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  1. #81
    Quote Originally Posted by CameronDuke View Post
    Anyone else see the Coach K interview after the game? He got kinda testy with the kid when the kid asked what the next step is after the loss today. He asked the kid what his major is at Duke and the kid said Econ and he said suppose you just had the toughest Econ test in the world and you just walked out and someone asked you what’s your next step? I think Coach K wanted the analysis to be on the game today vs Louisville but seemed like the kid was genuinely wanting to know how Duke will approach the next step going forward.
    Seems kind of sad to get testy with a young reporter, maybe I'm just interpreting it the wrong way. Is K getting testy with his own players? He seems pretty chill in his chair. If he was spouting angry the cameras would show that.
    Nothing incites bodily violence quicker than a Duke fan turning in your direction and saying 'scoreboard.'

  2. #82
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    On a positive note, we lost the last 3 games by 7, 6 and 5 points so we’re trending in the right direction.

  3. #83
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    Quote Originally Posted by weezie View Post
    Seems kind of sad to get testy with a young reporter, maybe I'm just interpreting it the wrong way. Is K getting testy with his own players? He seems pretty chill in his chair. If he was spouting angry the cameras would show that.
    Yeah, maybe I am interpreting it wrong too. No one likes to lose, obviously Coach K included. Duke is better than 5-5. But the kid was from the Duke Chronicle and a student at Duke. I don’t think he was trying to poke the bear in his question and get a rise out of Coach K, personally. I think he was honestly asking where Duke goes from here in their next step. Coach K kind of turned the question on the kid and started asking him what his major or toughest class is at Duke. It seemed a bit grumpy to me.

    By the way, Duke has their work cut out for them vs GT next game. GT just shot a 3 at the buzzer that almost went in at UVa and only lost 64-62. Had the shot gone in they would have beaten UVa in Charlottesville.

  4. #84
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    Quote Originally Posted by CameronDuke View Post
    Anyone else see the Coach K interview after the game? He got kinda testy with the kid when the kid asked what the next step is after the loss today. He asked the kid what his major is at Duke and the kid said Econ and he said suppose you just had the toughest Econ test in the world and you just walked out and someone asked you what’s your next step? I think Coach K wanted the analysis to be on the game today vs Louisville but seemed like the kid was genuinely wanting to know how Duke will approach the next step going forward.
    K has a storied history of being kind of a dick to reporters when things aren't going well (to be fair, so do a lot of coaches) and that sounds pretty tame as far as those things go.

  5. #85
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    Quote Originally Posted by Acymetric View Post
    K has a storied history of being kind of a dick to reporters when things aren't going well (to be fair, so do a lot of coaches) and that sounds pretty tame as far as those things go.
    Yeah, I think we can all relate to that. It stinks to lose. He’s the GOAT, there’s no doubt about it, but man he still gets fired up in post game pressers after losses like he’s back in his 40s/50s!

  6. #86
    Quote Originally Posted by scottdude8 View Post
    Didn’t need to scroll far to find the correct take here. This team is suffering from the strange pandemic season disproportionately.

    To those who think the sky is falling: yes, we wouldn’t make the tourney if it was played today. But there is a ton of season to go, and this performance beats the average ACC team. And we should get better. Lots of time for our luck to shift.

    Oh, and btw, Kansas also just lost its third straight. The biggest difference between us and them, a Top 25 team? They have more wins because of a full non con schedule. If this team is 8-5 we’re still disappointed, but not running around like chickens with our heads cut off. That must always be remembered.
    I can’t speak for other chicken littles but I see a big difference between a team with wins over Chreighton, WVU, TTU and Oklahoma; compared to a team in Duke with 0 top 75 - and only 1 top 100 - wins.

    Hope I’m wrong, but I don’t see this team exceeding .500 in the ACC this year.

