MBB: Duke 87, Michigan State 75 Post-Game Thread

[MCFinARL]

With due respect, I say that traveling for these young people may be more educational than being in a classroom. Travel is a fabulous educational tool.

Well, sure, when it is actual travel and not just transportation to/from a basketball game and maybe a night in a hotel room. I imagine the Duke players get a fair amount out of traveling to tournaments when there is some free time, or doing the pre-season trips they are permitted every few years. But I'm not sure Thursday night in Blacksburg before a Friday spent doing game prep, probably attending study hall, and then playing a game is a better educational experience [not counting basketball education] than going to class.

[budwom]

At times like this, I rely on the words of Coach K, who has often said that his players were tired, and has also often said "they don't get tired, they're college kids." I guess we'll find out Friday...but it DOES sound like a taxing schedule to me, especially as a geezer.

[uh_no]

At times like this, I rely on the words of Coach K, who has often said that his players were tired, and has also often said "they don't get tired, they're college kids." I guess we'll find out Friday...but it DOES sound like a taxing schedule to me, especially as a geezer.

i would say that lack of rest due to travel is far more impactful than playing games back to back or 2 in 3 days. Good sleep is ridiculously critical for recovery, and that's hard to do when you're on a red-eye.

[sagegrouse]

At times like this, I rely on the words of Coach K, who has often said that his players were tired, and has also often said "they don't get tired, they're college kids." I guess we'll find out Friday...but it DOES sound like a taxing schedule to me, especially as a geezer.

i would say that lack of rest due to travel is far more impactful than playing games back to back or 2 in 3 days. Good sleep is ridiculously critical for recovery, and that's hard to do when you're on a red-eye.

Don't mean to seem naive, but, as noted by K, there is an academic impact from the travel schedule -- especially with exams next week.

[Skydog]

You could analyze each Duke player and virtually all of them fail on defense at some point. Tre has gotten beat off the dribble a good bit this year. Occasionally Vernon plays on the high side or allows his man to get angle on him when he could've moved his feet. Jack has missed numerous rotations... just against MSU. Hurt gets bullied on a regular basis. My point is while Joey may not have the defensive instincts of Tre, he brings what this team lacks - shooting, energy, and toughness. When he gets in the game he sparks the team, raises the energy, and that has a hard time being quantified.

You made two points -- A) All defenders make mistakes. and B) he brings a lot of positives. I'll address them separately:

A) As I mentioned in my post I have zero issue with Baker getting beaten on defense -- it happens to the best defenders from time to time. I was just concerned by how he was beaten. Everyone occasionally gets juked out or makes a mistake on a switch or takes the wrong angle. But good defenders almost never casually stroll away from their corner 3 opponent for no reason. And I especially didn't expect to see it from a player who knew that defensive issues were keeping him off the court.
B) I agree with all the positives you list for Baker and I was happy every time K put him on the court. In fact those positives are what makes his struggle to get playing time so surprising. I was just pointing out that I saw a few hints of what might be keeping him off the court.

Anyway what I saw or didn't see doesn't matter. If Baker plays good defense he will get a lot of playing time this season, if he doesn't he won't. It's as simple as that.

[HereBeforeCoachK]

Well, sure, when it is actual travel and not just transportation to/from a basketball game and maybe a night in a hotel room. I imagine the Duke players get a fair amount out of traveling to tournaments when there is some free time, or doing the pre-season trips they are permitted every few years. But I'm not sure Thursday night in Blacksburg before a Friday spent doing game prep, probably attending study hall, and then playing a game is a better educational experience [not counting basketball education] than going to class.

I probably wasn't talking about Blacksburg VA. Maybe NYC or the West coast, or to Canada like last year, or the Bahamas or Maui. This is a nation where a lot of HS seniors in SF didn't know the difference between Washington State and Washington DC. Probably not a problem for Duke players (well, there is Kyrie), but for the universe of players over all.

Some schools the athletes take classes online and don't go to class. Joe Burrow has never darkened a classroom doorway at LSU. (I found that out last week).

[Skydog]

You may be right, but it seems inconceivable that a bright young man who has most likely played 100+ games a season from his middle school days to present would not realize when he has been beat on a play. It can't be and obvioiusly wasn't the first time he's been involved in similar plays, and coaches/teammates/parents/film review would have by now caused him to realize that he didn't play smart defense. These are bread-and-butter basketball plays you are talking about: it's not his first rodeo...

I'm not really sure how you would know that, as you maintain, Joey never realizes that the breakdown was his fault(did he smile or high five his teammates after the plays in question?).

