DWBB: 2018 Season

[Mike Corey]

Very tough loss for Coach McCallie and the Blue Devils.

Here's hoping we bounce back with a vengeance.

[CameronBornAndBred]

This was a bad loss for more than being "a bad loss". Duke needs to be fighting for top tier status in the conference and this makes it more difficult. If we lose to ND, that's ok; not a lot of teams are going to beat them and it won't affect us much. Losing to Carolina does, though, because they are far less likely to beat a team above us to inch us back up. It's truly a step-back game, and one that is hard to step forward from in the rankings. We can hope a similar fate (bad game) befalls the teams above us, but the ones that deserve to be there don't let that happen.
This game will also drop us in the polls, and I said a few posts back, staying in that top 16 for tournament seeding purposes is vital. This loss has a lasting effect that carries into our post season. Bleah.

Very tough loss for Coach McCallie and the Blue Devils.

Here's hoping we bounce back with a vengeance.

Amen to that. I am still optimistic, but this was not a good day.

[CameronBlue]

Seriously?

Care to explain what you mean? Yes seriously. Oh I get it, it's a fairly benign statement, perhaps a touch platitudinous. Yeah, ya got me, touche. But we're back at the same place again with many of Duke's losses over the years, high turnover count, Duke's persistent failure to guard the 3 and poor decision making, mistakes correctable with proper coaching and veteran leadership. These criticisms are not new.

[chrishoke]

There are a number of things for her to be upset about. Bad games happen. Persistent systemic failures are more troubling. It would be interesting to know the perspective of someone who is a former Naismith award winner and probably more informed than most people who post here.

You mean from the person that missed the most infamous free throw in Duke women's BB history? We made lots of mistakes but those 3 of 4 misses by our grad student All Americans in the last minute of regulation were the killers.

[chrishoke]

By the way, LH is my favorite Duke women's BB player ever.

[CameronBlue]

You mean from the person that missed the most infamous free throw in Duke women's BB history? We made lots of mistakes but those 3 of 4 misses by our grad student All Americans in the last minute of regulation were the killers.

You're going to take a shot at Lindsay for missing a free throw (clearly a huge disappointment) and devalue her opinion as a result? Gee, that sounds like a faithful Duke fan. What do you think about Jay Williams failure against Indiana, or about 100 other mistakes by Duke coaches and players over the years? I just want to know why she was livid. Maybe she was just being a sports fan and in the moment...I'd still like to hear her opinion of a team that seems to commit many of the same errors. Got a problem with that, if so I can't imagine why.

[Kedsy]

Care to explain what you mean? Yes seriously. Oh I get it, it's a fairly benign statement, perhaps a touch platitudinous. Yeah, ya got me, touche. But we're back at the same place again with many of Duke's losses over the years, high turnover count, Duke's persistent failure to guard the 3 and poor decision making, mistakes correctable with proper coaching and veteran leadership. These criticisms are not new.

Here are statistics relating to Duke turnovers and opposing 3-point prowess from three selected seasons. One of them is this season, in the 19 games before (and not including) tonight. The other two are 2005-06 and 2006-07. If you can tell which one is this year (as opposed to Coach G's and Lindsay Harding's final two and arguably finest seasons), then perhaps we can have this conversation:

opp ppg		Duke topg	opp 3pt %
51.4		15.6		0.259
55.0		15.1		0.277
58.2		17.1		0.290

If you can't tell which is which, or even if you can but can't reasonably explain to me how the two Coach G seasons had less of a "systemic failure" than this season, then maybe you can adjust your "not new" criticisms to what is actually happening right now.

[Dukehky]

You're going to take a shot at Lindsay for missing a free throw (clearly a huge disappointment) and devalue her opinion as a result? Gee, that sounds like a faithful Duke fan. What do you think about Jay Williams failure against Indiana, or about 100 other mistakes by Duke coaches and players over the years? I just want to know why she was livid. Maybe she was just being a sports fan and in the moment...I'd still like to hear her opinion of a team that seems to commit many of the same errors. Got a problem with that, if so I can't imagine why.

That was it. She was just being a fan. Disappointed in the play down the stretch, not about a missed free throw, but the decision to stay in a zone that allows for open 3's from the corners and the turnovers down the stretch. Same as everyone else.

