MBB: Duke 81, Virginia 71 Post-Game Thread

[gep]

Recent rule addition. You can’t overly crowd someone standing with the ball.

Afraid I don’t have my rule book handy, but it’s a valid call.

(Though the refs were certainly letting ‘em play tonight, so it was a weird one to call.)

-jk

You can’t invade a player’s vertical space. Bolden was leaning onto a Salt such that Bolden’s torso was above Salt’s feet. Make contact in that position and it is a foul.

Thanks, guys... I agree if there's contact, then it's a foul. But "close" guarding? "Overly crowding" a player? What about when there's a double-team on a ball handler... sometimes I can't even see the ball handler, especially when the defensive double-team is "leaning" over the ball handler. Isn't that "overly crowding" too? Or maybe that will be called this year.

[proelitedota]

Despite winning by 10 points and shooting 62% from 3, I thought we played a mediocre game overall. We were uncharacteristically careless with the ball and on the defensive boards. We had less possessions than UVA and that's never good, not even in a win.

/DAD RANT OVER

GG. That was well fought win.

[jhmoss1812]

Guy was really good on O, a very very gifted scorer.

I'd have to disagree. I thought he played a pretty poor game. 6-15 from the field and 3-9 from 3. He also turned the ball over 5 times. I think Cam played excellent defense on him but this is not what I would describe as a good offensive game by Kyle Guy.

[CoachJ10]

It really wasn't though. Especially in the segment around halftime.

raw: 71/63 = 112.6
adjusted: 95.1

It wasn't awful, but it certainly wasn't great.

The first half was particularly not great: 35/30 = 116, or ~99 adjusted.

They really abused our switch everything mentality at times, catching bolden with some poor switches, and catching Tre in the post, and passing over the defense two possessions in a row.

If we had played fantastic defense, this game is a blowout with how spectacularly the offense was. We didn't Bennett is a fantastic coach and went to work on the fact that we always come out switching everything.

The shots that the Wahoos made were contested and very difficult shots...as has been pointed out, if they don’t hit a high % of low % shots, its a 20 pt win.

If you think this wasn’t a great defensive effort..your standards are much higher than mine.

[LSanders]

When it comes to our incredible three point shooting today, I’ll say the same thing that I said when we were 3-43: the average is the average because it is the average. LGD GTHc!

Gotta feeling you really mean that ...

[uh_no]

Despite winning by 10 points and shooting 62% from 3, I thought we played a mediocre game overall. We were uncharacteristically careless with the ball and on the defensive boards. We had less possessions than UVA and that's never good, not even in a win.

/DAD RANT OVER

GG. That was well fought win.

While I agree with your thesis, and thought that good shooting (though stemming from really good selection mostly) covered up a lot of things, almost axiomatically you have the same number of actual possessions as the other team. except for the switch at halftime, you get a chance with the ball, then the other team gets a chance with the ball.

In terms of statistical possesions:

duke and uva each had almost exactly 63

Duke:
45 + .475 * 23 + 15 -8 = 62.9

uva:
60 + .475 * 7 - 14 + 14 = 63.3

The only discrepencies come from if a team gets two possessions in a row around half time, or starts and ends the game with the ball, or ends up with a really odd number of FTs (missing a ton of 1+1s, or &1s, or fouls on 3 point shots, which didn't happen tonight)

[dukelifer]

I'd have to disagree. I thought he played a pretty poor game. 6-15 from the field and 3-9 from 3. He also turned the ball over 5 times. I think Cam played excellent defense on him but this is not what I would describe as a good offensive game by Kyle Guy.

He does shoot a beautiful ball and shoots well with pressure. He definitely struggled for most the first half but picked it up after that.

[ChillinDuke]

It really wasn't though. Especially in the segment around halftime.

raw: 71/63 = 112.6
adjusted: 95.1

It wasn't awful, but it certainly wasn't great.

The first half was particularly not great: 35/30 = 116, or ~99 adjusted.

They really abused our switch everything mentality at times, catching bolden with some poor switches, and catching Tre in the post, and passing over the defense two possessions in a row.

If we had played fantastic defense, this game is a blowout with how spectacularly the offense was. We didn't Bennett is a fantastic coach and went to work on the fact that we always come out switching everything.

