SkyBrickey
Member
Your view of the team and the coaching would be the same if we'd hit a couple of those 13 open 3s and beat the #1 team by 3? You'd still be on here complaining about our poor coaching? I seriously doubt that.
MBB: Duke 72, KU 75 Post-game Thread
- Thread starter -jk
- Start date
bluedevilwildcats
Member
This is a perfect analogy and one I've considered as well. Where Cal started falling off was when he lost his best assistants and replaced them with guys who wouldn't/couldn't challenge him to adapt. Then when the talent pipeline dried up, the wheels fell off and Cal was done.
Cal was never a great coach but he got great results by bringing in the best talent and surrounding himself with coaches who were specialists and covered his blind spots. From what I can tell, Jon is not addressing his blind spots and that's because he either doesn't have the right assistants or he's not listening to them. Like you I suspect it's the former.
You're probably familiar with Rupp Rafters. There were always a few pumpers who attacked anyone who criticized Cal. We have one of those on this board, just put him/her on ignore and speak your mind.
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SkyBrickey
Member
And then there are posters who just want to complain and complain. Negative post after negative post.
No acknowledgement that this Coach has coached this team into the #1 defense in the country. No recognition that he is challenging his young team with a brutally tough non-con schedule. When he doesn't win, it's blind spots, and poor X's and O's, and needing new assistant coaches... I'll continue to call out the silliness.
Ye gods, the sense of entitlement! Duke alum here (T'92), and I always have high expectations for the Devils and am fine with constructive, insightful criticism. But to take this tack and petulant tone after a team of largely freshman starters was a bucket away from tieing the #1 team in the nation and THEN to yoke it to a laughable attack on the coaching chops of our 3rd year coach who led us to The Elite Eight last year....my dude, it is of a muchness.
DukieInBrasil
Member
Against both UK and KU this team:
Got behind early, and eventually re-took the lead in the second half, only to turn the ball over multiple times in the last 2 minutes and also run completely unrecognizable trash offense down the stretch. And we still almost won both. Cooper dribbling the ball is bad offense for this team. Kon was 1-16 from 3 in these 2 games.
I did like that Tyrese did not disappear after a good start, but shot really well throughout the game. In fact everyone not named Kon or Mason shot incredibly well from 3. Those 2 shot 1-13 from 3. Everybody else was 10-13, i like that.
Additionally, i liked that after playing no defense whatsoever to allow Kansas to go up 13 in the first few seconds of the game, that our defense stiffened up, and played like a #1 defense for the rest of the game. Except for the 1st coupla minutes of the second half. Unfortunately for this team the first 2 minutes of each half count towards the final score.
I'm fully on board with those who say that Evans should have played in either or both of those games now. I am very ready for Foster to not be the PG anymore. Against our lesser ranked opponents he has looked fine, but against better players it's hard to see the value he brings to the position. If we're going to run this non-PG everybody's-a-PG offense, then the coaches really need to come up with some better plays.
Self had their defense throw double teams at Cooper and it completely befuddled him, and Jon didn't figure out a way to coach Flagg through that. That end of game play was the ugliest play i've ever seen Duke run.
And we still almost won. Because when this team put it's heart into playing defense, it was very effective.
Got behind early, and eventually re-took the lead in the second half, only to turn the ball over multiple times in the last 2 minutes and also run completely unrecognizable trash offense down the stretch. And we still almost won both. Cooper dribbling the ball is bad offense for this team. Kon was 1-16 from 3 in these 2 games.
I did like that Tyrese did not disappear after a good start, but shot really well throughout the game. In fact everyone not named Kon or Mason shot incredibly well from 3. Those 2 shot 1-13 from 3. Everybody else was 10-13, i like that.
Additionally, i liked that after playing no defense whatsoever to allow Kansas to go up 13 in the first few seconds of the game, that our defense stiffened up, and played like a #1 defense for the rest of the game. Except for the 1st coupla minutes of the second half. Unfortunately for this team the first 2 minutes of each half count towards the final score.
