MBB: Duke 59, Miami 81 Post-Game Thread

[LBF]

Miami's defense was outstanding.

[gumbomoop]

A poster on the in game thread wondered if the team will get one or two days off before resuming practice. The answer should be no days. No hours. This team should be on the floor at midnight tonight. Practicing. Practicing mad. I don’t care if this guy or that is tired or sore. Get over it. You can rest later. The message has to be sent that this type of no-show in terms of effort is simply unacceptable. We couldn’t have been more lazy or sloppy with the ball, slower to loose balls, or more disinterested defensively.

If Jon isn’t spitting mad about this performance, then he never will be.

I asked that question, but it was more a technical question, concerning NCAA rules about 1 day off per week, etc. Would they have taken a day off last week, giving them one less day to prep for UNC? And if not, as they surely prepped for Miami (I know...), aren’t they required to take tomorrow off, no organized bball activities? Maybe I’ve misunderstood the rule about mandated off-days?

[simplyluvin]

I have always wished we had a statistical category similar to tennis' "unforced errors". Miami's defense was not nearly as good as it looked because so many of our turnovers were unforced.

On the other hand, as soon as our guard with the ball crossed half court, they doubled/trapped him. Roach and Proctor NEVER adjusted to that, nor did we do anything to mitigate that play. So, their guards really defended ours well.

But that doesn't explain the passes to nowhere, or the sloppy dribbles, or the weak layup attempts. That was all us.

Their ball pressure was outstanding, especially on the perimeter, and we never adjusted. That pressure led to Proctor making some poor decisions in the first few minutes, and we never recovered. But overall we were really not strong with the ball today, perhaps due to fatigue and game pressure. That can't happen again this season.

If we were stronger with the ball, we might have had a puncher's chance. That's our learning moment. Hope Coach plays this game on a loop on every screen back in Durham.

[CameronBlue]

Do you think unc is getting better results?

Really beside the point, though he did use UNC as an example. The value of experience is proven.

[UrinalCake]

as soon as our guard with the ball crossed half court, they doubled/trapped him. Roach and Proctor NEVER adjusted to that, nor did we do anything to mitigate that play. So, their guards really defended ours well.

It's a problem when you only have two guys who can handle the ball. Hopefully getting Whitehead back will mitigate the issue some, but our roster construction is not ideal when we have three bigs plus Mitchell who's really a 4. We even played Young and Lively together for long stretches tonight, presumably because they were our two best scorers and Flip needed a breather, but that was a spacing nightmare.

Credit Miami for their aggressive defense, they have athletic guards and wings who kept us under constant pressure and prevented us from ever getting comfortable. They showed much more energy despite having also played Saturday.

[DCDevil9194]

I thought Flip played soft. He had numerous offensive rebounds in the first half, and missed one layup after another. He was 3 for 8 shooting twos, and I think most if not all were within a couple feet.

[Ian]

Well, we lost, but I liked the effort.

Really, what about the effort did you like, the bigs letting a tiny Miami team grab over 40% of their misses, or the guards takes turns leading the turnover parade.

[tommy]

It used to be a thing that “Duke always makes a run” when we get down. Among the many other things that were very troubling about this game, so too is the fact that this team never made one. Never one more than what, 3 baskets before surrendering again?

[gumbomoop]

Really, what about the effort did you like, the bigs letting a tiny Miami team grab over 40% of their misses, or the guards turning leading the turnover parade.

I will guess that chrishoke was hoping to lighten our gloom with deep, deep, deep sarcasm.

[freshmanjs]

Really beside the point, though he did use UNC as an example. The value of experience is proven.

This is a well worn discussion, but one and done heavy teams have outperformed experienced teams very clearly

[UrinalCake]

It used to be a thing that “Duke always makes a run” when we get down. Among the many other things that were very troubling about this game, so too is the fact that this team never made one. Never one more than what, 3 baskets before surrendering again?

When you turn the ball over 21 times over a 40 minute game it’s hard to get consecutive scores. And our lack of three point shooting means we can’t make up ground quickly.