I often see plays in both college and the NBA where it seems pretty clear that the biggest culprit in a defensive breakdown is either unaware or in denial that he is the source of the breakdown. It's too tedious to write out examples though. If I weren't lazy I would go back and find the plays in the last game that I was referring to, but I am lazy so... take my word for it?

[DukieInKansas]

Not only was he untouched, but it looked like he was in the pre-game layup line! There must have been 2 1/2 to 3 feet of nothing but East Lansing air between him and the nearest defender. Nobody even reached a hand out sideways or upwards or make any kind of attempt to slow down/stop the drive. I couldn't believe I heard a whistle; I thought my ears were fooling me. I even asked the question in the in-game thread to make sure it wasn't just in my head.

Horrible, horrible call. Might as well have called it on Scheyer, as he was just about as close to Winston as any of the players were.

Thank you. I didn't see anyone near him but figured l wasn't seeing it correctly. I should have backed up the recording.

[Spanarkel]

Not only was he untouched, but it looked like he was in the pre-game layup line! There must have been 2 1/2 to 3 feet of nothing but East Lansing air between him and the nearest defender. Nobody even reached a hand out sideways or upwards or make any kind of attempt to slow down/stop the drive. I couldn't believe I heard a whistle; I thought my ears were fooling me. I even asked the question in the in-game thread to make sure it wasn't just in my head.

Horrible, horrible call. Might as well have called it on Scheyer, as he was just about as close to Winston as any of the players were.

I am certainly not defending the phantom call, but on rewatching the play several times it does appear that Matthew Hurt did reach his hand out towards(maybe in the same zip code) Winston's left hand( definitely didn't touch him)in the lane as he shot the ball with his right hand. The foul was called on Hurt, but yes, no contact at all that I could see.

[ScreechTDX1847]

Good win. Eye test told me we turned them over like crazy, but apparently that wasn't entirely true. I do think our D may have been better than the stats, since MSU closed the game on an 8 to 1 run after the game was no longer in doubt.

OFFENSE

Possessions: 75.7 (not too fast; not too slow; I think pace was good for us)
oRtg: 1.15 (pretty good; 4th best oRtg in nine games)
eFG%: 62.3% (excellent; 2nd best eFG of the season)
3pt%: 46.7% (third game out of four with a 3pt% over 46%; who said this team couldn't shoot?)
2pt%: 59.5% (also excellent; 2nd best 2pt marksmanship of the season)
%threes: 26.3% (low, but we'll take it; our four lowest %three performances correspond to our four best 3pt% performances)
FT rate: 38.6% (not bad; sixth consecutive free throw rate over 38.5%)
OR%: 25.0% (bad)
TO%: 19.8% (pretty bad; sixth 19.8+ TO% of the season in nine games, including four in a row)
a/to: 1.47:1 (not bad)
%assisted: 68.8% (pretty high)
fast break pts: 17 (19.5% of points; pretty good)

DEFENSE

dRtg: 0.99 (last four games have been our four worst defensive ppp of the season, but like I said, I think this one is deceptive)
eFG%: 48.4% (meh)
3pt%: 25.0% (good)
2pt%: 52.2% (not good; fourth straight game over 50%)
%threes: 25.8% (good; 7th game out of nine with %threes under 30%)
FT rate: 37.1% (not so good)
DR%: 71.0% (2nd lowest DR% of the season, but at least we're over 70%)
TO%: 18.5% (3rd straight TO performance under 20%, but we got them early when it counted)
a/to: 1.50:1 (3rd straight over 1:1 after our first six games all under 0.72:1)
%assisted: 75.3% (extremely high, but Cassius Winston...)
stl%: 13.2% (good; the fact that 10 of their 14 turnovers were steals made a big difference)
blk%: 17.7% (23.9% of 2pt shots) (whoa Nelly; best block party of the season)
fast break pts: 4 (5.3% of points; fabulous; by far the lowest % of opponent's points this season)


So, I'd say this was a good performance on both sides of the ball. Our defensive numbers weren't eye-popping, but they were adequate in most areas and outstanding in blocks and steals. We didn't force so many turnovers, and coughed up too many ourselves. But the fact that almost all our defensive turnovers were of the live-ball variety and less than half of our offensive turnovers were, led to a huge disparity in fast break points (17 to 4), which was basically the ballgame.

It was all of those blocks at the rim. Not "turnovers" but 5-6 went the other way for scores and they literally all prevented layups at the rim - they may as well have been steals.