NCAAM: Duke 52, Tennessee 65 Post-Game Thread

[Kfanarmy]

Roach is trying to get by the defender at the baseline but he didn’t get to the corner in time so he tried to get low and get his shoulder around the corner and wedge his way through to the basket. Failing at that he tried to cut back through the defender to stay in bounds. The defender beat him to the spot but Jeremy had already committed so he tried to force his way through initiating the contact. Sorry not a defensive foul. The defender doesn’t have make room for him to pass. I like the no call on that play.

BS. He puts one arm across Roach's throat, the other is grabbing Roach's shoulder. Barring those, Roach is clean to the basket. If the majority of people believe either of the defenders arms aren't commiting fouls, then I don't want to watch the game.

[CDu]

I think everyone’s point here is that things like arm bars that “frequently aren’t called” are the crux of the issue. Rules should not change from game to game based on officials, importance of game, time in the game, outcome of plays, changes in the tides, etc.

I agree. But propping this up as the shining example of Tennessee getting away with heavy contact is wrong. Because (1) there wasn’t actually that much contact on that play and (2) Duke gets away with that exact same thing repeatedly in games as well. Including this game. There was a ton I felt should have been called, mostly holding and bumping away from the ball. But that one I didn’t have much of a beef with.

[SavDukeGrad]

For what it's worth, Jayson Tatum thinks the officiating sucked, so I'm going to bow out and y'all can go argue with him if you want.

I agree with Jayson!

Also the title of the ESPN article describes the game perfectly:
https://www.espn.com/mens-college-ba...nging-duke-mud

Also on Game Day this morning, while Jay, Seth, and LaPhonso all picked Duke, LaPhonso said it would depend on how the game is called. He said “if Tennessee is allowed to grab and hold, like they did against Alabama”, it would make a difference.

[rotofan]

I want to make sure I say this up front: I’m so freaking proud of this team. They could’ve folded a dozen different times in this game, with everything that was going wrong (both forced and unforced), and they kept fighting. The game was competitive to the end, and it could’ve easily gotten out of hand. That’s a testament to this team’s toughness and grit.

Unfortunately, this game is the result of getting a 5 seed as opposed to a 2 or 3. We had to play an Elite 8 quality game in the second round. And against an Elite 8 quality team, it’s hard to win with a surprise injury, foul trouble to your most indispensable player, and a bad shooting team making tough 3s all game.

It sucks that we’ll be forever wondering if this would’ve been different with Mark, or with an even slightly different whistle. But that’s the nature of the tournament.

I think with the benefit of hindsight we’re going to remember this team very fondly. Despite arguably the worst injury luck of any team in recent memory, this team swept UNC, won the ACC and had a real shot to make March noise. But we got a tough draw and a game where everything that could go wrong did. Still, Jon has shown that he can coach, and that the program is set up for the long term.

I’m tremendously sad right now, because I wasn’t ready for this ride to end. But it was a great ride, all the more so considering how many thought it was going to go off the rails.

P.S. On an analysis side, the fourth foul on Roach changed the game in more ways than the obvious. The biggest: we had to lose our defensive identity that had carried us all year. Tennessee beat us, but the whistle certainly helped.

No top team in the country was falling faster than Tennessee, which lost seven of their last 12 games, and along the way. losing point guard Zakai Zeigler to season-ending injury: He was their second-leading scorer as well running the team from the point. During that stretch they lost twice to Missouri, who was easily beaten by Princeton today, Florida, which finished the year with a losing record, Vanderbilt, the so-called Duke of Tennessee (in academics, not basketball), Texas A&M, who was routed by Penn State, which tied for 10th in the Big 10, Auburn, who finished 7th in the SEC and lost today, and Kentucky, the only one of those opponents who might make it to the second weekend. The first half of the season Tennessee played like an Elite Eight team, but the past 13 games it has has been a marginal top-32 team -- who only beat Louisiana, 88th in Kenpom, by 3 points.

In March, teams live and die with injuries. Duke won an ACC tourney title beating a UVA team whose most versatile big man, someone who had shut out Kyle completely in their first matchup, was lost for the season in a pre-tourney practice.

