MBB: Duke 78, Auburn 72 Post-Game Thread

[JBDuke]

Put your post-game thoughts here.

[WHOneedsSOX]

Solid game by Duke. Last 4 or so minutes were sloppy, 5 turnovers I think, so that needs to be cleaned up. Duke will only get better.

Now we listen to the haters cry about the +25 free throw attempts by Duke.

[wavedukefan70s]

Not our best game.team will learn a lot and build on the lesson. Bolden Bolden Bolden.

[duketaylor]

Good game, good win. Next!!! Excellent opponent!!

[House G]

If Al McGuire were alive and doing the game, we might have heard the phrase aircraft carrier.

[ChrisP]

Easily Bolden's best game in a Duke uni. And RJ's worst. LOTS of freshmen mistakes tonight - quick/ill-advised shots, lazy passes, not boxing out. Glad we got the win, but it felt like we could have won by 20 fairly easily with just a little more focus.

[Troublemaker]

Marques freaking Bolden! His best game at Duke by far (finally eclipsing when he spurred the comeback against Miami his freshman year).

Relatedly, not sure the final advanced stats will reflect this because of all the prayer 3s that Auburn canned towards the end, but the game was really won by our defense. Our offense struggled against Auburn, who surprisingly backed off their pressure and went to a gapping defense, and we couldn't make shots to loosen it. (Props to the person [gocanes?] who called Bruce Pearl's surprise ability in the pregame).

[jwillfan]

Survive and advance? Too soon?

[peterjswift]

A thought I had last season about Bolden: he always seemed very fundamentally sound, but a half-step too slow. That half-step turned countless blocks to fouls, allowed players to blow by, or just miss shots. Or he’d be in the right place, but unable to grab the rebound or receive passes cleanly.

This year (not just this game), he has gotten that half step. It is a tiny change to his game or conditioning, but it has made a huge difference. He’s blocking shots, receiving passes, turning back ball handlers.

I’m not saying this is Zoubek-esque, because this seems more like incremental adjustments instead of a switch going off, but I feel like Bolden has made the adjustments to his game to suddenly be very effective. It was always there, just a half-second off. Really love seeing his success!

[gocanes0506]

Every coach that is on Duke’s schedule until the end of the season will use Auburn’s play to blue print their scheme. Pack the lane, make Duke make threes and free throws, and prevent fast breaks.

K must not have trusted AOC, this was a game to let him get 15+. Then again Duke played a short bench.

Great that Duke plays pulls out a win against a big team in a close game. Good growing moment for the young guys.

See more pressing tomorrow or do we save legs? I think the lack of pressing hurt the offense too.

[Ballboy1998]

We had some sloppy turnovers late, but Auburn raining down contested step-back threes for the last minutes was still the only thing keeping it close. Can't get too mad about giving those threes up.

Zion's early hustle-related foul seemed to take his aggressiveness away after the foul trouble last night. This was his quietest game, but he still did a lot of great things. RJ continued to settle for some bad shots and I think he loses focus too much on defense and on the glass. While it wasn't a good shot to take, loved Cam's killer instinct to just drain that deep three immediately after Auburn cut it to five points. Despite a couple turnovers late, I thought Tre had a phenomenal game. Huge game from Bolden. Wish we could make our free throws.

[Dub]

Great game and great test against a veteran top 10 team. Traditionally teams with little guards kill us and Bolden was a man in there. I think people forget that we have 4 freshman starting and they are human. There will be several moments where we’ll scratch our heads at the decisions they’ll make but they’re resilient and they won the game. Auburn is a tough team and we weren’t going to blow everybody out by 20+. We needed a tough game and I’m glad the good guys won.

FTs were bad, ball handling was a bit sloppy toward the end, and the freshmen took some bad shots but they’ll learn from it and grow from it much more than the 30 point blowouts we’ve become accustomed to. Enjoy this team folks. They’re special!

[Billy Dat]

Bolden Bolden Bolden.

Bolden Bolden Bolden Bolden Bolden Bolden Bolden Bolden Bolden Bolden Bolden Bolden

[weezie]

We had some sloppy turnovers late, but Auburn raining down contested step-back threes for the last minutes was still the only thing keeping it close. Can't get too mad about giving those threes up...

Those were some quick triggers for aubie. But that's their strength. Doubt too many other coaches can call on that automatic back court.

Good to see a "human" game for Duke. They met the challenge.

[dukelion]

Marques Bolden....this is why I love college basketball.

Three years of promise and struggle including perhaps his lowest moment just a few months back during the Canada tour where he was absolutely atrocious.

And then all of the sudden...click....he figures it out.

Tremendous performance and just special to watch a young man finally reach his potential after years of hard work.

[Billy Dat]

While it wasn't a good shot to take, loved Cam's killer instinct to just drain that deep three immediately after Auburn cut it to five points..

That was a HUGE shot, and RJ hit a similar one a few minutes earlier. Thess kids are confident.

[arnie]

Though our half court O was disappointing, too many rushed shots and generally sloppy play. Zion can’t dribble around or through all double teams.

Auburn has a great O, and our MTM was pretty good all game. Forcing their guards to drive toward Bolden and even White worked ok.

[DavidBenAkiva]

All 5 starters scored in double figures. Bolden, R.J., and Zion had 9 rebounds each. Jack White was out there doing Jack White things. Tre Jones played exceptional defense against a potential 1st Team All-SEC player. Cam Reddish was out there knocking down shots and poking the ball away. The team was sloppy at times, but hot damn Duke knocked off another Top 10 team tonight!

[InSpades]

Bolden was fabulous. Super happy for him. Best game in a Duke uniform by far. He was truly the difference in this game if you ask me. Duke probably loses if he doesn't show up like he did.

Defense had some lapses but as a whole played pretty well I thought. Though Auburn's offense seemed based around hucking 3s at every opportunity. So I'm not sure how that reflects on Duke's defense. I thought Tre did a good job staying in front of Harper for the most part and forcing him to take difficult shots.

The offense was terrible. 25 3s? Duke shot 17 of 29 from 2 (almost 59%). We forced them to foul us over and over again by driving the lane. Why are we settling for difficult shots? We have 3 amazing offensive talents... we should be able to leverage them to get us a good shot every time down the court. We did not do that tonight.

Auburn did not impress me. I know they are ranked 8 and any win over a top 10 team is a really good win but... this game did not look good to me. We need to play much better than that and we are capable of playing much better than that.

[Saratoga2]

Auburn is a very good team and they played hard for 40 minutes. We did as well and our superior talent won out but we did show some freshman mistakes, especially toward the end when we could have iced it. Good teaching moments for the coaches. Bolden, as others have said, had his best game and we needed it from him. Our FT shooting was 22 of 32. Nice we got that many but we need to hit a higher percentage. Reddish is our best at the line.

I really liked Tre's defense. They had quick guards, but he really did not get blown by. His defensive on ball pressure slowed down their offense.

Look forward to tomorrow.