MBB: Duke 79, Syracuse 59 Post Game Thread

[Bob Green]

Discuss the game here.

[Dr. Rosenrosen]

Great to see Wendell get his swagger back!

[dukelifer]

Great to see Wendell get his swagger back!

Expected a closer game but I will take a blowout any time. Duke managed the zone very well but this is not a typical Cuse Zone with long players at all positions. Duke shot well and moved the ball. The D was solid and Cuse missed some shots they usually make. Hard to extrapolate this performance but a good win makes everyone feel better.

[DukieInBrasil]

Great to see Wendell get his swagger back!

might be the single most important thing that happened in this game.
Otherwise, nice, balanced offense (4 guys each scored 15 + Joey with 11), great distribution (Wendell with 8 and Jeremy with 9 assists) and a defense that smothered Syracuse (while also taking advantage of bad shooting). Nice recovery win...

[KandG]

Nice to have a relaxing blowout for a change.

First ten to twelve minutes made me slightly nervous after our initial lead was nearly erased because of all the turnovers. Didn’t want to see another inferior defensive team hang around because we couldn’t take care of the ball.

But it helped that Syracuse missed some makeable shots, and overall I thought our three point defense was excellent. Once we started finding seams in the zone and using our physical advantages to attack it creatively, the margin got bigger and bigger.

By the second half, when we were making simple threes over the top of their zone and getting more offensive rebounds off misses, you could see the Orange players just slump their shoulders. Pretty much let go of the rope and our shots kept falling.

There were a couple of plays by Torrence (blow by on the baseline which led to a dunk, and then a pick and roll at the elbow which led to another assisted dunk) that stood out because they were the type of plays (dribble penetration leading to an inside basket) that have given us fits. But Syracuse isn’t really a good team that way, not super athletic or great playmakers, so the match up was very much in our favor.

About the only thing K could be super upset about was the stint by the end of the bench players, but then again they were up against starters for four minutes. Good win.

[brevity]

No hard stats here, but Duke has a historic tendency to take advantage of the free throw disparity, and convert more free throws in a game than the opponent even attempts. Earlier this week FSU flipped the script and hit 20-of-25, while Duke went 14-of-18.

Today Syracuse didn't shoot free throws well enough to do the same, but they also had the advantage: 6-for-12, and Duke had 5-for-7.

Maybe a trend to monitor as we move forward.

[Saratoga2]

Nice to have a relaxing blowout for a change.

First ten to twelve minutes made me slightly nervous after our initial lead was nearly erased because of all the turnovers. Didn’t want to see another inferior defensive team hang around because we couldn’t take care of the ball.

But it helped that Syracuse missed some makeable shots, and overall I thought our three point defense was excellent. Once we started finding seams in the zone and using our physical advantages to attack it creatively, the margin got bigger and bigger.

By the second half, when we were making simple threes over the top of their zone and getting more offensive rebounds off misses, you could see the Orange players just slump their shoulders. Pretty much let go of the rope and our shots kept falling.

There were a couple of plays by Torrence (blow by on the baseline which led to a dunk, and then a pick and roll at the elbow which led to another assisted dunk) that stood out because they were the type of plays (dribble penetration leading to an inside basket) that have given us fits. But Syracuse isn’t really a good team that way, not super athletic or great playmakers, so the match up was very much in our favor.

About the only thing K could be super upset about was the stint by the end of the bench players, but then again they were up against starters for four minutes. Good win.

I too got a little nervous early in the game when we had a number of careless turnovers and let our lead drop to 1. Our defense remained good throughout and Syracuse shot poorly. We did move the ball around the perimeter of the zone and shot the 3 very well. Lets hope Keels gets back soon as having another solid defender and ball handler gives the coaches more flexibility.

[Indoor66]

No hard stats here, but Duke has a historic tendency to take advantage of the free throw disparity, and convert more free throws in a game than the opponent even attempts. Earlier this week FSU flipped the script and hit 20-of-25, while Duke went 14-of-18.

Today Syracuse didn't shoot free throws well enough to do the same, but they also had the advantage: 6-for-12, and Duke had 5-for-7.

Maybe a trend to monitor as we move forward.

One game makes a trend?

[UrinalCake]

That was fun! We basically ran a clinic on how to beat the zone - crisp passes, great ball movement, and hitting wide open threes. Love to see it and I agree that Wendell was the biggest bright spot. Paolo was kind of quiet (for him) but was acting as playmaker and generally chose to make the right play over hero ball which is what we wanted in this type of game.

Get rested up, get healthy and on to the next one. Hopefully Keels will be back soon, we didn’t need him at all today so I’m glad he got to rest.

[Indoor66]

It's easy to beat a zone when you shoot well.

[brevity]

One game makes a trend?

I don't back-and-forth, but you asked me a direct question, so I should answer.

Traditionally, three makes a trend. Here we have two consecutive games with Duke at the wrong end of the free throw disparity, which is "maybe a trend" worth our attention.

For sheer background information, looking at Duke's other 2 losses, Ohio State attempted more free throws, and Miami attempted fewer free throws.

