MBB: Duke 83, Winthrop 70 Post-Game Thread

[lotusland]

Good game by Hurt and Baker. Good game by Tre but 5 TOs is too many. Hate to rain on the Joey Buckets party but Vernon Carey is MOM again.

[Saratoga2]

Hammys c an take awhile, hopefully he will be on the quick side. Bakers threes were big obviously, they all need to be stronger with the ball. We will get better, but it may be ugly at times.

Depending on the severity (black and blue to the knee) it can take 6 weeks of recovery time. Hope for the best. At least it comes before the ACC part of the schedule gets going.

[Troublemaker]

Once you factor in the Cassius injury, I think this was a pretty good performance. Or, put another way, if he hadn't gotten injured and had made the dunk for a 48-37 lead early in the second half, I think Duke would've gone on to win by 20+ and maybe covered the spread. Once he got injured, the rotation obviously became discombobulated. JGold did okay for what he is but you would still rather have Cassius, and Wendell was having a performance that would've gotten him benched for the rest of the half under normal circumstances but he had to be worked back in there.

My main complain is transition defense. We can't allow these teams to just run it down our throats like that, especially with MSU's vaunted fast break on deck.

[Mtn.Devil.91.92.01.10.15]

We will learn a lot next week.

[Music man55]

These past two games I feel like Duke has been turning themselves over, rushing the pace past what they are comfortable with, resulting in turnovers and less than ideal offensive plays. Time and time again, I see Jones get the ball in the backcourt and frantically run forward, trying to push the pace for some reason, which seems to mostly discombobulate the offense, as everybody then gets into the act, hurling ill-conceived, hurried passes off of teammates or out-of-bounds, tossing up hurried shots and so on. I know Duke is a surprisingly "Carolina-like" team this year, but they are not ready to add that piece of the Carolina game to the repertoire yet. Similarly, on defense, people keep going for the exceptional play, over playing for steals, leaving their man for double teams, etc.
I think the team might be better served by taking a metaphorical deep breathe, realizing who they are right now (not good at super fast basketball) and play a more deliberate pace.

Good post rocketeli. Pretty much sums up my thoughts. Maybe they just need to slow down and find out who they are. Hoping Stanley gets back soon. Glad to get the win tonight.

[DaleDuke7]

Coach K in the postgame press conference saying that we may not even be a top 25 team right now. Saying other things that pretty much means he knows it’s going to be a long and tough season. Says it’s gonna take time.

Personally, I’ve never had high expectations this year. I’m thinking a 10 loss season is realistic. Seems like K is downplaying expectations for the team this year more than previous years for those that may be expecting our usual perennial top 5 team.

[proelitedota]

That was a deserved and hard right win, even against a lesser team.

[Devilwin]

Must get better on defense. MOTM to me was Matthew Hurt with 20 points 8 rebounds. Baker was great from three..Carey seventeen points 10 boards.

[CrazyNotCrazie]

Ugly win but I will take it. I hope Cassius is OK. Our defense was weak - too many easy, open shots for Winthrop. We seem to be making a lot of what they call in tennis "unforced errors" - sloppy turnovers that weren't really caused by the other team, just us being unable to catch the ball, throwing it away for no reason, etc.

I don't understand why Vernon is only playing 22 minutes with only 1 foul. He is a big guy but has been playing at a high level for years and knew going into the summer that he was going to be our primary big guy without a lot behind him - conditioning should not be an issue.

Michigan State will be rough. K needs to teach Tre and Goldwire to draw offensive fouls off Winston's constant pushing off with his off arm.

[proelitedota]

As for K saying we're not a 25 team. I respectfully disagree. Has he seen the field? It's the downest year that I remember.

[roywhite]

Hurt and Baker have length, a nice touch, and good range. Nice to see them get their opportunities and pull the trigger; something to build on for an offense that is a work in progress. Tre's turnovers are disappointing.

Seemed like a good win overall against a well-coached, hard playing team in Winthrop.

https://goduke.com/documents/2019/11/29//112919_.pdf

[simplyluvin]

Coach K in the postgame press conference saying that we may not even be a top 25 team right now. Saying other things that pretty much means he knows it’s going to be a long and tough season. Says it’s gonna take time.

Personally, I’ve never had high expectations this year. I’m thinking a 10 loss season is realistic. Seems like K is downplaying expectations for the team this year more than previous years for those that may be expecting our usual perennial top 5 team.

Coach tempering expectations is a bad sign. I also said in the last game thread this is a 10 to 12 loss team, reminiscent of 2015-16 or 06-07 (Scheyer’s freshman year). I can’t remember a Duke team that outplayed in the long run their early season performance. In other words, the first 10 to 15 games are usually pretty indicative of the kind of team we have.

The glimmer of hope is that Tre channels his inner Stones Jr. and gets his head in the game. Also, the talent seems to be there, but Coach may not be seeing the response he wants from the team in terms of effort.

[jv001]

As for K saying we're not a 25 team. I respectfully disagree. Has he seen the field? It's the downest year that I remember.

I think Coach K is trying to take the entitlement attitude away from our guys. He even told one of tonight's announcers that this team inherited the number one ranking and hadn't earned it. I don't think any of our guys will come out flat against Michigan State. Not if he wants to play meaningful minutes. GoDuke!