I'm fully on board with those who say that Evans should have played in either or both of those games now. I am very ready for Foster to not be the PG anymore. Against our lesser ranked opponents he has looked fine, but against better players it's hard to see the value he brings to the position. If we're going to run this non-PG everybody's-a-PG offense, then the coaches really need to come up with some better plays.
Self had their defense throw double teams at Cooper and it completely befuddled him, and Jon didn't figure out a way to coach Flagg through that. That end of game play was the ugliest play i've ever seen Duke run.
And we still almost won. Because when this team put it's heart into playing defense, it was very effective.
Man, this chat is painful to read. We have two losses this year, to freaking Kansas and Kentucky, and in both games we had the ball in the final seconds with a shot to win. It’s not even December yet. The whole point of playing an early season schedule this tough is to find flaws in our team, to face the best players in the country, and to face the best coaches in the country, so we can find out what needs to be improved and addressed and make this the best possible team by the end of the season. You know, the games that are more than 3 months away.
tl;dr
“It’s over!”
tl;dr
“It’s over!”
SkyBrickey
Member
Yeah, I mean I get that it's really disappointing to lose these games when we are so close to winning them. But I just don't understand that impulse to toss our coach and his staff under the bus so easily after the success of their first two seasons.
I'm sure there are some fans on the UConn board right now saying Hurley is a bad coach and only won because of Clingan.
DukieInBrasil
Member
Statistically speaking, he is not our best 3pt shooter.
Or maybe that playing him 37 minutes isn't the best plan.
Yes, but that last shot did not have Kon as a playmaker. He was a shooter. Tyrese was clearly having a better shooting game. Tyrese would have been a better choice for that shot.
SkyBrickey
Member
Ok, let's get Tyrese more open 3s. Agree that would be a good thing.
ChillinDuke
Member
I think you're being a little dense here, and I'm not sure why.
To specifically say "open threes", is to water down the point DIB was making. Tyrese is statistically speaking out best 3pt shooter on the young season at 50% on 40 shots. He was also 5-7 in the game.
Getting the ball to Tyrese when we needed a three, regardless of whether the three was "open", would be a logical and reasonable coaching decision. Now, I'm not sure how Kansas guarded the play and I'm not going back to look. But just pointing out the tone of agreeing only with a specifically inarguable point is dense.
Every Duke fan on the planet agrees it would be a good thing to get Tyrese (or any Duke player) more open threes.
- Chillin
Sky, you have a lot of good stuff. However I disagree here. I mean, literally you are correct. On the threes - if Kon or Gillis hit a few more we win. Literally that’s correct
But it’s a TEAM GAME. TEAM. and we shot 11-26 from Three as a Team. That’s over 42% !!! Can’t hope for better than that in all honesty. If we need to hit more than 42% of our three pt shots as a team to win top 20 games we have a problem. That’s needing too much from three. I would hope we don’t need to hit more than say 34% from three to win… Needing 2 more threes as you propose.. is saying we need FIFTY PERCENT of our threes to go in as a Team to beat Kansas. Think about that. That’s not a recipe for success. As we all know that’s (50 percent from three !???? ) just an unsustainable and not realistic number.
I see two takes on our young head coach. 1) He's in over his head, great recruiter but bad in-game coach. 2) Jon is a terrific coach, and the team is going to be fine. The truth is somewhere in between. Jon was a very good basketball player for Duke and has an NCAAT Championship to his credit. He was an assistant for the GOAT. He knows what it takes to be a successful Duke player. However, he is new to the job and just like our freshmen he has room for improvement. I don't think he's stubborn and doesn't want recommendations from his assistants. The young man is learning on the job. Coach K had people wanting him fired in his first years as head coach. I think the next few games will tell us how much Jon has learned from the games against some really good teams. There's nothing wrong with about 75% of the posts on this thread, but the other 25% are not constructive at all.