But did Duke had a tough draw? Many thought Tennessee was the weakest of all the 4 or 5 seeds, and Purdue the weakest of the 1-seeds, which the Boilermakers then went out and showed. Their path to the Final Four required Duke to beat Oral Roberts, a struggling Tennessee squad, the winner of Fairleigh Dickinson and Florida Atlantic, with their first real test in the Elite 8. It was a Disneyworld draw that began, and ended, in Orlando.

None of that is a knock on the kids or the coach. The players, while they might have been intimidated in the paint against a much older and more physical Vols team, still worked hard, and in general this season, played the best defence Duke has shown for a lot of years. Scheyer had a great first year, all things considered, and I thought he did a better job teaching fundamentals, instilling discipline and developing both individual players and the team as a whole then I have seen at Duke for years. It reminded me of the way K used to coach before he decided to focus instead on overtaking Kentucky as the school of choice for one-and-dones. Scheyer sees the folly of that approach, has already said he will recruit differently, with an eye on growing and getting experienced so the team is not always faced in March facing teams a players who are two to three years older and more mature. If he can improve freshmen the way he did, I think he will shine even more when he can tap kids who get a chance to grow for more than one year before leaving for the NBA. I just hope the rest of the ACC gets better because the better teams in the conference need tougher matchup in January and February to be better prepared in March, and right now, UNC looks on shaky grounds with Hubert, Louisville is on life support, Syracuse has to begin again after years of mediocrity, Notre Dame begins anew too, Clemson, NC State and Virginia Tech haven't made real post-season noise for years, BC and Georgia Tech are weak, Miami has a coach nearing retirement age, and Florida State and Leonard Hamilton have lost their way. Only Virginia remains relevant nationally with a successful coach who is expected to be there for years. Capel breathed some life into Pitt this year; let's hope that continues.

[lotusland]

So you’re good with an arm bar to the neck? That’s a legal guarding play?

Why do you think Roach couldn’t “get to the corner” here?

Attachment 15550

I’ll take one more swing at the dead horse. You have to realize that the baseline is actually behind the basket so the defender is positioned between his man and the basket as he should be. Jeremy has to go around the defender not through him but his problem is that he is out of room to his right so he initiates the contact to stay in bounds. If Jeremy beat him to the spot and got around the corner, the defender would have to let him go and try to keep him from getting an angle to cut back to the basket. But Jeremy did not get around the corner before he reached the baseline. That’s why the official looking straight down the baseline didn’t blow his whistle. I like the no call but Jeremy is the one who initiated the contact to stay in bounds.

[Lulu]

Going down the rabbit hole…
Started browsing team stats for the whole season for Duke and Tennessee and the 7 free throws we shot was the 2nd fewest of the season after a blowout win vs the Syracuse zone. Meanwhile, TN seemed to have a known problem with the number of opponents free throws attempts and the 7 we got was tied for the fewest they gave up this season (in a game against South Carolina).

One of the refs today officiated the “street fight” between UNC and Baylor last year that Bills said no one could claim was officiated correctly, if anyone recalls.

[Kfanarmy]

I’ll take one more swing at the dead horse. You have to realize that the baseline is actually behind the basket so the defender is positioned between his man and the basket as he should be. Jeremy has to go around the defender not through him but his problem is that he is out of room to his right so he initiates the contact to stay in bounds. If Jeremy beat him to the spot and got around the corner, the defender would have to let him go and try to keep him from getting an angle to cut back to the basket. But Jeremy did not get around the corner before he reached the baseline. That’s why the official looking straight down the baseline didn’t blow his whistle. I like the no call but Jeremy is the one who initiated the contact to stay in bounds.

This picture is after the foul has caused Roach to fall. The defender gets him slowed down and off balance with the reach in and hold, continuing to move into him. He's still committing a reach in in this picture.

[HaveFunExpectToWin]

I have not missed Rick Barnes coaching in the ACC.

[Saratoga2]

The whole discussion about us being a young and inexperienced team who couldn't stand up to the older and more physically developed team is misleading. Our older and more experienced players were Grandison, Young, Blakes and Roach. Of those, only Roach had a decent game and yet his still had 5 turnovers, as he often has had a lot of turnovers in other competitive games. Plus he was accumulating a lot of fouls which forced us to go to a zone later in the game. Tennessee exploited that to gain separation.

