Would have liked to have seen what happened if Roach would have hit that reverse layup.
Let er rip
Would have liked to have seen what happened if Roach would have hit that reverse layup.
Congratulations to Coach Capel.
Signs of life. Hurt/Johnson can be a potent combo.
-jk
First game with JJ back, some disruption is expected. Against a good Pitt team at home the score was predictable.
On to the next one. I think we'll get much better with more games played.
Signs of life. But we need some consistency.
Any semblance of a routine would be nice for a young squad.
In the end there's no excuse for poor first half play game in and game out. This young team needs to figure out for themselves what college and ACC caliber play is - every single game. Come ready.
There's time. But we need wins.
- Chillin
Why the zone? It made the game too easy for Pitt and didn’t generate turnovers and extra possessions this team absolutely needs.
The zone was ill-advised considering Pitt had just played Syracuse twice. I know we sprung a 3-2 zone on them instead of the 2-3 zone but a lot of the principles to beat a 3-2 remain the same -- get the ball to the FT line area, throw it over the zone to cutters, spray the ball to the corners when the zone collapses to the middle, etc.
A lot of good happened in this game, including of course Jalen's performance but also a quintessential 3-and-D outing by Wendell with not much dribbling and zero turnovers, exactly how we need him to play. But I wish we had just spent the week practicing man-to-man and then playing it the entire game (instead of going to it as a last resort after the 3-2 zone had utterly failed and with our players in foul trouble). I think Duke would've won.
The Duke team showed heart to claw back into the game after being down 15. Welcome back Jalen Johnson with a huge 24 and 15 double double. That kid is going to be a force for someone in the NBA.
Duke shot way too many 3s. 8-28 for the night. Would have liked to seen less 3s and more driving to the rim and trying to draw fouls. Pitt did a good job of that. Pitt shot 37 free throws tonight! Duke finished just 11-19 from the line. Duke had more rebounds and steals than Pitt. Duke fouled Pitt 24 times and Pitt fouled Duke just 15 times.
Need to find a way to either start knocking down 3s more efficiently or getting to the line through drawing contact.
Still lots of ACC games to be played but this team is not close to a Top 35-40 team in the country right now. I trust Coach K and his staff to get this team back on the right track sooner rather than later, though.
Another game where we mount a furious comeback after being down 15, get really close, but never take a lead and fail to make the plays we need, on both ends of the court, at winning time.
The major positive was the play of Jalen Johnson who looked like an all conference player, especially in the second half.
The best player on the court, however, was Champagnie. It’s been a while since an opponent schooled us like that. Toney was also a beast. Great effort by Pittt, and Capel slays one of his mentors.
I like the potential of the Johnson, Moore, Hurt + guards line-up. Roach started better than he finished, DJ was fairly ineffective, but K went with him over Jordan.
We move forward. It doesn’t look good now, but the pieces of a solid team are there, maybe Johnson can catalyze a collective jump.
Spirited effort from the team -- after really rotten starts in each half. That is the mark of a very immature team. Happened against VT as well.
Sage Grouse
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'When I got on the bus for my first road game at Duke, I saw that every player was carrying textbooks or laptops. I coached in the SEC for 25 years, and I had never seen that before, not even once.' - David Cutcliffe to Duke alumni in Washington, DC, June 2013
Slow start, but not as slow as previous games. But again, dug a hole too deep to get out of.
<ref gripe>
Champagnie is really good, but it’s mind boggling how he only picked up 1 foul with as aggressively he plays. And Pitt shot 37 FTs to Duke’s 19 (could have been 20+ with converted front ends of 1-1s). Wasn’t a case of Duke shooting more threes than Pitt; only 8 more attempts.
I thought the refs let them play to start the 2nd half and Duke made a run, but then they got whistle happy again.
Was the first game this year where I felt officiating was a factor.
<end ref gripe>
Bad passes, missed rotations... I’m surprised the score difference wasn’t greater.
Jalen Johnson had a great game and almost single handedly rescued them. Wendell showed some life. Unfortunately the guard play and Hurt weren’t their usual selves. Maybe we’ll get a game where everyone is playing well some time this season...
They did show some signs down the stretch of improvement. So hopefully that carries over to another tough game against Louisville.
Seemed like we should have gone to m2m defense earlier. Glad to see the energy at the end. Wish we could start seeing it from the beginning. Not sure of the stats but nothing seemed to fall for DJ.
