MBB: Wake 113, Duke 101 (2OT) Post-Game Thread

[dukelifer]

That this team will pick it up at the end of the season is the last morsel of hope we can hold on to, but that time is now. How many more lessons do we need until we learn how to play strong from start to finish? Wasn't SFA enough? If not that, then what about Louisville and NCSU? Now is the time, but we are faltering. The fact that we don't know what team will show up game-in-game-out is a serious problem.

Clearly more than a few losses. This is the first time most of these guys are playing in the last week of the regular season. Last years Duke team struggled down the stretch - played well in the ACC tourney and then struggled again. Young teams don’t get experience in a season - you need a couple of seasons- sometimes more.

[gofurman]

No excuses. We didn't hit shots, didn't run offense, didn't get stops.
Learn, remember, get angry, and execute.

Didn’t hit ? It was a lack of DEFENSE. ONE HUNDRED + points for Wake Forest?

Also. DONT EVER EVR’ TELL ME that we will win. I hate seeing over confidence in our pre-game threads. This team is capable of losing any time. ANY TIME. After watching Duke v State and Wake I am scared. And I know UNC can easily beat us. We better learn to play D. I’ll allow one thing - that the refs were going to call a foul on every play on BOTH teams which made it impossible to play defense. Every drive in OT seemed to be a foul even when the offensive player initiated contact. Every drive I just waited for both teams to get a whistle. Refs wouldn’t let either team play much D

[goduke03861]

At least there's only one more road game. Figure they'll start slow again and someone will find a way to say that the team isn't the problem lol

[DUKIE V(A)]

50 free throws shot by Wake, 34 by Duke in 50 minutes of basketball. Lots of stoppages in play and a disjointed game.

Having Big Vern, DeLaurier, and Robinson fouled out hurt Duke. Robinson has some great blocks, tip out rebounds to teammates for another possession and shot, and dunks/layups though. The blocks he had stood out to me.

Was Jack White hurt? Didn’t play at all tonight that I saw.

Duke had chances to close it out in regulation but turned it over too much. 16 turnovers total and 6-23 from 3. Shooting 31-34 from the line was great to see, though.

Just another frustrating loss altogether as Duke was up double digits several times midway to late thru the 2nd half. I just wish Duke closed it out with a couple minutes to go.

Duke at UVa Saturday. If UVa wins at Virginia Tech tomorrow, and beats Duke Saturday, Duke would fall to 4th in the ACC behind FSU Louisville and UVa. Duke and UVa would both be 13-5 in the ACC and UVa would hold the tiebreaker.

White played briefly in the first half.

[GGLC]

We could have used a fresh big body down the stretch, especially in the second overtime. Bonus points if he's Australian. A shame we didn't have one.

[Hartford Dukie]

[QUOTE=OZZIE4DUKE;1230894]Going to stall ball with 8+ minutes left cost us the game. I hate it. I hate it. I hate it. I hate it. I hate it. I hate it.I hate it. I hate it. I hate it. I hate it. I hate it. I hate it.

With due respect, again, we're up 78-69 with 1:21. Stall ball wasn't the problem. Terrible turnovers down the stretch.

[scottdude8]

I always try to find the silver lining and keep perspective... but I don’t think there is any from this game. I REALLY wanted to win an ACC regular season title. It bugs me that we haven’t in a decade. So this one stings like heck.

Right now nothing else matters besides getting this team emotionally right.

I also am confused about Jack. Putting him in for one minute and then never using him again is odd. He was an important part of this team up until around two weeks ago. Unless he’s sick, or has a nagging injury, his disappearance is pretty inexplicable. Even if he’s naturally fallen to the end of the bench this would be the game to use him and get his toughness.

This one sucks.

[goduke03861]

Think we should just acknowledge Jack White is no longer a factor for this team.

[bluedev_92]

Going to stall ball with 8+ minutes left cost us the game. I hate it. I hate it. I hate it. I hate it. I hate it. I hate it.I hate it. I hate it. I hate it. I hate it. I hate it. I hate it.

Did I mention that I hate it? Well, I do.

Agree. We play much better free flowing.

[Coballs]

Say what we will about the refs (who were terrible all night), but we were up 9 and in the double bonus with 1:21 left. This nightmarish loss is on the players and the coaching staff.

[CDu]

Tonight my 14 year old said, "Of course, Duke has to go to UVA." Apparently he has picked up on that in his short years.

I don’t think there is any room for complaining about our schedule as we got Louisville and FSU once each, and both at home.