Our best players were Proctor, Lively and Flip. All of them are freshmen. It is not the age and experience that counted, it was the talent and determination. What hurt us most was lack of quality depth and that was exacerbated by Mitchell bowing out at game time with an injury. Our team was fighting at the end but were out of gas.

My view is that to be competitive against the better teams we will need to find depth that is playable in games against the better teams. What Jon has to do the accomplish that is the question. Keeping some of the quality players for more than one season is a good start. Finding players in the transfer portal that fit the criteria also looks like an option although not an easy one. Then of course bringing in quality recruits.

It appears that we need 8 quality players on the team to weather tournament games against good opponent and those 8 need to provide duplication in the point guard/shooting guard. forward and center positions.

[NYBlueDevil]

This is my thought on what happened with this "conspiracy". I was not at the game so I can only rely on what views were provided on TV. In one view, you can clearly see a referee holding up 3 fingers indicating that a foul was called on Roach. It appeared that Roach kept pointing towards the scorer's table. That was in the direction of where a second ref was standing. I can only presume that that ref also called a foul, but he called it on Proctor even though there did not appear to be contact (Roach probably saw him holding up 5 fingers). At that point, the refs would get together to discuss. IF my scenario is correct, they would then decide that the foul (phantom though it may have been) by Proctor occurred prior to the foul by Roach. Seems like a much more likely explanation than the refs conspiring together to give a Duke player an additional foul. Did anyone at the game see what happened? The announcers certainly were not of any use here.

[Ian]

When Rick Barnes was the coach at Clemson, he coached exactly the same way. But the ACC refs did not allow him to get away with it. I remember there was a game at UNC where his "foul all the time because they can't call them all" strategy got called out by the refs, and they just kept calling fouls on Clemson, until so many Clemson players fouled out that they couldn't even field 5 players on the court, so they had to finish the game playing 4 on 5. I think UNC ended the game shooting 50+ free throws.
After that season Barnes bolted Clemson and left the ACC and headed to Texas.

The point is, if the refs and the NCAA wanted to put an end to Thugball, they can. They choose not to because it creates more "upsets" and create more "drama and excitement" for the tourney. Until that changes Duke will have to learn to deal with it or hope to avoid those type of teams.

[wavedukefan70s]

When Rick Barnes was the coach at Clemson, he coached exactly the same way. But the ACC refs did not allow him to get away with it. I remember there was a game at UNC where his "foul all the time because they can't call them all" strategy got called out by the refs, and they just kept calling fouls on Clemson, until so many Clemson players fouled out that they couldn't even field 5 players on the court, so they had to finish the game playing 4 on 5. I think UNC ended the game shooting 50+ free throws.
After that season Barnes bolted Clemson and left the ACC and headed to Texas.

The point is, if the refs and the NCAA wanted to put an end to Thugball, they can. They choose not to because it creates more "upsets" and create more "drama and excitement" for the tourney. Until that changes Duke will have to learn to deal with it or hope to avoid those type of teams.

Very true .my biggest issue is Tennessee
Announced to the world they were going to use thug ball .everyone under thr sun
Knew they were going to foul like crazy.
Dared the officials to call it.
Then the officials tucked them up and didn't except the challenge of calling the game the way it should be called.

They backed down.that is a major issue
To me . Personally I don't know how they
Sleep at night. I'm not built that way .
I do not understand not doing your job
The same way .



Every game a foul is a foul .you commit 30 fouls .your getting called for 30.with in reason ofcourse .
Either adjust your play or foul out.


It shouldn't change because of a style of play .

I've been sick of rick Barnes thug ball
Since Clemson. I don't particularly care for Virginia either but compared to Barnes they are saints .


Yes I'm a bit sour over the loss.

This wasn't towards you.i just generalized it here.