  7. #87
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    Quote Originally Posted by CameronDuke View Post
    Yeah, maybe I am interpreting it wrong too. No one likes to lose, obviously Coach K included. Duke is better than 5-5. But the kid was from the Duke Chronicle and a student at Duke. I don’t think he was trying to poke the bear in his question and get a rise out of Coach K, personally. I think he was honestly asking where Duke goes from here in their next step. Coach K kind of turned the question on the kid and started asking him what his major or toughest class is at Duke. It seemed a bit grumpy to me.

    By the way, Duke has their work cut out for them vs GT next game. GT just shot a 3 at the buzzer that almost went in at UVa and only lost 64-62. Had the shot gone in they would have beaten UVa in Charlottesville.
    Low Basketball I Q team. Hurt should have not fouled out. Steward and Roach make poor decisions at key possessions. Baker couldn’t have had a more wide open look. Got to be automatic. Had it handed to Joey on a silver platter.Steward as well. Johnson may be 1 and done . He will ride the bench in the NBA . Too error prone. He should have saved us after Hurt fouled out. He has the ability. He should have taken over the last few minutes. Frustrating team basketball. This team is not getting better.
    So many forced errors.
    Last edited by heyman25; 01-23-2021 at 10:41 PM. Reason: Grammatical

  8. #88
    Quote Originally Posted by CameronDuke View Post
    Anyone else see the Coach K interview after the game? He got kinda testy with the kid when the kid asked what the next step is after the loss today. He asked the kid what his major is at Duke and the kid said Econ and he said suppose you just had the toughest Econ test in the world and you just walked out and someone asked you what’s your next step? I think Coach K wanted the analysis to be on the game today vs Louisville but seemed like the kid was genuinely wanting to know how Duke will approach the next step going forward.
    I guess we’re not doing the Next Play thing anymore?

  9. #89
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    Oof, that’s gonna leave a mark!

    Once again competitive but no possibility of figuring out a way to win.

    Did Roach suit up today? Back-breaking turnovers at exactly the wrong times.


    I guess I’m the new Ozzie, because I continue to think this team is better than their record. But there is some intangible that is missing. It seems like every time they take a lead they let their foot of the gas and allow the other team a run of 5 or 10 points. I have yet to really see them “build a lead” except against ND and one of the early cupcakes. It’s like they haven’t got any killer instinct or something.

    I think Coach K should’ve gone back to the zone in the last 5 or 6 minutes, or maybe even earlier. That might have been enough to eke out a win.


    From the fan standpoint, all I can do is just keep cheering them on and hoping for brighter days ahead. Whether said days will actually show up is entirely another question.
    "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

  10. #90
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    Quote Originally Posted by Acymetric View Post
    K has a storied history of being kind of a dick to reporters when things aren't going well (to be fair, so do a lot of coaches) and that sounds pretty tame as far as those things go.
    Yes. I think he got some of it from his mentor Robert Montgomery Knight, though K is much more tactful than Knight. As described, I think the reporter asked a reasonable question and it was pretty a pretty low class response. I wish some of that feistiness was directed at the refs, his team, and the person who is supposed to be reminding him to properly wear his mask for the full length of the game.

    The lack of foul shots is largely because we aren't attacking the basket. You get fouled a lot less shooting jump shots. We have historically been good at getting out on the break, which generates easy baskets and also draws fouls. I'm guessing someone here might have some stats on this but from my eyeball test, we are getting very few fast break points. I'm not sure how one reverses this trend other than by clamping down more on defense.

    Though overall I found the game very frustrating, I am really enjoying seeing Hurt step up to be the alpha of the team. His improvement from last year has been impressive and he clearly wants the ball more. We just need to be able to keep him in the game more, as well as have others contribute more so opponents can't focus too much on Hurt.

  11. #91
    K played 10 today. I'm wondering if he will shorten the bench and only play 7 next game. I understand foul trouble had an effect on the rotation.

