MBB: Duke 88, NCSU 73

[Bob Green]

Discuss the game here.

[Native]

Vegas knows all.

[scottdude8]

We may look back on this game as a turning point for Mark Williams. NC State lacks a traditional center and we’ve seen how Mark has been taken out of those type of matchups. Today, he turned that mismatch to HIS advantage, obviously defensively but also by attacking the rim offensively.

Today we saw the Mark we saw in the ACCT last season and we’ve been hoping to see all season. If he continues to take advantage of mismatches rather than be taken advantage of, this team’s ceiling elevates even more.

[CDu]

We may look back on this game as a turning point for Mark Williams. NC State lacks a traditional center and we’ve seen how Mark has been taken out of those type of matchups. Today, he turned that mismatch to HIS advantage, obviously defensively but also by attacking the rim offensively.

Today we saw the Mark we saw in the ACCT last season and we’ve been hoping to see all season. If he continues to take advantage of mismatches rather than be taken advantage of, this team’s ceiling elevates even more.

Well, it was certainly a great game by Williams… but State DOES have a traditional C. Dowuona is basically the same type of player Williams is, just an inch shorter and not as good.

[scottdude8]

Well, it was certainly a great game by Williams… but State DOES have a traditional C. Dowuona is basically the same type of player Williams is, just an inch shorter and not as good.

Dang, well that did NOT come across to me on my couch! Either Mark played that well or I wasn’t watching as closely as I usually do, haha. Maybe I just was assuming based on Bates being out for the year…

[CameronDuke]

Good win, sloppy at times, but covered the spread and moved to 14-2, 4-1. Pretty good record for mid January.

Big Mark was dominant. 2 blocks shy of a triple double. 19 points, 11 boards, and 8 blocks. Along with 2 assists and a steal. The assist to Banchero where he was falling out of bounds and threw a bounce pass to Banchero for the dunk was sweet. As was the volleyball spike for one of his blocks. Great game!

Banchero continues to impress offensively. 21 points and 8 rebounds. He’s a stud.

Moore Jr. ended up with 15 points. Good but not great game from him.

Theo John and Joey Baker played great off the bench. Roach appears he could be buried deep into the bench.

Lots of dumb turnovers that need to be cleaned up.

Duke does not appear to be a great 3-point shooting or free throw shooting team this season.

Tough game for Griffin.

Duke should be favored pretty heavily at FSU Tuesday.

[UrinalCake]

A solid win that should have been more like a 25-30 point win if not for some lapses in focus and atrocious free throw shooting. Mark is just a one man wrecking crew. Contributions from everywhere, including the bench which I thought played really well. Moore had some bad turnovers but overall had a better game than the past two. The commentators mentioned the team having fun, and it sure looked like they were today. Hopefully we've turned the corner after the covid pause and are back on track.

[lmb]

Good to see Theo John get some quality minutes. Lots of good assists. Defense seemed a little porous at times. NC State was getting into the lane pretty easily but having Williams there stopped a lot of buckets.

The crowd was loud and had good energy

[heyman25]

We had overall a good performance today. However a lot of simply careless possessions and very poor defensive rebounding. NC State had many offensive rebounds with second and third chance points.

[KandG]

Weird to be simultaneously pleased with a lot of things in the game and annoyed with a lot of things. All in all, we physically dominated an opponent the way we were supposed to and after a rough first few minutes, largely limited the damage from their brilliant individual creators in a way we didn’t against Miami.

Thought we switched off after Mark and then Theo took turns just bullying State in the paint in the second half. Sloppy turnovers and slack defense on those high screens, plus giving up all those offensive rebounds (State rebounded 22 of their 45 missed shots, which is insane) allowed the game to remain in striking distance until we pulled away.

Could have been a 20 point win easily but at least we cleaned it up at the end (and made our last six FTs after only making 8 of the first 18).

Great game for Mark (8 blocks, numerous and-ones, no personal fouls), good game for Theo after the rough outing against Wake, Keels with very good reads and great entry passes, Paolo with his usual dominance against an overmatched opponent.

