MBB: Duke at Notre Dame (Mon, Jan 28, 7pm, ESPN) Pre-Game and In-Game Thread

[JBDuke]

Duke travels to Notre Dame to take on the Fighting Irish on Monday at 7 pm. TV is ESPN. Short turnaround, including travel. Here's hoping that they got their uglies out of their system today vs. Georgia Tech...

[MChambers]

I posted this in the ACC thread, but UVa had only 2 turnovers against ND today. Guess ND must play a very conservative defense, with their lack of depth. Plus, Brey's never really had a good defense at ND.

[SCMatt33]

I posted this in the ACC thread, but UVa had only 2 turnovers against ND today. Guess ND must play a very conservative defense, with their lack of depth. Plus, Brey's never really had a good defense at ND.

They’ve sat back in a pretty conservative zone at times. I only watched a few minutes of the UVA game today and that’s what they were in. They aren’t very deep, playing mostly 7 guys. They burned a redshirt on a 3-star freshman, but he’s only played 15 minutes in 3 games so far. Notre Dame not only forced few turnovers, but also didn’t commit many fouls, only 8 for the entire game. That’s not abnormal for them either. ND is number 1 in the entire country at defensive free throw rate. They don’t have a lot of depth and don’t want to foul you to keep guys on the floor. They haven’t committed more than 18 fouls in any ACC game and are usually under 15.

The last three games, Duke has busted out of the gate thinking they’re the Warriors, starting out with 6 of 10, 5 of 9 and 8 of 14 shots from behind the arc against UVA, Pitt and GT respectively. After those stretches, they’ve only taken 8 of 41, 18 of 54 and 13 of 44 behind the arc, which are much more reasonable numbers for this team, and very often had fewer bad shots in the bunch, even if they didn’t make many. Guys can’t fall into the trap of saying “oh I just caught this pass from the point to the wing and there’s no one in my face yet, so it’s a good shot to catch, turn and shoot in one motion.” For a good shooter, that’s not a terrible shot, but not one you have to force quickly. For this team, that’s a bad shot. Can’t let ND sitting in a zone make you shoot just because it’s there. You gotta drive, move the zone, pass and re drive to get the zone scrambling. If they don’t pressure the middle, like GT did before getting into foul trouble, you can pass to the high post and work out of there. This team has had a nasty habit against a zone where the guys on the perimeter stand still because there’s no one denying a pass to the, thinking their spacing the floor where in reality, the d would love them to catch a swing pass and shoot it while they close out.

[UrinalCake]

^ I think that the game plan is to establish the three ball early so that we can stretch out the defense. But when you only hit 10% of them, that strategy fails pretty badly.

[Bob Green]

Early odds have Duke favored by 14 points with the Over/Under at 149.5:

http://www.vegasinsider.com/college-...dds/las-vegas/

[DavidBenAkiva]

I hate these short turnaround games. And I do not like the fact that it is against Notre Dame. Mike Brey and his Notre Dame teams have been particularly pesky. We caught Notre Dame at a bad time last year, without Bonzie Colson or then-freshman DJ Harvey.

On paper, Duke should roll Notre Dame. They are not a good defensive unit. Rex Pflueger, injured and out for the rest of his senior year, was the only one that was halfway decent at generating turnovers. The team ranks 302nd in the nation in defensive TO%. Junior Juwan Durham is a very good rim protector, but he doesn't play too many minutes. Overall, they are just not that good on that side of the court.

On offense, Notre Dame has developed a reputation as a good and sometimes great shooting team. This is not one of those teams. John Mooney has stepped forward into a traditional stretch-4 role for the Fightin' Irish. He's really blossomed this year, hitting 45.5% from three. If anything, he isn't shooting enough. He has just 44 attempts on the season. He is the number 1 offensive threat on the team. The Irish also feature junior guard T.J. Gibbs. He was thrust into the point guard role last year when Matt Ferrell went down with injury (who didn't?). Gibbs, along with freshmen Pretiss Hubbs share point guard duties this year. Sophomore DJ Harvey is the third offensive focal point. He's a jack of all trades/master of none kind of wing. He's been unspectacular on the year overall. Besides Mooney, none of the other players are shooting above 40% from 3 and two of their most frequent shooters - Hubbs and Harvey - are below 30%. This might turn into a really good Notre Dame team next season. Pflueger was the only senior getting serious minutes and his NCAA career is over unless he gets a 5th year waiver.