  12. #92
    Quote Originally Posted by roywhite View Post
    Which is better than the 2018-19 team that included Zion, RJ and Cam Reddish. They were 30.8% from 3-pt

    It is an important stat, and it certainly was a problem for the 2018-19 team, but 33.2% is not terrible. The more alarming stat IMO is the deficit in Free Throws taken and made vs the Opponents numbers.


    This. So. Much. This.

    24 FT attempts (18 made) Louisville vs 9 for Duke (7 made)..it’s a BAD trend. Flip that and Duke wins most games .. would be 5-1 or 6-0 ACC

    Prior loss at Pitt Pitt had 37 FT attempts (made 24) and Duke had 19 attempts (made 11).

    VTech - a known three point shooting team - got to the FT line more.

    So did Wake Forest, by a lot...

    So for all the ‘Don’t get down by 10 points early .. and don’t foul out Matthew Hurt etc... it’s really about our Guards penetrating downhill and getting us on the FT line !! . It’s that simple

  13. #93
    Not that different a performance than our last two games. At least this time we were right in it until the last few seconds.

    OFFENSE

    Possessions: 66.3 (slow, but unlike our previous slow games, our offense wasn't particularly good this time)
    oRtg: 0.98 (1.06 adjusted; kind of blah, our 3rd straight game (and 5th overall) with an unadjusted oRtg of 0.98 or worse; Even adjusted, it's the equivalent of #96 in the country)
    eFG%: 53.7% (this is actually decent)
    3pt%: 32.0% (barely adequate, but not really)
    2pt%: 58.6% (pretty strong performance inside the arc; too bad we didn't take more of our shots from in there)
    %threes: 46.3% (our fourth straight game in which 40% or more of our shots were three-pointers; but if we're going to shoot around 30% from three (as we have on aggregate in those four games), we really ought to learn to take fewer shots from beyond the arc)
    FT rate: 16.7% (anemic; even more embarrassing, it's only our 5th worst FTR performance of the season)
    OR%: 19.4% (catastrophic; our worst OR performance of the season)
    TO%: 22.6% (disastrous; 3rd worst offensive TO% of the season)
    a/to: 0.47:1 (our lowest such number of the season)
    %assisted: 28.0% (2nd-lowest %assisted of the season)
    fast break pts: 2 (3.1% of points; really, really bad)

    DEFENSE

    dRtg: 1.06 (0.96 adjusted; 7th straight unadjusted defense over 1.04; still unacceptable adjusted, the equivalent of #74 in the nation)
    eFG%: 52.0% (bad, for the 7th straight game)
    3pt%: 37.5% (once again, as we discussed before the game, a weak outside shooting team exceeded expectations against us (Louisville came into the game averaging 32.3% from three))
    2pt%: 50.0% (ugh; 7th straight game in which our opponents shot 50% or better from two)
    %threes: 32.0% (not awful)
    FT rate: 48.0% (as usual we put our opponent on the line far too much; tied for our 2nd-worst FTR performance in a season)
    DR%: 69.0% (this isn't horrific but it isn't good; only the 2nd time this season we've been under 70% in this stat)
    TO%: 19.6% (could be worse, could be better)
    a/to: 0.92:1
    %assisted: 52.2%
    stl%: 6.0% (blech; worst steals performance of the season)
    blk%: 2.0% (2.9% of 2pt shots) (pathetic; also our worst blocks performance of the season)
    fast break pts: 0 (0.0% of points; outstanding, literally can't get better than this in this stat)


    Our offense has sputtered for three straight games. Our defense has been somewhat porous for seven straight games. It's the kind of combination that leads to three straight losses.

    On offense, we did three of the four factors extremely poorly, and the one thing we did well (shoot two-point baskets) we partly negated by shooting too many threes. On defense, we gave up too many easy shots and put them on the line too much, and while our defensive rebounding and turnovers forced weren't awful, they weren't good enough to make up for the other two factors.