The numbers weren't great. And you're a stats guy so I assume you have these right.

But it certainly felt like UVA made some shots that were quite fortunate in the face of great defense. Very much more so than Duke did. There were probably 2 threes, a couple long twos, and a circus layup by Jerome that felt like they should have been obvious misses that went down for them.

I still agree though, it wasn't our best defensive showing. But I thought it more than passed the eye test.

- Chillin

[KandG]

Just an amazing all-around game from us.

I admit I was worried when UVA cut the lead to four at the half despite our otherworldly 3 point shooting to start the game. Even though Diakite's exit was unfortunate for the Hoos, I actually thought having Kihei Clark replace him to give UVA a small three guard lineup opened up their offense and put Duke in more dicey situations defensively. Really have to give the opponent credit for making 7 of 14 threes and finding other ways to carve up our defense starting with about five minutes left in the first half and continuing into a good portion of the second half. That is an outstanding team.

With that said, I loved how we responded once RJ cooled off and UVA cut into the lead. Our defense bent but didn't break, and despite them shutting down Zion for much of the second and keeping RJ out of the paint, we created good shots for ourselves and took advantage of any transition opportunities that presented themselves. Tre, Marques and especially Cam looked extremely poised against one of the most elite defenses in the country. Only the turnovers and the spotty FT shooting kept this from being a 15 or 20 point game.

A few games ago, mulling over our inconsistent patches against lesser opponents at home, I found myself hoping that Tre's shooting would improve, that Bolden could contribute a little more on both ends, and that Cam would be less reckless with the ball and more confident on offense. Tonight, I saw all that. If I'm being really greedy, the only thing left I could ask for is slightly more from the bench. But it's hard to complain after an effort like tonight on the road. Kudos to the team.

(P.S. Cam's deflections on defense continue to be an underappreciated highlight of his improving game. The announcers oohed and aahed over Tre's hit ahead pass to RJ for a dunk after a UVA miss, but they missed Cam stripping Brandon Key after his offensive rebound to set it all up. Seems like Cam is good for two or three of those deflections or steals a game at this point).

[DukieInBrasil]

I'm super glad Duke found its shooting stroke from 3, that was an amazing performance!!! RJ and Cam were awesome!!! Zion seemed a bit out of sorts, even though he put together an incredible stat-line. Seemed like he was losing control of the ball a lot (even though he recovered several of them). Also, super bummer that Tre had that meaningless turnover near the end of the game under their basket, but otherwise he had a marvelous game!
I'm glad K listened to me in the in-game thread and stopped switching everything, particularly when Bolden was in. I'm also glad he figured out a way to address the same-side double team that UVA was employing.

[ChillinDuke]

I also just want to point out that UVA isn't going anywhere. Huff looks like he's going to be fantastic - I very much see the Kaminsky comp someone around here made. And Kihei Clark looks like he could be a troublesome player (for us) in the future.

Heck, the only senior on the team is Salt?! They may have some NBA defections. But still. Bennett really has built a consistent contender. Very impressive.

- Chillin

[lotusland]

The way their governorship is going right now, I'd vote for Bennett too.

I think Bennett has a better job now.

[UrinalCake]

Going into the half it felt like we had wasted an opportunity to be up more after that insane shooting performance. The players looked frustrated too. I knew that the shooting would come back down to earth and worried about players getting tired, while our offense wasn’t generating much inside the paint. But man, our shooting stayed hot and we continued to play great D. We just dominated from wire to wire.

Zion didn’t have his best game but that block he had was out of this world. He was still in the paint when the UVA player received the ball, who thought he had a wide open shot. Zion closed out and then jumped high enough that his belly button was at the guy’s head. Go look up the replays on YouTube, it’s how I look playing on a nerf hoop with my 8 year-old LOL.

We won’t overtake TN based on how the rankings work, but I saw we were #1 in the bracket reveal, and that was BEFORE this game. So we’re in the driver’s seat for the overall 1 seed.

[lotusland]

Despite winning by 10 points and shooting 62% from 3, I thought we played a mediocre game overall. We were uncharacteristically careless with the ball and on the defensive boards. We had less possessions than UVA and that's never good, not even in a win.

