My thoughts, in no particular order.
1) Refs were bad, and it seems we got the brunt of it. Missed foul on Proctor's 3pt shot at the half. Missed Dickinson hook on Maliq called a foul on Maliq. Missed armbar used by Dickinson to push Maliq off. Missed travel call on their player that was called a block on us. Incorrectly called a foul on Maliq when he was simply boxing out Dickinson who happened to be in midair - this was really an over-the-back foul. Correctly ejected Dickinson, but then inexplicably let him sit on the bench. After the Dickinson ejection, called several perimeter touch fouls in the span of seconds against Duke as a make-up. And yet, if the thought was to snuff the physicality out of the game - how did they miss that on Duke's very next offensive play, Cooper Flagg was fouled multiple times in the air while he went for his massive dunk?
2) Proctor should be getting more praise. Not just for this game, but for his season so far. He has career highs in FG % and 3P % (50%!) while playing elite defense. Yes, he's not our point guard, but so far he's specifically been asked to play off guard and he's doing a superb job. He does need to improve his free throw shooting which is oddly down - hopefully small sample size.
3) Caleb Foster doesn't seem like a starter right now. Every single one of his stat lines is inferior to Sion James, who is also significantly older and more experienced. Start Sion.
4) Given the absence of a playmaking guard, options include Kon or Proctor. In either case, we may lose some of their scoring punch. But early enough in the season to tinker with it and see what happens. With Proctor, we know he can do at least a serviceable job as PG based on last year.
5) Cooper Flagg is an elite talent and will get better. But he needs to be coached ASAP about what to do in a double team situation or how to avoid dribbling into traffic in the paint. A double team means there's an open player - find him. It's okay in my book that this happened a second time after Kentucky. But if it keeps happening, it starts to remind me of all the dribble spin turnovers from Filipowski in his freshman year. It feels like it should be easily correctable with some tape.
6) Mason Gillis has been a liability so far. He is supposed to bring elite shooting, but through 6 games he is shooting 29% from 3. Much has been said about Kon's 0-8 performance from 3, but Gillis was 1-5 and he did not bring the other benefits Kon did like scoring and distributing. It's possible his 47% line from last year was an aberration and/or benefitted from Edey's gravity. But still, he's a career 40% shooter with no season lower than 35%. Hopefully this isn't another Grandison situation. He deserves more leash, but also at some point the coaching staff needs to evaluate him based on what he's doing rather than his career stats.
7) Scheyer's coaching. Look, he did some good things. I like the last two plays to get the ball over half court and Kon's last look wasn't bad and almost went in. I also liked the adjustment to make Kon playmaker. But there are some serious headscratchers. Like:
- Why not challenge the missed hook on Dickinson? That was worth two points, would have taken a foul off Maliq, and would have given Dickinson an extra foul (which admittedly ended up being a moot point).
- Once Dickinson was out, why no adjustments? Specifically, why was Malauch not in the game more? We had issues rebounding the ball. We should have had a clear advantage here that we missed on.
- Of course, the inability to get a shot off at the end. Look, part of that was on Kon, but it's definitely been a pattern over these Scheyer years. The team needs to be coached - broken play or not - put the ball up! If Kon had put the ball up instead of passed it at the last second, maybe it goes in; maybe he get a foul called; maybe Malauch gets a rebound.
- I would have liked to see some zone, especially after the string of touch foul make-up calls. Yes, they were shooting well from 3, but they're not an elite 3-point shooting team, and the real issue is that they were able to get in the paint.
I think this team has a lot of upside and Scheyer's teams have tended to improve over the course of the last two seasons. That said, I can't shake the feeling that Scheyer is losing games that his predecessor would have won. Unfair standard? I hear ya. I also can't shake the feeling that Scheyer is losing games that some of his peers at top blue bloods would be winning.