  14. #94
    scottdude8's Avatar
    scottdude8 is online now Moderator, Contributor, Zoubek disciple, and resident Wolverine
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    Quote Originally Posted by CameronDuke View Post
    Anyone else see the Coach K interview after the game? He got kinda testy with the kid when the kid asked what the next step is after the loss today. He asked the kid what his major is at Duke and the kid said Econ and he said suppose you just had the toughest Econ test in the world and you just walked out and someone asked you what’s your next step? I think Coach K wanted the analysis to be on the game today vs Louisville but seemed like the kid was genuinely wanting to know how Duke will approach the next step going forward.
    As someone who has been yelled at (in person!) by Coach K as a Chronicle reporter, I can say that this was TAME relative to some of Ks previous responses to the Chronicle. He was at worst super passive aggressive. When I asked a bad question relayed to me by my editor, I got reamed out for 10 minutes straight I’m the middle of the pre UNC press conference.

    Is it a good look? Of course not! Will people use it to confirm their existing Coach K hate? Of course! Does it actually mean anything of significance? Absolutely not.

    And again, I speak from experience. Next game I covered, Coach K went out of his way to answer a question from me towards the end of his availability.

    (P.S. The question from the student reporter wasn’t a great one, and from the looks of things on Twitter it sounds like it was his first game. So maybe K was trying to help teach him! Haha]
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  15. #95
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    Quote Originally Posted by DukieTiger View Post
    I can’t speak for other chicken littles but I see a big difference between a team with wins over Chreighton, WVU, TTU and Oklahoma; compared to a team in Duke with 0 top 75 - and only 1 top 100 - wins.

    Hope I’m wrong, but I don’t see this team exceeding .500 in the ACC this year.
    Yes, it a perfect comparison by any means. Just pointing out that among top tier teams, Duke has perhaps been hit hardest by COVID cancellations, and we’re seeing its effects. Plus, we aren’t alone in our struggles. Of course Kansas is having a better season than us, extra three games or no. But context is key, and Kansas is a useful point of comparison for that context.
    Scott Rich on the front page

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    If you have questions about Michigan Basketball/Football, I'm your man!

  16. #96
    Quote Originally Posted by scottdude8 View Post
    As someone who has been yelled at (in person!) by Coach K as a Chronicle reporter, I can say that this was TAME relative to some of Ks previous responses to the Chronicle. He was at worst super passive aggressive. When I asked a bad question relayed to me by my editor, I got reamed out for 10 minutes straight I’m the middle of the pre UNC press conference.

    Is it a good look? Of course not! Will people use it to confirm their existing Coach K hate? Of course! Does it actually mean anything of significance? Absolutely not.

    And again, I speak from experience. Next game I covered, Coach K went out of his way to answer a question from me towards the end of his availability.

    (P.S. The question from the student reporter wasn’t a great one, and from the looks of things on Twitter it sounds like it was his first game. So maybe K was trying to help teach him! Haha]
    As a former Chronicle reporter as well, this is G rated. He didn’t raise his voice, he didn’t curse him out, he didn’t physically confront him. Was it a grumpy answer? Sure. But that is all it was. My words of advice as a retired reporter...get off Twitter and never do anything that tries to make yourself the story.

  17. #97
    Quote Originally Posted by scottdude8 View Post
    As someone who has been yelled at (in person!) by Coach K as a Chronicle reporter, I can say that this was TAME relative to some of Ks previous responses to the Chronicle. He was at worst super passive aggressive. When I asked a bad question relayed to me by my editor, I got reamed out for 10 minutes straight I’m the middle of the pre UNC press conference.

    Is it a good look? Of course not! Will people use it to confirm their existing Coach K hate? Of course! Does it actually mean anything of significance? Absolutely not.

    And again, I speak from experience. Next game I covered, Coach K went out of his way to answer a question from me towards the end of his availability.

