MBB: Ohio State 71, Duke 66 Post-Game Thread

[Billy Dat]

In terms of zone, I was thinking about it too but then I kept thinking we were better off with them hitting 2s instead of 3s as they tried to come back. While we took some bad shots, we also missed a few good looks and they nailed some big 3s after we’d played mostly good defense. It was just one of those games that slipped away because we couldn’t make that one basket to stem the tide. The possession off the commercial break when Paolo picked up that offensive foul was pivotal. I felt like if we could have scored there they’d have run out of time.

[dukelifer]

Ohio State came into this game shooting 73.9% from the line.

Tonight they shot 11-22 (50.0%).

Had they shot their season average-ish they would have been about 16-22. They’d have won this game by 10, not 5.

Duke’s free throw defense did look good tonight now that I think about it.

Duke shot 38% for the game. Gonna lose if you do that.

[heyman25]

Terrible second half, but the first half predicted it. Really really bad first half for us. Even up 13, I told my wife and texted my OSU friend that it wasn’t our night. We were playing really badly. They both thought I was crazy…. Not so much now.

I need all of the players to take 10,000 jumpers over the next 2 weeks since we don’t have another game until mid-December!

And coaches- please devise a better offense besides the dribble-weave. Hint: other teams are on to us. Keep ‘em guessing.

Best post I have seen. We need to have plays on offense. Banchero,Williams and Moore can be a lot more effective with some coordinated plays. Duke doesn't have any consistent perimeter shooters. Keels has gone ice cold. Baker hesitates to shoot when he is open. Roach is inconsistent. To be outscored 12 to 0 to end the game is not good basketball.

[rsvman]

I’d put it at first, just ahead of rough shooting nights from Trevor and Jeremy.

Took Banchero completely out of the game and left us with nothing in the block. If this game gets an even whistle, we play badly and win by 10

Agreed.

And I don't think Ohio State 'stopped turning it over.' I think we stopped turning them over because of the fouls and the fear of fouls.

[FerryFor50]

Bingo. For those wanting to blame the Duke players out there for poor shot selection at the end, they must’ve not been watching the game up to that point. The officiating truly did dictate what Duke could or couldn’t do on the offensive end those last 5 to 6 minutes of the game.

Yup. When you drive, get bumped and knocked to the floor with no call, you start settling for jumpers. When you get pushed out of position in the post with the same kind of contact that got Theo his fifth foul, you stop posting up.

When you get hit on a few threes with no call but the same amount of contact as Aherns got, you start hesitating to shoot them.

Duke shot just 14 threes on 65 shots, and a large number of those 51 non-three pointers were inside attempts. OSU shot 22 threes on 54 shots. Yet OSU shot 22 FTs to Duke’s 16, and would have had at least 4 more attempts if they hadn’t missed the front end of 1-1s several times.

The sequences that killed me were:

- when Roach got hit out of bounds going for a loose ball and got no call. Turnover. Immediately after, Moore puts a hand on Aherns and he falls out of bounds. Way less contact, same result, except this one was a foul.

- Keels goes for a rebound at the end of the end of the half. OSU goes over his back and knocks him out of position. OSU misses at the buzzer. Official calls a foul on Keels, OSU gets free throws.

- Key pushes Theo out of the way. Theo gets #5. Later, Key throws Williams out of the way on offense. No call.

Refs let OSU play however they wanted. No Buckeye had more than 3 fouls. Duke had 4 guys with 4 or more fouls. Think that doesn’t change how you defend? Or play offense?

[CameronDuke]

Duke shot 38% for the game. Gonna lose if you do that.

Yep, poor shooting game for Duke. Wish Baker would hunt his shot more sometimes. He hit the one 3 he attempted. But then he looked kinda hesitant to shoot after that. He had as good a chance as any to hit a 3 tonight for Duke in my opinion.

[mkirsh]

Yep, poor shooting game for Duke. Wish Baker would hunt his shot more sometimes. He hit the one 3 he attempted. But then he looked kinda hesitant to shoot after that. He had as good a chance as any to hit a 3 tonight for Duke in my opinion.

Friendly amendment: I wish he would hunt catch and shoot threes; I don't love him hunting turn around fade-aways off the drive

[luvdahops]

I'm gonna call you out not to be rude, but to ask. Did we really get knocked back? Because I don't think we did at all. We opened up a, what, 14-point lead? And we were up almost the entire game. Up 7 with 5 to play? I don't think that's getting knocked back at all.

The primary reason we lost is we didn't execute in the final 4 minutes. And it cost us the game.

Now, I also thought the officiating was too lopsided. Not necessary in the calls they made, per se. But in what we were allowed to do vs what OSU was allowed to do. And I thought it made the game confusing. Some will call that griping about refs but I think it's a fair criticism. Add in the fact that it was an away game in the B1G/ACC Challenge, just felt, well, strange.