It's not like she was saying G would have never allowed that or anything.

[dudog84]

Here are statistics relating to Duke turnovers and opposing 3-point prowess from three selected seasons. One of them is this season, in the 19 games before (and not including) tonight. The other two are 2005-06 and 2006-07. If you can tell which one is this year (as opposed to Coach G's and Lindsay Harding's final two and arguably finest seasons), then perhaps we can have this conversation:

opp ppg		Duke topg	opp 3pt %
51.4		15.6		0.259
55.0		15.1		0.277
58.2		17.1		0.290

If you can't tell which is which, or even if you can but can't reasonably explain to me how the two Coach G seasons had less of a "systemic failure" than this season, then maybe you can adjust your "not new" criticisms to what is actually happening right now.

Wow, that is a touche. I don't know where to find these numbers (ok, I could, but between basketball and football I'm having a lousy day and am in a bad lazy mood), so please let us know soon which is which.

[jimsumner]

It's hard to describe how ugly and dispiriting this loss was. Duke won the game a half-dozen times but kept giving it back. Duke's two best ball handlers combined for 12 turnovers, Duke's two best foul shooters went 7-13 from the line, both missing a chance to salt away the game in the final seconds.

And Carolina didn't even press. A large number of Duke's turnovers were live-ball turnovers, resulting in UNC layups.

And up three with four seconds left, Duke allows UNC's best player a wide-open 3 for the tie off an inbounds play. With two fouls to give.

Then basically mailed it in in OT, despite having a fresher and deeper team. UNC's two best players played 45 minutes.

Lexie Brown owned the loss, citing her missed foul shots as game pressure. Color me stunned at the late-game mistakes.

Some good things, for sure. But this is a not a good UNC team.

There's no way to polish this one. It was a bad loss for team on the top-16 bubble.

[DU82]

It's hard to describe how ugly and dispiriting this loss was. Duke won the game a half-dozen times but kept giving it back. Duke's two best ball handlers combined for 12 turnovers, Duke's two best foul shooters went 7-13 from the line, both missing a chance to salt away the game in the final seconds.

And Carolina didn't even press. A large number of Duke's turnovers were live-ball turnovers, resulting in UNC layups.

And up three with four seconds left, Duke allows UNC's best player a wide-open 3 for the tie off an inbounds play. With two fouls to give.

Then basically mailed it in in OT, despite having a fresher and deeper team. UNC's two best players played 45 minutes.

Lexie Brown owned the loss, citing her missed foul shots as game pressure. Color me stunned at the late-game mistakes.

Some good things, for sure. But this is a not a good UNC team.

There's no way to polish this one. It was a bad loss for team on the top-16 bubble.

One correction Jim. We no longer had any fouls to give. Haley's foul on the breakaway after her giveaway (after we called TO to advance the ball to the front court) was the fourth foul of the 4th period. (Their scoreboard is so tough to read, with the horizontal team fouls, player number, and player fouls.) So the rest of the way (including overtime) they were shooting, and I think they only missed one FT all game (do not want to check the box score anymore.)

As mentioned, turnovers and free throws. Too many unforced turnovers (and some decent defensive plays from the cheaters.)

We had our way in the first 1.5 quarters, and then I think they went to a tighter defense (zone?) that cut off the passes inside and drives. We then spent most of the game standing outside. Haley, as I mentioned at the half, had two poor shots where she just stood there with the ball, nobody moved, and she decided to shoot. Jade played aggressively on offensive early, and Erin was pretty good all game (missing some decent shots, or turning the ball over when she got the pass as the shorter Cheater defender kept kneeing her from behind.) They shot a lot of threes, missing 7 out of 10 until overtime, when I don't think they missed (or at least it seemed so.)

A game to forget for sure.

[jimsumner]

One correction Jim. We no longer had any fouls to give. Haley's foul on the breakaway after her giveaway (after we called TO to advance the ball to the front court) was the fourth foul of the 4th period. (Their scoreboard is so tough to read, with the horizontal team fouls, player number, and player fouls.) So the rest of the way (including overtime) they were shooting, and I think they only missed one FT all game (do not want to check the box score anymore.)