Hopefully, this Fightin Irish team stays on schedule and continues its struggles this season for another game. A hot shooting night from a few players could make for a long evening. They do not turn the ball over much at all, so forcing a few bad passes and generating fast break opportunities through blocks or long defensive rebounds would be helpful. So long as Duke commits to scoring efficiently, this should be a relatively easy win. In spite of all that, I am still quite nervous. Let's Go Duke!

[Billy Dat]

They’ve sat back in a pretty conservative zone at times. I only watched a few minutes of the UVA game today and that’s what they were in. They aren’t very deep, playing mostly 7 guys. They burned a redshirt on a 3-star freshman, but he’s only played 15 minutes in 3 games so far. Notre Dame not only forced few turnovers, but also didn’t commit many fouls, only 8 for the entire game. That’s not abnormal for them either. ND is number 1 in the entire country at defensive free throw rate. They don’t have a lot of depth and don’t want to foul you to keep guys on the floor. They haven’t committed more than 18 fouls in any ACC game and are usually under 15.

The last three games, Duke has busted out of the gate thinking they’re the Warriors, starting out with 6 of 10, 5 of 9 and 8 of 14 shots from behind the arc against UVA, Pitt and GT respectively. After those stretches, they’ve only taken 8 of 41, 18 of 54 and 13 of 44 behind the arc, which are much more reasonable numbers for this team, and very often had fewer bad shots in the bunch, even if they didn’t make many. Guys can’t fall into the trap of saying “oh I just caught this pass from the point to the wing and there’s no one in my face yet, so it’s a good shot to catch, turn and shoot in one motion.” For a good shooter, that’s not a terrible shot, but not one you have to force quickly. For this team, that’s a bad shot. Can’t let ND sitting in a zone make you shoot just because it’s there. You gotta drive, move the zone, pass and re drive to get the zone scrambling. If they don’t pressure the middle, like GT did before getting into foul trouble, you can pass to the high post and work out of there. This team has had a nasty habit against a zone where the guys on the perimeter stand still because there’s no one denying a pass to the, thinking their spacing the floor where in reality, the d would love them to catch a swing pass and shoot it while they close out.

I am glad that ND will be playing zone because I think we are all interested to see whether or not the team can start hitting a higher % of 3s by potentially taking fewer and better 3s either via the strategies you suggest or some other manner. Other things to watch out for:

-As Tre settles back in, will we be better able to dictate pace and create live ball turnovers with his bulldogging at the top of the D?
-Is Bolden back? Will it matter if ND plays small and tries to spread us out, as they usually do. This is likely not a Bolden game which means...
-With AOC's good play against Tech, and Javin's continued mediocre play, will we be seeing more "death line-ups" with Zion/RJ guarding the interior (I didn't say 'playing the 5' coach!) along with Tre, Cam and either AOC or Jack
-Does Joey Baker read DBR and will he start pump faking the removal of his warm up and then wink and point at the camera from afar. If he does this, I want a poll asking how many DBRers actually swooned as he did so.

[MChambers]

I am glad that ND will be playing zone because I think we are all interested to see whether or not the team can start hitting a higher % of 3s by potentially taking fewer and better 3s either via the strategies you suggest or some other manner. Other things to watch out for:

-As Tre settles back in, will we be better able to dictate pace and create live ball turnovers with his bulldogging at the top of the D?
-Is Bolden back? Will it matter if ND plays small and tries to spread us out, as they usually do. This is likely not a Bolden game which means...
-With AOC's good play against Tech, and Javin's continued mediocre play, will we be seeing more "death line-ups" with Zion/RJ guarding the interior (I didn't say 'playing the 5' coach!) along with Tre, Cam and either AOC or Jack
-Does Joey Baker read DBR and will he start pump faking the removal of his warm up and then wink and point at the camera from afar. If he does this, I want a poll asking how many DBRers actually swooned as he did so.

