MBB: Duke 84, Auburn 78 Postgame Thread

Before the Kon hand wringing gets too crazy, it’s important to note that Auburn was scheming its D to take him away. It’s a testament to the Duke team that we can take advantage of that with other guys rather than needing Kon to force it. A lot of our other easy buckets don’t happen if Auburn isn’t paying so much attention to Kon.

Also, it speaks to Kon’s resilience that he had a tough game but still made an important 2 in the final minutes.
 
Let's go!! Huge win!

Duke needed a signature win, and we played like we had our backs against the wall. Best offensive execution we've had the whole season.

We really needed someone to hit some shots to have a chance in this game and Evans REALLY came through for the team. We hit 9 total 3s and he had 6 of them. Insane.

I wouldn't knock Kon too much, he's always the #1 perimeter threat on the scouting report, so he usually draws the toughest perimeter defender on the other team. The layup he converted with 1 minute to go was clutch. Also, We've got to give him the ball more in free throw situations.

Cooper was surgical with his decision making in the 2nd half. He's looking more confident every game. We're seeing this team mature so quickly, and the arrow is pointing straight up going forward.
 
Huh? Credit Jon for going with the hot hand in the first half with Isaiah. K would sometimes take players out right as they heated up. Maybe a next play thing. Isaiah did play in the second half and even a few minutes in full on crunch time. Just didn’t get the same shots. Great team win. Everyone contributed!
 
Huge win. A lot of players with breakout performances in their roles.

I will say, though, and others will dislike it, that the offense was relatively stagnant for much of the 2nd half. We won despite it with some really gritty individual plays but a lot of one on one. How many assists did we have in the 1st half vs 2nd half, I wonder? It does feel like Pearl adjusted at half time and we didn't quite match that. Some will claim that's growth - maybe, to some extent.

But huge, huge win. A big statement game.

- Chillin

ETA: nevermind, I found it. We had 11 assists in the game, 7 in the 1st half and 4 in the 2nd half. Two of those four were in the first 2 mins, another at the 6 min mark, and our final in the 11th minute. We played the last 9 mins of the game with zero assists.
 
rifraf said:
Really surprised we didn’t see Evans play much in the 2nd half. Almost makes his appearance in the 1st look like desperation. Glad he was on fire and hope it catapults him into regular minutes to extend the bench.

Great win, good game all around, our length is something else. Some big hits by Proctor I loved to see.

Huge question mark around Kon. We’ve now got 8 games, half are great and half are duds but rather than streaky it looks like a clear pattern that cuts across opponent quality.
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Kon was fine tonight. 3 assists, zero turnovers, only missed one shot. Not a dud.
 
scottdude8 said:
Before the Kon hand wringing gets too crazy, it’s important to note that Auburn was scheming its D to take him away. It’s a testament to the Duke team that we can take advantage of that with other guys rather than needing Kon to force it. A lot of our other easy buckets don’t happen if Auburn isn’t paying so much attention to Kon.

Also, it speaks to Kon’s resilience that he had a tough game but still made an important 2 in the final minutes.
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I wouldn’t even say he had a tough game. He was mistake free (ok, he could have made his one three) on offense and had several solid defensive stops down the stretch, plus the clutch bucket in the final minute and three assists to zero turnovers.

He just didn’t shoot much. But why should he go hunting for shots? Our offense was outperforming the #1 offense in the country.
 
LasVegas said:
I was one calling for Evans to get more time but we aren’t at practice and we have no clue what is going on or went on. I’ll give Coach Scheyer the benefit of the doubt on this.
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Not my style to rationalize something that doesn't make sense and just assume the "boss" can't make dumb decisions. I was hoping that mindset would disappear when K retired but apparently not for everyone.
 
Very proud of the team. Flagg, Evans, and Brown had great games. Proctor with huge clutch shots. James efficient scoring and great energy. Probably Foster’s best performance this year.

Kon had a quiet game but his layup was critical. After a bad FT shooting night it was nice to see him nail the free throws at the end with confidence.
 
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