    (P.S. The question from the student reporter wasn’t a great one, and from the looks of things on Twitter it sounds like it was his first game. So maybe K was trying to help teach him! Haha]
    I’ve been yelled at by Coach K for asking a question he didn’t like as well...well not quite yelled at, but given the death stare and had my question treated with condescension. Was a bit unnerving when it happened, but now I just look back at it with amusement.

    I sense he’s gotten better over the years in terms of his press relations, but he’s always had a pretty patriarchal old school attitude when it comes to questions he doesn’t like, or when he senses a point being pushed by the way a question is framed that he doesn’t want to address. That may come from being a protege of Knight, maybe it’s from his extreme desire to control the message about his team, appearances be damned.

    In the case of this student from the Chronicle, K just seemed like he was in a bad mood and got testy in a way that was out of proportion to the tenor of the question being asked. He’s getting piled on in the way you’d expect all over social media, something I’m sure he doesn’t care one bit about.

  18. #98
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    Quote Originally Posted by gofurman View Post
    [/B]

    This. So. Much. This.

    24 FT attempts (18 made) Louisville vs 9 for Duke (7 made)..it’s a BAD trend. Flip that and Duke wins most games .. would be 5-1 or 6-0 ACC

    Prior loss at Pitt Pitt had 37 FT attempts (made 24) and Duke had 19 attempts (made 11).

    VTech - a known three point shooting team - got to the FT line more.

    So did Wake Forest, by a lot...

    So for all the ‘Don’t get down by 10 points early .. and don’t foul out Matthew Hurt etc... it’s really about our Guards penetrating downhill and getting us on the FT line !! . It’s that simple
    In defense of the freshmen guards, when they penetrate, who can they dish the ball to? We have no post presence and defenses aren't stupid. Without a big lurking in the post, the help defense can shut them down or force terrible shots. The perimeter defenders can jump passing lanes. The results are definitely not pretty.
    Not that "what-ifs" win games but, what if Roach or Steward is driving and we have Vernon Carey helping clear traffic, ready to receive a pass, or follow hard for a put-back. Think that would freeze the opponents rotations a bit? I think the lack of any post play is a substantial issue. Placing it solely on the guards seems a bit unfair.
    Add to that, the freshmen are young and slight competing against older, stronger, physically mature players. All three (I'm including Moore) needs a lot more seasoning to reach their potential. I won't say the "Freshmen!" is a swear word in my house at game time, but if that was the drinking word for every bonehead freshman play, I'd take a week to recover after some games. They're getting better, and the team is getting better. Just not quickly. Tough season for young teams, and we are painfully young.
    Just my two cents.

  19. #99
    Quote Originally Posted by simplyluvin View Post
    Is this the year Coach starts to deemphasize - at least slightly - getting the best player from HS and bring in more guys who can develop and lead? [...] So does Coach change his philosophy?
    No, he won't and shouldn't change his philosophy. He will try to get the best players for as long as he continues to coach.

    Quote Originally Posted by simplyluvin View Post
    My point is, has the pandemic really exposed the core flaw of the OAD model[?] [...] Perhaps he did this year and 2020-21 will be the growing pains to more mature teams later.
    Yeah, and here's the thing: a lot of people around here have for years been clamoring for a recruiting class with one OAD and a bunch of guys ranked 20 to 50, who should (emphasis on should, because it doesn't always work out that way) hang around for 3 or 4 years. This is exactly what K has done the past two seasons, and we're currently seeing the result. My point is you (and I don't mean you personally, I'm talking about all of us here) can't complain about the "OAD model" and then also complain about a team that isn't as competitive as we'd like. There's no question that if this team had three top 10 recruits it would be performing better than it has so far.

    Quote Originally Posted by TywinBlue View Post
    But with 27 seconds to go and down by just 2, Joey Baker's three point attempt was a bad shot. Period.
    I know others have disagreed with your take on this, but I want to add my voice to theirs: Joey Baker's shot at the end was a great shot. He was wide open, he's a good shooter, it looked good out of his hand, and it almost went in. I'd rather have Joey take that shot than anybody else on this year's team except Matthew Hurt (who had already fouled out).