- Chillin

I think we clearly got knocked back over the last 10 minutes or so. We got soft and passive on offense, either settling for bad perimeter shots or not going strong to the basket. No one seemed to want to take charge for us at that end of the floor. And we couldn’t seem to keep OSU from getting either shots at the rim or open looks on the perimeter. Officiating had something to do with it, to be sure. But are you really not troubled by the way we responded - or didn’t respond - as the game tightened? Do you not think Ohio State looked tougher in the end? Or fresher? If so, we must’ve been watching different games.

[J4Kop99]

I’d put it at first, just ahead of rough shooting nights from Trevor and Jeremy.

Took Banchero completely out of the game and left us with nothing in the block. If this game gets an even whistle, we play badly and win by 10

1. Strange coaching (or lack thereof)
2. Lack of composure and settling for bad shots last 10 mins
3. Refs inconsistent officiating impacting our ability to attack and defend

[thedukeman]

If Duke doesn't have 2 away games in 5 days, Ohio State doesn't get 6 days off, and we play at a neutral site I think Duke wins comfortably. Oh well who tf cares. Long season.

[Ultrarunner]

Or even a reliable two-point shot. Any kind of shot that goes through the basket would be nice.

We have one of those in Wendell. More would be helpful.

[Meckler]

I actually liked that. We should have done it longer. The only chance we had of winning was to make the game end as quickly as possible. We should have gone back to the zone when there was about five minutes left and then gone into that damn weave and never put up a shot with more than 8 seconds left on the shot clock for the rest of the game.
Might've actually won the game had we done that.

There are times to slow things down and run time off the clock. But not with 3 minutes to go and the score as close as it was. This team struggled mightily, down the stretch, when the shot-clock got under 10 seconds. They forced a bunch of shots instead of trying to score in their “normal” flow.

[SavDukeGrad]

Coach K just said in the press conference (beginning was on ESPN) that we were worn out, they wore us out, we didn’t play with the same foot speed that we usually do, and we didn’t play without fouling like we usually do - 23 fouls.

[Billy Dat]

K - “ “I thought we got worn out, they’re physical and they were fresh. It’s the most we’ve fouled and that’s uncharacteristic for us - and we were not able to finish. Our kids tried like crazy but they were worn out.”

-Via Dave Shumate’s twitter feed

[CameronDuke]

Friendly amendment: I wish he would hunt catch and shoot threes; I don't love him hunting turn around fade-aways off the drive

Yeah, that is true. That fade-away turn around shot off the dribble he air balled was terrible. He is definitely a better catch and shoot guy. To his credit, he played pretty solid defense tonight. Got his hand on a few passes and made some deflections.

[azzefkram]

A disappointing loss but hopefully one Duke can learn from. While I agree with many that have stated that Duke got a capital H hose job by the refs, there were more than enough self inflicted errors that Duke earned the L. Duke played young in the second half. They will get better.

[UrinalCake]

Lots of talk about the officiating... my opinion is that you're not going to get calls on the road. If you go into the game expecting it then you won't be as upset by it. It's just a fact that the home team gets a favorable whistle, and it's one of the reasons why winning on the road is so hard.

There were definitely bad calls tonight, but also some bad plays by us that made it easier for calls to go against us. I choose to focus on those because we can actually do something about it. Banchero's offensive foul when he swung his elbows out, Moore grabbing a player's arm 25 feet from the basket, and a few others were just bad plays by us at key moments. When those happen on top of the bad calls then it just compounds.

Tonight was a tough loss. The best we can hope for is that the team uses it as motivation to improve.

[kako]

If Duke wins the ACC they will get a 1 seed.

I agree completely. Our #1 seed hopes relied on this one game? I beg to differ. If they win the ACC regular season and tournament with no bad loses, they will have a #1 seed.

9F

[ChillinDuke]

I think we clearly got knocked back over the last 10 minutes or so. We got soft and passive on offense, either settling for bad perimeter shots or not going strong to the basket. No one seemed to want to take charge for us at that end of the floor. And we couldn’t seem to keep OSU from getting either shots at the rim or open looks on the perimeter. Officiating had something to do with it, to be sure. But are you really not troubled by the way we responded - or didn’t respond - as the game tightened? Do you not think Ohio State looked tougher in the end? Or fresher? If so, we must’ve been watching different games.

I agree, mostly. I just don't call that getting knocked back. We didn't respond and we didn't execute. In terms of coachspeak, my terms are different than getting knocked back. I guess it's semantics because I agree we didn't respond. But like you said, fouls had something to do with that.

- Chillin

[FerryFor50]

Friendly amendment: I wish he would hunt catch and shoot threes; I don't love him hunting turn around fade-aways off the drive

I don’t think Baker passed up that many open looks. He wasn’t really open on most of his catches; his guy was closing fast and he has a slow release, so it would have been a bad shot.

I like that he’s shot faking more and trying to score in other ways so he can open up his threes more. Teams really sell out to stop him from shooting them.