[bluenorth]

So many ups and downs with this team. We should be happy with a 2 seed based on the downward trend at this point. And then how deep can we go in the post season? Winning six in a row against progressively tougher teams doesn't seem like a good bet.

[SCMatt33]

Preface this with the fact that if you offered me this record before the start of the year, I would have jumped through hoops to take it. I posted before the season that Duke would have in their starting lineup at least 2 guards that were either 4-star freshman, or upperclassmen who were outside the top 50 (not including transfers, who were recruited based on production in college and had already shown they were better than their ranking). Duke had never done that going back as far as recruiting rankings go. I point that out because Duke has had young teams with lottery picks and veteran teams without them. This is the first time Duke has had both an extremely young team and no lottery pick level talent.

With that in mind, is it extremely disheartening to see the effort they put put in the firs5 12 minutes the very next road game after getting thrashed because of that type of effort in Raleigh, yes. Is it just as disheartening to see them throw away a lead late like that, without showing any passion or emotion to pump guys back up in between plays, yes.

Is it fair to to put that expectation on four star freshman, who are normally bench players at best, or guys who were recruited to be career role players like Goldwire or a walk on like JRob, probably not. I still think the worst thing that happened to this team was that they got rated in the top 5 preseason, mostly because of the name on the front of the jersey. You’ve seen exactly what you’d expect from a group of role player upperclassmen and freshman that aren’t quite ready for prime time yet. You’ve seen them play some incredible games when their best players are hot, and you’ve seen the, capable of losing to just about anyone, even almost losing to a D2 team in the preseason.

All of this is to say I thin this team has done a tremendous job to be as good as they are, and we probably shouldn’t put the expectations of this team’s peak as it’s norm when you project out into tournaments. If they somehow put together a string of games against tough opponents, great, but also keep in mind that Duke hasn’t really had to play multiple games in a row against tournament caliber competition all year.

[dukelifer]

The season is shaping up about how I expected. I figured we would end up around 3rd or 4th in the league. But despite that, this still all feels very disappointing. It’s probably because as the season has gone on there is nothing about the team that has improved. If anything, it continues to regress. It’s also pitiful that the two senior rotation guys are almost complete non-factors. These are not K’s finest days.

I think that is a bit harsh. A game before this - folks were talking about ACC coach of the year. This team hit the Freshman wall. I have seen it many times. We will see how they recover.

[Kjeffrey]

Nothing is worse than the oh so pious “I’m not going to blame the refs” guy after the refs clearly screwed us. What you’re really saying is, “I know it was the refs, but I’m going to show everyone my superior sportsmanship by saying I don’t blame them.” Go back to Bilas with that crap.

The refs were certainly a factor. However, if Duke had come out strong would it have mattered? The refs didn't throw the ball around, miss layups or not get back on defense. The refs weren't good but Duke was worse.

[arnie]

Upperclassmen...which we never have. Unbalanced schedule, which seems to favor UVa most years. Our sites are on bigger fish.

Well we do have upperclassmen this year. What are we getting from White and Javin?

When we get hot early, we tend to blow out the mediocre teams, which helps our look and stats. But we were not, by any means, a great team. I think lowering expectations is in order.

[moonpie23]

duke looked good...

[KandG]

Not sure what to say about this one. The first 13 or so minutes was basically NC State all over again. Wake is a weaker opponent, so we were only down 12 instead of 20. Fought well to come back and seemingly take control of the game, but foul trouble caught up to us and we didn't close it out.

We wanted to believe that the NC State game was an anomaly and we would never see that again, but the reality is that our team has flaws that other teams can exploit, and we haven't yet developed a counter.

The grim reality is that it's not just the NC State game that represented our floor. This team has been hovering around its floor on the road for weeks. Chunks of the BC game (especially the start), the majority of the UNC game, the State game, now this. Playing this poorly on the road in one of the weakest years for the ACC says more about this team than it does about the league.

Said this before, but perhaps the biggest disappointment is how experienced players like Jack and Javin haven't stepped up recently when the freshmen flounder or get bad whistles. Oh well, at least we got a big and totally unexpected contribution from Justin.

With that said, the loss of composure holding onto a lead at the end of regulation, regardless of who was playing, was inexcusable.

[Bluedog]

Several posts about Jack, but did Baker get any burn? I didn't see the first half, but don't really recall seeing him in. Surprised he didn't spell anybody in the second OT.

[kshepinthehouse]

Duke gave up 47 points over the last 13 mins of the game.