    Quote Originally Posted by Music man55 View Post
    The only good thing I can think of is next years’ team should, and I repeat should, have almost everybody back, with the exception of Hurt.
    Quote Originally Posted by CameronDuke View Post
    I’m not done with this season yet but if everyone returns next year (minus Goldwire who is a senior), Duke will be legit. Johnson is probably one and done but I would love to see Hurt play another year at Duke along with Steward, Moore, Roach, Williams, Baker, Brakefield, Coleman along with the recruits. That would be a talented roster.
    Again, others have said this, but Jalen Johnson and Matthew Hurt will both almost certainly be gone.

    And Jordan Goldwire might be on next year's team as well, since this season everybody gets an extra year of eligibility.

    Quote Originally Posted by MrPoon View Post
    When was the last time Duke was a top flight three point shooting team?
    Again to amplify what others have said, Duke exceeded 37% from three in every season from 2010 to 2018. It may seem like 100 years, but it's only the past three seasons that we've shot poorly from outside.


    I don't think I'm as down on the team as some seem to be. I do think changes need to be made. I'm not sure what positive changes can be made to our defense, I just think the kids need to learn and progress on that end. But on offense, I think our biggest issue is we have nobody on the team capable of effectively penetrating opposing defenses. And in the relatively rare instances when they do, they almost always take it to the rim whether it's closely guarded or not. We really don't have the talent to play a lot of one-on-one, and we don't have the shooters to run our traditional horns and floppy sets (which we haven't appeared to do too much this season anyway).

    So I think the team has to start running plays, mostly PNR and maybe set some baseline screens to get open corner threes. Or possibly run something akin to the old Princeton offense, with backdoor cut after backdoor cut, though that offense also needs good outside shooters to be effective, so I'm not sure about that one. I just don't think we can successfully run a traditional Duke offense with the guards we have, but I do think we have enough athletic talent to be effective on offense in other ways, it's just a matter of finding what those ways are.

  20. #100

    Lacking Tangibles and Intangibles

    Quote Originally Posted by Kedsy View Post
    Not that different a performance than our last two games. At least this time we were right in it until the last few seconds.

    OFFENSE

    Possessions: 66.3 (slow, but unlike our previous slow games, our offense wasn't particularly good this time)
    oRtg: 0.98 (1.06 adjusted; kind of blah, our 3rd straight game (and 5th overall) with an unadjusted oRtg of 0.98 or worse; Even adjusted, it's the equivalent of #96 in the country)
    eFG%: 53.7% (this is actually decent)
    3pt%: 32.0% (barely adequate, but not really)
    2pt%: 58.6% (pretty strong performance inside the arc; too bad we didn't take more of our shots from in there)
    %threes: 46.3% (our fourth straight game in which 40% or more of our shots were three-pointers; but if we're going to shoot around 30% from three (as we have on aggregate in those four games), we really ought to learn to take fewer shots from beyond the arc)
    FT rate: 16.7% (anemic; even more embarrassing, it's only our 5th worst FTR performance of the season)
    OR%: 19.4% (catastrophic; our worst OR performance of the season)
    TO%: 22.6% (disastrous; 3rd worst offensive TO% of the season)
    a/to: 0.47:1 (our lowest such number of the season)
    %assisted: 28.0% (2nd-lowest %assisted of the season)
    fast break pts: 2 (3.1% of points; really, really bad)