As mentioned, turnovers and free throws. Too many unforced turnovers (and some decent defensive plays from the cheaters.)

We had our way in the first 1.5 quarters, and then I think they went to a tighter defense (zone?) that cut off the passes inside and drives. We then spent most of the game standing outside. Haley, as I mentioned at the half, had two poor shots where she just stood there with the ball, nobody moved, and she decided to shoot. Jade played aggressively on offensive early, and Erin was pretty good all game (missing some decent shots, or turning the ball over when she got the pass as the shorter Cheater defender kept kneeing her from behind.) They shot a lot of threes, missing 7 out of 10 until overtime, when I don't think they missed (or at least it seemed so.)

A game to forget for sure.

All the more reason to foul and not give UNC a 3.

Leah Church came into the game averaging 3.1 points per game, with a career high of eight.

She can only do thing. Shoot. When open and not moving. She's slow, she's short, she can't post up or score off the dribble. She came into today's game having attempted one two-point shot all season. One.

So, she gets 11 3-pointers, almost all wide open and knocks down five of them.

McCallie said Duke had a plan for her but didn't execute it. Keeping a defender in the same zip code should just about do it.

[DU82]

All the more reason to foul and not give UNC a 3.

I don't disagree with that, although the pass/shot was pretty quick, I don't think we could have fouled a non-shooter in that situation. (Back to your comment of how she was that wide open off the inbounds pass is the first problem there.)

[jimsumner]

I don't disagree with that, although the pass/shot was pretty quick, I don't think we could have fouled a non-shooter in that situation. (Back to your comment of how she was that wide open off the inbounds pass is the first problem there.)

Fight over the screen. If they call the foul, great. If not, then maybe you get a hand in Kea's face. But you just can't give up that shot.

FWIW, Hatchell said they drew up the play for Church to get the shot.


So, this was their Plan B.

[grossbus]

By my recollection, we had 3 turnovers on inbounds play, including the one after the timeout near the end of the game.

Just one of so many ways we lost this game.

Wonder what P’s plan for church was? I saw evidence of anything.

[CameronBlue]

Here are statistics relating to Duke turnovers and opposing 3-point prowess from three selected seasons. One of them is this season, in the 19 games before (and not including) tonight. The other two are 2005-06 and 2006-07. If you can tell which one is this year (as opposed to Coach G's and Lindsay Harding's final two and arguably finest seasons), then perhaps we can have this conversation:

opp ppg		Duke topg	opp 3pt %
51.4		15.6		0.259
55.0		15.1		0.277
58.2		17.1		0.290

If you can't tell which is which, or even if you can but can't reasonably explain to me how the two Coach G seasons had less of a "systemic failure" than this season, then maybe you can adjust your "not new" criticisms to what is actually happening right now.

First let me state that this is not a harangue about how good things were under G and that P is literally Satan in a Blue Dress and wouldn't it be great if a house dropped on her and whatever. In my earlier posts I purposely avoided mentioning P by name to try to avoid making it personal. If it's possible to parse between the two I'd rather talk about the failures in coaching rather than the failures of P. White made his decision and it's well past time--as others have stated on this board months ago--to accept P and support the team, because not to support the team is simply wrong. But that doesn't mean the coaches (and players) should be immune to criticism.

