Duke-VT Postgame thread

[jv001]

This Duke team is a much different team than the last several Duke teams. By that I mean to me it looks like a Duke team of the past, where players are not OND. We have players that if they don't leave until at least their junior year, could be very good. DJ, Roach, Brakefield and Williams could be great players by their 3rd year in the program. Without regular preseason work, I'm not too surprised to see the team playing like this. There's no Zion, Ingram, Tatum, RJ type players on the roster. We do have some guys that can be very good if they stick around. Time will tell. At least we have some games we can watch them grow in.

GoDuke!

[kshepinthehouse]

This Duke team is a much different team than the last several Duke teams. By that I mean to me it looks like a Duke team of the past, where players are not OND. We have players that if they don't leave until at least their junior year, could be very good. DJ, Roach, Brakefield and Williams could be great players by their 3rd year in the program. Without regular preseason work, I'm not too surprised to see the team playing like this. There's no Zion, Ingram, Tatum, RJ type players on the roster. We do have some guys that can be very good if they stick around. Time will tell. At least we have some games we can watch them grow in.

GoDuke!

I’m not sold on Williams and think he would have been best served with a redshirt this year. Although, I think because of Covid he gets a free year this year. He has a long way to go in my opinion. I thought he made a decent move in this game but when he put up his shot it clanged off the backboard. We have not seemed to have much luck with big men outside of the top 10 for some reason. If he sticks with the program he can probably be a solid contributor in a couple years. However, in years past, these type of big men have transferred.

[lotusland]

Nice bounce back on the second half but VT is a better team now. Duke has some nice pieces but I’m not sure it adds up to a better than average team this year with Hurt being the only All ACC level player. Roach and DJ seem like guys who could become studs at the college level so hopefully they’ll stick around. It would have be en great if Moore had made a sophomore jump like Hurt but it doesn’t appear to be in the cards this year.

I’d like to give Baker an appropriate name for his Sheldon Jr like shot blocking - the Slumlord? The property management company??

[weezie]

I could have taken quotes from nearly every post in this thread.
So what's the underlying theme here? Is this team a coachable unit? Still so disjointed and clumsy, multiple mental mistakes, horrific dribbling, geesh.
What's on that white board this morning Coach?

[Billy Dat]

K's presser quotes are worth reading and I think succinctly sum up the game and where we are right now:
https://goduke.com/documents/2021/1/...h_K_Quotes.pdf

Here's the key phrase to me:

"At halftime, we reacted great, and I thought we played very well in the second half. More than that, we competed, we played really outstanding defense. They had 28 points in the second half, we had opportunities. We were in a position where our guys came back to put us in a position to win and we could not knock down a shot. We had some good looks where we could one possession game pressure on them [VT]. We learned a lot tonight on how hard an ACC top-level game is. You have to be in the game for 40 minutes and that is a learning experience, we really haven’t been in a game like that in conference."

I have read a lot of criticism of the 3s we took, and how many we took, but I thought almost all of them were the right shot to take. Guys were set, they had clean looks, and we just didn't knock them down. The rim on that end was so soft, I thought we'd get at least one bounce like Hurt got at the end of the first half. Obviously, there are other problems, but if a few of those clean looks go down, we might take a lead. In those comebacks, I think it's psychologically important to take a lead. When we failed to do so after cutting it to 1 with a ton of time left, I think we started to look tired and grabbing the lead may have been a real shot of adrenaline

This Duke team is a much different team than the last several Duke teams. By that I mean to me it looks like a Duke team of the past, where players are not OND. We
have players that if they don't leave until at least their junior year, could be very good. DJ, Roach, Brakefield and Williams could be great players by their 3rd year in the program. Without regular preseason work, I'm not too surprised to see the team playing like this. There's no Zion, Ingram, Tatum, RJ type players on the roster. We do have some guys that can be very good if they stick around. Time will tell. At least we have some games we can watch them grow in.