[jv001]

Sat down to watch a basketball game, but instead they had a rugby match on. If all games were officiated like that one, I would watch something else. It's ugly and not the college game I have been used to watching for years.
Tyrese played a heck of a game, 16 pts, 2 steals, 6 assists and only 2 turnovers. That's good numbers against any team, but to have them against a team of football players 30 years old is quite an accomplishment. Roach and Flip combined for 9 turnovers and that was a key for the loss. However, I was impressed with their toughness. Roach turned his ankle and kept playing. Flip took a beating (again) and kept fighting. In Coach Scheyer's press conference, he seemed to have been surprised by one of the Vols shooting compared to his season stats. However, he gave the Vols credit for their play.
Mark Mitchell not playing; I think we missed his defense more than some DBR folks think. Plus, it shortened our rotation against a very physical team and Scheyer didn't have much time to adjust the game plan.
Young was a non-factor in the game. He was abused on defense and I'm concerned for next season, if he's the starting center. But that's a discussion for later in the coming months.

I am proud of this team and loved the way they improved over the season. After all, Duke is the ACC Champions and they beat the Cheating Tar Heels twice.

GoDuke!

[dukelifer]

No top team in the country was falling faster than Tennessee, which lost seven of their last 12 games, and along the way. losing point guard Zakai Zeigler to season-ending injury: He was their second-leading scorer as well running the team from the point. During that stretch they lost twice to Missouri, who was easily beaten by Princeton today, Florida, which finished the year with a losing record, Vanderbilt, the so-called Duke of Tennessee (in academics, not basketball), Texas A&M, who was routed by Penn State, which tied for 10th in the Big 10, Auburn, who finished 7th in the SEC and lost today, and Kentucky, the only one of those opponents who might make it to the second weekend. The first half of the season Tennessee played like an Elite Eight team, but the past 13 games it has has been a marginal top-32 team -- who only beat Louisiana, 88th in Kenpom, by 3 points.

In March, teams live and die with injuries. Duke won an ACC tourney title beating a UVA team whose most versatile big man, someone who had shut out Kyle completely in their first matchup, was lost for the season in a pre-tourney practice.

But did Duke had a tough draw? Many thought Tennessee was the weakest of all the 4 or 5 seeds, and Purdue the weakest of the 1-seeds, which the Boilermakers then went out and showed. Their path to the Final Four required Duke to beat Oral Roberts, a struggling Tennessee squad, the winner of Fairleigh Dickinson and Florida Atlantic, with their first real test in the Elite 8. It was a Disneyworld draw that began, and ended, in Orlando.

None of that is a knock on the kids or the coach. The players, while they might have been intimidated in the paint against a much older and more physical Vols team, still worked hard, and in general this season, played the best defence Duke has shown for a lot of years. Scheyer had a great first year, all things considered, and I thought he did a better job teaching fundamentals, instilling discipline and developing both individual players and the team as a whole then I have seen at Duke for years. It reminded me of the way K used to coach before he decided to focus instead on overtaking Kentucky as the school of choice for one-and-dones. Scheyer sees the folly of that approach, has already said he will recruit differently, with an eye on growing and getting experienced so the team is not always faced in March facing teams a players who are two to three years older and more mature. If he can improve freshmen the way he did, I think he will shine even more when he can tap kids who get a chance to grow for more than one year before leaving for the NBA. I just hope the rest of the ACC gets better because the better teams in the conference need tougher matchup in January and February to be better prepared in March, and right now, UNC looks on shaky grounds with Hubert, Louisville is on life support, Syracuse has to begin again after years of mediocrity, Notre Dame begins anew too, Clemson, NC State and Virginia Tech haven't made real post-season noise for years, BC and Georgia Tech are weak, Miami has a coach nearing retirement age, and Florida State and Leonard Hamilton have lost their way. Only Virginia remains relevant nationally with a successful coach who is expected to be there for years. Capel breathed some life into Pitt this year; let's hope that continues.

Draws are about matchups. In a one and done tourney- stuff happens. Tenn has been losing but they were still a strong team and playing Duke tends to rev up the motivation- regardless of how a team has been playing. Duke did not handle the loss of Mitchell well. Tenn started to hit threes and Duke could never get control. The tourney is not the full measure of a team. This team grew and got better as the season went along. That was great to see. Was this a great Duke team? No- but it was one of the youngest and they learned to play without ego. In the end we will remember this group for their grit and for winning an ACC tourney championship in Scheyer’s first season. That is pretty good.