Some bad no calls. Hmmm...trying to find some positive. Jalen had a good game and Hurt wasn't badly hurt
Tough loss. Some definite good things, but some definite bad things, culminating in the ultimate bad which was an important loss. And we still don't have a meaningful win this season.
The good:
- Jalen Johnson returned and made a statement. He is a stud, and the offense needs to work through him. He was also impactful on defense. Easily our best player
- Moore really thrived in this game as well. Solid contributions off the bench. If we're to emerge, he's going to need to be a key contributor
- After an awful first half, Hurt played better offensively in the second half.
- We fought back multiple times, including from a 15 point second half deficit. Unfortunately ...
The bad:
- I hate to question Coach K, but the zone seemed like a bad choice against Pitt. The 3-2 zone does have some nice attributes, but keeping track of Champagnie wasn't one of them. He absolutely lit us up, finding the holes in the zone and nailing nearly everything he put up.
- Virtually no impact from Goldwire tonight. He wasn't making things happen with his defense, and aside from easy looks he was not involved on offense.
- Baker was just awful on offense tonight. He doesn't appear to have any confidence, and consistently made the wrong decisions
- The freshman duo struggled tonight on offense. Especially Roach. 2-8 from Steward and 5-16 from Roach (along with 4 turnovers). The two were impactful defensively, but just really struggled tonight to score. If they are even mediocre, we might have won.
- Hurt was really outplayed by Champagnie in the first half. He just couldn't get it going. And Pitt really went after him on the defensive end, illustrating some of his limitations.
- A no-show from Brakefield
- Just a general lack of awareness by the team. Too many times we had guys forcing the action when we really should have been working everything through Johnson.
We got a phenomenal game from Johnson and a pretty good game from Moore. Hurt had an off-night overall, but was okay. But everyone else struggled. Unfortunately a wasted opportunity as we're now fighting an uphill battle. This was a game we needed to win.
Hopefully the return of Johnson helps clarify things moving forward, but we can't afford many more hiccups if we're going to make the tournament. Our level of play is going to have to step up soon, or the fears of missing the tournament will become a reality.
5 thoughts
1. Losing sucks. The obvious silver lining is Johnson’s game. If he can continue, the season could turn around. I’ve thought all along that Johnson is the key to the season. But losing sucks. At this point, the minimum bar for success is just making the NCAAs.
2. Johnson was amazingly only 3 dimes away from a triple double. On the minus side, the man needs to learn to stay in the game. Duke needs his offense. If his defense lags in the near future, I can live with that (for now). We have to have seen Brakefield make his last start of the season, pending another injury (knock on wood). Brakefield looked like a fish out of water in the very short time he was on the floor.
3. I am not seeing Roach making his teammates better. He’s taking too many shots for a PG, he needs to look to set others up more. Too many turnovers. And when he drives, he’s going to shoot. I’d like to see him drive and dish a lot more.
4. The defense keyed on Hurt a lot. If Johnson can really become a force, could they start one of their big bodies for physicality and defense (?), and move Hurt to a forward spot? And keep Moore coming off the bench? Just a thought - could Hurt and Johnson run pick and rolls/pops?
5. A lot of holes in that zone. But perhaps play it more and learn to plug some of them up. And hopefully we don’t see guys light it up like Champagnie. That was a really impressive performance.
9F
I will never talk about That Game. GTHC.
Good effort...eventually.
If this is the Johnson and Moore we get down the stretch then maybe we got a chance to sneak into the tourney.
K’s coaching (or non-coaching) choices continue to mystify.
Looking at the rest of the month, GTech looks like a maybe. But could very well be looking at a 5 game losing streak here.
When all is said and done, this was a poor performance on both ends, and yet we came close. We shot really poorly from the arc and the stripe, yet somehow we got it to within two a couple of times late in the second half. Great effort to get it close from 15 down, but I hope the team learns from this game how to buckle down and push through.
One hope for the future...Jalen and Wendell both played well. Hurt had a sub-par game, but if we can have a "big three" supplmented with stronger guard play, I am starting to like this team's prospects. But this loss hurts. Pitt is good, but this was a road game we needed to win. At this point, I feel like we can sneak into the tournament with playing 10-5 the remainder of the regular season, barring virus-related cancelations. That's a really tall order.
I thought most of the fouls were called correctly. Really, it seemed like a case of the 3-2 zone surprising/affecting our guys more than it surprised/affected Pitt. Obviously, when playing a brand new defense, you might not slide into the correct positions quickly enough when the offense is attacking because you're not used to the movements required. When that happens, "tweet", foul called on you.