I must spread it around before commenting on Billy Dat again, but love this, especially the points about our creating live ball turnovers with Tre back (tho tough to do against ND) and Joey Baker pump faking.

[HereBeforeCoachK]

I'm suffering in Cancun for a couple weeks....and ESPN has automatically switched to the Latin American ESPN desportes on my lap top, and Hulu won't stream in Mexico for some reason. Is there another way to stream this game...and the others....while I'll be away.

(and sadly, no, it's NOT a pure vacation down here...medical tourism and a complicated situation for my wife).

[uh_no]

I'm suffering in Cancun for a couple weeks...and ESPN has automatically switched to the Latin American ESPN desportes on my lap top, and Hulu won't stream in Mexico for some reason. Is there another way to stream this game...and the others...while I'll be away.

(and sadly, no, it's NOT a pure vacation down here...medical tourism and a complicated situation for my wife).

VPN to the US

[HereBeforeCoachK]

VPN to the US

I'm hoping the ACC website will stream the game...I mean, Netflix works fine, just not Hulu and ESPN.

[Clipsfan]

I'm suffering in Cancun for a couple weeks...and ESPN has automatically switched to the Latin American ESPN desportes on my lap top, and Hulu won't stream in Mexico for some reason. Is there another way to stream this game...and the others...while I'll be away.

(and sadly, no, it's NOT a pure vacation down here...medical tourism and a complicated situation for my wife).

I know on mobile web you can set which edition under "More" in the pull down. I had this issue when in Mexico last year. I don't know if this impacts streaming ability over WatchESPN as it wasn't bball season.

[FerryFor50]

I'm just glad Bonzie Colson used up his eight years of eligibility.

[Natty_B]

At #84 ND is a spot below Yale (who haven't lost since they played Duke) in Kenpom.

[Kedsy]

At #84 ND is a spot below Yale (who haven't lost since they played Duke) in Kenpom.

We didn't play Yale on the road...

[CajunDevil]

-Does Joey Baker read DBR and will he start pump faking the removal of his warm up and then wink and point at the camera from afar. If he does this, I want a poll asking how many DBRers actually swooned as he did so.

Don't play with my emotions... but I did get excited reading this

[Natty_B]

We didn't play Yale on the road...

Just pointing out where ND is ranked on Kenpom obviously anything can happen on the road (see Vandy v. Tennessee - although a rivalry game about every game Duke plays gets that level of intensity). ND is still above some other ACC teams Duke will play or play again (BC 106, Miami 103, Wake 167 - yikes).

[ndkjr70]

I'm suffering in Cancun for a couple weeks...and ESPN has automatically switched to the Latin American ESPN desportes on my lap top, and Hulu won't stream in Mexico for some reason. Is there another way to stream this game...and the others...while I'll be away.

(and sadly, no, it's NOT a pure vacation down here...medical tourism and a complicated situation for my wife).

The game will be up on here. Usually one or two pop-ups to close out of and then a perfect HD stream for the rest of the game. Works like a charm.

https://www.reddit.com/r/ncaaBBallStreams/

[BandAlum83]

Don't play with my emotions... but I did get excited reading this

If we burn Joey's redshirt, it will be in the championship game. How else can we outdo the Grayson game? If you think Grayson came out of nowhere...Joey, in his first action of the year ignites Duke with 16 second half points to spark the win!

[azzefkram]

What... no CDu scouting report? Looks like I'm going to have to resort to uninformed grumbings at the TV instead of my usual semi-informed ones. A pre-game without a CDu scouting report is like going to a family picnic without my sister in tow. A whole lot of 2nd cousins get a "heyyyy... you." All kidding aside, those reports are gold.