Duke 77, Tech 81 Post Game Thread

[CDu]

You can argue around the edges why and to what degree. But I don't think there's any question that DJ and Roach didn't show up against Louisville and barely any more present against GT. They were the scapegoats for these losses, unfortunately.

That's not an indictment of them. It's just a pretty obvious fact. And also a huge bummer.

- Chillin

Yes, our guards as a trio were nonexistent against Louisville. Goldwire played better against Tech, but Roach and Steward struggled again.

Both of the freshmen have shown great signs this season, but they have also had clunkers. I think they'll be much better next year with a more regular offseason to build off of their learnings as freshmen. I think folks tend to forget that most freshmen aren't the super-studs we've gotten accustomed to over the last several years. They aren't the uber-elite one and done players. More like the Kennards and Nolan Smiths of years past.

[jv001]

I don't see it -- doesn't seem to do anything really well; he shoots from distance but doesn't hit a good percentage, doesn't look good from the FT line (less than 50% this year) doesn't handle real well, not a great passer, has size but doesn't get a lot of rebounds or move well on defense. What skill does he have to build on and make himself a good ACC player?

I'd be happy to be wrong. I see more potential certainly for Steward and also for Roach.

I'm with you roywhite. I just don't see it with Brakefield. Sure he saved our bacon against VA but Jaemyn has been more inconsistent than our freshmen guards who have played badly the last two games. I've always heard that defense get's players minutes under Coach K. If that's the case, Brakefield must be a Billy King in practice because I don't see it in games. He loses his man, he's out of place and never in a defensive position/form. I can't remember seeing a Duke player getting turned around in circles as much as Jaemyn. In his 19 minutes last night he took as many shots as Hurt did in his 29 minutes. Matthew was 5 for his 8 and Jaemyn was 1 for his 8. I'd love to see what Coleman III and Joey could do with those kinds of minutes. Baker has improved his defense this season and plays the top of the Duke zone very well. Coleman III seems to do the little things that can help the team and does not get pushed around.

GTHC!
GoDuke!

[roywhite]

Out of the timeout with 6.1 in regulation, did K really draw up Goldwire to Brake for the win. Brake was 1-7 and 0-3 from three with nothing coming close to going in...as was his last shot.

at some point, you have to take what the defense gives you...

Yeah, I re-watched that play a few times. Goldwire rushed up court; he could have gone to Baker at the top of the key (looked like Baker was motioning for the ball) but Brakefield was more open in the right corner. Had a clean look.

[DukieInBrasil]

What’s really crazy is that this team is literally 2 buckets from having won 6 in a row and having everyone saying “watch out for Duke, they are peaking at the right time!” This team has been snakebit in close games.

I agree with the general consensus that guard play was rough the last two games, which is really hard to overcome. I also think last night the team let it’s offensive struggles seep into its defensive focus, which can happen with young teams.

Only one thing left to do - beat Carolina on Saturday!

2 FTs even! With so many missed FTs, it's hard to pick any one out in particular, but in both games where we had already missed more than 5 by the end of regulation, any one of those misses would have won the game in regulation.

[Channing]

Yeah, I re-watched that play a few times. Goldwire rushed up court; he could have gone to Baker at the top of the key (looked like Baker was motioning for the ball) but Brakefield was more open in the right corner. Had a clean look.

Perhaps Goldwire maxes out his ability ... but IMO the first mistake was giving him the ball to bring up the court. For better or worse (and last night certainly better), Moore was our best option going to the goal with Williams crashing for a put back. I'm sure the team practices the under 10 second drill regularly, but that was just poorly done.

[dukelifer]

Steward is shooting 82% from the FT line this season. I don't know that FTs are high on his list of needs.

Roach (67.6%), on the other hand...

These guys all have the raw tools. They need to get stronger and more consistent in their shooting and their ability to read defenses.

[Class of '94]

This is not an attempt at putting down or degrading Jeremy Roach. Rather, I wanted to get the opinion of more knowledgeable people on this board as to whether or not Jeremy is still working through after-effects of having an ACL injury (I believe??) from HS. I thought I remember reading an article from DBR that talked about how Coach K saw Jeremy play a game and fell in love with the way he played the PG position (I'm assuming defense included).

