Duke 72, Kentucky 77 Post Game Thread

Good point.

KenPom separately reports each team’s average offensive and definitive possession length.

Through three games, Duke’s average offensive possession is 15.4 seconds (63rd shortest in the country). Duke’s average defensive possession is 17.6 seconds (252nd in the country).

Pope’s decision to roll the ball upcourt to delay the start of the shot clock seems to be an acknowledgement that Duke was making it difficult for UK to get good shots (quickly).
And also a smart coaching move that perhaps coulda/woulda/shoulda been countered.
 
I'll go out on a limb and say that Duke is a better team defensively and offensively when Malauch and Sion are on the court. Not having them for crunch time against Kentucky probably cost us the game. Part of the offense in the first half was Cooper getting the ball down low to Malauch and having both in the game makes Duke a better defensive team.

GoDuke!
 
I know you're a defense-first fan, Azz. But our defense was excellent this game, especially considering we lost two of our top defenders, Khaman and Sion, for key stretches.

We've all heard and seen that Jon focuses more on D than O early in the season vs Coach K. I remember 2 seasons ago with four new starters, our offense was really basic and predictable early in the year and got more sophisticated and better as the season went on.

I think this offense is way ahead of that early offense in the 2022-23 season, but I expect we will see similar improvement as Jon introduces more concepts, sets and fine tunes what is a good shot and what is a great shot for this team. Hated to lose this game, but I don't think it's a reason to worry too much.
Yeah. I would rather Duke win a rock fight than a shootout. I thought Duke's defense was elite for about 25 minutes of the game. For the remaining 15 minutes, the defense was decidedly less than elite. Losing Man Man and Sion played a big part in the last 10 minutes of that. It's definitely not a worry at this point but it is on my radar.

I am not a fan of running an offense around one or two players. It seems like the ball gets sticky and the three other players become mannequins.
 
I'll go out on a limb and say that Duke is a better team defensively and offensively when Malauch and Sion are on the court. Not having them for crunch time against Kentucky probably cost us the game. Part of the offense in the first half was Cooper getting the ball down low to Malauch and having both in the game makes Duke a better defensive team.

GoDuke!
LOL. That's not a thin limb to go out on. In fact I'd say it's as thick a limb as the trunk of the tree. We are absolutely better defensively with those 2 guys on the court. And it's definitely a huge reason why we lost.

Trusting that by some miracle Sion will be available by the time we meet up with Arizona next Friday.
 
Interesting article in Athletic today analyzing the Kentucky game. It highlighted the simplicity of the Duke offense, likely due to our youth, and how predictable it was. As the game progressed, aided by poor shooting, Kentucky made things tougher and tougher for Duke's offense, as measured by the number of Duke players touching the ball, contented shots, and turnovers because they knew where the ball was going. He says Duke's offense is an easy scout, but it's tough to stop, given our talent. Kentucky was able to do it, and other teams with narrow talent gaps might be able to do it, too.

It feels like a similar story to past years and perhaps a natural outcome of playing so many freshmen (hopefully not coaching).
 
I am not a fan of running an offense around one or two players. It seems like the ball gets sticky and the three other players become mannequins.
In the first half it felt like we were hunting favorable matchups. All of our guards/wings were driving the ball effectively it seemed. I'm not totally sure what happened in the second half. Did Pope do a better job of hiding Brea and Krissa (or did they just play less in the second half)? Whatever happened, our guards were not able to create shots for themselves in the paint. I agree we got one dimensional. It's easy to say Jon got out-adjusted, but I do think injuries and fatigue were a factor as well.
 
Interesting article in Athletic today analyzing the Kentucky game. It highlighted the simplicity of the Duke offense, likely due to our youth, and how predictable it was. As the game progressed, aided by poor shooting, Kentucky made things tougher and tougher for Duke's offense, as measured by the number of Duke players touching the ball, contented shots, and turnovers because they knew where the ball was going. He says Duke's offense is an easy scout, but it's tough to stop, given our talent. Kentucky was able to do it, and other teams with narrow talent gaps might be able to do it, too.

