NCAAM: Duke 52, Tennessee 65 Post-Game Thread

[JBDuke]

Put your post-game thoughts here. And remember, no bashing or venting.

[uh_no]

Tough out. Proud of J for his first year. ACCT champions forever.

[arnie]

Put your post-game thoughts here. And remember, no bashing or venting.

Good year, but our Freshmen were overwhelmed.

[gumbomoop]

Just a great, close to perfect, game from Nkamhoua. Credit to him.

[Furniture]

Bummer.

[MCFinARL]

Just a great, close to perfect, game from Nkamhoua. Credit to him.

Agree--woulda shoulda, though, Mitchell might have made a difference there.

[Ian]

It was a solid year, I said before that as long as we get in the tourney and win 1 game, I'm good, anything else is gravy.

But it was a tough break to lose Mitchell for this game, the only guy to start every game this season wasn't available for the most important game.

Hope Flip and Proctor and Mitchell come back, heck hope Roach come back. It's tough to win in the tourney with freshmen, we need some veterans on next year's squad.

[pamtar]

Outreffed, outplayed. Can’t overcome both. Super proud of this group. Me and my boys just did a round of high fives to celebrate a great year. Had to come to an end at some point and there’s so much to be happy about with this team and this coach. Onward and upward!

[kAzE]

I thought we played great defense, but Nkhamuoa was just too hot. He made everything, and we just couldn't buy a bucket. The officiating was erratic but I don't know if it was the difference in the game. I think Tennessee just outplayed us. When you have a guy go 8 for 9 or whatever it was in the 2nd half (against good defense for the most part), you're gonna have a tough time winning, especially if you can't score.

One tough game and season's over. That's how it is. I loved following the team this year and I really hope a couple guys come back. We can do something special next year if we have the right pieces.

[MaxAMillion]

The youth caught up to Duke today. Hopefully the guards come back and try to take a run at it next year.

[kako]

5 thoughts…

1. The mantra was limit turnovers, control the boards, focus on defense and limit turnovers (for emphasis). I think it’s fair to say UT was better on all accounts. Hats off to the Vols, they won a very physical game. They played tough ball, and Duke wasn’t able to compete. They will be a tough out moving forward.

2. I’ll say it again. Turnovers…

3. I was really proud of Proctor for keeping them in the game offensively in the 2nd. It just wasn’t enough. I kept hoping Whitehead would show up, but he vanished in the 2nd. In his defense, I didn’t see Duke doing anything to get him open. But the Vols clearly knew to get physical with Flip. He did his best, but it kind of was like men against boys.

4. The zone helped a bit at first. But once the Vols got used to it, they took advantage again. Good adjustment by Barnes to go to Nkamhoua. He took them home.

5. Lively was very good on defense, but on the O side I would have liked to see him fight for more boards. UT made it tough. And I understand him not scoring, UT’s interior defense was so solid… Injuries are part of the game. But I think Mitchell would have helped greatly. Not sure if Duke would have won, but I think it might have been different. His length and toughness was missed defenively. I liked Grandison this year for what he was, but he wasn't Mitchell.

9F

[Saratoga2]

5 thoughts…

1. The mantra was limit turnovers, control the boards, focus on defense and limit turnovers (for emphasis). I think it’s fair to say UT was better on all accounts. Hats off to the Vols, they won a very physical game. They played tough ball, and Duke wasn’t able to compete. They will be a tough out moving forward.

2. I’ll say it again. Turnovers…

3. I was really proud of Proctor for keeping them in the game offensively in the 2nd. It just wasn’t enough. I kept hoping Whitehead would show up, but he vanished in the 2nd. In his defense, I didn’t see Duke doing anything to get him open. But the Vols clearly knew to get physical with Flip. He did his best, but it kind of was like men against boys.

4. The zone helped a bit at first. But once the Vols got used to it, they took advantage again. Good adjustment by Barnes to go to Nkamhoua. He took them home.

5. Lively was very good on defense, but on the O side I would have liked to see him fight for more boards. UT made it tough. And I understand him not scoring, UT’s interior defense was so solid… Injuries are part of the game. But I think Mitchell would have helped greatly. Not sure if Duke would have won, but I think it might have been different. His length and toughness was missed defenively. I liked Grandison this year for what he was, but he wasn't Mitchell.