Like others have said, I don't see "it" in Roach's game. It's probably been said in the Louisville post game thread and other places; but it appears that teams are targeting him on defense and whoever is being guarded by him, goes right at him on offense. It felt like Louisville was doing that all night in that game.

I'm wondering if his defensive issues as well as lack of quickness and lateral movement are due to the fact that he is still recovering from his knee issues and needs more time to get all the way back to 100%. He reminds me alot of the way Quinn looked when he first came to Duke after having an a knee injury. Granted, Quinn was never the quickest PG on the court but I felt over his career, his quickness and movement got better (to the point he was a capable defensive player in the NCAAT his senior year). Now, I don't know if his increased effectiveness was due to just hardwork, taking time to fully recover; or a combination of both; but again, I wonder if the knee issue has slowed him down a bit.

[gofurman]

Mark kept us in the game in OT, but had he made even one more in regulation, we'd have a drastically different tone on this board. He'll learn to make those for the team in the future, but FT futility really hurt us.

general guard play needs to improve.. get and make more FTs... be tougher and drive/dish/decisions - I bet the guards improve on all this over the summer. Goldwire? Roach Steward will be good next yr w time to work on it

[mkirsh]

Perhaps Goldwire maxes out his ability ... but IMO the first mistake was giving him the ball to bring up the court. For better or worse (and last night certainly better), Moore was our best option going to the goal with Williams crashing for a put back. I'm sure the team practices the under 10 second drill regularly, but that was just poorly done.

Having flashbacks to the end of the UNC game...

If the play way for gold wire to race it up court and then find an open shooter, that makes sense as you don’t want JGold as one of the catch and shoot options. Brakefield has been a capable (albeit streaky) shooter and it was a very clean look. With Hurt out there just aren’t a lot of guys who inspire confidence in a last second shot. But at least we got the attempt of this time, so baby steps I guess.

One last thing about this game - it’s a shame it’s such a shortened season. If we had more games left, I could see Coach K installing an NBA style PNR offense around Williams with Mark diving the lane for lobs with shooters (Hurt, Steward, and Moore in the corner) spreading the floor, instead of the pick-and-pop stuff they run with Hurt. Not exclusively, but it showed a lot of promise last night but there just isn’t time for the team to perfect it.

[CDu]

This is not an attempt at putting down or degrading Jeremy Roach. Rather, I wanted to get the opinion of more knowledgeable people on this board as to whether or not Jeremy is still working through after-effects of having an ACL injury (I believe??) from HS. I thought I remember reading an article from DBR that talked about how Coach K saw Jeremy play a game and fell in love with the way he played the PG position (I'm assuming defense included).

Like others have said, I don't see "it" in Roach's game. It's probably been said in the Louisville post game thread and other places; but it appears that teams are targeting him on defense and whoever is being guarded by him, goes right at him on offense. It felt like Louisville was doing that all night in that game.

I'm wondering if his defensive issues as well as lack of quickness and lateral movement are due to the fact that he is still recovering from his knee issues and needs more time to get all the way back to 100%. He reminds me alot of the way Quinn looked when he first came to Duke after having an a knee injury. Granted, Quinn was never the quickest PG on the court but I felt over his career, his quickness and movement got better (to the point he was a capable defensive player in the NCAAT his senior year). Now, I don't know if his increased effectiveness was due to just hardwork, taking time to fully recover; or a combination of both; but again, I wonder if the knee issue has slowed him down a bit.

Roach is 2+years removed from the ACL injury (he played his senior year of high school after missing his junior year), so I'm pretty sure he's not dealing with that any more. I think the issue is more that his game in high school was an athlete's game and he's still adjusting to the level of competition/athleticism at the college level.

Defense is almost always the last thing to come, as in high school the D-1 prospects are just SOOO much better than their competition that they don't have to work as hard at it. On top of that, the offenses are far less organized than they are in college, and the penalty for a defensive lapse in high school is far less (because the offenses aren't as good).

