MBB: Duke 72, KU 75 Post-game Thread

ChillinDuke said:
This was better than UK. Result the same. But better.

The talking points about Kansas losing Dickinson are overstated. He was overly aggressive most of the game. I'm not sure they were clearly better with him tbh.

The problem is the refs calling those obvious make ups. Call what you call and then move on. I don't think it materially ultimately impacted what was a high level game throughout. But just call the flagrant one if you're gonna overstep to a flagrant two with the thought process you'll help to even it out. One or two of those next fouls were unneeded.

We played well enough. I thought Scheyer was better. I thought Coop was better but still not excellent late. Kon clearly an error leaving his feet there on the crucial late play - freshman needs to learn.

We are top tier. Just poor execution late and at various points. We will clean it up but we are top tier. That was a high level matchup and we were more than game.

- Chillin
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While Dickinson got kicked out (pun intended), we lost a lot of our defensive verve in that ridiculous stretch of touch fouls that followed, which critically included Maliq’s fourth. It felt like some crazy overcompensation.
 
SkyBrickey said:
There will be lots of negative hot takes. We just played an experienced #1 team within 3.

We will continue to get so much better. Lots of positives in this game.

Kansas was tough. Give them the credit they deserve.
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The only thing I want to push back on is that this is now two losses at the end of games that we could have easily won. Both times the end of game offense was really, really poor. At some point these cease from being teaching moments, and all you end up doing is learning how to lose and not win. Just like winning at the end of games can become contagious for an entire team, so losing at the end of games can become contagious for an entire team.

If we find ourselves in this position one more time, it will be absolutely critical that we find a way to win the game. If not, a negative mentality can settle in on the team that they can’t win a close one.
 
I'll give credit to Kansas, they played their best game of the season and were clearly ready for this matchup. KJ Adams did it on both ends, and really shut down Coop for most of the game. Harris was just about flawless.

That said, that's about as frustrating a game from a group of referees that I can remember. I don't usually criticize the officiating, but that was one of the worst officiated Duke games I think I've seen in favor of 1 team. I'm surprised they threw out Dickinson, as he was getting away with murder every play before that kick happened.

Still, our end of game execution is just terrible. We had more than our share of chances and once again turned it over twice in the final minute of the game. I think Sion went to the rim on that last play thinking Kon was going to shoot it, but ended up disrupting the play completely. Kon's shooting in these big games has to be better too. 0 for 8 is really rough.
 
This is now 3 end-of-game situations out of 4 where we don't even get a shot up ATO. The 4th was a pretty long 3. This is not the stuff of winning close games. We'll definitely get better, but we're so easily pushed out of sets sometimes and we have to work on that.

The Cooper and Kon 2 man was working until KU started clogging the lane and on our next to last possession they basically pushed Coop out of it and forced Job to drive into 2 defenders. It could have been called a foul but no official ever is going to make that call. Maybe our more veteran, hardened players should have some involvement in end of game plays.
 
SkyBrickey said:
And what exactly is that? This final 5 minutes were very different.

This was the #1 team. A little perspective.
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This is the same Kansas team that blew a 21 pt lead to UNC at home and was missing their all American center for the last 10 game minutes. Missed free throws, missed rebounds, and Jon's inability to draw anything up at end of game scenarios was identical to Kentucky so what was learned?
 
I know we will be vastly different in March. We really need Proctor and Foster to improve. Just not a dynamic playmaking guard at the moment. James can handle the ball and is tough and we played through Kon tonight, but gonna be hard to win a chip without better play from Foster and Proctor. I know Proctor had 15 but they combined for 2 assists.
 
A few too many turnovers in this game, and an inability to get defensive rebounds to close out possessions even with Dickinson out of the game. I thought some of that also came down to the way we allowed Kansas’ guards to dictate things even after the ejection.

I think we’ll continue to get better offensively, the Kon-Cooper pick and roll looked really good in the second half. But defensively we were scrambling a bit too much and didn’t look totally connected out there, even Cooper made mistakes trying to defend too aggressively.

