MBB: Duke @ St. John's (Sat. 2/3, 12:00 p.m., FOX) Pre-Game and In-Game Thread

[Bob Green]

So of course you are going to have more rushes (and thus more rushing yards) in games you win than in games you lose.

If I understand you correctly, your logic would indicate Duke won the game where they rushed 44 times for 327 yards and the opponent rushed 40 times for 167 yards.

November 7, 2015: North Carolina 66, Duke 31

The 327 rushing yards gained in the loss against Carolina was more yards rushing than Duke achieved in seven of their eight wins that season. The exception was 373 yards rushing in the victory over Indiana in the Pinstripe Bowl.

[godins]

I saw this comment and wondered exactly how good a day duke would have, would Jack White play major minutes. So I plugged the numbers into excel, and it turns out that the more that jack white plays, the better duke does...to the tune of nearly 3 additional points in final margin for every minute jack plays!

Attachment 8054

The extensive and highly scientific analysis has determined that as Jack White goes, so goes Duke. The extremely high correlation of minutes to final margin indicates that not only should jack be getting more minutes, but he should be getting ALL the minutes. By extrapolating this trend, I have concluded that were jack to play 40 minutes every game, duke would win every game by an average margin of 115 points.

I simply don't understand why coach K has not made this change and points to an over-the-hill coach who doesn't put enough weight in what statistical analysis has determined is undoubtedly the best course of action!

Jack White is the key to this team. We could either languish playing close games against the best teams in the country, or win by triple digits with regularity. The choice is K's.

Why stop at 40 minutes? If we cloned Jack White four times, 200 beautiful Jack White minutes of basketball a game would have us win by 575 points. An NBA team of Jack Whites would beat the Warriors by 690 points. Not only is K out of touch with analytics -- he's also anti-science.

[DukieInBrasil]

Why stop at 40 minutes? If we cloned Jack White four times, 200 beautiful Jack White minutes of basketball a game would have us win by 575 points. An NBA team of Jack Whites would beat the Warriors by 690 points. Not only is K out of touch with analytics -- he's also anti-science.

The only conclusion to draw from this rigorous statistical analysis is that it's time for him to retire, the game has passed him by.

[CDu]

If I understand you correctly, your logic would indicate Duke won the game where they rushed 44 times for 327 yards and the opponent rushed 40 times for 167 yards.

November 7, 2015: North Carolina 66, Duke 31

The 327 rushing yards gained in the loss against Carolina was more yards rushing than Duke achieved in seven of their eight wins that season. The exception was 373 yards rushing in the victory over Indiana in the Pinstripe Bowl.

Hence the repeated use of the term "tend to" in my statement. It's not a 100% correlation.

[gofurman]

Yup, it is easy to look at 0-11 in the BEast and just assume they are trash. Doing that would be a big mistake. They are a pretty good team, just one that cannot seem to close out close games. As the Xavier coach said last night, "That's the best 0-11 team I have ever seen."

Good quote. I have seen v good 0-10 teams that really are scary . You get railed for losing to them and if you win "well, of course you won, they are 0-10". Kinda like when we lost to State - they had been drubbed by Notre Dame, only now do we see they can play w anyone

[Bob Green]

Hence the repeated use of the term "tend to" in my statement. It's not a 100% correlation.

I'm just having fun with you. My example game is an outlier.

[uh_no]

Why stop at 40 minutes? If we cloned Jack White four times, 200 beautiful Jack White minutes of basketball a game would have us win by 575 points. An NBA team of Jack Whites would beat the Warriors by 690 points. Not only is K out of touch with analytics -- he's also anti-science.

that's PhD material right there.

[jv001]

Beat St. Johns. Thread dropped to 2nd page. Don't take this game for granted. GoDuke!

[duke4ever19]

Beat St. Johns. Thread dropped to 2nd page. Don't take this game for granted. GoDuke!

Bumped it again.

Hopefully the team is locked-in on this one more than we are!

I don't know a darn thing about St. John's other than they've been losing to good teams, but not by much. I need to find one of their games on espn3 and check them out.

[Sir Stealth]

Tickets on Stubhub surprisingly (to me) expensive for this one. Comparable to K's 1000th win or last season's game against Kansas, even the ACC Tourney game against UNC. Not sure if it's hype from the St. John's end about facing Duke or Duke alumni hungry to see the team after uncharacteristic absence of a pre-conference New York game, but I find it interesting given that the game seems to be generating relatively little buzz from fans (e.g. thread keeps falling off first page).

[budwom]

I think ticket availability will be excellent, can't imagine they'll come anywhere close to selling out...Stubhub et al zeroing in on the affluent Duke NYC crowd.
I'd personally check out the scalpers on this one...

[CrazyNotCrazie]

I think ticket availability will be excellent, can't imagine they'll come anywhere close to selling out...Stubhub et al zeroing in on the affluent Duke NYC crowd.
I'd personally check out the scalpers on this one...