On offense, he's hindered by adjustment to the college size and speed, whereas in high school he knew he could blow by just about anyone and get to the rim, and getting to the rim didn't usually involve going through a bunch of big and athletic bodies able to contest his shot. With time, he should start to adapt to that as well.

Part of the problem for Roach and Steward is that we wound up with two less defensive-minded freshmen guards at the same time, which is compounded by having our star player not be a good defender. It's rare that we start 2 freshman guards. The last time we did that was 2018-19, but one of those was a defensive-minded guy (Tre Jones) and we were strong defensively at several other spots (DeLaurier, Bolden, Williamson, Reddish, White). For our current freshmen, neither is a great defender, and the only experienced defensive option we have at guard is pretty weak offensively. So it's a bit of a "robbing Peter to pay Paul" situation.

[Chicago 1995]

You can argue around the edges why and to what degree. But I don't think there's any question that DJ and Roach didn't show up against Louisville and barely any more present against GT. They were the scapegoats for these losses, unfortunately.

That's not an indictment of them. It's just a pretty obvious fact. And also a huge bummer.

- Chillin

Probably just semantics, but I don't think it's fair to say that they "didn't show up." To me, that implies a lack of preparation and effort, and I didn't see that. I saw a couple of freshman who got outplayed, in no small part because of the physicality of their much more mature opponents. There's no question they had bad games, but I think they showed up. They just learned how far they have to go. The whole team has a long way to go against big, physical opponents. Brakefield's got to be stronger with the ball. Wendell's handle in games like this has improved over the course of the year, but he's got to finish stronger. Too many shots blocked and balls lost at the rim. Hurt got baited into a really physical game tonight and joined a long list of players who got Valentined as a result. The whole team needed to be stronger on the glass tonight.

We're a finesse team, top to bottom, and its particularly evident when our freshman guards go against guys the age of Jones and Alvarado.

[FerryFor50]

I'm with you roywhite. I just don't see it with Brakefield. Sure he saved our bacon against VA but Jaemyn has been more inconsistent than our freshmen guards who have played badly the last two games. I've always heard that defense get's players minutes under Coach K. If that's the case, Brakefield must be a Billy King in practice because I don't see it in games. He loses his man, he's out of place and never in a defensive position/form. I can't remember seeing a Duke player getting turned around in circles as much as Jaemyn. In his 19 minutes last night he took as many shots as Hurt did in his 29 minutes. Matthew was 5 for his 8 and Jaemyn was 1 for his 8. I'd love to see what Coleman III and Joey could do with those kinds of minutes. Baker has improved his defense this season and plays the top of the Duke zone very well. Coleman III seems to do the little things that can help the team and does not get pushed around.

GTHC!
GoDuke!

I disagree about Brakefield.

He has a lot of potential as a playmaker. He has good vision and makes some nice passes to cutters (like his nifty bounce pass to a cutting Matt Hurt last night). Putting him at the FT line to make plays next year I think would be a good offensive set.

He isn't *great* on defense, but I think a lot of that is due to reps and experience. He's made some nice weakside blocked shot and should get stronger in the offseason.

Jaemyn's biggest problem to me is shot selection. He took too many shots last night and the worst was when he took a shot instead of feeding the post on a Hurt mismatch. I like Coleman, but I think Brakefield is better right now, and Baker.. well, if defense is your concern, Baker isn't going to solve that problem.

[FerryFor50]

What’s really crazy is that this team is literally 2 buckets from having won 6 in a row and having everyone saying “watch out for Duke, they are peaking at the right time!” This team has been snakebit in close games.

I agree with the general consensus that guard play was rough the last two games, which is really hard to overcome. I also think last night the team let it’s offensive struggles seep into its defensive focus, which can happen with young teams.

Only one thing left to do - beat Carolina on Saturday!

I agree - this team can't seem to catch any breaks. On one sequence last night, Hurt had a sure rebound but Wright knocked it loose (and perhaps was over the back) and the ball didn't bounce away from them. Instead, it had some english on it and bounced right back to Wright for an easy dunk, since Hurt was knocked off balance.