/DAD RANT OVER

GG. That was well fought win.

The Hoos had a lot to do with the turnovers. Tough sledding in the lane tonight.

[UrinalCake]

So th question is, how good a three point shooting team are we really? We’re not as good as we performed today, nor are we as bad as we shot against Syracuse. We’re somewhere in between. Are we “really” a 35% shooting team? 38%?

[hustleplays]

Good game guys. You guys are just better. Fortunately we don't have to play again. If we do, it'll at least be late in either tourney and I can live with that.

You guys are so classy. This must have been a tough loss for you. I was prepared for a loss, given your team's prowess. We shot lights out, and both teams played tough. It is a privilege to see two superior college teams go at it, with great offenses and defenses, and with sportsmanship.

At around the 11 minute mark of the 2nd half, Kyle Guy was called for a foul against a driving Tre Jones. It wasn't a hard foul, but Kyle went over to Tre to help lift him up from the court. Just a small thing, perhaps, but indicative of your team's culture. I hope we win, but if we don't, I hope that you guys do.

[CrazyNotCrazie]

In my dreams, Zion’s block tonight is how Tony Lang’s block attempt in the 1994 final turned out...

[CDu]

Thanks, guys... I agree if there's contact, then it's a foul. But "close" guarding? "Overly crowding" a player? What about when there's a double-team on a ball handler... sometimes I can't even see the ball handler, especially when the defensive double-team is "leaning" over the ball handler. Isn't that "overly crowding" too? Or maybe that will be called this year.

It isn’t a foul unless there is contact. As soon as there is contact, it is a foul. And there was contact in this case.

[kshepinthehouse]

Great game by the Blue Devils! One thing that hasn’t been mentioned and went through my mind is how nice it is to have Zion at the end of a game. Now obviously he is incredible to have for the whole game, but his ability to convert easy baskets is killer for the other team, especially when trying to make a comeback. The offensive rebound put back and the assist from Reddish for the dunk were two huge plays in helping Duke keep their lead. He’s just so difficult to stop around the basket and is deadly on the offensive boards in those late game situations. He’s a closer!

[uh_no]

The numbers weren't great. And you're a stats guy so I assume you have these right.

But it certainly felt like UVA made some shots that were quite fortunate in the face of great defense. Very much more so than Duke did. There were probably 2 threes, a couple long twos, and a circus layup by Jerome that felt like they should have been obvious misses that went down for them.

I still agree though, it wasn't our best defensive showing. But I thought it more than passed the eye test.

- Chillin

couple thoughts on that.

1) the kind of defense duke put in today is not the kind of game-losing performance duke has put up in some of the tournament debacles.

USC: 114 adj
oregon: 102
mercer: 116

a 95 is not a BAD number, and is the kind that a good offense can beat, especially one that is hitting threes like no one has any business to (and we shouldn't count on that...but of course this is DBR, so we'll expect to shoot 60% every game now), and especially when not playing one of the best defensive programs in the past decade.

2) while they did hit some ridiculous shots, you'd expect a really good offense, especially a top 5 offense, to hit some of those ridiculous shots. That's why you adjust. Even adjusting for the fact that they might hit some ridisulous shots by subtracting 17, it's still not the kind of performance duke has put up recently.

3) Along with the ridiculous shots, there were some easy shots that you would expect to make (the missed dunk stands out...salt?). I don't know if it cancelled out 100%, but it goes both ways to some degree. Some of us have talked about wishing we had a way to adjust for how often a shot went in...it would adjust for that kind of thing and would give a more reliable number for the small sample size of a single game.


I think duke played some exceptionally good possessions...we got them in to 2? shot clock violations? A ton of TOs and blocks? But we also had some exceptionally poor possessions. The aforementioned two when they threw it over Tre trying to guard a guy in the post, Bolden trying to routinely guard guys on the perimeter (his footwork is FARRRR improved, but he's still a liability there), Bolden on a couple of miscommunicated doubles leaving his guy wide open on the weak side...

Personally, I think we're far better when we're switching 2-5 with an ICE for the high ball screen than switching 1-5...but nobody asked me, and we won anyway. Shrug.