    DEFENSE

    dRtg: 1.06 (0.96 adjusted; 7th straight unadjusted defense over 1.04; still unacceptable adjusted, the equivalent of #74 in the nation)
    eFG%: 52.0% (bad, for the 7th straight game)
    3pt%: 37.5% (once again, as we discussed before the game, a weak outside shooting team exceeded expectations against us (Louisville came into the game averaging 32.3% from three))
    2pt%: 50.0% (ugh; 7th straight game in which our opponents shot 50% or better from two)
    %threes: 32.0% (not awful)
    FT rate: 48.0% (as usual we put our opponent on the line far too much; tied for our 2nd-worst FTR performance in a season)
    DR%: 69.0% (this isn't horrific but it isn't good; only the 2nd time this season we've been under 70% in this stat)
    TO%: 19.6% (could be worse, could be better)
    a/to: 0.92:1
    %assisted: 52.2%
    stl%: 6.0% (blech; worst steals performance of the season)
    blk%: 2.0% (2.9% of 2pt shots) (pathetic; also our worst blocks performance of the season)
    fast break pts: 0 (0.0% of points; outstanding, literally can't get better than this in this stat)


    Our offense has sputtered for three straight games. Our defense has been somewhat porous for seven straight games. It's the kind of combination that leads to three straight losses.

    On offense, we did three of the four factors extremely poorly, and the one thing we did well (shoot two-point baskets) we partly negated by shooting too many threes. On defense, we gave up too many easy shots and put them on the line too much, and while our defensive rebounding and turnovers forced weren't awful, they weren't good enough to make up for the other two factors.
    I've dutifully read every post to this point. Excellent, comprehensive analysis. Thank you.

    Kedsy's stats confirm what our eyeballs saw. Whether or not we could have eked out a W because of a last-minute shot going in, or better officiating, this team is hard to watch, from a quality basketball POV. From a "Basketball Gods" POV, I found myself being okay with a Louisville win because they overall played better and they have a couple of studs, especially Carlik Jones, who schooled Duke and who are more reminiscent of the great Duke players we love.

    I asked in the in-game thread, What does this team do very well [consistently]? I have not been able to find anything, other than hustle much of the time [in the Pitt game, they came out flat]. Your collective post-game comments confirm that this team is not a winning basketball team -- there is nothing that they do consistently well enough to outperform most of their opponents.

    No point in repeating all of the team's deficiencies that have been fully covered in this thread. I do want to express my opinion that the deficiencies are not fixable by playing more games. [Most important non-fixable deficiencies: No quality PG, no Alpha guy, not enough clutch shooters, overall lack of college-seasoned savvy].

    A couple of Coach K's post-game presser comments reinforce that this team's psychological/emotional state is really young and psychologically fragile:

    “The last two games we would have been fortunate to win,” Mike Krzyzewski, “ although we would had chances to win. This game our kids were prepared, they played hard, they played winning basketball.”

    “I’m disappointed for these kids because they’re a good group,” Krzyzewski summed up. “It’s been a really tough year for a whole bunch of reasons so you’d like to see them get rewarded.”

    So Coach K believes that he needs to describe this team's play in this game as "winning basketball"? Really? The turnovers, lack of FTs, the shooting percentage, lack of assists, lack of clutch play at crunch time, etc., are not indicative of winning basketball. Duh.

    I'm thinking of some of our really good and tough teams. I'm thinking of teams with players like Laettner, Hurley, Boozer, Battier, Hill, JJ, Winslow, Jefferson, Smith, and the Jones [Matt, Trey and Tyus], etc, etc, etc. After tonight's performance, would K have called it a winning performance? No.

    What K's comments show is that this team is as young and fragile psychologically as they play. Which is not surprising.

    Coda: As you no doubt know by now, K's response to the Chronicle reporter is being hammered, as it should be. Which, again, shows that K is not happy with what is happening this year. But, please, don't take it out on students who are just trying to do their jobs.
    “I love it. Coach, when we came here, we had a three-hour meeting about the core values. If you really represent the core values, it means diving on the floor, sacrificing your body for your teammates, no matter how much you’re up by or how much you’re down by, always playing hard.” -- Zion

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