Then, there was another weird bounce that kicked out towards half court right near a GT player, who dove on it and created a jump ball out of what should have been a sure turnover.

Lots of loose balls bouncing to the other team all year long in these close games. That hurts.

Watching your best player foul out with plenty of time left in the game on some really ticky tack calls trying to return physicality after being held and grabbed in the post all game, while their best post player only picks up 1 foul a majority of the game despite being very physical in the post also hurts.

It also hurts when guys who don't shoot real well all year long decide to have really good games against you, or when a 28% 3pt shooter who barely played all game comes off the bench and drains a 3 to open the overtime session.

But, there's also the saying "you make your own luck."

Not valuing the ball, turning it over at the top of the key on lazy passes leading to easy points, not being as fast to the loose balls, not hitting key FTs down the stretch, not crashing the boards, not converting *your* lucky opportunities (like when Goldwire blew the open layup in OT off a weird bounce offensive rebound)...

Granted, it's felt like this team has had to play near flawlessly to win games while the other team can play so-so and pull it out. I don't think GT played super well; I feel like they got 2nd chances from turnovers and opportune offensive boards and converted them, while we didn't. Remember, Tech wasted an 8 point lead and had to go into OT. If Duke had done that, we'd be complaining about not closing out games.

[scottdude8]

I agree - this team can't seem to catch any breaks. On one sequence last night, Hurt had a sure rebound but Wright knocked it loose (and perhaps was over the back) and the ball didn't bounce away from them. Instead, it had some english on it and bounced right back to Wright for an easy dunk, since Hurt was knocked off balance.

Then, there was another weird bounce that kicked out towards half court right near a GT player, who dove on it and created a jump ball out of what should have been a sure turnover.

Lots of loose balls bouncing to the other team all year long in these close games. That hurts.

Watching your best player foul out with plenty of time left in the game on some really ticky tack calls trying to return physicality after being held and grabbed in the post all game, while their best post player only picks up 1 foul a majority of the game despite being very physical in the post also hurts.

It also hurts when guys who don't shoot real well all year long decide to have really good games against you, or when a 28% 3pt shooter who barely played all game comes off the bench and drains a 3 to open the overtime session.

But, there's also the saying "you make your own luck."

Not valuing the ball, turning it over at the top of the key on lazy passes leading to easy points, not being as fast to the loose balls, not hitting key FTs down the stretch, not crashing the boards, not converting *your* lucky opportunities (like when Goldwire blew the open layup in OT off a weird bounce offensive rebound)...

Granted, it's felt like this team has had to play near flawlessly to win games while the other team can play so-so and pull it out. I don't think GT played super well; I feel like they got 2nd chances from turnovers and opportune offensive boards and converted them, while we didn't. Remember, Tech wasted an 8 point lead and had to go into OT. If Duke had done that, we'd be complaining about not closing out games.

I'm glad I not the only one who saw this. As I was taking notes on the game last night, I kept writing something one of two things: "Great defense by Williams forces a bad shot by Wright", or, "Wright gets an easy bucket off a lucky bounce on an offensive rebound." Maybe it's the basketball gods paying us back for the incredible run we've has a Duke fans, but the ball just hasn't bounced our way this year, let alone last night. I will take away from last night that Mark Williams has a high-ceiling future, and anyone projecting lineups for next season that doesn't have Williams as a starter hasn't watched the last month of basketball closely.

[FerryFor50]

I'm glad I not the only one who saw this. As I was taking notes on the game last night, I kept writing something one of two things: "Great defense by Williams forces a bad shot by Wright", or, "Wright gets an easy bucket off a lucky bounce on an offensive rebound." Maybe it's the basketball gods paying us back for the incredible run we've has a Duke fans, but the ball just hasn't bounced our way this year, let alone last night. I will take away from last night that Mark Williams has a high-ceiling future, and anyone projecting lineups for next season that doesn't have Williams as a starter hasn't watched the last month of basketball closely.