Agree with everyone who feels our offense should have more sets with Cooper off the ball and setting screens. Having him isolate, as good as he can be, doesn’t work against a packed defense if he doesn’t have a reliable jump shot and/or the ability to make reads when drawing double and triple teams.
 
uh_no said:
Been impressed with the team's defense. THe offense down the stretch was questionable.

This team has a LOT of promise. I ain't even mad.

But this is going to make the quest for a 1 seed VERY hard.
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HardER I’d say. If we can beat Auburn that goal is still very much in sight. One thing I’m taking from this early season is I’m much less worried about an upset with this squad. We’ve shown we aren’t over reliant on one guy. We’ve shown we can come back from early deficits. We’ve shown we can stay competitive when we aren’t shooting well. If that holds it’s going to be hard for a less talented team to beat us, period. Just so happens that Kansas and Kentucky are very talented.
 
scottdude8 said:
I doubt Kon goes 0-8 from 3 again in his life.
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After he went 1-8 against UK a lot of people said he would never shoot that poorly again. As a team we shot well in this one but Kon has had a rough go of it from deep.

I wasn't crazy about the football style formation on the last play. Looked like we were trying to get a flare screen for Coop but Kansas snuffed it out, and it took so long to develop that there wasn't time to hit a good second option.
 
SouthernDukie said:
The only thing I want to push back on is that this is now two losses at the end of games that we could have easily won. Both times the end of game offense was really, really poor. At some point these cease from being teaching moments, and all you end up doing is learning how to lose and not win. Just like winning at the end of games can become contagious for an entire team, so losing at the end of games can become contagious for an entire team.

If we find ourselves in this position one more time, it will be absolutely critical that we find a way to win the game. If not, a negative mentality can settle in on the team that they can’t win a close one.
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I mean, Ok. But we do start three freshmen. I wanted this team to go 40-0 too. But we will have to settle for 38-2. A little grace.
 
Tough loss. Too much of a roller coaster ride. We can't get down like that. Refs didn't help but I'm not blaming it on that. We have the three transfers for more physical games against older teams and Scheyer wisely activated them in the first half. The half court offense still needs a lot of work.

The team is flying home tonight and has a game Friday against Seattle, then another big one hosting Auburn next week. Let's see how we rebound.
 
cruxer said:
This is now 3 end-of-game situations out of 4 where we don't even get a shot up ATO. The 4th was a pretty long 3. This is not the stuff of winning close games. We'll definitely get better, but we're so easily pushed out of sets sometimes and we have to work on that.

The Cooper and Kon 2 man was working until KU started clogging the lane and on our next to last possession they basically pushed Coop out of it and forced Job to drive into 2 defenders. It could have been called a foul but no official ever is going to make that call. Maybe our more veteran, hardened players should have some involvement in end of game plays.
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Unfortunately this seems to be Scheyer’s adopted philosophy from K regarding late game situations. Just have guys dribble around and look to make a play, no sort of set play. It’s just what we’re going to be living with.
 
UrinalCake said:
After he went 1-8 against UK a lot of people said he would never shoot that poorly again. As a team we shot well in this one but Kon has had a rough go of it from deep.

I wasn't crazy about the football style formation on the last play. Looked like we were trying to get a flare screen for Coop but Kansas snuffed it out, and it took so long to develop that there wasn't time to hit a good second option.
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Yeah, I feel like that was a bit of an overcompensation to avoid getting fouled. But as awkward as it was we got a look that rimmed out, so of all the late game decisions that’s one I’m not going to nitpick.
 
Excuses, excuses. This is a bad loss any way you look at it. Made worse considering the almost identical way they lost to Kentucky a week prior.

The lack of offensive cohesion is concerning,

-Duke started off slow on both ends
-struggled with Kansas’ physicality throughout (heard that one before)
-could not consistently get into their offense
-changed absolutely nothing schematically once Dickinson was ejected (Flagg was not nearly aggressive enough)
-had bad turnovers throughout
-once again could not execute late


Scheyers inability to draw up even the semblance of a good end of game ATO is concerning.
 
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