MBB: Duke vs Virginia (Sat, Jan 19, 6pm ET, ESPN) Pre-Game and In-Game Thread

[CY_devil]

Titus can be amusing. Tate Frazier is your typical Tar Heel, Duke-hating, d-bag. It NEVER stops with that particular sub-group of humanity, even if they seem like otherwise decent people.

This! Agreed 100%. It is impossible to get him to be even slightly objective towards Duke. I'm done listening to their show... DBR podcast only for this guy.

[Mtn.Devil.91.92.01.10.15]

RIGHTO...the stain of Mercer and Lehigh remain, but in all honesty, those were not great Duke teams. They were certainly not one seeds, let alone THE number one seed. The Mercer stain was also bleached immediately the next season with the Natty. If the Hoos can do that, then the stain of last year will not be gone, but it will be whitened a bit.

Yeah, the Duke upsets in the tournament are certainly low points for our fans and subjects of ridicule froms rivals. But ANY program has those moments (Weber State?) and they fade much more quickly when you are able to hang banners.

[dukelifer]

Is there any other fan base that brings even half the basketball analysis that our brethren at UVA bring to the board? Serious question.

You Wahoos know your ball. Much respect.

And I hope we whip you tomorrow.

They do bring a lot of knowledge of the ACC season. After that- no so much

[DarkstarWahoo]

Is there any other fan base that brings even half the basketball analysis that our brethren at UVA bring to the board? Serious question.

You Wahoos know your ball. Much respect.

And I hope we whip you tomorrow.

I was just feeling annoyed that we have to wait 30 more hours for the game. My productivity today has been...suboptimal.

[HereBeforeCoachK]

I was just feeling annoyed that we have to wait 30 more hours for the game. My productivity today has been...suboptimal.

TRANSLATION: For those grads of Cow College and unCheat, who might be lurking, what our Cavalier brother means is his work today is less than perfect.

[SavDukeGrad]

I was talking to someone in the Iron Dukes’ office this morning. And she mentioned how much increased security presence there was around Cameron/campus today. I guess I’m not surprised, but thought it an interesting tidbit that I would share. Go Duke!!

[lotusland]

I was talking to someone in the Iron Dukes’ office this morning. And she mentioned how much increased security presence there was around Cameron/campus today. I guess I’m not surprised, but thought it an interesting tidbit that I would share. Go Duke!!

Why? I hope they are there to protect Tre’s Shoulder from bad spirits.

[uh_no]

Why? I hope they are there to protect Tre’s Shoulder from bad spirits.

if it's actually true, namely, if there is more security than there would be for any large event on campus, I can guess a couple reasons:

1) game day is rolling in
2) they don't want a repeat of the mob scene from the UNC game, especially given the game is on saturday, has the possibility of being the biggest game of the year, the students are already tenting, and are going to almost assuredly be lubricated by game time
3) result of the same fear mongering that brought us the current draconian stadium entrance security policies.

[budwom]

Local spirits improving with the Tre news (looking to exit the Injury Portal sometime relatively soon), 18-24" snowfall looms, house full of food and licker (sic), what else could we want? (besides a 15 year old kid with a snow shovel...kids don't seem to do that any more)

[Bob Green]

Local spirits improving with the Tre news (looking to exit the Injury Portal sometime relatively soon),

Good one! Alas...

You must spread some Comments around before commenting on budwom again.

[HereBeforeCoachK]

I was talking to someone in the Iron Dukes’ office this morning. And she mentioned how much increased security presence there was around Cameron/campus today. I guess I’m not surprised, but thought it an interesting tidbit that I would share. Go Duke!!

Trying to keep all the Cheats fans who love Bilas away no doubt....

[CDu]

Some more thoughts on the game. Aside from the obvious outside prayer that Jones plays and plays effectively, here are some things I'll be really interested in watching:

1. It will be very interesting to see how our "switch everything" defense works against the UVa offense. As has been noted by others, they run guys off screens religiously as they work to get a good look. That's a great strategy if teams aren't switching everything, and can still be a great strategy even if they are. But in terms of wearing down the opponent's legs, that approach will have a bit less juice against this year's team, as all but one guy in the rotation will be a part of the "switch everything" campaign. And even that one guy (Bolden) will switch on anyone not named Clark or Guy. What will be imperative is that our guys will need to do a LOT of talking, because UVa's ballhandlers are very adept at taking advantage of a lapse in defense. So we don't want to get caught losing a guy (or a Guy).

2. On offense, will Zion be able to unlock UVa's defense the way he did against Syracuse? Well, I should rephrase. He almost certainly will not go for 35 points on 20 FG attempts like he did against the Cuse. But can he remain an elite offensive force even against what will be an extremely congested lane? If he can still get relatively easy (for him) baskets, that changes the complexion of this matchup substantially.