Not just the bounces. There've been plenty of times Duke plays good defense and forces a heavily contested shot from a player not used to taking that kind of shot and it just... goes in. Or, playing good team defense and forcing a contested shot late into the shot clock and it... goes in.

Sure, that happens to *every* team at some point, but it sure feels like it's happened to Duke more this year than past years. And I think it's cost us games and has made our defensive efficiency rating worse than it probably should be. They don't take "forcing a team into a bad shot" into account in those stats.

[scottdude8]

I stayed away from the post-game thread as I wrote up my piece last night, but I wanted to pop in to say one thing. The idea that we're writing off our freshmen after two bad games in this of all seasons is flat out ridiculous. We have to stop comparing every freshmen we get to the Jones bros, to Jahlil Okafor, to Zion/RJ/Cam, etc. Most everywhere else in the country, freshmen that aren't surefire OAD lottery picks struggle at times. They also show flashes of brilliance. But it takes time for them to develop and realize their potential. These freshmen are already behind the eight ball thanks to the shortened off-season, the chaos of the pandemic year, etc.

Mark Williams is a gem that should be around another couple years (based on how the NBA values bigs) and is showing the potential to become a FORCE in the ACC. DJ Steward has had two awful games at the worst time, but he's also shown an ability to consistently score in the ACC that should only grow. Jeremy Roach is struggling, but most every freshman point guard struggles (have we already forgotten how frustrated we all were with Trevon Duval?). He, too, has shown flashes, and I think there's a reason K wanted him over other guys in the class. I trust that he can take a big leap from year 1 to year 2. And Brakefield and Coleman are both 4* recruits, not 5* potential OADs... no one expected them to be impact players entering the season, so holding them up to the standard of our other freshmen, let alone our past freshmen, is inherently flawed.

Last night was an extremely frustrating and heartbreaking loss. But let's please not not catastrophize this to "we're doomed next season!" like many have. Not only do I think that's beneath the general tenor of this board, it's an argument that just simply isn't grounded in the reality of what is typically expected of non-OAD lottery freshmen.

Let's support these kids, root our butts off for them to pull off the upset on Saturday, and then get excited about the growth we could potentially see from them going into next year, where we could potentially have one of the more experienced groups we've have in a while. If this core stays together, and learns from going through the fire of this season, there's a lot to be excited about.

[uh_no]

I stayed away from the post-game thread as I wrote up my piece last night, but I wanted to pop in to say one thing. The idea that we're writing off our freshmen after two bad games in this of all seasons is flat out ridiculous. We have to stop comparing every freshmen we get to the Jones bros, to Jahlil Okafor, to Zion/RJ/Cam, etc. Most everywhere else in the country, freshmen that aren't surefire OAD lottery picks struggle at times. They also show flashes of brilliance. But it takes time for them to develop and realize their potential. These freshmen are already behind the eight ball thanks to the shortened off-season, the chaos of the pandemic year, etc.

freshmen are freshmen. people forget that when they're not zion williamson.

[53n206]

"Some days are diamonds - Some days are coal." As it is with basketball teams. A lot more diamond days when you have two or three diamond players on the court at the same time. We don't have that now. Perhaps next year? Perhaps never again,

[FerryFor50]

Mark Williams is a gem that should be around another couple years (based on how the NBA values bigs) and is showing the potential to become a FORCE in the ACC.

I'd argue Williams is *already* a force. He went up against one of the best bigs in the ACC (a 6'9" senior who averages 18ppg, 8.3rpg and 1.7 bpg) and more than held his own on offense (20pts, 7 boards), and was also able to block 3 shots and get 3 steals. He got pushed around a bit, but overall, I was impressed.

He also is able to score in a variety of ways as a big. It's not all dunks/lobs. He gets putbacks. He catches some *tough* passes on the break and converts, he hits the mid range jumper consistently, he has some post moves (albeit limited) and he even had a nifty floater in the lane last night. He's not like *any* big I've seen at Duke on offense. Looking forward to seeing how he progresses.

[FerryFor50]

freshmen are freshmen. people forget that when they're not zion williamson.

It's a good example of recency bias and how spoiled we've been as fans.