perhaps you're right but i think there are several factors conspiring to make it worse than it seems. In other words, it wouldn't seem so bad if any of the following factors could be solved.
1) poor shot selection. Far too many iso 3s where a guy has the ball, dribbles around at the 3pt line for a bit, and then just jacks up a 3 with a defender in his face. That is a bad shot, poor selection.
2) poor shot selection from 3 is exacerbated by an offense that is at times either too stagnant or without plays designed to get guys driving lanes, so they settle for that bad shot from 3
3) lack of drive and kick guards. Roach and Steward both appear to be perfectly capable to drive to the rim/lane, but aren't particularly good at passing out to open 3pt shooters. J-Gold is good at finding shooters, but he is not particularly good at getting by people off the drive
4) the lackluster half-court offense was mentioned, but when the defense is generating turnovers we do pretty well at hitting 3s in transition or semi-transition. Without turnovers, the 3pt shooting deteriorates
5) inability to put multiple good 3pt shooters on the floor at a time. Hurt has been very good, and consistent, from 3 this year, and he draws a fair amount of attention when beyond the arc, but he also plays inside a fair amount.
6) lack of a serious interior scoring threat means defenses can focus more on defending the perimeter which compounds most of the factors.
When Brakefield was on fire it really opened things up, but he's cooled off. J-Gold and Roach seem to be more opportunisticly good 3pt shooters, but those opps can vary a lot from game to game, but when they revert to problem #1 they are not good shooters. Steward's problems from 3 seem to me mostly related to #1, with #2 being a factor.
Perhaps the return of JJ will help ameliorate some of these issues, but i don't think he is a solution in and of himself.
One more random comment about Buckmire:
Did anyone notice from back in the BC game, the one where Coach K was out, that Buckmire was performing the role that Nolan Smith usually does?
That is, he had a little flip pad out and was taking notes. I wanted to take a screenshot.
I could be confusing the two, but I am pretty sure that Nolan was up as an assistant coach, taking Scheyer's place, and then Buckmire was taking notes.
Hurt can shoot; Baker can shoot (37.3% Duke career from three); Steward came to Duke with a shooter's reputation.
It's hard to find complete high school shooting statistics, but Roach shot 33.3% from three for USA basketball, 33.3% from three in AAU, and 31.6% from three for FIBA junior team. I'm not sure why you would expect significantly higher than that in ACC basketball (he's shooting 30.8% so far for Duke this season).
Goldwire is a 28.1% lifetime three-point shooter at Duke (though he did shoot 35.4% last season). How much better do you think he can be than the 31.8% he's shooting so far this season?
Moore is a 20.0% lifetime three-point shooter at Duke. Johnson shot 27.0% from three at IMG. Even Brakefield only shot 31.0% from three in AAU ball.
Sure, we could take better shots, but you can't cook so well if you don't have the right ingredients.
Duke’s strongest play the last few games has been while the comebacks were in progress. It seems like that was largely a result of really amping up the defensive pressure for stretches and forcing turnovers. I don’t see the depth here to run a “40 minutes of hell” approach with only three smalls, but perhaps more pressure D would play to this team’s strengths.
True, but back then the forum was littered with posts that basically said, "Live by the three, die by the three." Remember? Opposing fan sites were replete with "Do't worry, JJ will shoot Duke out of the tournament again," and unfortunately, that proved to be true in some cases.
When our shooters were on, we would blow people out of the gym, but if they had a cold night, almost anybody could beat us.
"We are not provided with wisdom, we must discover it for ourselves, after a journey through the wilderness which no one else can take for us, an effort which no one can spare us, for our wisdom is the point of view from which we come at last to regard the world." --M. Proust
This is true (and I alluded to it in my post), but there is a difference between being overly reliant on the 3 and simply being able to shoot from range competently.
Also, it appears one of the alternatives to "live by the three, die by the three" is just "die by the three" which isn't actually an improvement.
balance is so critical. if you have a team with 3-4 35+% shooters, the defense needs to be aware of that, and it opens up the inside a bit, even if the shooters are having a rough night, they still must be guarded.
On the other hand, you have the zion team, which had almost no outside thread (aside from zion himself), so the defense could just sit inside.
Of course if shooting the 3 is all you can do, the fact that the inside opens up is irrelevant, and you're vulnerable to an off night.
balance balance balance.
April 1
Balance and at least 1 elite skill/advantage. Like offensive rebounding in 2010. I've heard K talk about how you need something special to truly become a championship team. For some coaches they may always be looking for that same edge (Roy with speed and rebounding) where K seems to be more flexible in his approach.
Hurt has been amazing. But outside of him everyone else has been inconsistent. In a shortened season and a roster filled with freshmen that we need to rely on, that is not a recipe for a deep run come tourney time. I see promise with the freshmen but I don't see how there will be enough time to develop consistency. Johnson has been very inconsistent and really needed that time he was out injured. It is going to take him and the team time to adjust to him being a big part of the lineup going forward.
Duke's development does not happen in a vacuum, other teams are developing also. And a lot of those teams started with more upperclassman and experience and are not facing an injury to one of their better players. I see Duke climbing an uphill battle over the second half of the season. Inconsistency will be a constant issue. The only fix is experience, which isn't really fixable.
I hope that Roach and Steward both come next year. I like the thought of adding Banchero and Griffin to a lineup including Roach and Steward with an additional year of experience.
In the end though I'm just happy to watch Duke basketball. The team is playing hard and showing a lot of heart.
Scary part is that Reddish was supposed to be that guy. He was billed as that guy. When he was recruited he was expected to be that guy. The guy that would stretch the D and open up the middle for Williamson and the midrange for RJ. But it didn't really work out that way.
If Reddish could have been that guy, that team would've been almost literally unstoppable. Shoulda coulda woulda been another national title team. Sigh.
"We are not provided with wisdom, we must discover it for ourselves, after a journey through the wilderness which no one else can take for us, an effort which no one can spare us, for our wisdom is the point of view from which we come at last to regard the world." --M. Proust
maybe. K seems to live and die by the pro-style motion offense, and similarly with the man-to-man switch-almost-everything defense. That's why it was shocking when they came out in zone against UL.
I don't deny that K is a great coach and will come up with game plans, and schemes to suit his team, but everyone has their tendencies, and the ability to coach a given scheme successfully is a skill as well. There's no doubt in my mind that Boeheim can coach a zone better than K, or Tony Bennett a better pack line. And I have no doubt that K can coach a better man-2-man than those guys. The more you stray from what you are good at coaching, the less likely you are to be successful doing it.
April 1