3. How will Barrett and Reddish perform? Barrett has generally struggled to score efficiently against well-organized, experienced defenses so far. He has the talent for sure. But since he isn't a good shooter and not a great dribbler, he really needs to rely on his savvy off the dribble to be effective in the half court. Either that, or do his damage off-ball. But it will be harder to get half-court looks without Jones. There may be chances created by Williamson and Reddish, but neither of those two have shown any consistency as passers. Can they do that in this game to get Barrett some easy looks? Can Barrett find a way to be an efficient scorer against the best defense he'll face all season?

Beyond Barrett, how will Reddish perform in an expanded role? Can he avoid the sloppy turnovers that have plagued him this year? Can he become a more reliable scoring threat at all 3 levels and not just a streaky 3pt shooter? This is a golden opportunity for Reddish to break out of his shell a bit and fill the playmaking void that Jones left. Hopefully he can rise to the occasion. As with Barrett, Reddish certainly has the talent to do it.

4. Pace. As Kedsy has noted, we've sped up every team we've played this season. The question is, can we speed up UVa? UVa isn't going to crash the offensive glass too much, preferring to prevent transition opportunities on offense. They also score extremely efficiently, meaning fewer runout opportunities. And they just don't turn the ball over at all, which further limits transition chances. We are - like pretty much everyone - far less efficient in the half-court than we are in transition. And of course UVa is uber-efficient defensively in the half-court. So we need to create as many fast-break chances as possible, but not force them if they aren't there. It's going to be an interesting matchup from that perspective.

5. Foul trouble. Yes, the game will be played at a slower than usual pace. But we will be playing with virtually no buffer for foul trouble. We have 6 guys that Coach K trusts to put on the floor, and one other guy (O'Connell) that Coach K is learning to trust. But against an opponent as good as UVa, we can't afford Barrett, Williamson, or Reddish to be saddled with foul trouble. We can perhaps withstand one of Bolden/DeLaurier getting in foul trouble. But the three freshmen need to be ready to play 35+ minutes tomorrow.

6. 3pt shooting. Can White and O'Connell step up in expanded roles and hit some 3s? Obviously UVa is going to make life difficult for the freshmen. But if those guys can make shots, it changes the tenor of the game. Similarly, getting good shooting games from Barrett and Reddish would be a plus as well. UVa's defense does give up 3pt looks, though to this point in the season they've held teams to the worst 3pt% in the country this year, and have been top-30 nationally in that stat 4 of the past 5 years. One of the limitations of a slow tempo is that you make yourself subject to a higher volatility in result if anything outlier-ish happens (e.g., 3pt shooting is way outside the mean for either team; somebody forces/prevents a lot more turnovers, etc). If we can hit 3s at a high rate to make up for Monday's awful shooting, it can make life difficult for UVa.

All in all, I'll probably oh-so-slightly favor UVa in this one. But I would expect it to be close either way. Here's hoping that we'll get the win and maintain control of our regular season title destiny (we'd lose that control with a loss).

[CameronDuke]

Duke opens -3.5 vs Virginia.

Early money coming in on Duke's side from Vegas. Do they know something we don't know?

#PrayForTre

[hallcity]

I was talking to someone in the Iron Dukes’ office this morning. And she mentioned how much increased security presence there was around Cameron/campus today. I guess I’m not surprised, but thought it an interesting tidbit that I would share. Go Duke!!

I keep expecting Barack Obama to show up at a game. It probably won't be this game but it's going to happen eventually. He's too big a hoops fan not to show up at Cameron eventually.

[uh_no]

I keep expecting Barack Obama to show up at a game. It probably won't be this game but it's going to happen eventually. He's too big a hoops fan not to show up at Cameron eventually.

he's a carolina homer, though, isn't he? were he to, it would be for that, I'd think

[DarkstarWahoo]

I wonder if Obama still talks to Reggie Love.

[proelitedota]

Forget Obama, wouldn't it be great if current POTUS came to Cameron? We'll have 60 million viewers tune into the the game. The biggest ratings!

[rasputin]

Forget Obama, wouldn't it be great if current POTUS came to Cameron? We'll have 60 million viewers tune into the the game. The biggest ratings!

What would the crowd estimates be?

[Troublemaker]

Duke opens -3.5 vs Virginia.

Early money coming in on Duke's side from Vegas. Do they know something we don't know?

#PrayForTre

Technically, it's just one rogue online site that has a line up for the game so far. That site loves to put up lines before everyone else (they are awesome!), but generally when people say "Duke opens as..." they are referring to what the majority of oddsmakers will open Duke up as, which will certainly be lower than 3.5. Also, the early money is on UVA not Duke since the line has moved from 3.5 to 1.5 at that site. I would expect the majority of books to open Duke as a small favorite at this point.

As for why that would be, it's Duke playing in Cameron! No one should be surprised. How often has the AP #1 team been a home underdog? It's got to be extremely rare, and I would guess it has never happened to Duke when we were the #1 team.

[proelitedota]

What would the crowd estimates be?

80000 Duke students watching in Cameron itself.