It feels like a similar story to past years and perhaps a natural outcome of playing so many freshmen (hopefully not coaching).
I think it has almost nothing to do with the players on the court and almost everything to do with the coaching philosophy. Just look at Calipari, he runs the same (lack of) organized offense whether he's at UMass, Memphis, UK and now Arkansas. Coaches like Dan Hurley are the opposite, they need to work smarter, and compensate with structure, to find and exploit mismatches. Then when you combine that with elite talent, like Hurley has had, well we've seen what that means the past two years: domination.

I'm curious if we have anyone on the staff with experience in a high-caliber offensive system. I don't think Chris, Jon, or Jai have that experience, not sure about Mike or Emanuel. Which unfortunately may mean we don't have a chance of fixing this during the season.

 
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In the first half it felt like we were hunting favorable matchups. All of our guards/wings were driving the ball effectively it seemed. I'm not totally sure what happened in the second half. Did Pope do a better job of hiding Brea and Krissa (or did they just play less in the second half)? Whatever happened, our guards were not able to create shots for themselves in the paint. I agree we got one dimensional. It's easy to say Jon got out-adjusted, but I do think injuries and fatigue were a factor as well.
Geisinger on TDD did a film breakdown, and it seemed like Duke continued to hunt mismatches, but just for Cooper and, to a lesser extent, Kon. I think losing Sion put a pretty big ding in Duke's ability to get into the paint.

It is interesting that you mention Krissa. If Jon doesn't call that last TO, Krissa and Garrison are on the floor instead of Butler and Williams.
 
Trusting that by some miracle Sion will be available by the time we meet up with Arizona next Friday.

Still no updates at all? I guess we’ll get an update tomorrow. The fact that Isaiah Evans didn’t get a chance at all when Sion went out and Caleb was so ineffective is disappointing.

How is everyone feeling about Caleb Foster right now? I’m already edging over to the Sion side of things… I think he gives us a better chance to win, especially if we keep going with Cooper and Kon as the main half court playmakers.

On paper, Caleb’s advantage over Sion was supposed to be his offensive ability. But if he’s only being relied on as the 3rd or 4th option, there’s diminishing returns, and I’d rather just have a superior defender at that spot.
 

Kentucky basketball hero who schooled Cooper Flagg in clutch speaks out​


Oweh scored 15 points in the game with six rebounds and three assists, but obviously that play on Cooper Flagg is what will stick out most for many people. Oweh transferred to the Kentucky basketball program after spending two years at Oklahoma. He is a key addition for Mark Pope in year one of his tenure. The win is a statement for Mark Pope, who was a celebrated hire as a former Wildcat. Some were disappointed at Kentucky not landing a coach like Dan Hurley or Scott Drew, but Pope is making an early good impression coming over from BYU.

Bulletin board material if there happens to be a second meeting in the NCAA Tournament?
 
It seems that Caleb Foster was the scape goat for the Kentucky game. I don't get it.

He missed his 5 3 pointers. I understand that. I also see that Kon Knueppel, who is supposed to be the new JJ Redick, was 1-8. Meanwhile, Foster had 4 assists and 4 rebounds in 29 minutes of play.

I get the feeling that had Caleb made one of those 2 three pointers in that one possession, and Duke had won the game, the narrative would be different. Coach Scheyer has confidence in Caleb and I'm not ready to bench him because of one bad half.
 
I get the feeling that had Caleb made one of those 2 three pointers in that one possession, and Duke had won the game, the narrative would be different. Coach Scheyer has confidence in Caleb and I'm not ready to bench him because of one bad half.
I agree, but it leaves open the question whether he will make those shots (or more generally, be an efficient offensive weapon) next game. It's too soon to tell. I thought he looked confident handling the ball, mostly made good decisions, and pushed the pace well. But he needs to make shots.

Of course, the same thing can be said for KK. They were a combined 7/30 on a lot of shots I'd expect them to make.
 
I feel like this thread has a sky is falling feel to it. We lost one game and it was frustrating but keep in mind that we lost two of our highest performing players esp. Defensively, and the game was a two-point game very close to the end. They made some insane three pointers and we missed almost all of ours.

