MBB: Duke 72, KU 75 Post-game Thread

[DevilByBirth]

I agree we have a lack of offensive cohesion, and that is because we have no true playmaking guards!

This may get some push back, but I feel like roach would have been exactly what this teams missing.

 

[Maged]

I recommend watching the video of Seth Greenberg breaking down the last play. He proves the play was perfect; unfortunately, Sion broke to the basket to clog the middle rather than moving to open space for a kick out, and Flagg froze rather than moving to give Kon a passing lane. Really opened my eyes.

 

[MChambers]

I recommend watching the video of Seth Greenberg breaking down the last play. He proves the play was perfect; unfortunately, Sion broke to the basket to clog the middle rather than moving to open space for a kick out, and Flagg froze rather than moving to give Kon a passing lane. Really opened my eyes.

link?

 

[Messimorgan17]

You do understand that it's ok to say Jon struggles coaching offense and at the end of games without saying fire him and burn him in the street right? It's year 3 and he's got to figure it out, it's ok to criticize repeated mistakes.

Just looking at the thread now so not sure this has been addressed
Come on this is November and looking at the big picture this is all about getting better so peak in March. This group has shown more toughness and resilience of any Duke team in a very long time.
You can’t teach this stuff in practice. This team is getting a crash course. They will grow.
Remember Laettner as a freshman in the Meadwlands against Arizona? He became the clutchest player in ncaa history. https://greensboro.com/laettner-wil...cle_00179bf4-9d25-5d7e-aea5-a7572c72e34e.html

As for Jon’s end of game coaching, the last sequence was perfect. Despite missing an opportunity a few seconds earlier to win, WTH 3 seconds left they still had a chance to tie the game and almost did. The ball just rimmed out. Jon set up the ball to advance at midcourt called the timeout and then Kon had a decent look for a 3 Before the midcourt advancement the ESPN announcers didn’t even mention, the advancement play as an serious option. They executed it perfectly.

Furthermore, everyone is forgetting the UNC comeback with Tre missing the foul shot on purpose. That was Jon as K’s assistant having Tre work on that scenario in practices.

 

[rsvman]

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?

The problem is that the opposing coach knew the answer, too. You can't always do exactly what you want to do because the other team also wants to win the game.

 

[rifraf]

We've been to two Elite Eights and a Final Four in the 3-4 years of the Portal Era. No reason to think our ceiling is limited this year.

Every team needs a little luck in March to win it all, some teams need more. I think that we need the normal amount of luck to reach the Sweet 16/Elite 8, and will not control our own destiny to hit F4/NC.

A big part of why I think that is our youth. Yes our team is young and will grow but we will still be younger than the Kansas/UK/UCONNs of the world in March. And we will probably be younger next year, and the year after that if patterns continue. Kansas and UK only have 3 freshman on the roster let alone playing big minutes. Kansas 5 top scorers were Juniors are older (believe 4 were seniors+). Pope built a team from scratch that played 10 guys…I think 9 got 5+ minutes?

That isn’t to say we can’t make a Final 4 or even win a National Championship but I think we need our opponents at that point to help us more than other elite teams will need help. And we are an elite team.

 

[tteettimes]

YES…..WE ATE ELITE…….And come March we will be the team nobody wants to play

 

[azzefkram]

I understand, while disagreeing with, the criticism of Jon's coaching. Like any young coach, there will be areas for improvement. What shouldn't be lost in all the back and forth is Jon is doing this in arguably the toughest environment/era to be a college coach. He has made mistakes in the past. He will make mistakes going forward. Based upon what I've seen, he is a better coach now than when he started. YMMV but I think he will be an even better coach in the future.

Happy Thanksgiving everyone. May you and yours have a safe and joyous holiday.

 

[Maged]

link?

Don't know. Sorry it came up on my YouTube shorts.

 

[SkyBrickey]

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.

My point was more that we were 1-2 shots away from beating the #1 team in the country early in the season starting three freshmen and there are posters on here proposing coaching changes. I was challenging them to consider if their perspective might be different if we'd won.