[CDu]

On the plus side, this might push our win in Cameron up to a Q1 win… 😂

But for real, not much one can do but shake it off and hope that a team with more rest and more prep will be better focused and better prepared. I doubt UVa will pressure the ball the way Miami did (aside from Clark), because that isn’t their system. But they will make life difficult in the paint of course.

[Dr. Maturin]

I thought a loss was reasonably likely under the circumstances. Miami came out red hot with a purpose. We actually created some good shots early and were unlucky that every bounce seemed to go against us. And then the wheels fell off. What worries me was the complete lack of response from our team. In the second half, our guys were expending energy but completely lacked poise or direction. It was like watching pick up basketball. The same thing happened in the NC State game.

This Duke team has shown promise at times, but when we lay an egg, we really lay an egg. For all the good this team seemed to be building over the 3-game winning streak, our KenPom rating is down to its lowest ebb of the season, at 37. This was definitely a reality check kind of performance.

[Saratoga2]

Scheyer played Blakes, perhaps for toughness and also because our starting guards were having so much trouble. Blakes is not a scorer and he also turned the ball over 3 times in less minutes. So we really had not answer for a steadying influence at PG.

[tommy]

Man, I’m not sure where to start with this one. If you couldn’t see promise in the performance Saturday in the heat of that rivalry, with Lively’s performance, Roach stepping up, Tyrese running the show, I’m not sure you’re ever going to be happy with anything that isn’t a blowout victory.

Also, we still are missing the guy who was almost universally expected to be our best player preseason. There’s that little detail.

This was an ugly, ugly game. But at the end of the year each loss only counts as one loss, just like each win only counts once. What matters is whether or not we respond Saturday.

I get the sense sometimes you’ll only ever truly enjoy watching Duke basketball when we’re winning a national championship. I hope I’m misreading things, because that’s a hard way to be a fan. So what if this doesn’t look like a national championship team? It’s Scheyer’s first year. We’ve had an unusual amount of adversity with injuries. We’re historically young. Maybe all our expectations were way too high.

But then again, UNC looked wayyyyy worse at this time last year, and look what happened. So don’t give up just yet.

All due respect, but we gotta get over this. Whitehead has missed a lot of the season. He was nothing like the player we expected when he did play -- and I'm assuming he was fully healthy or he wouldn't have played when he did. And now of course he's out again and we really don't know when he'll be back and certainly don't know at what level he'll be able to play. There should be zero expectations that we are getting the type of transformative player we thought we were getting before the season started. So this is our team. It doesn't include, and won't include, the Dariq Whitehead we expected to see. We have to face that reality and stop using his loss as a crutch to excuse this or that. Our team is flawed, obviously. We can beat good teams, and we have done so at home and on neutral floors, and we've had a number of blowout losses, only one of which was to a true national contender. I agree with you that our standard should not be "national championship or bust" as that only sets us up for disappointment most years, but the reality is that this team, at least at this point, has not shown the ability to beat 6 NCAA tournament-quality teams in a row. Not even close.

[Furniture]

Miami weren’t just on it. They were ON IT. BIG TIME! They WANTED revenge and punched Duke in the face straight from the off. Our kids were like deers in headlights…I love watching Duke and can take an entertaining loss but tonight I had to turn it off.

[heyman25]

I posted the wrong Gang of 4 song on the in game thread. Post punk UK rock band I knew.
Duke has had bad games, but this was unexpected after seeing progress Saturday Night.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PPdI6OdqKOY

[scottdude8]

On the plus side, this might push our win in Cameron up to a Q1 win… 😂

But for real, not much one can do but shake it off and hope that a team with more rest and more prep will be better focused and better prepared. I doubt UVa will pressure the ball the way Miami did (aside from Clark), because that isn’t their system. But they will make life difficult in the paint of course.

I refused to be the person to post this… but I definitely thought it 😂

[Billy Dat]

I am not saying we are FF calibre or anything, but we did beat Miami this year, and not that long ago. We are bad on the road, largely. A season can’t be judged until the last game is played.

[crdaul]

The defining play of the game was Omier under the hoop, covered by three Duke players, and is able to muscle his way to the hoop for a layup, basically untouched.

And let’s give Miami credit, their defense was really good all game.

Irr was dancing (or walking) the whole time