Maliq Brown injury vigil

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I hope Jon has a purloined jar of Dean Smith's magical healing dust stashed away that he can open and sprinkle on Maliq, because this next 5-game stretch is going to be enormously challenging even if we could count on Brown to be available at full strength. For a start, seasoned Duke fans hardly need to be reminded of the nightmare that Joel Coliseum can be when the Blue Devils roll in from Durham to do battle with the Deacs. Three of the last five trips have resulted in losses for Duke; and even when Duke manages to tough out a win there -- the term "tough out" being the kindest of descriptors -- somehow the Blue Devils seem to get whistled for the most fouls.

If the Blue Devils can survive that match with minimal casualties, they'll get a quick 48-hour turnaround to face the Wolfpack, a team that almost always brings great energy and its best game to Cameron. Follow that up with the home game against UNC, then what we hope will be a relatively less formidable but seldom easy road test at Syracuse, and wrap it up with the center-ring ten-round slugfest down at Clemson. No matter how confident you may feel about this team, that's going to be a difficult series of five games. I'd love to see Duke win all of them; but frankly, I'll be relieved if we can win most of them.
 
Stray Gator said:
I hope Jon has a purloined jar of Dean Smith's magical healing dust stashed away that he can open and sprinkle on Maliq, because this next 5-game stretch is going to be enormously challenging even if we could count on Brown to be available at full strength. For a start, seasoned Duke fans hardly need to be reminded of the nightmare that Joel Coliseum can be when the Blue Devils roll in from Durham to do battle with the Deacs. Three of the last five trips have resulted in losses for Duke; and even when Duke manages to tough out a win there -- the term "tough out" being the kindest of descriptors -- somehow the Blue Devils seem to get whistled for the most fouls.

If the Blue Devils can survive that match with minimal casualties, they'll get a quick 48-hour turnaround to face the Wolfpack, a team that almost always brings great energy and its best game to Cameron. Follow that up with the home game against UNC, then what we hope will be a relatively less formidable but seldom easy road test at Syracuse, and wrap it up with the center-ring ten-round slugfest down at Clemson. No matter how confident you may feel about this team, that's going to be a difficult series of five games. I'd love to see Duke win all of them; but frankly, I'll be relieved if we can win most of them.
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I hear ya, and almost every year I'd be on board with the worrying, but this year I'm not. We may well indeed lay an egg in there somewhere, but I fully expect us to win every single one of those games, and most by a comfortable margin. Aside from the slack ending with ND, you have to go all the way back to Dec 4th to find a game that really wasn't a blowout; that game came against Auburn and it wasn't a squeaker.

This team is shaping up to be very special and has done an admirable job stepping up in Maliq's absence. I'm pretty hopeful that we'll have him back for at least a couple of those you listed.
 
For whatever it is worth, Torvik gives us a 61% chance of going 5-0 during this stretch. The most likely loss is at Clemson where we are a 7.2 point favorite.

Maybe shave 2 points off our projected margin for each game Brown is out?
 
I'll guess 4-1 over this stretch. They'll handle NC State at home (on the road would be more challenging) and beat Syracuse. I think they'll lose one of the other three.

Some of the most competitive Duke-UNC games come when one team isn't having a great year.
 
Optimistic but as a lifetime Duke fan our team can stumble when someone goes off like Bootsy Thornton. A week of practice should be time to prepare for Wake Forest. The Deacons play their A game at home. No one can afford to not be productive. Odd how Proctor had 0 against Miami then Kon has a really off night against BC. Khaman and Pat got to play better defensively against Wake Forest. Hope Maliq is available next week
 
heyman25 said:
Optimistic but as a lifetime Duke fan our team can stumble when someone goes off like Bootsy Thornton. A week of practice should be time to prepare for Wake Forest. The Deacons play their A game at home. No one can afford to not be productive. Odd how Proctor had 0 against Miami then Kon has a really off night against BC. Khaman and Pat got to play better defensively against Wake Forest. Hope Maliq is available next week
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FWIW, while Bootsy Thornton did play (and I believe hit the game-winning shot) in St John's win over Duke in 2000, the game in which Bootsy "went off" (scoring 40 points) was in 1999, and Duke won. Just sayin'.
 
heyman25 said:
Optimistic but as a lifetime Duke fan our team can stumble when someone goes off like Bootsy Thornton. A week of practice should be time to prepare for Wake Forest. The Deacons play their A game at home. No one can afford to not be productive. Odd how Proctor had 0 against Miami then Kon has a really off night against BC. Khaman and Pat got to play better defensively against Wake Forest. Hope Maliq is available next week
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Any one of 4 of UNC’a guards are capable of going full on Bootsy on Duke. Love, Ryan and Manek (a 4 masquerading as a 2) have killed Duke from the perimeter in recent years where this Duke team is most vulnerable. UNC is capable of playing at a frenetic pace that could give Duke some trouble. Duke’s high assist ratio is indicative of a team more comfortable playing a half court game and if UNC is hitting their threes they could easily win in Cameron. Duke must get production out of Kon, Proctor and James on both ends of the court
 
Hey guys - any chance we could return this thread to its purpose which is Maliq’s injury and recovery ? Kind of an important topic and we’re nowhere close to it anymore. I’m sure a lot of folks are clicking on this thread hoping to see info on Maliq only to see all of this stuff about completely unrelated topics. Anyone with me on this ?
 
tommy said:
Hey guys - any chance we could return this thread to its purpose which is Maliq’s injury and recovery ? Kind of an important topic and we’re nowhere close to it anymore. I’m sure a lot of folks are clicking on this thread hoping to see info on Maliq only to see all of this stuff about completely unrelated topics. Anyone with me on this ?
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Soon this thread with change from Brown's injury, to my first live Duke/UNC game, to my first DBR thread derailment recollection.
 
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