Not really the game for AJ, 3 point shot wasn’t falling and he was having a tough time with the way State’s wings attacked, wasn’t moving his feet that well defending screens and not getting to the boards either. Joey had some good moments and was very aggressive, getting to the line, though the FT shooting yips are weird (missed 4 of his last 6).

Enjoyed listening to Debbie Antonelli on the broadcast, outstanding with her analysis throughout.

[CameronDuke]

The offense on Kenpom for Duke moved from 13 to 12 today. The defense dropped from 17 to 18.

Duke remained 11th overall.

[FerryFor50]

Great win! Shaky at times - especially when they got a comfortable lead - and the defensive rebounding still needs work, but overall a good showing.

In the pre-game thread, I gave some keys to the game and I wanted to go back and see how accurate I was.

I think Seabron lights us up

16 points on 7-17 shooting. Not exactly lighting us up, but a solid game. Looks like Duke scouted him well and when you have a mistake eraser like Mark Williams, that helps. I think he blocker Seabron 3 times and Paolo got him once. Almost all his other attempts were well contested.

- Do one or both of Smith/Hellems also have good games? Duke hasn't defended the 3 that well this season and they are very good shooters

Hellems was overmatched/tried to do too much and got into foul trouble. But he did hit an uncontested three on Paolo. Only 2 attempts though.

Smith, after looking like he was on his way to a huge game early, quieted a bit and shot 1-9 from outside.

Overall, the Wuffies hit just 26% of their threes and didn’t get a lot of open looks. Consider my concern about Duke’s three point defense quelled.

- Do State's bigs give them enough to keep Duke from eating them alive in the paint? If we get the same Paolo we saw against Wake (who has better bigs than State) and Mark plays well, that will be huge. State's bigs are bit foul prone

Welp. Ross was out with an injury, which meant State had to slide Hellems to an inside role and he got eaten alive. Douwana had a solid game outside of his foul trouble and despite being thoroughly outplayed by Mark (and even Theo), he had some good follow dunks after Mark sold out for a blocked shot and no one boxed Douwana out.

We did get the Wake version of Paolo, and Mark was a beast.

- Can we force State into turnovers? They average 10.2 a game and are 300th in the country in assists. In watching them, they seem to rely a lot on Seabron, Hellems and Smith in ISO plays, which means there's a chance to turn them over a decent amount and get some transition buckets.

- Can Duke take care of the ball and keep State from outrebounding them? State is actually a worse rebounding team than Duke this season, but that doesn't mean Duke won't give up inexplicable 2nd chance points.

Force turnovers? Kind of. 11 for State, just over their average.

Transition points off turnovers? Eye test, yes. But need to find that in the stats. Felt like Duke got points off most of those State turnovers.

Take care of the ball? Meh. They got sloppy when they had big leads and actually turned it over more than State. Moore and Banchero had 4 each.

Rebound? Duke tied the total boards battle and did well on the offensive glass, but man they give up way too many 2nd chance points for having that kind of size advantage. And since State shot 41% and Duke shot 58%, the rebounding advantage should have been more. This is an area of concern for me.

- Can AJ continue his hot shooting? Can another player step up to hit some outside shots? It feels like one of Keels/Moore is due for a good shooting game. Is this the game where Moore returns to form?

AJ cooled off a bit this game and didn’t get a ton of shots. Keels shot ok (2-6), but Duke didn’t really shoot a ton of threes this game. They hammered the undersized Wolfpack in the paint. Moore didn’t attempt a three, but did score a bit more this game.

- Which Paolo shows up? The aggressive one from the Wake game who does his damage mostly in the paint? Or the Paolo that settles for contested mid range jumpers?

Aggressive Paolo showed up and State had no answer. Most ACC teams won’t. Will be nice if Paolo starts getting more calls when he gets hit on his shot attempts. But 21 on 8-11 shooting and no three point attempts? I’ll take it! Just don’t want to see him bringing it up against a press much, or at least if he does, isn’t trying to get fancy on his dribbles - Jayson Tatum used to do this a lot as well.

Glad this game was mostly comfortable after a shaky start!

[FerryFor50]

Roach appears he could be buried deep into the bench.

He played 23 min today and 19 last game. Hardly buried deep into the bench.

What has changed is his role. He’s now a spark off the bench and more of a distributor than scorer.