[dukelifer]

The whole discussion about us being a young and inexperienced team who couldn't stand up to the older and more physically developed team is misleading. Our older and more experienced players were Grandison, Young, Blakes and Roach. Of those, only Roach had a decent game and yet his still had 5 turnovers, as he often has had a lot of turnovers in other competitive games. Plus he was accumulating a lot of fouls which forced us to go to a zone later in the game. Tennessee exploited that to gain separation.

Our best players were Proctor, Lively and Flip. All of them are freshmen. It is not the age and experience that counted, it was the talent and determination. What hurt us most was lack of quality depth and that was exacerbated by Mitchell bowing out at game time with an injury. Our team was fighting at the end but were out of gas.

My view is that to be competitive against the better teams we will need to find depth that is playable in games against the better teams. What Jon has to do the accomplish that is the question. Keeping some of the quality players for more than one season is a good start. Finding players in the transfer portal that fit the criteria also looks like an option although not an easy one. Then of course bringing in quality recruits.

It appears that we need 8 quality players on the team to weather tournament games against good opponent and those 8 need to provide duplication in the point guard/shooting guard. forward and center positions.

Duke had 8 quality players this year. One of the bench players was among the highest ranked High School players last year. Not easy to get high quality pt guard duplication. Blakes was trending that way early in the season but then regressed as happens sometimes to sophomores. Now folks can quibble as to whether Grandison and Young were quality players- but they are certainly solid. Duke had what it needed this year and won an ACC tourney championship. Not sure I would have felt differently about this team unless they won it all and that would have been a tall task. They actually over achieved given what what learned about Lively’s strengths and clear weaknesses and the unfortunate injuries sustained by Whitehead- the expectations of both players being the only reasons Duke was in the conversation at the start of the year.

[jv001]

Duke had 8 quality players this year. One of the bench players was among the highest ranked High School players last year. Not easy to get high quality pt guard duplication. Blakes was trending that way early in the season but then regressed as happens sometimes to sophomores. Now folks can quibble as to whether Grandison and Young were quality players- but they are certainly solid. Duke had what it needed this year and won an ACC tourney championship. Not sure I would have felt differently about this team unless they won it all and that would have been a tall task. They actually over achieved given what what learned about Lively’s strengths and clear weaknesses and the unfortunate injuries sustained by Whitehead- the expectations of both players being the only reasons Duke was in the conversation at the start of the year.

I agree and the injuries to Lively, Whitehead and Roach set the team back. I thought the coaching staff did a great job to get the team to the place where I thought they could beat any team in the nation. Well, if one of the teams didn't have 5 players and 3 refs working the game.

Go/Duke!

[dukesouthbasement]

Would Tennessee’s playing style have changed at all if the refs had called one or two of the obvious F1s early in the game? Would that have changed their physicality and allowed Duke to get/stay in rhythm any better? Hard to know.

[Duke76]

BS. He puts one arm across Roach's throat, the other is grabbing Roach's shoulder. Barring those, Roach is clean to the basket. If the majority of people believe either of the defenders arms aren't commiting fouls, then I don't want to watch the game.

look in my opinion in addition to the arms, its his lower body that is fouling Roach, impeding his body away from his intended path...he is not in front of him which would be a charge but pushing him out not with his arms but his thighs...still a demonstrative foul...it's like he's tripping him with his thigh rather than sticking his foot out..a lot of Coaches teach that as refs don't notice that nearly as much as upper body fouls

[CDu]

Would Tennessee’s playing style have changed at all if the refs had called one or two of the obvious F1s early in the game? Would that have changed their physicality and allowed Duke to get/stay in rhythm any better? Hard to know.

There weren’t any “obvious F1s”. The closest was the first foul on their center. Had it been a few inches higher, it would have been an F1. The elbow Flip caught to the eye was when Aidoo was pulling down a rebound, and was not a foul at all (just bad luck).

[Duke76]

There weren’t any “obvious F1s”. The closest was the first foul on their center. Had it been a few inches higher, it would have been an F1. The elbow Flip caught to the eye was when Aidoo was pulling down a rebound, and was not a foul at all (just bad luck).

Ya think Henry Coleman would have helped tonight...he'd be a senior I believe.