But, no, while you make a great point, I also don't think it's random that Kon shot 1-16 in our two losses and 12-24 in our four wins. That's a heckuva hole to overcome.

 

[BluDvlsN1]

I remember back in 2010, we had a promising solid defensive team with a dynamic 6’8” stretch 4, a 7 footer, a glue guy who did a little bit of everything, a scoring point guard who was starting to learn the PG position, a knock down shooter who struggled at times shooting, and a 6’5” combo guard who has asked to move to PG when it became apparent that Duke needed a steady hand there.

That team went on to defy the odds and win a title.

I think Knueppel can be what Jon Scheyer was to that team with what he showed last night. Tyrese can play the role of Nolan. Flagg is Singler. Brown is Lance Thomas. Khaman is a better version of Zoubek. Foster is a more versatile Andre Dawkins.

I think the team is just starting to figure out their roles, what strengths and weaknesses they have. Remember, this is practically a brand new team compared to last season. Only Proctor and Foster are holdovers. Flagg is great, but still young.

And despite all that, they nearly took down the #1 team, late game miscues aside. Looking forward to where this team ends up.

The problem is that the opposing coach knew the answer, too. You can't always do exactly what you want to do because the other team also wants to win the game.

 

[SkyBrickey]

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

Purposefully dense for agreeing with the poster? That feels a bit like a personal attack.

Tyrese, for whatever reason, is not really creating offense for himself or others this season. His amazing scoring is off catch and shoot 3s set up by others. So if you're counting on that great shooting to win the game, then you draw up a play to get him an open 3. I would have loved to have Tyrese shooting an open 3 on either of those last two possessions.

Enjoy your Thanksgiving Chillin.

 

[tommy]

As a college official, I generally do not jump into the "refs are terrible", and I'm certainly not doing it here. In every game, there are going to be a handful or so of calls that can be dissected and analyzed, some in your favor, some not in your favor.

I can tell you this, that is NOT an over-the-back (not even in the rulebook, btw) on Dickinson. As much as I dislike him as a player, you are never going to get any benefit of the doubt if you arent making an attempt to rebound the ball in that case, which Brown didnt. Brown had a fantastic game last night, but IMO that play was adjudicated correctly.

I thought the most egregious miss was the failure to allow our shooter to land on the 3 at the end of the half. Right in front of the ref. Obvious and one for a four point play was missed. Agree as an experienced ref ?

 

[dlmzzz]

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.

Thanks CDu, many excellent points in your post. One thing I want to point out is how we adjusted to Kansas’ focus to take away Kon as a shooter. He became the primary playmaker because of how they were playing him. Once Dickinson got kicked out, they got him the ball just above the free throw line, and ran pick and roll with different bigs. Kansas’ focus to prevent Kon from getting a clean shot meant the player setting the pick was free in the middle, giving us a number of great looks, including Cooper’s vicious dunk.

 

[Neals384]

Several posters in this thread have suggested a change to the starting lineup due to Foster's less than stellar play so far. Others have made the point that a team led by freshman one-and-dones "will never win a natty."

Those are good points, but I have a slightly different take on the issue. Jon has done a masterful job of adding experience via the portal. Three of our transfers are in the rotation; two have exceeded expectations; in time Gillis may also prove to be better than expected.

As constructed, the roster has a decent balance of youth and experience. But then we start each half with a total of two years experience on the court. Against KS, we were a combined minus 13 (both halves) before the first transfer subbed in.

Here's my conclusion: let's use a rotation that includes at least one transfer on he court at all times. So it's the same change (the starting lineup) that others have advocated, but it doesn't require pointing the finger at any one player.

 

[SkyBrickey]

Several posters in this thread have suggested a change to the starting lineup due to Foster's less than stellar play so far. Others have made the point that a team led by freshman one-and-dones "will never win a natty."

Those are good points, but I have a slightly different take on the issue. Jon has done a masterful job of adding experience via the portal. Three of our transfers are in the rotation; two have exceeded expectations; in time Gillis may also prove to be better than expected.