[uh_no]

i take back what i said about the discount bouncing bulldogs. they were legit. I'll always pull for the hometown team, but the one guy did do a backflip. well done, kids.

[Stray Gator]

We had overall a good performance today. However a lot of simply careless possessions and very poor defensive rebounding. NC State had many offensive rebounds with second and third chance points.

[Reposting this from the now-locked in-game thread.] We've seen plenty of Duke teams, particularly with lineups consisting mostly of less experienced players, exhibit a disconcerting tendency to relax after building a big lead and allow the other team to quickly close the gap. This team has already done that a few times. And it always elevates our collective blood pressure to see the lazy passes, sloppy turnovers, and poor shots that ensue during those stretches. The encouraging thing, though, is that this group has shown uncommon resiliency, and has usually been able to ramp their intensity level back up and regain control by putting out the fire, pushing the lead back up, and finishing strong.

It's still frustrating to watch the team play good defense for 20 seconds, force a tough shot with guys in good position for the defensive rebound, but then allow an opposing player to dart in for an easy layup or putback dunk. Unlike some of the second-chance opportunities we've customarily allowed, that specific shortcoming has nothing to do with the style of defense we play; it's a function of failing to block out, pure and simple. I hope that Jon and his staff will add some emphasis to that phase of the game, which just has never been a Duke strength under K.

This was a good win, well worth celebrating, and indicates that the team is now largely recovered from the pandemic pause and the holiday break. Still plenty for the coaches and players to work on, and hopefully refine, as we plunge into the heart of the conference schedule.

[DoubleBlue]

The offense on Kenpom for Duke moved from 13 to 12 today. The defense dropped from 17 to 18.

Duke remained 11th overall.

Duke now 10th, moved ahead of LSU who was upset by Arkansas at home.

[CrazyNotCrazie]

Nice to get a win by a comfortable margin. There were many bright spots, and some not-so-bright spots. I really enjoyed seeing the bench come in and make a positive contribution. I liked Mark putting up a lot of points. AJ stepped back from the past few games but we didn't need as much from him. Paolo had a number of smooth plays.

One question I want to raise is that though we are celebrating Mark's blocks (and they are awesome to watch, especially the volleyball spike), at times it seemed like we were so aggressively going after blocked shots that they drew our interior players out of position, which is why we gave up so many offensive rebounds. I'm not sure if this is accurate and, if it is accurate, what the solution is. Perhaps we just need to be a little more selective in our attempts to get blocked shots?

[uh_no]

Nice to get a win by a comfortable margin. There were many bright spots, and some not-so-bright spots. I really enjoyed seeing the bench come in and make a positive contribution. I liked Mark putting up a lot of points. AJ stepped back from the past few games but we didn't need as much from him. Paolo had a number of smooth plays.

One question I want to raise is that though we are celebrating Mark's blocks (and they are awesome to watch, especially the volleyball spike), at times it seemed like we were so aggressively going after blocked shots that they drew our interior players out of position, which is why we gave up so many offensive rebounds. I'm not sure if this is accurate and, if it is accurate, what the solution is. Perhaps we just need to be a little more selective in our attempts to get blocked shots?

at least twice. a block that goes out of bounds is effectively an offensive rebound, and i believe credited as such

[SavDukeGrad]

Mods, we need a MOTM thread, so we can ALL vote for Mark Williams. Come on, let’s make it unanimous this time!

[FerryFor50]

One question I want to raise is that though we are celebrating Mark's blocks (and they are awesome to watch, especially the volleyball spike), at times it seemed like we were so aggressively going after blocked shots that they drew our interior players out of position, which is why we gave up so many offensive rebounds. I'm not sure if this is accurate and, if it is accurate, what the solution is. Perhaps we just need to be a little more selective in our attempts to get blocked shots?

I noticed this as well. Mark sells out for blocked shots, which leaves his man open for offensive boards. In a few cases, those State shots looked more like intentional passes off the backboard, knowing he’d be out of position. It also impacts how many rebounds he gets.

Either he needs to be more selective, or other guys need to realize that is how Mark plays and back him up with box outs, just like he helps them out by contesting shots when they get beat off the dribble.