MBB: Louisville 80, Duke 73 OT Post Game Thread

[SavDukeGrad]

If this was Matthew Hurt’s last game in Cameron, he had a great farewell game!

Goldwire, unfortunately, not so much. And I agree with others - he should have stayed on Jones, not Roach.

Duke Men’s BB social media has had lots of farewell posts from Goldwire and Buckmire the last couple of days. Nothing from Tape - does this mean he’s staying? (And I can’t remember how jk said to get the accent)

[Saratoga2]

I agree with GoDuke is 100% here. Moreover, Mtn Devil—your last post above is a cop out. “Agree to disagree/I’m rooting for the team.” He’s making a point on personnel decisions and thinks we should have gone big instead of small. Why do you believe we should stay small? Get more sophisticated than “well I’m rooting for the team.”

We are all rooting for the team, but in a game where we were out rebounded 41-33, beat on the O-boards 15-7, and beat on points in the paint 44-30...yea I think benching our best defensive post presence late is a complete mistake. What’s your argument against that?

(Addt’l arguments in favor of staying big include: 1) this completely exposes Matt Hurt to get abused and take unnecessary fouls...2) you can make an argument for going small if your guards are playing well, but has been pointed out ad nauseum: they were playing quite poorly: 3-18fg & 4/5 a/to for Roach & Steward).

I mean you said it Mtn. Devil: K can’t go rebound or defend—but Williams can! So why go small? What’s your argument beyond you are rooting for the team? You can root for the team and disagree with Coach’s decisions. Speaking of...

K made two other critical mistakes that no one is discussing and completely defy logic:

1) He had Roach guarding the last few possessions—WHY?! Goldwire only had 3 fouls and should have been on him
2) He had Hurt in on a must foul situation with ~20 seconds left in OT, despite having 4 fouls and a Timeout. He should have subbed him out and would have the had the chance to put him back in even if we got a steal

Coach K explained Williams was out of the game to allow Duke to press. He also said Williams would have been away from the rebound that Hurt got to but couldn't hold.

[Bluedog]

For those asking why Williams wasn’t playing at the end of regulation or in OT, in his postgame presser, Coach K indicated the reason why Williams wasn’t playing was because Duke couldn’t press if Williams was in the game ...

That's what I speculated in the chat! I guess I can be a Coach K decipherer sometimes. Others thought that Williams would just stay in the front court in that situation.

Thanks for providing that tidbit from the presser (no pun intended).

[CoachJ10]

Had some bad break shots go against us all year (Hobbs 3, etc)...but that 3 by a 25% role player to start OT was just brutal.

Since hearing one announcer say that Duke is 5th youngest team in DI this year...I have been checking box scores to look at ages. It is crazy how every good team this year...is old. Every big ten team has 22, 23, 24 yr olds. Heck even Michigan’s good freshman is older than Wendell. It really does seem this year that outside of the physical strength that age gives...mental strength by these older teams is incredibly beneficial. We just don’t have that right now.

[KandG]

For those asking why Williams wasn’t playing at the end of regulation or in OT, in his postgame presser, Coach K indicated the reason why Williams wasn’t playing was because Duke couldn’t press if Williams was in the game ...

I thought this was pretty obvious, that we stayed in the game by creating chaos and hurrying Louisville. Even with Williams, we were still giving up rebounds and Williams was getting caught out on the perimeter on switches. And in the OT, he really looked rough the first two posssessions, I had no issue with K feeling he was overmatched for the situation.

Part of why people are understandably upset is that Hurt as the back line of the defense made us pretty soft and didn’t help our rebounding issue. But Louisville was not a good matchup for Williams late in the game and Brakefield wasn’t giving us much unfortunately either.

[simplyluvin]

Had some bad break shots go against us all year (Hobbs 3, etc)...but that 3 by a 25% role player to start OT was just brutal.