GoDuke!
GoDuke!
MChambers
Member
so true
Phredd3
Member
Should we rely on Cooper or Kon at the end of games? My opinion is that the real answer is neither. We should not count on any single player at the end of games. We don't need a "that guy", which I've heard any number of people here and elsewhere talk about. We need better team play. We did that at Arizona. I'm convinced that's why we won that game fairly handily. Against both Kentucky and Kansas, we instead relied on a single player to try to "make something happen", and it didn't work out so well. Ahead or behind, we need to play as a team to be our best. We've got three solid examples of what happens when we do or don't do this.
I trust that's going to be Jon's real point of emphasis heading into the Auburn game. We won't win with either Cooper or Kon being "the man" down the stretch. We will win by being Duke down the stretch.
All of us win, or none of us do.
I trust that's going to be Jon's real point of emphasis heading into the Auburn game. We won't win with either Cooper or Kon being "the man" down the stretch. We will win by being Duke down the stretch.
All of us win, or none of us do.
My expanded thoughts on the game:
1. I continue to marvel at Brown's defensive acumen. The guy is just a menace on that end of the court. Not in "wow" plays, but in terms of just totally disrupting what his opponent wants to do. His well-timed reach-ins and general peskiness definitely got in Dickinson's head. Brown doesn't have the elite run/jump athleticism of Flagg or the offensive skills of... well... several players on the team. But he's just so much fun to watch doing his thing defensively. He held a PoY candidate to his worst game of the season offensively.
2. There is still a lot of figuring out to do on offense. Knueppel has shown through 3 home games against inferior competition to be an elite offensive weapon. But in the three games away from Cameron and against good opponents, he's really struggled to shoot and to score efficiently. He did show so mettle with the passing game, which was nice to see. But it's asking a lot to make him the primary playmaker for the offense. Similarly, Flagg is an amazing talent, but he doesn't appear to be a "give him the ball and let him make things happen for himself and others" type of player at this stage. It wasn't what he did in high school, and I don't think it's a great use of his skillset. I have no doubt that those two are our two best offensive players, but I do fear that building the entire offense on them is a questionable strategy. We just aren't able to consistently get easy looks at the basket. If you have to grind to get shots (and in many cases, to even get into an offensive opportunity at all), it wears you down over time. Especially when you limit the shot creation to basically two guys, and have those two guys play basically the entire game.
3. Relatedly, Foster either needs to get better quickly or he needs to be replaced in the starting lineup by James. He just isn't giving the team much offensively at all against better opponents: 6 ppg, 1.3 apg, 30.0 fg%, 18.2 3pt%, 57.1 ft% in the 3 big games so far. That's not going to get it done, and puts too much pressure on the others. Right now, James appears to be providing a lot more value on the court. Hopefully Foster figures things out and starts making more of a positive impact offensively.
4. I have been pleasantly surprised with Proctor's shooting so far this year, with just one game (the AZ win) shooting below 40% from 3 so far and on high volume. Oddly, his playmaking has gotten worse (career worst in assists and in A/TO ratio). And even more oddly, he's struggling inside the arc. He's taking a much smaller percentage of shots from 2pt range, but he's also making a much lower percentage of his 2pt attempts. Last year he made over 50% of his 2s and on 50% greater volume of shots, while he's currently shooting just under 36% from 2 so far this year. In aggregate, I like the improvements in 3pt shooting, but I worry that his 50% 3pt average is not sustainable. So hopefully his shooting/scoring off the dribble will improve.
5. KJ Adams did a great job on Flagg. His strength, quickness, and tenacity really seemed to bother Flagg. That, combined with timely traps, really flummoxed our star for the entire first half. Unless we can diversify our offense, teams are going to continue to find creative ways to contain Flagg and Knueppel.