Moving on. Seasonal averages are misleading and IMO your line of logic is specious. Duke has been historically a top tier (and we'll say remains so) Division I program. Any "systemic flaws" in coaching, game preparation etc reveal themselves more often in games when the team is mentally and physically tested, when more is on the line, when the talent disparity Duke enjoys against the Elons of the world is not in evidence. If you stratify those stats by ACC opponent, or Top 10 opponent or NCAA/ACC Tournament games and the relationship still holds then maybe you have a basis for argument. As it stands, again, IMO, you don't. Seasonal averages normalize extreme events and outliers. A top tier Division I program is only going to play a handful of games each year that will truly separate the women from the girls, both players and coaches, when tactics, strategy and ability to perform under pressure, the habits, both bad and good, ingrained through coaching and practice manifest themselves. I freely admit that I'm am relying on a "perception" that Duke performs poorly in those games, extremely poorly for an experienced team, as evidenced by turnovers. (I have not sorted through that stats to see, so go find the stats that nullify that perception--as I said you haven't yet--and maybe you'll have a basis for an argument.) The "perception" is that Duke frequently, with alarming regularity, hits the 20+ turnover mark in those "more important" games. And if you find that the same thing happened in the last two years of G's tenure, so what? Surely can't think 20 or 26 turnovers is excusable and not likely related to game coaching or game preparation? Could it happen once in a while to good teams? Obviously. It happens with such regularity to Duke that yes, you feel something fundamental to game preparation is being missed, repeatedly. It's as temporal as it ever has been. Duke lost the game for a number of reasons. They missed some free throws and that's on the players. For the sake of argument those are not wholly "coachable" mistakes. Getting the ball up court against a zone press, creating space against tight pressure and the sideline, recognizing double-teams and finding the open man (should be the one screaming the loudest), recognizing passing lanes, knowing when to pass the ball on the bounce are all things which are coachable tactics at which Duke seems to fail at repeatedly when it matters most.

[Kedsy]

First let me state that this is not a harangue about how good things were under G and that P is literally Satan in a Blue Dress and wouldn't it be great if a house dropped on her and whatever. In my earlier posts I purposely avoided mentioning P by name to try to avoid making it personal. If it's possible to parse between the two I'd rather talk about the failures in coaching rather than the failures of P. White made his decision and it's well past time--as others have stated on this board months ago--to accept P and support the team, because not to support the team is simply wrong. But that doesn't mean the coaches (and players) should be immune to criticism.

Moving on. Seasonal averages are misleading and IMO your line of logic is specious. Duke has been historically a top tier (and we'll say remains so) Division I program. Any "systemic flaws" in coaching, game preparation etc reveal themselves more often in games when the team is mentally and physically tested, when more is on the line, when the talent disparity Duke enjoys against the Elons of the world is not in evidence. If you stratify those stats by ACC opponent, or Top 10 opponent or NCAA/ACC Tournament games and the relationship still holds then maybe you have a basis for argument. As it stands, again, IMO, you don't. Seasonal averages normalize extreme events and outliers. A top tier Division I program is only going to play a handful of games each year that will truly separate the women from the girls, both players and coaches, when tactics, strategy and ability to perform under pressure, the habits, both bad and good, ingrained through coaching and practice manifest themselves. I freely admit that I'm am relying on a "perception" that Duke performs poorly in those games, extremely poorly for an experienced team, as evidenced by turnovers. (I have not sorted through that stats to see, so go find the stats that nullify that perception--as I said you haven't yet--and maybe you'll have a basis for an argument.) The "perception" is that Duke frequently, with alarming regularity, hits the 20+ turnover mark in those "more important" games. And if you find that the same thing happened in the last two years of G's tenure, so what? Surely can't think 20 or 26 turnovers is excusable and not likely related to game coaching or game preparation? Could it happen once in a while to good teams? Obviously. It happens with such regularity to Duke that yes, you feel something fundamental to game preparation is being missed, repeatedly. It's as temporal as it ever has been. Duke lost the game for a number of reasons. They missed some free throws and that's on the players. For the sake of argument those are not wholly "coachable" mistakes. Getting the ball up court against a zone press, creating space against tight pressure and the sideline, recognizing double-teams and finding the open man (should be the one screaming the loudest), recognizing passing lanes, knowing when to pass the ball on the bounce are all things which are coachable tactics at which Duke seems to fail at repeatedly when it matters most.

Talk about specious. You support your argument with statistics that you admit you haven't consulted? And then you tell me if I want to spend my time digging up your fuzzily-defined statistics, then "maybe" I'll have the basis for an argument? What you're saying is laughable.

FWIW, I looked through the 2005-06 team's schedule and isolated only games against ranked teams, then did the same for this year's team. The 2005-06 team (that made the NCAA title game) turned the ball over 20+ times in 25% of its games against ranked teams (including 23 to's in a loss at UNC), with an average of 15.6 turnovers in those games. This year's team also turned the ball over 20+ times in 25% of its games against ranked teams, with an average of 14.5 turnovers per game. Obviously when you do it this way it's a smaller sample size, so this doesn't prove that this year's team is no worse at coughing the ball up than that team was (though it is evidence of that, as is the fact that in my original table this year's team had the lowest average topg of the three seasons listed), but it certainly does not support your theory that Duke (this season or in general) turns it over more against better teams. You want more, you can attempt to find your own stats. I doubt you'll find anything that reliably backs up your dubious hypothesis, much less your completely unsupported conclusions.