As constructed, the roster has a decent balance of youth and experience. But then we start each half with a total of two years experience on the court. Against KS, we were a combined minus 13 (both halves) before the first transfer subbed in.

Here's my conclusion: let's use a rotation that includes at least one transfer on he court at all times. So it's the same change (the starting lineup) that others have advocated, but it doesn't require pointing the finger at any one player.

I think we may see Sion start for Caleb in the next game. The minutes seem to be trending in that direction. I still believe Caleb has a higher ceiling than Sion with his playmaking and scoring, but he hasn't been consistently showing it.

Sion can be more of a disrupter on the defensive end, so it might bring some energy that can help us get out to a stronger start.

 

[SkyBrickey]

I just forced myself to rewatch the last 7 minutes of the game with a critical eye and here's what stood out to me:

- They had two huge offensive rebounds in traffic that they should not have gotten. This backs up the bigger storyline that Man and Brown combined for 1 rebound.

- Adams repeatedly drove the baseline and created looks for them. We couldn't keep him in front of us.

- Kon was almost flawless with his playmaking. Fouled on a drive for two free throws, lob to Coop for a dunk, lob to Man for a dunk. Of course he had the big turnover at the end but Sion made a mistake crashing in early, effectively putting Kon in a triple team.

- Cooper went ISO 4 times in the last 7 minutes. A nice bucket with the left hand. A spin into a foul for 2 free throws. A miss on a low value baseline jumper. A bad turnover on a spin move.

- We also moved the ball well on another possession and got Tyrese a wide open 3 that he missed.

So on offense we had two really bad turnovers at the end, but the 7 possessions before that gave us 6.5 great looks, 5 that we converted on. 5 scores on 9 possessions - should have been good enough to win if our defense had clamped down.

Cooper has got to continue to clean up the poor ISO plays.

And while I'm not convinced yet that K2 should become our point guard, he would probably grade out at an A on those screen actions. He was really good (paired with a terrible shooting night). I think he should get a healthy dose of those screens moving forward where he also needs to learn to kick out to an open shooter for 3 if the shot or the lob aren't there.

 

[phaedrus]

And while I'm not convinced yet that K2 should become our point guard, he would probably grade out at an A on those screen actions. He was really good (paired with a terrible shooting night). I think he should get a healthy dose of those screens moving forward where he also needs to learn to kick out to an open shooter for 3 if the shot or the lob aren't there.

K2’s effectiveness as playmaker against Kansas is not evidence he should change things up and play point guard, but just the opposite. He should keep doing what he’s been doing (but hit more of his threes). Someone else brings up the ball and hits him at the top of the key to start the action.

 

[SkyBrickey]

K2’s effectiveness as playmaker against Kansas is not evidence he should change things up and play point guard, but just the opposite. He should keep doing what he’s been doing (but hit more of his threes). Someone else brings up the ball and hits him at the top of the key to start the action.

Yeah, agreed Phaedrus. No way he should be bringing the ball up. But he's proving to be a really good decision maker with the ball in his hands. He had some nice assists against Kansas in the open court too. I trust him more than Cooper or any of our guards right now.

 

[gillmic]

- They had two huge offensive rebounds in traffic that they should not have gotten. This backs up the bigger storyline that Man and Brown combined for 1 rebound.

We weren’t blocking out, IIRC.

- Adams repeatedly drove the baseline and created looks for them. We couldn't keep him in front of us.

Harris would drive baseline from the right side and regularly find a shooter behind the three point line on the left wing. I recall (perhaps inaccurately) two of those converting for 3pt, including at least one of them by Mayo. When I saw it happening for the third time, I just looked away from the screen and put my face in my hands and shook my head.

We’re both correct, probably, but just calling out different plays that they were able to repeatedly run on us.

- Cooper went ISO 4 times in the last 7 minutes. A nice bucket with the left hand. A spin into a foul for 2 free throws. A miss on a low value baseline jumper. A bad turnover on a spin move.

I hope that both the spin moves and the long two pt attempts are removed from his game. Possessions are too valuable to spend them on such low pct plays.