In my opinion this was an outlier and the Doom and gloom about Jon's coaching and strategy seems highly unwarranted. If one of those three pointers went in the one by one, many would be singing a different tune.

I am concerned however if Sion is out for an extended period of time. If that happens we will have issues with the guard position depth. But who knows maybe it will allow some other player to step up. Hope he is ok.
 
I feel like this thread has a sky is falling feel to it. We lost one game and it was frustrating but keep in mind that we lost two of our highest performing players esp. Defensively, and the game was a two-point game very close to the end. They made some insane three pointers and we missed almost all of ours.
My impression of this team is that it has an elite defense, and is built on the offensive end to unleash a heavy barrage of threes.

If that's the plan and we play like this in a tournament game, we're done. Even our great defense couldn't compensate for our terrible shooting. What is also disconcerting is Jon's late game coaching. I don't feel like he put us in the best position to win.
 
My impression of this team is that it has an elite defense, and is built on the offensive end to unleash a heavy barrage of threes.

If that's the plan and we play like this in a tournament game, we're done. Even our great defense couldn't compensate for our terrible shooting. What is also disconcerting is Jon's late game coaching. I don't feel like he put us in the best position to win.

And the high volume of threes also lowers our chances at getting fouled, free throw attempts, and to some degree limits our chances at offensive rebounds, which is a strength for this team.

Of course, if we are hitting enough 3s, it fixes a lot of problems. But that was not the case on Tuesday night.
 
It seems that Caleb Foster was the scape goat for the Kentucky game. I don't get it.

I would not say Caleb was the scapegoat, but I think most people would agree Sion is a more impactful, versatile, defensive presence. There’s only 5 spots on the court, and to me, if a player is going to be the 4th option offensively, I’d prefer that spot to be a good defender.
 
Warren is a good example of GOATs with blind spots - he refused to invest in technology stocks for the longest time, said he didn't understand them. I'm guessing that failure to learn and stretch outside his comfort zone cost him tens of billions.

You've undoubtedly heard of Clayton Christensen. He was on a Podcast years ago and described Coach K's short bench as an organizational failure, for the same reasons that have been mentioned by smart folks on this site over the years: fails to develop new talent, creates an over-reliance on starters, doesn't build a flexible and innovative team culture, etc.

I think my disappointment with Jon is that he doesn't seem to be learning and fixing his own blind spots fast enough given expectations at Duke.
I have a feeling that Warren during those pay for
 
I have a feeling that Warren during those lunches (which were most likely at MacDonald’s) was telling the people they were foolish for paying that money when all they had to do was buy Berkshire Hath shares, hold for the long haul, and benefit directly from his personal investment strategy. Buffet finally got into Apple but his deals of getting preferred BofA stock simultaneously why helping stabilize the US after the housing market crash was legendary. Buffet made his early fortune by using the ol cigar butt approach — where he’d buy businesses with decent assets and balance sheets for a discount and smoke every last ounce of smoke left. Then he’d rebalance the company and make it profitable with a long term growth mind set. He always believed in America and US companies with strong fundamentals and didn’t sell. If we apply this to coaching — it would mean putting all of your assets to work and getting every ounce of smoke out of them. It’s a stretched metaphor but get all of that talent off the bench and let them play and develop. This team is way too talented to have a short bench. Duke doesn’t yet realize that rotating in fresh legs at all positions more often will create greater aggregate marginal gains overall than running your young stars ragged and too tired to avoid making turnovers or taking bad shots. Go to the bench and go deep, and just believe that the overall overage of the deep bench with fresh legs will beat out the exhausted legs of 6 to 7 players.
 