In fact, it's been some time since Duke has excessively turned the ball over with "regularity" (whatever that means in this context). Whether you mentioned her name or not, you're making stuff up because you made up your mind about Coach P in advance. The fact is she's done a really good coaching job for at least the past two seasons, whether you want to admit it or not. And surfacing only when the team loses and spouting nonsense about "systemic failures" doesn't advance the discussion.

[CameronBornAndBred]

Thankfully that lousy loss only dropped us four spots in the polls, so we are 18. Only a couple away from that top 16 group. The women play lowly BC tomorrow night, so that should be a victory. I wouldn't want to be the team that faces Duke after the UNC loss.

[CamrnCrz1974]

Talk about specious. You support your argument with statistics that you admit you haven't consulted? And then you tell me if I want to spend my time digging up your fuzzily-defined statistics, then "maybe" I'll have the basis for an argument? What you're saying is laughable.

FWIW, I looked through the 2005-06 team's schedule and isolated only games against ranked teams, then did the same for this year's team. The 2005-06 team (that made the NCAA title game) turned the ball over 20+ times in 25% of its games against ranked teams (including 23 to's in a loss at UNC), with an average of 15.6 turnovers in those games. This year's team also turned the ball over 20+ times in 25% of its games against ranked teams, with an average of 14.5 turnovers per game. Obviously when you do it this way it's a smaller sample size, so this doesn't prove that this year's team is no worse at coughing the ball up than that team was (though it is evidence of that, as is the fact that in my original table this year's team had the lowest average topg of the three seasons listed), but it certainly does not support your theory that Duke (this season or in general) turns it over more against better teams. You want more, you can attempt to find your own stats. I doubt you'll find anything that reliably backs up your dubious hypothesis, much less your completely unsupported conclusions.

In fact, it's been some time since Duke has excessively turned the ball over with "regularity" (whatever that means in this context). Whether you mentioned her name or not, you're making stuff up because you made up your mind about Coach P in advance. The fact is she's done a really good coaching job for at least the past two seasons, whether you want to admit it or not. And surfacing only when the team loses and spouting nonsense about "systemic failures" doesn't advance the discussion.

It is one thing to look at turnovers, which was your point in responding to the other post. For me, however, it is quite another thing to look at the overall direction of the program.

As for the overall direction of the program, these were the numbers as of February 2016, comparing predecessor Gail Goestenkors' last seven years at Duke with Joanne P. McCallie's eight-plus years (up to February 2016) at Duke produces the following:

Overall record:
Goestenkors: 220-25 (89.79 percent)
McCallie: 243-64 (79.15 percent)

ACC record:
Goestenkors: 98-8 (92.45 percent)
McCallie:107-30 (78.10 percent)

NCAA record:
Goestenkors: 23-7 (one NCAA runner-up, three Final Fours, five years at least making the Elite eight, all seven years at least making the Sweet 16)
McCallie:18-8 (zero Final Fours, four Elite Eights, six years at least making the Sweet 16, two second round losses)

Against Top 5 Opponents:
Goestenkors: 14-14 (50.00 percent)
McCallie:7-28 (20.00 percent)

Against Top 10 Opponents:
Goestenkors: 25-14 (64.10 percent)
McCallie: 19-36 (34.545 percent)

Against Ranked Opponents:
Goestenkors: 60-20 (80.00 percent)
McCallie: 58-49 (54.21 percent)

Given that Coach P is in her 11th season, I can go back and compare the last ten years of the Goestenkors era with the first ten years of the McCallie era.

[devilseven]

Goestenkors is gone. She chose to leave Duke. Tell us about her record for the last 11 years. She was fired at Texas for poor performance. Has she been able to get another coaching job? Let's compare Coach P's record at Duke with Goestenkors coaching record during the same time frame.