Since hearing one announcer say that Duke is 5th youngest team in DI this year...I have been checking box scores to look at ages. It is crazy how every good team this year...is old. Every big ten team has 22, 23, 24 yr olds. Heck even Michigan’s good freshman is older than Wendell. It really does seem this year that outside of the physical strength that age gives...mental strength by these older teams is incredibly beneficial. We just don’t have that right now.

This is probably fodder for a different thread, but the grad transfer market is the new OAD, and it behooves Coach to take advantage. It can be hit and miss, for sure, and the cards were really lucky to score big on Carlik, but why not target a few of the top grad transfers each year? You get maturity, experience, leadership, and it may be a great place to find good tested guards either with game or who can mentor our younger guys.

[Kedsy]

Before the game, we wondered what our offense would look like if we shot poorly from three. This game is the answer. On defense, we held Louisville to fairly low shooting percentages, but we were bad at everything else.

OFFENSE

Possessions: 74.2, for a pace of 65.9 (adjusting for the OT) (very close to Louisville's average pace)
oRtg: 0.98 (1.08 adjusted; not so hot, the equivalent of the #88 offense in the country)
eFG%: 48.3% (lousy; our 4th worst eFG of the season, as our 3pt shooting came crashing to Earth)
3pt%: 19.0% (horrendous; our worst 3pt performance of the season, after averaging 44% over our previous six games)
2pt%: 59.5% (very good, 5th game in our last seven over 59% from two (and 6th game out of seven over 55%))
%threes: 36.2% (Louisville's opponents on average take 42.3% of their shots from three, so this showed some good discipline on our part; or maybe it was because we couldn't hit the broad side of a you-know-what)
FT rate: 39.7% (here's some good news; our 2nd-best offensive FTR of the season)
OR%: 21.2% (and here's a bad bit; our 3rd-worst OR% of the season)
TO%: 16.2% (good; our 7th-best offensive TO% of the season)
a/to: 1.42:1
%assisted: 65.4% (another high number in this category)
fast break pts: 13 (17.8% of points; decent, not great)

DEFENSE

dRtg: 1.08 (1.01 adjusted; poor, the equivalent of the #155 defense in the country)
eFG%: 48.4% (not bad; our 8th-best opposing eFG% of the season)
3pt%: 33.3% (higher than Louisville's season average of 30.6%, but not terrible)
2pt%: 48.1% (good; our 5th-best opposing 2pt% of the season)
%threes: 18.2% (very good; 2nd-lowest defensive %three of the season)
FT rate: 36.4% (poor; our 6th-worst opposing FTR of the season)
DR%: 63.4% (yuck; our 5th-worst DR% of the season and third straight game under 67%)
TO%: 16.2% (also yuck; 6th-worst opposing TO% of the season)
a/to: 1:1 (14th game out of 20 in which our opponent's a/to has been 1:1 or lower)
%assisted: 40.0% (pretty low)
stl%: 9.4% (kind of meh)
blk%: 7.6% (9.3% of 2pt shots) (also kind of meh)
fast break pts: 16 (20.0% of points; disappointing)


Last game, our FTR was poor and our OR% was good, while this game we flipped those things, which ended up being more or less a wash. As a practical matter, the real difference between our #1 offense in the last game and our #88 offense in this game was our inability to shoot threes tonight. In fact, if we'd shot 38% from three instead of 19% (not even the 45% we shot last game), our adjusted oRating would have been in the 1.24 range, the equivalent of the 3rd or 4th best offense in the land. But we didn't, leading to our mediocre offensive showing. On defense, our opposing eFG% was good, but our FT rate, TO%, and DR% were all awful, leading to our worst defensive performance since the 2nd Notre Dame game.

[Namtilal]

This is probably fodder for a different thread, but the grad transfer market is the new OAD, and it behooves Coach to take advantage. It can be hit and miss, for sure, and the cards were really lucky to score big on Carlik, but why not target a few of the top grad transfers each year? You get maturity, experience, leadership, and it may be a great place to find good tested guards either with game or who can mentor our younger guys.

There is sense in what you say here, but this season is a serious outlier due to the pandemic. Instead of enrolling in summer session and getting workouts and pickup games with new teammates, these guys arrived late and had no sense of community. They are much more fresh than most freshmen.

