MBB: Duke 86, Notre Dame 78 Postgame Thread

scottdude8

scottdude8

Moderator, front page and podcast contributor
I imagine many nits are going to get picked here given how rapidly the final margin tightened down the stretch. But a win is a win, all the more so when we so clearly got the absolute best shot from our opponent. Notre Dame shot ~60% from three and we played most of the game without our invaluable sixth man (Maliq) and it still took some insanity down the stretch to make this game close. Still, this will give Jon some things to work on in closing out late games, and we’d all much rather that come from a win than a loss.

Cooper was transcendent and was of course the headline. But Khaman is not so quietly stacking good games together… he looks like he’s beginning a Lively-esque late season ascent. Similarly, looks like Kon is trying to follow Jared’s trajectory from last year… not his best, but a long ways from his shooting being a concern like we were worried about for a hot second.

Subplot of the game again for me was Mason. He may not fill the stat sheet but his presence off the bench, and versatility to fill so many different roles depending on the scenario, is invaluable. We needed him with Maliq down and he filled in admirably.

Wouldn’t shock me if Maliq is rested with a home contest against down Miami coming up, but as long as he’s ok we will be too.
 
scottdude8 said:
I imagine many nits are going to get picked here given how rapidly the final margin tightened down the stretch. But a win is a win, all the more so when we so clearly got the absolute best shot from our opponent. Notre Dame shot ~60% from three and we played most of the game without our invaluable sixth man (Maliq) and it still took some insanity down the stretch to make this game close. Still, this will give Jon some things to work on in closing out late games, and we’d all much rather that come from a win than a loss.

Cooper was transcendent and was of course the headline. But Khaman is not so quietly stacking good games together… he looks like he’s beginning a Lively-esque late season ascent. Similarly, looks like Kon is trying to follow Jared’s trajectory from last year… not his best, but a long ways from his shooting being a concern like we were worried about for a hot second.

Subplot of the game again for me was Mason. He may not fill the stat sheet but his presence off the bench, and versatility to fill so many different roles depending on the scenario, is invaluable. We needed him with Maliq down and he filled in admirably.

Wouldn’t shock me if Maliq is rested with a home contest against down Miami coming up, but as long as he’s ok we will be too.
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Considering that Scheyer let ND continue their run without timeouts I did say he was practicing some stuff or purposely sending the team a message.
 
Never seen a team a team make that many fluky shots. But without all those crazy shots, we would have been up 20 with 10 minutes to go and wouldn't have gotten this performance from Coop. It's probably overall a positive to get some reps with game pressure, even though our defensive rating is sure to take a beating after this.

It's hard to even have words for the performance from Cooper. How much better is this kid going to get this season? Statistically, he's inferior to Zion, but why does it feel like he impacts winning so much more? This game puts him above Zion for me. He's on track to win NPOY if this trend continues. He's like a terminator, he just absorbs all the information from every game and gets stronger.
 
As I said a day ago, Duke’s defense can only be defeated by the opponent making 3s at an alarming rate. Well, that was Exhibit 1. I can’t fault our 3 Defense as most of those 3s had a hand in face or, it was from the NBA line. It was also in opportune for our shooting to cool off in the late 2nd half. All that said, I give credit to ND…they played hard and played well. I think a close game is always a plus to add to the W.

Congrats to Flagg for his new record.
 
scottdude8 said:
Wouldn’t shock me if Maliq is rested with a home contest against down Miami coming up, but as long as he’s ok we will be too.
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We then play BC. So, if necessary, we could rest MB until the January 25 game against Wake.
 
scottdude8 said:
I imagine many nits are going to get picked here given how rapidly the final margin tightened down the stretch.
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I trust it’s not-nit to note that ND was 13/33 on 2s and 14/24 on 3s. Admittedly, ND hit 3-4 last-second 3s, one a banked 3. But far too frequently our guys left the shooter to double-team and on a few occasions to triple-team the driver.

With Burton healthy, that team might cause some trouble for opponents the rest of the way.
 
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