I think this is how one has to view this season. Of course, "stick around" is a moving target these days, especially now that the transfer rules are changing. We have a really nice young core who keep improving. Let's hope Roach and Steward stick around for a while as they are a fun backcourt right now, and project "best backcourt in the country" potential down the road.

[Billy Dat]

I could have taken quotes from nearly every post in this thread.
So what's the underlying theme here? Is this team a coachable unit? Still so disjointed and clumsy, multiple mental mistakes, horrific dribbling, geesh.
What's on that white board this morning Coach?

Ha ha ha...Aside from that, Mrs. Lincoln, how did you enjoy the play?

I think it's actually unfortunate that we have a whole week off before Pitt. I think we'd benefit from having a consistent 2 games a week to find a rhythm. I think we need to get Jalen Johnson back into the rotation to shore up our frontline, we need to get up about 50,000 shots, and we need to do a lot of defensive drills.

[rsvman]

We have lost in Blacksburg with much better teams than this one.

[roywhite]

We have lost in Blacksburg with much better teams than this one.

The lighting there looks horrible just on television. It's gotta be an adjustment for visiting players.

[DukieInBrasil]

well, that was...uninspiring.
Whenever it is that this team learns how to start a game with some intensity then it could be a pretty good team. Duke was losing by more than the final margin in less than 5 minutes.
Otoh, VT is a pretty good team.
In this game, the thing that stood out to me was the quantity of poor 3pt shots we took, ie., 1 guy dribbling the ball in 3pt land not moving his defender just staring him down and then rising for a 3. That's a bad shot, and we did it repeatedly. The back 2 back combo of Wendell's wildly terrible 3 and then J-Gold's almost as wildly terrible 3 was painful to watch.
I'd like to see someone on the team establish themself as the leader, but that hasn't happened either. Wendell has the makings of a good leader, but he is playing so terribly right now. However, in his defense, he did what i've been clamoring for him to do, receive the ball cutting to the rim for a score. Twice. He needs to do that exclusively, alas he tried to take other shots which were terrible.

[simplyluvin]

We have lost in Blacksburg with much better teams than this one.

This is true. The concern, however, is that this was a good opportunity at a quality win on the road. I can see us easily losing three of the next 4 to close out the month. February only looks slightly better. Does a .500 Duke team in ACC play get in to the tournament? Doubtful. Right now we are projected as a 10 seed.

I don’t like these ignominious ends to streaks like our SFA loss last year and possibly not making the NCAAs this year. Streaks are made to end, I suppose, but I didn’t think I’d see it on Coach Ks watch.

[kshepinthehouse]

well, that was...uninspiring.
Whenever it is that this team learns how to start a game with some intensity then it could be a pretty good team. Duke was losing by more than the final margin in less than 5 minutes.
Otoh, VT is a pretty good team.
In this game, the thing that stood out to me was the quantity of poor 3pt shots we took, ie., 1 guy dribbling the ball in 3pt land not moving his defender just staring him down and then rising for a 3. That's a bad shot, and we did it repeatedly. The back 2 back combo of Wendell's wildly terrible 3 and then J-Gold's almost as wildly terrible 3 was painful to watch.
I'd like to see someone on the team establish themself as the leader, but that hasn't happened either. Wendell has the makings of a good leader, but he is playing so terribly right now. However, in his defense, he did what i've been clamoring for him to do, receive the ball cutting to the rim for a score. Twice. He needs to do that exclusively, alas he tried to take other shots which were terrible.

Yep. Those back to back shots were the turning point of the game. Wendell’s clanged off the back board and Goldwire’s was an airball. It was downhill after that.

[BlueDevilStop]

Duke shot 1/11 from three in the final 12:00 and the only make was a buzzer beater as time expired from Goldwire. Settling for jumpers down the stretch really hurt, that game was there for the taking.

[budwom]

Someone should introduce Joey Baker to his teammates (especially Steward, who has a lot of talent, but finding open teammates doesn't seem to be one of them). Baker showed some hustle, was open on the three point line numerous times, yet on a night when our lads were shooting 27.6% from three land, Baker got nary a shot in 13 minutes.

