MBB: Duke 86, Notre Dame 78 Postgame Thread

Further on Maliq, we’ve got two weeks until Wake Forest. The rest of this team clearly needs to be enough to get passed Miami and BC, or we are not who we want to be. I respect Duke being very cautious on discussing or underplaying injuries to student athletes, but it is hard to fathom a glancing elbow to the outside of the knee can reak more damage than inflammation around the LCL. The replay video is not super clear, but it did not look like the impact caused even any lateral flexion of the knee. A tear to the lateral meniscus from this type of impact would be unbelievable bad luck.
 
I've yet to weigh in on this issue, so I'll reiterate my simple point from yesterday's chat: Why Foster, but not Evans, in the 2nd half?

As documented here our starting guards were having a rough night shooting. We had Foster in both the 1st half and 2nd half continuing to regress. We had our 6th man out with injury. So why not give Evans at least a couple of minutes in that 2nd half (before the improbable comeback)?

Unlike others, I'm not arguing that Evans eat up Kon's minutes. I'm not advocating that he's playing great and deserves minutes that any of the starters, nor bench guard Gillis, should be getting. Defenses have been keying on him and as of now he's been unable to adjust. But my one question is why Foster, but not Evans at all, in the 2nd half?

NOTE: Not buying the defense argument because, to my eyes, Caleb wasn't doing a great job on that end either yesterday.
It seems you and I agree on this. I think Caleb should get about as many minutes as Patrick Ngongba. Well, I may reconsider that if Maliq is out for a while. I'll say Harris instead. I think the Caleb experiment should come to an end. His defense is no better than Isaiah's. If Isaiah is fouled, he has a much better chance of making FTs. No matter how hard I root for him game in and game out, he's not getting any better. Maybe Caleb will read my post, and he'll have another good game. Like when I compared him to Alex O'Connell.

GoDuke!
 
Most of my thoughts have been said already but I will say this... while they helped us plenty as well, the refs helped ND settle into this game and kept them in it in crucial moments. I'm not one to blame the refs usually but thought this was a pretty horrible performance watching in the stadium. After that 14-0 run it felt like they almost felt bad for ND and called 2 soft touch fouls that eventually lead to a shooting foul on a Burton pullup. Getting on the board seemed to give ND confidence and soon they started draining three after three. Without those whistles I think that initial run could've gone on a good while longer, ND were getting zero good shots off and looked devoid of confidence. Just not how games should be reffed, I see this often where teams get pity whistles while down big and then end up making it a game and maybe even winning. Maybe the ACC shouldn't be taking in officials who were kicked out of the NBA.

Either way Duke should have dealt with it better but the constant whistles in the second half especially were horrific. The inconsistency was even worse as touch fouls were getting called but Khaman was constantly getting hacked with no calls.

That push call on Gillis also might be one of the worst calls I've ever seen.
Totally agree with your analysis during our opening run. It felt like the refs decided that ND could not compete with our intense level of defense. Particularly egregious was the foul call on K2. They showed the replay in Cameron and it showed conclusively that there was no contact at all on the play.

ND had six players attempt 3 pointers of which only one shot below 50% (2 for 6); the other five all shot 50% or better. I don’t ever recall such broad based excellence shooting the 3. Using 20/20 hindsight Jon should have called time out and told the team to not leave any shooters to stop penetration. With such a big lead ND’s only way to catch up was to make 3 pointers.
 
While I think Duke's defense was better than the numbers showed, Jon mentioned in his post-game that Duke was overhelping. I think this was a factor, especially when Burton was driving. Trust in the Man Man, dudes.

I also have a question for our resident ref. I noticed a lot of late whistles yesterday and a ton of contact on Khaman's lobs. It seems that the refs would only blow the whistle if the shot didn't fall. Is there guidance on lobs to only whistle if the shot doesn't fall?
 
While I think Duke's defense was better than the numbers showed, Jon mentioned in his post-game that Duke was overhelping. I think this was a factor, especially when Burton was driving. Trust in the Man Man, dudes.

I also have a question for our resident ref. I noticed a lot of late whistles yesterday and a ton of contact on Khaman's lobs. It seems that the refs would only blow the whistle if the shot didn't fall. Is there guidance on lobs to only whistle if the shot doesn't fall?
After the last corner 3 by Allocco (to cut it to 5?) you could clearly lip read Jon saying to stop over helping in the huddle. That play, they definitely did.
 
this is why going undefeated in conference play (even in a very down ACC) is so unlikely. Teams get hot, shots go in, it's basketball.
Devil's advocate. We played a mid-tier ACC team that was scorching hot from 3 and they still couldn't beat us. I would bet the house that no other ACC team shoots 58% from 3 against our defense.