Steward and Roach are great players who would have flourished more in a normal year. Even Wendell, who I thought was key to this year, didn't have the opportunity to improve that most guys have after their freshman season. (I still think that Wendell can make the leap next year and be the ultimate glue guy.)

I think teams like Gonzaga, Baylor, and Michigan deserve full credit and respect for their achievements this season, but at the same time, I do not feel it is fair to be as critical to young teams that struggled as if this was a normal season.

[UrinalCake]

Disappointing to take a L but the game was back and forth much like the UVA game and sometimes you end up on the wrong side of it. I actually thought our defense in OT was pretty good, Louisville just hit a bunch of tough shots. The first three by the 24% shooter from 30 feet with a hand in his face pretty well set the tone. Not great decisions to have Goldwire and Moore driving into crowded lanes, and we missed three or four free throws during a critical stretch with a few minutes to go that could have gotten us over the top. Hurt looked gassed to me starting with about 5 minutes in regulation. At least one of our timeouts appeared to have been called just to give him some rest. He was a warrior but needed help.

Here’s a rules question that I have - on one of Louisville’s last possessions we pressured the inbounds after a made basket and the ball was kicked by one of our players on the inbounds pass, so Louisville got it back. The Louisville player who was inbounding then ran back and forth before passing it in, which I thought he wasn’t allowed to do at that point.

Our path to the tournament just got rockier, but it still exists. GT will be a tough one.

[Kedsy]

It's been years since Duke blocked out on shots.

Defensive rebounding has never been once of Coach K's priorities, going back to 1981. And while our last three games have been disappointing from a DR perspective, it's a little odd to complain about it this season, since this year's team has Duke's best defensive rebounding% ever, since they started keeping track of defensive rebounds (in 1987).

It's also possible that our recent relatively poor DR performances may be at least partially related to the departure of Jalen Johnson, who was our best defensive rebounder.

My desire to see the team grow and win is why it is so frustrating to see poor personnel decisions in a winnable game with players that will be needed for seasons to come. No one can possibly say that benching our 7 ft tall leading shot blocker in a game we couldn't rebound or protect the rim was a smart call. It flat out cost the team the game.

Others have mentioned that Mark Williams wouldn't have been particularly helpful while we were pressing. I'd also note that Mark played 26 minutes, only the third time in his college career that he's played 20+ minutes (and in the other two he played 25 and 27 minutes). He looks like he's playing hard, and some big men get tired after 25 or so minutes. That may have played a factor, as well.

Need to value the ball more. The turnovers at the top of the key are killing us.

I don't particularly want to get into this argument again, but we did a pretty good job of not turning it over in this game (7th lowest TO% out of 20 games). In a game in which we shot 19% from three, it's hard to say it was the 12 turnovers in 45 minutes that killed us.

Here’s a rules question that I have - on one of Louisville’s last possessions we pressured the inbounds after a made basket and the ball was kicked by one of our players on the inbounds pass, so Louisville got it back. The Louisville player who was inbounding then ran back and forth before passing it in, which I thought he wasn’t allowed to do at that point.

I didn't notice that, but assuming it happened, the inbounder is not allowed to move their feet except after a made basket or free throw.

LOL. The mood swings on this board.

Seriously.

[UT Dukie]

Our Kenpom “luck” rating... smh. I don’t believe we’ve ever been so low. I initially thought this may just be the random effects part of the equation, but it appears to be something more. For us, it’s just our reality. We really can’t get much lower, though we also aren’t guaranteed to get any higher.

[rsvman]

I cannot join anyone in blaming the coaches for this game, since that was one of the best halftime adjustments ever. We just got tight at the end, and they had a mature guard to lean on.

Louisville was not going to let us beat them with the three, and our guards weren't experienced enough to adjust. I think there was a good reason to take Williams out, since being denied the three meant that we had to have space inside to work. The only change I would have preferred would have been to double Jones before he picked up his dribble and was ready to shoot.