The game is theoretically sold out. St. John's gave Duke a very small allocation - I have gotten tickets through Iron Dukes to all St. John's-Duke games here over the past 20 years with no problem, but Iron Dukes did not get enough tickets to take care of lower tier donors like myself, and many others. Meanwhile, while we were waiting to hear from Iron Dukes, tickets sold out in the public sale. As you noted, I think many of these were sold to speculators hoping to profit off of affluent Duke alums. A few weeks ago the cheapest seats were in the mid-60s. Earlier this week they were up to the 90s. They seem to be coming down a bit but still nothing in the building for under $80 (plus fees), which is absolutely ridiculous. We'll see what the market is like outside - MSG is very centrally located so it is easy to just show up and look around.

[English]

Question for some potential discussion: Who guards Ponds tomorrow? In the past, Matt Jones would've assumed the responsibility as a no-brainer, but this season, who is our best on-ball defender? Duval? Trent Jr.?

[flyingdutchdevil]

Question for some potential discussion: Who guards Ponds tomorrow? In the past, Matt Jones would've assumed the responsibility as a no-brainer, but this season, who is our best on-ball defender? Duval? Trent Jr.?

Grayson Allen. He's been our best perimeter defender in ACC play.

[thedukelamere]

Question for some potential discussion: Who guards Ponds tomorrow? In the past, Matt Jones would've assumed the responsibility as a no-brainer, but this season, who is our best on-ball defender? Duval? Trent Jr.?

Option 1: Play zone all game
Option 2: JACK WHITE
Option 3: Gary Trent Jr.

I'd wager K goes with Option 3.

[Troublemaker]

Question for some potential discussion: Who guards Ponds tomorrow? In the past, Matt Jones would've assumed the responsibility as a no-brainer, but this season, who is our best on-ball defender? Duval? Trent Jr.?

I think we'll go with standard matchups to start with, so Trevon gets first crack at Ponds, their PG. But if Trevon struggles / gets into foul trouble, we'll switch Grayson or Gary on him or go zone.

When Duke scores, we'll also probably do the soft zone press to get the ball out of Ponds' hands and make him work to get it back.

[budwom]

The game is theoretically sold out. St. John's gave Duke a very small allocation - I have gotten tickets through Iron Dukes to all St. John's-Duke games here over the past 20 years with no problem, but Iron Dukes did not get enough tickets to take care of lower tier donors like myself, and many others. Meanwhile, while we were waiting to hear from Iron Dukes, tickets sold out in the public sale. As you noted, I think many of these were sold to speculators hoping to profit off of affluent Duke alums. A few weeks ago the cheapest seats were in the mid-60s. Earlier this week they were up to the 90s. They seem to be coming down a bit but still nothing in the building for under $80 (plus fees), which is absolutely ridiculous. We'll see what the market is like outside - MSG is very centrally located so it is easy to just show up and look around.

Agreed. I have a pal who lives ten blocks away, easy to show up and check out the market...I would guess that prices will fall as noon approaches...

[Fish80]

Question for some potential discussion: Who guards Ponds tomorrow? In the past, Matt Jones would've assumed the responsibility as a no-brainer, but this season, who is our best on-ball defender? Duval? Trent Jr.?

Jack White.

[MrPoon]

I think we'll go with standard matchups to start with, so Trevon gets first crack at Ponds, their PG. But if Trevon struggles / gets into foul trouble, we'll switch Grayson or Gary on him or go zone.

When Duke scores, we'll also probably do the soft zone press to get the ball out of Ponds' hands and make him work to get it back.

I agree. I think K gives the assignment to Trevon. He’s quick and can defend... he also likes to take ill timed fouls (although its often on help D where he pick up bad fouls) which is what will lead K to switch if he needs to (and maybe zone in the second half, but not before). One of my favorite aspects of K’s coaching is that he flat out takes the best player from the opposition and erases him. You may beat K, but it won’t be your best player, he is almost always going to struggle. Someone else who will have to step up. It happens sometimes but usually it works. K is prepping this team to take out Ponds. That is the film study. Duval will get a lot of the work the last few days. Which side is Ponds’ favorite, where does he take shots, what is their preferred plays to get him open.

Duval will be ready and so will the team. Ponds may still have a good game, but he’ll earn it. My guess is this game starts closer than it should (cause that is what we do!) and Ponds gets frustrated, Duke pulls away around the 12m mark second half. The in-game feed freaks out (maybe even me) about the poor D and wonders why someone we never heard of is hitting 3s and then Trent hits a three, Bagley dunks on a kid in a way his mom crys because its on national TV and Carter gets a put back and suddenly Duke is up 12. (And my daughter comes in and say “why are you making so much noise?!” But that won’t impact you)

This K/Mullin is the biggest mismatch of the game. Just don’t look ahead.

[WiJoe]

VERY scared of Shamorie Ponds