[MarkD83]

That was fun! We basically ran a clinic on how to beat the zone - crisp passes, great ball movement, and hitting wide open threes. Love to see it and I agree that Wendell was the biggest bright spot. Paolo was kind of quiet (for him) but was acting as playmaker and generally chose to make the right play over hero ball which is what we wanted in this type of game.

Get rested up, get healthy and on to the next one. Hopefully Keels will be back soon, we didn’t need him at all today so I’m glad he got to rest.

I'll take a quiet 15 points on 6-11 shooting, 13 rebounds and 4 assists all the time. But you are right we expect him to get 20.

[CrazyNotCrazie]

Nice performance with a balanced attack. Somewhat slow start and we really turned it on. We had really good passing and shooting. Our defense helped slow down their shooting, and I think we were a little lucky on that front also.

Lately it seems like we've been getting beat a lot to loose balls and not grabbing the ball strongly. Today was far from perfect, but it definitely seemed like a step in the right direction on this front.

Good contribution from Joey and Theo off the bench.

[Hartford Dukie]

Excellent game - best for Wendell since covid break. AJ shot well. Mark was solid - consistent excellent play is great! Joey contributing. Paolo can be absolutely dominant at times...almost looks like he can turn it on when he wants...wish we could see that attitude for 35 minutes. Would take the team to a new level.

[sagegrouse]

No hard stats here, but Duke has a historic tendency to take advantage of the free throw disparity, and convert more free throws in a game than the opponent even attempts. Earlier this week FSU flipped the script and hit 20-of-25, while Duke went 14-of-18.

Today Syracuse didn't shoot free throws well enough to do the same, but they also had the advantage: 6-for-12, and Duke had 5-for-7.

Maybe a trend to monitor as we move forward.

Two Buddy Boeheim FT's in the last minute requires that we put you on suicide watch?

[CDu]

This was basically the perfect opponent to be missing a starting guard: a team that plays a zone (and not well), doesn't have great ballhandlers, and doesn't play many guys. We didn't play a great first half, very sloppy with the ball resulting in a ton of turnovers. When we didn't turn it over, we scored. Thankfully, Syracuse missed a TON of shots in the first half, so we still had a comfortable halftime lead.

In the second half, we played spectacularly on offense and still pretty well defensively... up until Coach K pulled the plug with ~ 4 minutes left. We stopped turning it over and totally dominated on offense, scoring nearly every trip down the court. Syracuse's offense played better in the second half, but still the defense was fairly good. By the time the game was basically over, we had a 31 point lead with about 4 minutes to go. The team outscored Syracuse 41-24 in the first 16 minutes of the second half before the walk-ons took the court. Unfortunately, the score won't quite do the blowout justice, as Boeheim kept his guys in to trim the margin with a 13-2 run over the final 4 minutes.

The good:
- Moore and Roach took good care of the ball. The zone was a perfect elixir for a team that was struggling with overdribbling into traffic. But both guys deserve a ton of credit for sticking to the gameplan, and beating the zone with minimal dribbling and just crisp passing. Roach, by the way, now has a 20:2 assist:turnover ratio over his last 4 games.
- Banchero was a beast on the glass, and very effective in the high post as expected.
- Baker and Griffin shot the lights out from 3, as expected.
- John had a good rebounding game.
- Williams continues his solid ACC season with 15 and 7 in just 23 minutes. The only disappointment was just the 1 block (I kid, I kid).
- The team didn't have to overexert, which is nice given we are shorthanded. So hopefully we can be well rested for our home game against a struggling Clemson squad.

The bad:
- Our first half turnovers were bad. But we fixed that problem in the second half.
- Still not a great defensive rebounding game.
- Our walk-ons were not nearly as good as their starters .

Always fun to get a blowout win. Let's keep it rolling!

[weezie]

PS, Wendell found his groove.
And brev continued his mastery as Trivia Czar. The man is unstoppable!

[miramar]

The Cuse zone collapsed pretty well so you didn’t see Duke run the offense around the guy who stays just inside the free throw line, ideally Banchero, but Duke hit plenty of open threes so I guess that didn’t matter. Then again if your opponent hits 5/29 on threes then everything you do will work out, even if you lose the turnover battle 15-10.

It was good to see the Crazies masked up, in comparison to FSU where nobody had one.

[heyman25]

It was pleasant to get a relatively easy win. Moore played good defense against Buddy Boeheim. However it helps when Syracuse was not shooting or playing well. We had too many unforced errors . Against a very good team we will not be able to make this many mistakes. Enjoyed the very good perimeter shooting.Overall very pleased to get the win. I wondered whether Blakes would get some PT. He demonstrated why he is not ready for Primetime.

[DukieInBrasil]

Two Buddy Boeheim FT's in the last minute requires that we put you on suicide watch?

well, that escalated quickly...

The bad:
- Our first half turnovers were bad. But we fixed that problem in the second half.
- Still not a great defensive rebounding game.
- Our walk-ons were not nearly as good as their starters .

Always fun to get a blowout win. Let's keep it rolling!

to be fair, we still had a couple of recruited players on the floor (Baker & Blakes + Jones) kinda surprised we didn't see Borden! Never know when you gonna need some random minutes for a 7 footer!!!