We can still make the NCAA tourney. We just need to get 3 or 4 more wins and hope other teams lose, instead of having it completely in our control.

We didn't just get tight, we got exhausted, too. We had a lot of fresh legs on the bench. If K had allowed his best players a bit of rest periodically throughout the second half, maybe we would have had enough gas in the tank to eke out the win.
Too much three-guard play, not enough substitutions in general, and throwing Jones into the briar patch (ie, having Roach guard him on the perimeter down the stretch) were all fairly bad coaching errors, in my opinion. Despite all that, we get the win if even one of those rim-out and-1's falls. We had a chance at a win in regulation, too, if we could have rebounded a mlssed free throw. I think everybody assumed he would make it, and that's why we got out-hustled to the rebound.

I said this in the in-game thread, but counterintuitively we probably had a better chance of winning the game if he had made both free throws. We would have been down one, but we would have had the ball with 12-ish seconds left to play, and any basket would have been a game winner. (And if we had missed, losing in regulation that way would have been a lot less painful, imo.)

[Kedsy]

Our Kenpom “luck” rating... smh. I don’t believe we’ve ever been so low.

You are correct, we never have. FWIW, before this season, our worst "luck" rating was in 2007.

I said this in the in-game thread, but counterintuitively we probably had a better chance of winning the game if he had made both free throws. We would have been down one, but we would have had the ball with 12-ish seconds left to play, and any basket would have been a game winner. (And if we had missed, losing in regulation that way would have been a lot less painful, imo.)

I felt exactly the same, and foolishly said it out loud just before he missed and they got the rebound.

[mkirsh]

Our Kenpom “luck” rating... smh. I don’t believe we’ve ever been so low. I initially thought this may just be the random effects part of the equation, but it appears to be something more. For us, it’s just our reality. We really can’t get much lower, though we also aren’t guaranteed to get any higher.

Definitely didn’t have good luck tonight. There were numerous plays in the first half where the team played good D and got a block or tipped a pass that bounced right to a Louisville player who scored. Not to mention the foot on the line twos or balls rattling out.

On the coaching and game plan side, a few things I didn’t think were great - the return of the horrid 3-2 zone for a few possessions did nothing for us, and leaving Hurt in the game with four fouls in an obvious foul situation with time outs was nonsensical (not that it would have mattered). On the PNR defense, Louisville was really going after Hurt every time. On a few plays Duke actually had Moore jump out and switch with Hurt right before the screen at the end of regulation, until Louisville changes the sets to prevent this. Jones was just terrific, though I do wonder if Duke should have trapped (they did I once which led to the 3 in OT) or gone under the screen and let Jones try to beat them from 3. And on offense they really need to find a way to get Hurt more touches as there were too many stretches where he didn’t get the ball at all.

Oh well, on to the next one. Still a few more games for this group to see if they can go on a run.

[gep]

Here’s a rules question that I have - on one of Louisville’s last possessions we pressured the inbounds after a made basket and the ball was kicked by one of our players on the inbounds pass, so Louisville got it back. The Louisville player who was inbounding then ran back and forth before passing it in, which I thought he wasn’t allowed to do at that point.
.

I also thought that as I watched the game. Since the out of bounds play was after an infraction... and the made basket was one play earlier... I thought the inbounder was stuck to his position out of bounds... and I started yelling. Oh well...

[ScreechTDX1847]

My desire to see the team grow and win is why it is so frustrating to see poor personnel decisions in a winnable game with players that will be needed for seasons to come. No one can possibly say that benching our 7 ft tall leading shot blocker in a game we couldn't rebound or protect the rim was a smart call. It flat out cost the team the game.

Basically, this. Williams has been on a tear - not playing him in a game where we couldn't rebound and one UL guard was openly clearing out and attacking the basket for essentially 4 mins of game time is indefensible coaching. Anyone being honest with themselves was asking the same question for the entire latter half of the game.

[kshepinthehouse]

Definitely didn’t have good luck tonight. There were numerous plays in the first half where the team played good D and got a block or tipped a pass that bounced right to a Louisville player who scored. Not to mention the foot on the line twos or balls rattling out.