[kshepinthehouse]

Someone should introduce Joey Baker to his teammates (especially Steward, who has a lot of talent, but finding open teammates doesn't seem to be one of them). Baker showed some hustle, was open on the three point line numerous times, yet on a night when our lads were shooting 27.6% from three land, Baker got nary a shot in 13 minutes.

Joey is shooting 20% from 3 this year...

[budwom]

Joey is shooting 20% from 3 this year...

Does that disqualify him from shooting open shots? He hustled last night, has shown SOME ability to shoot in the past, and on a night when his team mates couldn't throw the ball in the ocean, ignoring him didn't seem fruitful.

Yeah, Joey is shooting 20% on all of ten attempts. Meanwhile Steward, Roach, Wendell and Goldwire are ALL shooting 31% (consistency), on 45, 26, 16 and 22 attempts respectively.

[kshepinthehouse]

Does that disqualify him from shooting open shots? He hustled last night, has shown SOME ability to shoot in the past, and on a night when his team mates couldn't throw the ball in the ocean, ignoring him didn't seem fruitful.

Yeah, Joey is shooting 20% on all of ten attempts. Meanwhile Steward, Roach, Wendell and Goldwire are ALL shooting 31% (consistency), on 45, 26, 16 and 22 attempts respectively.

He did hustle last night and I liked his fight. I think he has lost some confidence in his shot and I think maybe his teammates have lost some confidence in him as well. He is also missing a distributor as a point guard. He needs someone that can break down the defense and find the open man. Unfortunately, we don’t have that this year. Roach has shown the ability to drive but he really hasn’t shown the ability to drive and dish.

[budwom]

He did hustle last night and I liked his fight. I think he has lost some confidence in his shot and I think maybe his teammates have lost some confidence in him as well. He is also missing a distributor as a point guard. He needs someone that can break down the defense and find the open man. Unfortunately, we don’t have that this year. Roach has shown the ability to drive but he really hasn’t shown the ability to drive and dish.

I largely agree, though Joey really was open numerous times and he was pointedly ignored.

[uh_no]

We have lost in Blacksburg with much better teams than this one.

This is true. The concern, however, is that this was a good opportunity at a quality win on the road. I can see us easily losing three of the next 4 to close out the month. February only looks slightly better. Does a .500 Duke team in ACC play get in to the tournament? Doubtful. Right now we are projected as a 10 seed.

I don’t like these ignominious ends to streaks like our SFA loss last year and possibly not making the NCAAs this year. Streaks are made to end, I suppose, but I didn’t think I’d see it on Coach Ks watch.

I understand the want to put positive spin on it...but context is important. This isn't a team largely playing well that lost a tough ACC road game. This is a team that had been playing pretty poorly and muscling out wins against the bottom of the league, who couldn't similarly do it against a much stronger VT team.

We worked hard and made it a game for a few minutes, and that's great, but we can't pretend this is some sort of aberration that often happens in big ACC road games. There's a reason we're #23KP and falling.

People need to be prepared for a struggle of an ACC slate, and a struggle to make the tournament, because that's where we sit right now with our play.

[budwom]

I understand the want to put positive spin on it...but context is important. This isn't a team largely playing well that lost a tough ACC road game. This is a team that had been playing pretty poorly and muscling out wins against the bottom of the league, who couldn't similarly do it against a much stronger VT team.

We worked hard and made it a game for a few minutes, and that's great, but we can't pretend this is some sort of aberration that often happens in big ACC road games. There's a reason we're #23KP and falling.

People need to be prepared for a struggle of an ACC slate, and a struggle to make the tournament, because that's where we sit right now with our play.

The positive part of all this is that (my feeling anyway) the season is likely to be truncated this year, and if we had a powerhouse team, that would be really unfortunate...as the Zags may discover.

[uh_no]

The positive part of all this is that (my feeling anyway) the season is likely to be truncated this year, and if we had a powerhouse team, that would be really unfortunate...as the Zags may discover.

granted. I'd feel horible for the zags if they couldn't give it a go. mark few is very high on the top of my "people I think deserve a title" list.