6. I think the team's defensive strategy was mostly good, but they got hurt by an out of body experience from KJ Adams with those midrange jumpers. And they made 1-2 more 3s than they "should" have. And of course them going 11-12 from the FT line was a big difference. That's arguably ~5 more points than they "should" have scored in this game, which is essentially the difference between a win and a loss for Duke. It doesn't change the result of course, but I don't think the defense was as bad as the result might suggest. Forcing a 23.5 turnover % against a very good team is excellent. So far on the season, we've been excellent defensively at nearly every aspect of the game, so that's a great sign. It means we should have a chance to win every night (which, so far, has been the case). That's a credit to the coaching and to all of the players. They are really getting after it.
7. One area where we did struggle though was against a quick PG. Harris had a magnificent game. This was the one real concern defensively coming into the season, and I think it remains a point of concern. We have a lot of size/length, but we aren't the quickest team out there by any means.
8. It's a shame that the UK game went the way it did, as we would be in so much better position nationally had we not collapsed down the stretch of that game. If that was a win, we would still be in excellent position for a 1 seed. Now, we really need that Auburn win and have way less margin for error in the ACC. To give away a 3-possession lead in under 10 minutes feels much more frustrating after the KU loss.
9. Hopefully the team is able to shake this off, learn from mistakes made, and use the home court advantage to get a win over Auburn. Auburn is most likely the best team we'll face barring a VERY deep tournament run, and better than anyone we've played so far. So it won't be easy. But we really could use a win in that game.
1. I continue to marvel at Brown's defensive acumen. The guy is just a menace on that end of the court. Not in "wow" plays, but in terms of just totally disrupting what his opponent wants to do. His well-timed reach-ins and general peskiness definitely got in Dickinson's head. Brown doesn't have the elite run/jump athleticism of Flagg or the offensive skills of... well... several players on the team. But he's just so much fun to watch doing his thing defensively. He held a PoY candidate to his worst game of the season offensively.
2. There is still a lot of figuring out to do on offense. Knueppel has shown through 3 home games against inferior competition to be an elite offensive weapon. But in the three games away from Cameron and against good opponents, he's really struggled to shoot and to score efficiently. He did show so mettle with the passing game, which was nice to see. But it's asking a lot to make him the primary playmaker for the offense. Similarly, Flagg is an amazing talent, but he doesn't appear to be a "give him the ball and let him make things happen for himself and others" type of player at this stage. It wasn't what he did in high school, and I don't think it's a great use of his skillset. I have no doubt that those two are our two best offensive players, but I do fear that building the entire offense on them is a questionable strategy. We just aren't able to consistently get easy looks at the basket. If you have to grind to get shots (and in many cases, to even get into an offensive opportunity at all), it wears you down over time. Especially when you limit the shot creation to basically two guys, and have those two guys play basically the entire game.
3. Relatedly, Foster either needs to get better quickly or he needs to be replaced in the starting lineup by James. He just isn't giving the team much offensively at all against better opponents: 6 ppg, 1.3 apg, 30.0 fg%, 18.2 3pt%, 57.1 ft% in the 3 big games so far. That's not going to get it done, and puts too much pressure on the others. Right now, James appears to be providing a lot more value on the court. Hopefully Foster figures things out and starts making more of a positive impact offensively.
4. I have been pleasantly surprised with Proctor's shooting so far this year, with just one game (the AZ win) shooting below 40% from 3 so far and on high volume. Oddly, his playmaking has gotten worse (career worst in assists and in A/TO ratio). And even more oddly, he's struggling inside the arc. He's taking a much smaller percentage of shots from 2pt range, but he's also making a much lower percentage of his 2pt attempts. Last year he made over 50% of his 2s and on 50% greater volume of shots, while he's currently shooting just under 36% from 2 so far this year. In aggregate, I like the improvements in 3pt shooting, but I worry that his 50% 3pt average is not sustainable. So hopefully his shooting/scoring off the dribble will improve.