On the coaching and game plan side, a few things I didn’t think were great - the return of the horrid 3-2 zone for a few possessions did nothing for us, and leaving Hurt in the game with four fouls in an obvious foul situation with time outs was nonsensical (not that it would have mattered). On the PNR defense, Louisville was really going after Hurt every time. On a few plays Duke actually had Moore jump out and switch with Hurt right before the screen at the end of regulation, until Louisville changes the sets to prevent this. Jones was just terrific, though I do wonder if Duke should have trapped (they did I once which led to the 3 in OT) or gone under the screen and let Jones try to beat them from 3. And on offense they really need to find a way to get Hurt more touches as there were too many stretches where he didn’t get the ball at all.

Oh well, on to the next one. Still a few more games for this group to see if they can go on a run.

Interesting that people think Hurt should have had the ball more when he has 37 points. Or are you just referring to the OT period?

[kshepinthehouse]

Disappointing to take a L but the game was back and forth much like the UVA game and sometimes you end up on the wrong side of it. I actually thought our defense in OT was pretty good, Louisville just hit a bunch of tough shots. The first three by the 24% shooter from 30 feet with a hand in his face pretty well set the tone. Not great decisions to have Goldwire and Moore driving into crowded lanes, and we missed three or four free throws during a critical stretch with a few minutes to go that could have gotten us over the top. Hurt looked gassed to me starting with about 5 minutes in regulation. At least one of our timeouts appeared to have been called just to give him some rest. He was a warrior but needed help.

Here’s a rules question that I have - on one of Louisville’s last possessions we pressured the inbounds after a made basket and the ball was kicked by one of our players on the inbounds pass, so Louisville got it back. The Louisville player who was inbounding then ran back and forth before passing it in, which I thought he wasn’t allowed to do at that point.

Our path to the tournament just got rockier, but it still exists. GT will be a tough one.

The Duke player kicked the ball, after which the ref indicated that Louisville could still run the baseline. Coach K questioned it but I don’t know if that was the correct ruling or not. Duke kicking the ball shouldn’t cause the team to lose the advantage of running the baseline in my opinion.

However, it’s totally not true that the Louisville player “ran back and forth” before passing it in. From memory, he kind of shuffled his feet or maybe took a couple steps but he did not run back and forth.

[jv001]

Needless to say but our poor guard play was the difference in the game. Our guards scored 1 point in the first half and only 4 players scored at all. Goldwire had one point on a made FT. Louisville's guards are men and our guards look like high school freshmen compared to them. They need to get stronger during the offseason. One thing I noticed last night was Louisville made positive plays after their coach called a timeout. Duke players never made a positive play after Coach K called timeout. But that's on the players not the coach. As for not using Williams late in the game, I think Duke was caught between the rock and hard place. With Williams our rebounding chances go up but our press wouldn't have been as good. I thought Wendell had a good game despite a real bad turnover that came at a bad time. He and Hurt had to be worn out after the game. The next two games on the road will be tough and our guards will have to be stronger. Especially against GT's point guard. I know the team will fight but they will have to do a better job on the boards and they will have to shoot better from the outside.

OH, Brakefield is terrible on defense.

GoDuke!

[Saratoga2]

Louisville had the size, athleticism and experience to play a type of pack line. That gave them protection from our guards penetrating and a rebounding advantage. Steward tried to penetrate but faced very tough shots when he got in. The pack line also pressures the player dribbling so more rapid ball movement was in order. Goldwire plodded the ball up court and Moore is not a great passer so we seldom were getting open 3 point shots and when we did, the guys were just not hitting them. I think we just suffered from not having effective guard play. Our guys weren't able to exploit the 3 with movement and shooting and our experienced guards are not first class playmakers.

When Hurt got the ball he had to size to shoot over and he was hot. It was hard to get him the ball as Louisville was well aware of his abilities. Still, it shows how good Hurt really is.

Is the pack line somehow a better basic defense and if so, does it require an experienced team to run it effectively?