[ncexnyc]

Freshman often play like you'd expect a freshman to play and that's what we're seeing with this group of kids. They have their ups and downs from game to game and at times even within the same game.

If they're still making the same mistakes over and over again by the halfway point of the season then we'll have a problem, but for now sit back and watch the growth of this team.

[jipops]

I think Coach K is trying to take the entitlement attitude away from our guys. He even told one of tonight's announcers that this team inherited the number one ranking and hadn't earned it. I don't think any of our guys will come out flat against Michigan State. Not if he wants to play meaningful minutes. GoDuke!

I think there is something behind K saying that too. Though I was thinking the same thing watching this game. At the beginning of the season I said I thought this team might be 4th best in the conference. Looks like I may have been off on that one.

[Steven43]

Coach tempering expectations is a bad sign. I also said in the last game thread this is a 10 to 12 loss team, reminiscent of 2015-16 or 06-07 (Scheyer’s freshman year). I can’t remember a Duke team that outplayed in the long run their early season performance. In other words, the first 10 to 15 games are usually pretty indicative of the kind of team we have.

The glimmer of hope is that Tre channels his inner Stones Jr. and gets his head in the game. Also, the talent seems to be there, but Coach may not be seeing the response he wants from the team in terms of effort.

I like this team better than last year’s team. Last year was exciting, primarily because of Zion Williamson, but the style of play was frustrating. We shot (and missed) what seemed like too many threes, though I haven’t looked at the actual numbers. I also disliked the hero ball aspect of more than a few crucial late-game moments. And I didn’t care for one particular player having a sky-high usage rate. That’s not Duke Basketball. Oh, and Cam made me nervous as hell every time he touched the ball. Additionally, the Joey Baker saga was maddening.

Overall, I think this team plays with more togetherness.

[Kedsy]

So-so performances on both sides of the ball. Worst rebounding performance since the Kansas game. Biggest issue was turnovers, on both sides of the court.

OFFENSE

Possessions: 74.8 (not too fast; not too slow; I think pace was fine)
oRtg: 1.10 (4th best oRtg in eight games)
eFG%: 58.8% (strong)
3pt%: 58.3% (best 3pt% of the season)
2pt%: 51.1% (acceptable but could be better; 4th best 2pt% in eight games)
%threes: 21.1% (low; interestingly, our three lowest %three performances correspond to our three best 3pt% performances)
FT rate: 38.6% (not bad; fifth consecutive free throw rate over 38.5%)
OR%: 26.7% (bad)
TO%: 21.4% (also bad; fifth 20+ TO% of the season in eight games, including three in a row)
a/to: 0.94:1 (not good; third straight game with more turnovers than assists)
%assisted: 50.0%
fast break pts: 13 (15.7% of points; acceptable, not good)

DEFENSE

dRtg: 0.94 (last three games have been our three worst defensive ppp of the season)
eFG%: 48.5% (meh)
3pt%: 28.6% (good)
2pt%: 51.1% (not good; third straight game over 50%)
%threes: 31.8% (OK; 2nd highest such percentage of the season but not outrageously high, and they didn't shoot very well so I guess it's all good)
FT rate: 19.7% (very good)
DR%: 71.8% (2nd lowest DR% of the season, but at least we're over 70%)
TO%: 17.4% (2nd straight down performance in forcing turnovers)
a/to: 1.08:1 (2nd straight over 1:1 after our first six games all under 0.72:1)
%assisted: 48.3%
stl%: 12.0% (not bad)
blk%: 6.1% (8.9% of 2pt shots) (2nd worst block party of the season, behind only the Kansas game)
fast break pts: 8 (11.4% of points; not bad; lowest % of opponent's points this season)


Better than SFA, but that's not saying much. Hopefully the team will step up in the next couple games.

[Steven43]

Do you think Stanley actually hurt himself BEFORE he missed the shot and landed? I was at the game and didn’t have the benefit of replay, but it seemed very very strange that a big-time leaper like Cassius Stanley would have an unguarded breakaway dunk and not even effectively reach the rim. Any thoughts?

[FerryFor50]

Do you think Stanley actually hurt himself BEFORE he missed the shot and landed? I was at the game and didn’t have the benefit of replay, but it seemed very very strange that a big-time leaper like Cassius Stanley would have an unguarded breakaway dunk and not even effectively reach the rim. Any thoughts?

I think it was after he landed. He didn't seem to react like he was in pain until after he landed.

[jv001]

Do you think Stanley actually hurt himself BEFORE he missed the shot and landed? I was at the game and didn’t have the benefit of replay, but it seemed very very strange that a big-time leaper like Cassius Stanley would have an unguarded breakaway dunk and not even effectively reach the rim. Any thoughts?

I couldn't tell if he hurt himself before he landed but I'm like you Steven43, I was waiting for a dunk on the play. When he just tried to lay the ball in the basket, I thought something was wrong. I'm wondering if he felt some tightness during the time he was playing. One thing for sure we won't hear much from the coaching staff. I hope Cassius comes back by January but not at the expense of reinjuring his hamstring. several NFL players have been out extended time this season with hamstring injuries.
GoDuke!