and scream about "told you so! Wake was a sign!" But they would be wrong.

[Kedsy]

I guess we'll not know for a bit whether the loss to Wake was an outlier or a sign of impending doom.

I don't think we'll know even then. Both Pomeroy and the RPI think Duke is the 7th best team in the country, and that's already factoring in the loss to Wake. If we lose in a one-and-done tournament that doesn't mean they're both wrong. It just means we'd have lost.

We've had Duke teams that were probably among the best four teams in the country (e.g., 1998, 2000, 2002, 2005, 2006, 2011) that didn't get to the Final Four. We've had teams that were perhaps not one of the best four teams (1988, 1989, 1990, 1991, 1994) that did get to the Final Four.

In other words, how good the team is and how far that team goes in the NCAAT and whether or not that team happens to have a bad loss are not necessarily related.

[roywhite]

Or, more likely, we'll never know. Say we run into some team in the 2nd or 3rd round that just shoots lights out, deals well with the pressure, protects the ball, and just plays their best game of the season, and they beat us. But they don't play zone (or we attack their zone well), we play with energy, we take care if the ball too -- all the things we didn't do against Wake. But we get beat anyway by a team that just plays really really well on that day.

In such a circumstance, the performance against Wake would not have been a sign of impending doom, because the problems we had in that game were not present in this hypothetical NCAA game but we just lose anyway. Everyone would cry and scream about "told you so! Wake was a sign!" But they would be wrong.

Yeah, and we've beat this horse pretty badly.

I guess my big concern is that we exit the NCAA tournament in large reason because of a really awful 4 or 5 minute stretch, where we go virtually scoreless, and the opponents pick up some easy baskets. This team has demonstrated that is possible.

[Kedsy]

Yeah, and we've beat this horse pretty badly.

I guess my big concern is that we exit the NCAA tournament in large reason because of a really awful 4 or 5 minute stretch, where we go virtually scoreless, and the opponents pick up some easy baskets. This team has demonstrated that is possible.

I completely agree with this. I'm worried about it too -- every game we've lost has featured this storyline. The Wake game was further evidence that it's possible, but I think we already knew it. I just don't think Wake offered any further evidence of anything moving forward.

[Wander]

The Wake game was further evidence that it's possible, but I think we already knew it. I just don't think Wake offered any further evidence of anything moving forward.

We already knew it earlier in the season - but I don't know about you, I thought we had been genuinely improving on our defense and such. The Wake game suggests - not reveals or proves, but suggests - that we're actually still basically the same team as a month or two months ago. Which is still a really good team with a chance for success in the tournament, but not quite as good as I had thought.

[jv001]

We already knew it earlier in the season - but I don't know about you, I thought we had been genuinely improving on our defense and such. The Wake game suggests - not reveals or proves, but suggests - that we're actually still basically the same team as a month or two months ago. Which is still a really good team with a chance for success in the tournament, but not quite as good as I had thought.

You may be correct, but I think it's more of a couple of players coasting on defense for a game here or there. They haven't realized that it take 5 players playing as hard as they can for a full 40 minutes. And that's just the defensive problem. On offense, it's way too much "me" and not enough team. I don't think it's as much selfishness as it is "I have to do it all myself, right now. Get into the offense quickly, move the ball and then you don't have to force contested shots. Beat UNC and GoDuke!

[tommy]

tommy, good research. One popular sentiment on here lately is that Duke has not reached its ceiling yet. I believe lots of teams with late season losses that don't make the Final Four reached their ceiling at the time of the loss or earlier. If this team can shake off the horrible loss at Wake and resume improvement towards its ceiling, we can definitely be one of those teams that suffers a late season loss and still go on to do great things.

I don't really even think it's an issue of "reaching our ceiling." I think in many, or most respects, by this point teams are what they are. We're just an OK defensive team, for instance. On average. We've had some excellent defensive performances at points throughout the year. And some poor ones. On balance we're just OK. If I had to select one game this year where I thought "that's as good as we can play. That's approaching our ceiling" it would be the LOSS at Syracuse. We played great that day, clearly demonstrating that we have the ability to play with and beat anybody. Even in a loss.

So this is not to say we can't get on a run, gain some confidence, put forth max energy in the tournament and play excellent D (for example) for a stretch of games necessary to win the dang thing. We could. But were we to do that, I don't think it'd be a case of us "reaching our ceiling." Sometimes teams just get hot. Sometimes they get lucky. All sorts of other things can happen. But I guess what I'm saying is that the cake is pretty much baked at this point. The fact of it being baked doesn't necessarily indicate any particular result will occur tonight, or in a one-and-done tournament, though. The cake is good enough, depending on the draw, our ability to focus, play together, play smart, hit open shots, and many other factors, to win the thing. If we don't do those things, we can lose early. And the same could be said of many, many other teams.

[Duke95]

I don't really even think it's an issue of "reaching our ceiling." I think in many, or most respects, by this point teams are what they are. We're just an OK defensive team, for instance. On average. We've had some excellent defensive performances at points throughout the year. And some poor ones. On balance we're just OK. If I had to select one game this year where I thought "that's as good as we can play. That's approaching our ceiling" it would be the LOSS at Syracuse. We played great that day, clearly demonstrating that we have the ability to play with and beat anybody. Even in a loss.

So this is not to say we can't get on a run, gain some confidence, put forth max energy in the tournament and play excellent D (for example) for a stretch of games necessary to win the dang thing. We could. But were we to do that, I don't think it'd be a case of us "reaching our ceiling." Sometimes teams just get hot. Sometimes they get lucky. All sorts of other things can happen. But I guess what I'm saying is that the cake is pretty much baked at this point. The fact of it being baked doesn't necessarily indicate any particular result will occur tonight, or in a one-and-done tournament, though. The cake is good enough, depending on the draw, our ability to focus, play together, play smart, hit open shots, and many other factors, to win the thing. If we don't do those things, we can lose early. And the same could be said of many, many other teams.

I think tommy's post accurately describes this Duke team. Well said.

[Papa John]

Unfortunately, the response, "Wake is a bad team" doesn't answer my question, "What constitutes a bad team?"

I posed the question not to explore the extent of Wake's badness, but because I think LSU in 2007 (#90 in the RPI) was essentially just as bad and yet Florida lost to them on February 24, 2007 still won the 2007 national championship. Because I think Boise State and Delaware and Manhattan are just as bad as Wake Forest and yet they all have RPIs in the mid-70s -- and lots of Final Four teams have had losses to teams with RPIs in the mid-70s.

Duke lost to Wake Forest. Syracuse recently lost to both BC and Georgia Tech. Kansas just lost to West Virginia, a team with a similar resume to Wake. I bet fans of those teams aren't teeming with warm fuzzies, either. Doesn't mean Syracuse or Kansas won't go on a run in the NCAA tournament.

In other words, I'm not suggesting you feel good about the loss to Wake. I'm suggesting that the loss doesn't have a lot of bearing on how well or how poorly we fare in the Tournament.

So, in other words, we agree. Excellent! Now let's kick the crap out of Carolina!

[Newton_14]

And that's a wrap on this thread. Horse is declared dead. Beaten to death from both sides. It's a tie.

Go To Hell Carolina. 9F