5. KJ Adams did a great job on Flagg. His strength, quickness, and tenacity really seemed to bother Flagg. That, combined with timely traps, really flummoxed our star for the entire first half. Unless we can diversify our offense, teams are going to continue to find creative ways to contain Flagg and Knueppel.
6. I think the team's defensive strategy was mostly good, but they got hurt by an out of body experience from KJ Adams with those midrange jumpers. And they made 1-2 more 3s than they "should" have. And of course them going 11-12 from the FT line was a big difference. That's arguably ~5 more points than they "should" have scored in this game, which is essentially the difference between a win and a loss for Duke. It doesn't change the result of course, but I don't think the defense was as bad as the result might suggest. Forcing a 23.5 turnover % against a very good team is excellent. So far on the season, we've been excellent defensively at nearly every aspect of the game, so that's a great sign. It means we should have a chance to win every night (which, so far, has been the case). That's a credit to the coaching and to all of the players. They are really getting after it.
7. One area where we did struggle though was against a quick PG. Harris had a magnificent game. This was the one real concern defensively coming into the season, and I think it remains a point of concern. We have a lot of size/length, but we aren't the quickest team out there by any means.
8. It's a shame that the UK game went the way it did, as we would be in so much better position nationally had we not collapsed down the stretch of that game. If that was a win, we would still be in excellent position for a 1 seed. Now, we really need that Auburn win and have way less margin for error in the ACC. To give away a 3-possession lead in under 10 minutes feels much more frustrating after the KU loss.
9. Hopefully the team is able to shake this off, learn from mistakes made, and use the home court advantage to get a win over Auburn. Auburn is most likely the best team we'll face barring a VERY deep tournament run, and better than anyone we've played so far. So it won't be easy. But we really could use a win in that game.
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BrummieDevil
Member
Needing to shoot 40% to ever beat a top 20 team would be an issue, but losing one game to the #1 team (not just 'top 20') while shooting 42% from 3 is not that. Sometimes you hit your 3s ..... but so do they (Kansas, 47.1% from 3).
Just as you stress team, we should also stress all-around, two-way basketball. It's not like Duke played some perfect game and still lost. It shot well as a team from the outside, but allowed too many offensive rebounds, committed too many turnovers to offset all those KU had, shot 72% from the charity stripe while KU missed once, and faltered both at the very start and very end of the game. Yet Duke still had two chances to take the lead in the final minute and a third to tie it.
A few weeks ago UNC made 16 more FT than KU, who also shot just 29% from 3 at home; KU had to play much better to beat Duke by three than it did to get the same result vs. the Heels. Yeah, Duke hypothetically would've won if it shot 54% from 3, or it could've just turned the ball over less or hit its free throws or gotten a couple more stops/rebounds. There are a lot of ways to win or lose one game, and that's all this was: one game.
Also, Duke already completely handled what was literally a top 20 team on the road while shooting 36% from 3. And lost by a whisker to Kentucky in a game it hypothetically could've won while shooting 21% or 25% from 3. Extrapolating a season-long need to shoot the lights out from deep to beat good teams from this one game is a giant leap.
BrummieDevil
Member
Just want to also point out that those comparing Scheyer to Calipari are comparing a guy with two full seasons of head coaching experience (and track record) to one with 32 such seasons.
Additionally, I feel better about Scheyer having the first two seasons he had with those rosters than I would as a UK fan watching Calipari having and extremely similar type of season with the roster he had in 2017-18 (his 26th season).
Additionally, I feel better about Scheyer having the first two seasons he had with those rosters than I would as a UK fan watching Calipari having and extremely similar type of season with the roster he had in 2017-18 (his 26th season).
Question for our statistical gurus: Tyrese was already 5 for 7 while Kon was 0 for 7 from 3 - who has a higher probability of making that last shot?
camion
Member
If you're going strictly statistical coin flip stuff, statistics has no memory.
