Props to you and DBA for doing the research and bringing this to our attention in the pregame thread. It's really remarkable how well Duke has fared against UVA considering how well UVA has fared against the rest of the conference. The numbers probably are even more ridiculous if we only count from 2014 when UVA leveled up as a program. They've dominated the conference since 2014, but Duke still beats them regularly.
Here's the post from DBA from the pregame thread again:
Props to Coach K for how well-prepared Duke was in this game. With how the first game played out, the key really was for Duke to not fall into the trap of thinking we could again score so efficiently just by driving to the basket for scores. UVA would make their adjustments, and we would have to be willing to drive and kick and to be prepared to shoot. 18 assists later (many of the drive-and-kick variety), and here we are with a sweep. While Coach K deflected praise in his postgame presser, I get the sense that Duke relentlessly drilled in practice drive-and-kick and shot preparation.
It's clear that Tony wanted to pack the lane even more than usual - he said as much. On a lot of the late closeouts, you can see the eventual shooter's defender stick in the lane a tick longer to shut off a drive, then pop out late to contest the 3. Losing Mamadi Diakite early on didn't help in this regard, nor did Hunter's first-half foul trouble.
I think Tony had the proper strategy to try to win the game on defense. You guys got uncharacteristically hot from 3, which is the perfect counter to what he was doing. I do think that if there's a rematch, UVA needs to be ready to shoot at any point in the shot clock, and that's something Tony needs to emphasize. Duke is too long for most teams to run down the shot clock and expect to get an open look.
My cap is tipped. Sometimes you just get beat.
Yep - he said his players noticed they had more space than normal against Virginia, and they just took it on themselves to use that space to shoot more comfortably - and this dovetails nicely with what Bennett said about "over correcting" in favor of clogging the lane versus the last game. Hopefully it continues to work with the Scheyer theory that they really can/should be a decent three point team.
Honestly, if/when we match up again, I hope we (UVA) stay "over corrected". I think even a slight change from Saturday's play w/r/t packing the paint gives us the best chance. Heck, even if Duke shot 45-50% from 3 (which is still probably SLIGHTLY generous based on the combo of Duke's shooting up to this point and poor/late contests from our guys), it's a one score contest in the last couple of minutes... and that's probably the best ANYONE can hope for vs Duke unless they go down 1-2 key players due to injury or foul trouble.
Basically, I'd still rather make Duke beat us with their weakness (perimeter shooting), than their strength (Iso plays for Barrett and Williamson) in the half-court.
I don't remember which thread it was, but someone recently gave a shout out to Jordan Sperber's podcast. His entire episode today is devoted to recapping Duke/UVA Pt. 2, and it's outstanding. Highly recommend checking it out. It's called Solving Basketball; I listened on Spotify, and it's also available on iTunes. (Not sure on availability elsewhere.)
One thing that I think has gotten lost in the "Duke was hot from 3" takes, is that, while true, it misses that so many of our 3PA were in rhythm. It felt a lot different than in the Syracuse game, where we took 3s almost as an afterthought, rather than working to find the best shot. UVA's system already encourages 3PA at the expense of them cutting off driving lanes/making life difficult in the paint. After RJ and Zion both exploited that anyway in the first matchup, getting to the rim much more than UVA is used to, it was clear that UVA put even more emphasis on keeping us out of the paint this time.
What we did very well was take a few dribbles into the defense, but at the very first sign of pressure, passed to the open shooter. Of course, credit to our guys for knocking down the shots, and it's not likely we'll shoot that well again from 3. However, the quality of the shot we got off in this game was much better than in the Syracuse game (per my anecdotal memory, anyway). If we keep executing our offense that way, I'd expect our 3P% to look a lot more like the UVA game and less like the Cuse game. Which is basically what Scheyer was saying pre-game.
I think this is very insightful. Even with a highly efficient offense, there are bound to be challenges facing an elite defense. You can't pass on a marginal shot with 20 or even 10 seconds on the clock assuming you will get an opportunity at a better shot before the clock expires.
Interstingly, in our matchup of top 5 AdjO's and AdjDs, out of the four combinations, the one that clearly dominated was our offense. We were incredible!
I don't really think I would change much either way if I was Bennett. From the perspective of your D, even an "ordinary hot" day from 3 from us (say 10-21 instead of 13-21) and it's a 1 possession game. And as to your O, I don't think the issue was U.Va. not being ready to shoot or not running the right offense. I thought you ran offense fine. The differentiator to me was your TOs -- and, really, the live ball TOs that we cashed in for easy buckets. I thought Bennett's comment that you just need to "tighten it up" on protecting the ball was exactly right.
UVA falling apart after leading by seven at the half. Bad decision making on shots. Heels coming on strong while Cavs look confused.