We need a poll.
Play of the game.
Moore's monster jam on a stick-back.
Teddy Valentine getting hit in the back of the head on a pass.
Great second half. Thought Wendell seemed to “”get it” once again. Great all around game for Paolo. Didn’t hurt us without Trevor, but need him back healthy soon. Nice to get a blow out win for a change. Easier on the blood pressure! Next play. Go Devils!
We need a poll.
Play of the game.
Moore's monster jam on a stick-back.
Teddy Valentine getting hit in the back of the head on a pass.
God, I wish more teams played a 2-3 zone against us. I feel like every time we play Syracuse, K has a great offensive game plan. The players seem to all know what they are doing, the ball movement is great, and everyone seems committed to working for the best shot. Paolo gets the ball in good positions (i.e. 10 to 15 feet from the basket, rather than 25 to 30 feet away), where he can do pretty much anything. I just wish we could translate some of that into our man-to-man offensive, which seems totally the opposite. It's so much one-on-one with 4 people standing around watching.
Home wins in the league by 20 are always nice. Especially with a starter out. Balanced scoring from Duke with 80% of the starting 5 registering 15 points. Syracuse looked horrendous shooting the basketball. Duke played good defense but many 3s and free throws (obviously) were missed by Syracuse that were wide open or no one was guarding them. This has been a good start to the year at 15-3, 5-2.
The 15 turnovers for Duke were not ideal but only 5 occurred in the 2nd half. Duke shot good but not great from 3 - they were 14-37 which is 37.8%. Duke won the rebounding battle largely 45-35, but did surrender 13 offensive boards. Joey Baker with 11 points off the bench was awesome to see. Not much to complain about today and lots to be encouraged about. On to the Clemson game Tuesday!
Let's Go Duke!
Sage Grouse
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'When I got on the bus for my first road game at Duke, I saw that every player was carrying textbooks or laptops. I coached in the SEC for 25 years, and I had never seen that before, not even once.' - David Cutcliffe to Duke alumni in Washington, DC, June 2013
Keep in mind that Duke's 3-point percentage includes three late misses by Blakes and Savarino. Exclude those and the rotation players are in the 41 percent range.
Of course, Roach's 2 for 8 was sub-optimal. But nine assists and one turnover more than makes up for it in my book.
I can't find a YouTube clip, which means the Internet has failed me, and I have to link to a tweet.
I guess this means that Ted Valentine doesn't have eyes in the back of his head, and he really was ignoring Joel Berry:
tedvalentine02.jpg
From the ESPN game article (David M. Hale writer):
In-game stats indicated that Duke assisted on all 13 of its first-half field goals.Keels is likely to miss Tuesday's game against Clemson, too, Krzyzewski said, but after initial fears the injury could be serious, he said he's optimistic Keels can return soon.
In the interim, Duke's ball movement didn't miss a beat without Keels. The 25 assists were the second most in an ACC game for the Blue Devils since 2001, according to ESPN Stats & Information research, and Duke assisted on 83% of its made field goals against Syracuse, a high-water mark since 2006. Moore and Roach combined for a 17-to-2 assist-to-turnover ratio.
Sage Grouse
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'When I got on the bus for my first road game at Duke, I saw that every player was carrying textbooks or laptops. I coached in the SEC for 25 years, and I had never seen that before, not even once.' - David Cutcliffe to Duke alumni in Washington, DC, June 2013
Good to see that Wendell. We need that Moore. It takes us to a new level
The numbers below might be a bit misleading. First, the thing we did best in this game was hold Syracuse to 20.7 percentage points below their season average on three-point percentage, but there are some who believe defensive three-point shooting has more to do with them than it does with us. Second, considering how Syracuse plays defense, and this year considering how they play offense, stats are generally going to look weird against the Orange. Finally, Michael Savarino entered the game with 4:10 to go, officially starting garbage time for Duke, but Syracuse pretty much kept their regulars in to the end. When more than 10% of the game has Duke walkons in it, the stats have to be somewhat skewed, especially when the other team doesn't throw in the towel. Not surprisingly, Syracuse outscored us 13-2 in those last four minutes.