I have a feeling that Warren during those lunches (which were most likely at MacDonald’s) was telling the people they were foolish for paying that money when all they had to do was buy Berkshire Hath shares, hold for the long haul, and benefit directly from his personal investment strategy. Buffet finally got into Apple but his deals of getting preferred BofA stock simultaneously why helping stabilize the US after the housing market crash was legendary. Buffet made his early fortune by using the ol cigar butt approach — where he’d buy businesses with decent assets and balance sheets for a discount and smoke every last ounce of smoke left. Then he’d rebalance the company and make it profitable with a long term growth mind set. He always believed in America and US companies with strong fundamentals and didn’t sell. If we apply this to coaching — it would mean putting all of your assets to work and getting every ounce of smoke out of them. It’s a stretched metaphor but get all of that talent off the bench and let them play and develop. This team is way too talented to have a short bench. Duke doesn’t yet realize that rotating in fresh legs at all positions more often will create greater aggregate marginal gains overall than running your young stars ragged and too tired to avoid making turnovers or taking bad shots. Go to the bench and go deep, and just believe that the overall overage of the deep bench with fresh legs will beat out the exhausted legs of 6 to 7 players.
It’s a good metaphor, though I think it's debatable whether it maps to what has worked in college hoops. (Btw - that doesn't mean I think you're wrong with regards to this year's team. If they're going to run, they may need to go deeper into the bench).

As a somewhat relevant aside, after the discussion in this thread over the past few days, I felt motivated to chart the average % of bench minutes for Top 10 KenPom teams going back to 2007 - the first year he tracked that stat. And I've charted it in comparison to Duke's % and the national average each year. See below if interested.

My main takeaway is that Duke isn't all that different from other elite teams/programs in its usage of the bench, though there is year-to-year variance of course. Note that in all 3 years in which Duke reached the Final Four, were decently below the national and top 10 average. The majority of the hard-core one-and-done era (Okafor, Ingram, Tatum, Bagley) saw Duke the furthest below the pack, which is interesting. But I think there were enough "up" years on here to support the case that K and Scheyer both adapted bench usage to their personnel (which gives me hope for this year).

I think it's also noteworthy that the top 10 average doesn't tend to reach the national average. It implies that there is some wisdom in maxing out one's best players, though of course there are exceptions to that rule.

Last comment, a 30% bench minute usage comes out to 60 mpg. There is a wild amount of variance in how that could look. For example, it could be a 7-deep team with two guys off the bench playing 30 mpg; or it could be a 10 deep team with 5 guys off the bench playing 12 mpg. So I acknowledge this is only part of the picture. I still found it to be a helpful exercise as I've been pondering Duke's usage of the bench this week.

% Bench Minutes since 2007.png
 
It’s a good metaphor, though I think it's debatable whether it maps to what has worked in college hoops. (Btw - that doesn't mean I think you're wrong with regards to this year's team. If they're going to run, they may need to go deeper into the bench).

As a somewhat relevant aside, after the discussion in this thread over the past few days, I felt motivated to chart the average % of bench minutes for Top 10 KenPom teams going back to 2007 - the first year he tracked that stat. And I've charted it in comparison to Duke's % and the national average each year. See below if interested.

My main takeaway is that Duke isn't all that different from other elite teams/programs in its usage of the bench, though there is year-to-year variance of course. Note that in all 3 years in which Duke reached the Final Four, were decently below the national and top 10 average. The majority of the hard-core one-and-done era (Okafor, Ingram, Tatum, Bagley) saw Duke the furthest below the pack, which is interesting. But I think there were enough "up" years on here to support the case that K and Scheyer both adapted bench usage to their personnel (which gives me hope for this year).

I think it's also noteworthy that the top 10 average doesn't tend to reach the national average. It implies that there is some wisdom in maxing out one's best players, though of course there are exceptions to that rule.

Last comment, a 30% bench minute usage comes out to 60 mpg. There is a wild amount of variance in how that could look. For example, it could be a 7-deep team with two guys off the bench playing 30 mpg; or it could be a 10 deep team with 5 guys off the bench playing 12 mpg. So I acknowledge this is only part of the picture. I still found it to be a helpful exercise as I've been pondering Duke's usage of the bench this week.

View attachment 18650
Great stuff! This is better analysis than the team by team analysis I did a few weeks back to defend Jon's usage of an 8-man rotation.

I wish the mods would pin your post and chart at the top of the board as this is the most exhausting recurring debate on DBR. With our 8-strong rotation this year, I expect we will be at or above the bench usage of the average top 10 teams this year.

The bottom line is the best teams, on average, play their best players and a shorter bench.
 
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