9F

I agree with many of your points. First and foremost, the loss of Mitchell was not only felt for his defense and offense but also that he was one of our six top players, which left us with 5 who had to go most of the way in a very physical game. Young was ineffective as was Blakes and Grandison, while somewhat better is weaker with the ball.

Roach tried his approach of driving the ball inside which again resulted in too many turnovers. He did give us 13 points but his shooting during the stretch reflected how tired he must have been.

Roach and Filipowski were our offense down the stretch but it was not enough as Tennessee continued to hit shots.

Whitehead's offense disappeared in the second half.

Lively didn't get opportunities to score inside as Tennessee saw to that.

I don't blame our freshmen who played hard to the end. In the end, we lacked usable depth and our more senior players had subpar games.

Great season that might have led further but for a strong Tennessee defense and a lack of depth when we needed it.

[Jedweb]

That was a hell of a scrum. Rick Barnes' style hasn't changed much since he was at Clemson. Mitchell's absence was significant, but whether his availability would have changed the outcome is speculation. Like the announcers, anyone who isn't emotionally invested must have agreed that the charging call (#3?) on Filipowski when his defender clearly jumped right in front and impeded his path was remarkably bad, but, again, that one incident was more symptomatic of the game than determinative of the outcome.

Some of the IC buzzard breaths will no doubt crow and wallow in their happiness, but no point expecting any better from that outfit.

I admit that the result caught me a little by surprise. Nevertheless, one can only admire the development of a team which was so dependent upon freshmen led by a coach who is a young man, in his first season as HC, and following a legend, dealing no only with inexperience but also with multiple injuries which impede development. Really proud of those guys and of the coaching. It's hard to blame athletes with such extraordinary ability to accept the absolutely silly money which will be available and to leave for the pros. I have no idea whether there's a reasonable chance that Flip comes back. I hope so, and Mitchell as well and certainly Proctor. Given the excellent chance that none may, Scheyer's declared intent to alter recruiting strategy a bit makes sense.

Thanks to the players and the coaches for one heck of a year. It was great.

[DukieInBrasil]

It's an absolute disgrace that UT only got called for 3 fouls the entire 2nd half. UT brought an MMA match to a basketball court and Duke had no answer for it. Duke just could not get defensive stops on UT in the 2nd half and that was pretty much the story.
All that growing as a team for naught as Duke will lose so much of the team to various exit strategies, even though we don't know exactly who will be departing yet...
There was some good stuff watching this team this year, and especially watching how Coach Scheyer grew as a coach too. I liked this team and that it played hard and seemed to enjoy playing as a team.

[HaveFunExpectToWin]

I have not missed Rick Barnes coaching in the ACC.

[mph]

Good year, but our Freshmen were overwhelmed.

I think overwhelmed is too strong. They made mistakes, but our freshman, Flip and Proctor in particular, took everything Tennessee had and kept coming. The game was brutally physical and unevenly officiated and we had a very short bench. We could have overcome any one of those things and possibly two, but there wasn’t much more we could have asked of our freshman, IMO.

[Furniture]

I think overwhelmed is too strong. They made mistakes, but our freshman, Flip and Proctor in particular, took everything Tennessee had and kept coming. The game was brutally physical and unevenly officiated and we had a very short bench. We could have overcome any one of those things and possibly two, but there wasn’t much more we could have asked of our freshman, IMO.

Everyone was over wrestled even the upper class men.

[ns7]

Great season!

[Im4howdy]

We were outplayed...

[SavDukeGrad]

Such a sad way to end this season. I became very attached to this team and these players. They were such a close-knit and likable group.

Such unfortunate timing with Mitchell’s injury. I think he was one of the few who hadn’t missed a game all season. Reminds me of other seasons with bad injury luck.

Jon’s first season has to be considered a resounding success. ACC tournament champs! And we improved so much during the season and appeared to be peaking at the right time.

I was surprised we weren’t more prepared for their physicality. I thought maybe Jai Lucas would help there, since he was used to playing them every year.

I really hate these games that are more like football. Add to that the inconsistent officiating - we were called for touch fouls; they were allowed to draw blood with no calls. And so many borderline flagrants by them. We were just unable to adjust to their physical style coupled with the uneven officiating.

And we really had no depth today with Mitchell’s injury. I know we all loved Jon’s deep bench early in the season. But as the quality of the competition increased, it was obvious our bench was not going to be much help.

Great season! Sad for our team right now.