OFFENSE
Possessions: 68.5 (pretty slow, but maybe it's the new normal, as 6 of our last 7 games have featured a pace below 69)
oRtg: 1.15 (1.13 adjusted; not terrible, the equivalent of the #29 offense in the nation, but it's Duke's 6th-worst oRating of the season)
eFG%: 58.7% (strong; our fourth straight game over 56.5%)
3pt%: 37.8% (pretty good; especially considering how many attempts we had)
2pt%: 61.5% (excellent; tied for our 6th-best 2pt% of the season)
%threes: 58.7% (by far our highest %three of the season, but against Syracuse's zone and considering how well we shot it, we should file this under can't complain)
FT rate: 11.1% (awful; our 2nd-worst FTR of the season)
OR%: 39.4% (great; tied for our 4th-best OR% of the season)
TO%: 21.9% (terrible; our 2nd-worst TO performance of the season for the second straight game)
a/to: 1.67:1
%assisted: 83.3% (our highest assist% of the season for the second straight game)
fast break pts: 8 (10.1% of points; poor, our worst fast break performance of the season for the second straight game)
DEFENSE
dRtg: 0.86 (0.74 adjusted; fantabulous; our 2nd-best adjusted D of the season and the equivalent of by far the #1 defense in the nation)
eFG%: 39.0% (outstanding; our 3rd-best opposing eFG of the season)
3pt%: 17.2% (amazing; our 3rd-best opposing 3pt% of the season, seventh straight game holding our opponents to 30% or worse from three, and especially noteworthy since Syracuse averaged 37.9% from three coming into the game)
2pt%: 48.7% (meh; our 6th-worst opposing 2pt% of the season)
%threes: 42.6% (we let them take a lot of threes, even more than they usually do)
FT rate: 17.6% (it was a home game, so of course we did well at avoiding fouls)
DR%: 68.1% (not good, though not horrendous like in our previous two games)
TO%: 14.6% (bad; our 4th-worst opposing TO% of the season; I wrote after our last game that when the pace of the game is under 71 we generally really bad at forcing turnovers; the problem is this is our 7th straight game (and 8 out of 9) with a pace under 71; so it might not be a pace thing at all, it might just be we're not so good at forcing turnovers any more)
a/to: 1.3:1
%assisted: 54.2%
stl%: 8.8% (meh)
blk%: 4.4% (7.7% of 2pt shots) (bad, our 2nd-worst block party of the season)
fast break pts: 3 (5.1% of points; good)
Our overall offense was decent -- really good shooting and offensive rebounding; really bad free throw rate and turnovers. Our defensive rebounding and turnovers were both poor for the 3rd straight game, but overall our defense was out-of-this-world. Go figure.
BUT, if we discount the last four minutes (while Duke was playing walkons and Syracuse was playing starters), Duke's adjusted oRating was a stellar 1.25 (equivalent of the best offense in the country) and our adjusted dRating was an otherworldly 0.64, which is 17.7 points (per 100 possessions) better than the best defense in the land.
In other words, we played a helluva game.
Duke moved from 11 to 10 today on Kenpom.
The offense actually dropped from 8 to 11.
The defense moved up from 26 to 20.
Wake Forest also made more free throws than Duke attempted in that game. But the only trend I see is our defensive free throw rate is drastically different in road games (which still might be an anomaly with only three road games so far):
In home and neutral site games:
Duke's offensive free throw rate is 30.9%
Duke's defensive free throw rate is 15.2%
In road games:
Duke's offensive free throw rate is 26.0%
Duke's defensive free throw rate is 37.0%
That difference seems significant to me, though again, we've only played three road games so maybe not.
Since Syracuse got four of their 12 free throw attempts in the last four minutes (when our walkons were playing against their regulars) I don't think today's game signals much of anything on this front, other than Syracuse doesn't foul much in that zone of theirs.
Glad Moore got on track which is key to us advancing far in tournament.
Positives: Moore and Roach 17-2 Assist Ratio was sweet. AJ and Joey 8-15 in threes. Ted Valentine head shot.
Negative: turnovers 15 for us and only 10 for them.
Nice win, but game means nothing as this is bad Syracuse team. Until we beat team with good athletic guards, I will remain cautiously optimistic because of our consistent defense and really talented front court. Certainly, enjoyable win with Keels out.
I know coaches tell Roach to keep shooting but in a game with so many uncontested shots (he was 2-10 in this game) I really don’t want him shooting so much, just dish out the rock. If he is taking equal amount of shots of Moore, Griffin and Banchero that is not a good formula.