I think we've only got 4 ACC games left that are losable. @Wake, Clemson, 2xUNC.

I believe the computers are still predicting we drop 1 and go 19-1 in conference.
 
Devil's advocate. We played a mid-tier ACC team that was scorching hot from 3 and they still couldn't beat us. I would bet the house that no other ACC team shoots 58% from 3 against our defense.

I think we've only got 4 ACC games left that are losable. @Wake, Clemson, 2xUNC.

I believe the computers are still predicting we drop 1 and go 19-1 in conference.
Serious question...do we WANT to be undefeated? I want to win every game, for sure. But I always feel a little uneasy about teams carrying a huge win streak into the tournament.
 
Serious question...do we WANT to be undefeated? I want to win every game, for sure. But I always feel a little uneasy about teams carrying a huge win streak into the tournament.
It's a great question. Jon seemed happy in the presser yesterday that we got tested with the late game pressure. Some were pointing out that he didn't use his timeouts almost as if he wanted a tight game at the end.

I'd really like to sweep UNC and win the ACC tourney. Not the worst thing if we drop another game. Still easily get the #1 seed.
 
A game for the ages for Cooper Flagg! I can’t say enough! We needed all those 42 too! Need to work on keeping our foot on the gas and not let teams back in it in the closing minutes! Shout out to Kahman! Great game from him too!
 
It's a great question. Jon seemed happy in the presser yesterday that we got tested with the late game pressure. Some were pointing out that he didn't use his timeouts almost as if he wanted a tight game at the end.

I'd really like to sweep UNC and win the ACC tourney. Not the worst thing if we drop another game. Still easily get the #1 seed.
I mentioned in the live chat that I was happy we faced some end-of-game pressure, even though I wasn't thrilled that our inattentiveness got us in that situation. It's a mixed bag, honestly. You can learn from wins too. I do suspect that players, especially young players, pay closer attention after losses. It could be a question of how much our older players can keep the team on track and focused during practices, meetings, etc.

-c
 
I think the ND coach's comment about us taking our foot off the gas was absolutely spot on. I noticed it in real time, too. We were up by 18 with just under 4 minutes to go and it seemed like we were just kind of walking the ball up the court and settling for long jumpers - sometimes pretty early in the shot clock - with no real sense of urgency (or even really, trying to score). I really thought at the time, that Jon must have told them to slow it down and run clock so as not to run up the score. I'm sure the coaches will address the late game mental lapses.

I said earlier this was a weird game and further reflection only solidified that in my mind. With just over 3 minutes to go, ND had scored 27 second half points. After that point, they scored FIFTEEN in the final minutes - or 56% of their second half point total (and 20% of their total points for the game). Weird, weird, weird! I'm not concerned that this will happen again. I was also surprised to realize upon looking at the box score, the we only shot 1-7 from three in the second half. First, that's kind of a low number of threes from us and second, that shooting percentage stinks!

One last comment about the refs: Another poster mocked some of us for complaining about them in a game where Cooper drew 13 fouls. I don't see anyone here saying the refs favored ND OVERALL, but rather - correctly, I think - pointing out how they did seem to favor ND during a crucial stretch in the first half by calling touch fouls on James, Proctor and KK. They really did seem like "pity" calls to me and helped end both the Duke onslaught and the ND non-slaught.
 
The problem is learning the wrong lesson from a game like this. “We are so good we can take our foot off the pedal and still win with the other team playing it’s absolute best”
 

Here are a couple more videos from Duke MBB: the Every Bucket compilation and their own edit of Cooper Flagg highlights.



The Field of 68 recaps Cooper's game:


If I come across a Micah Shrewsberry presser, I'll add it to the thread later.


I wasn't able to find a press conference for the Notre Dame side, but I'm quoting @MChambers because it's worth reading that whole page of opponent quotes from GoDuke. Here's another gem:

Coach Shrewsberry: "[Cooper Flagg]'s a good player, right? It wasn't as much him, it's everything that happens around him. He manipulates the defense, but he's a good passer. So, he hurts you. You have to try and take away certain things. This goes way back to 2011, when I was at Butler and we were playing Duke with Kyrie Irving -- the shooting that they had around him, the lob threats they have around him; Cooper's an unbelievable player, but Kon [Knueppel] makes him better, Tyrese Proctor makes him better. Khaman [Maluach]. He makes them all better. If you can't just sit in a stance and focus on Cooper, then you're at his mercy. And now he's driving. Now he's drawing 13 fouls. He's on the free throw line. He shot more free throws than our team. The other guys, they got the right mix of guys with him. If they had him and they didn't have shooting, or they had people that needed the ball and were ball dominant, then they probably wouldn't work. But they've done a good job evaluating and finding the right people to put around him, so it makes him a really tough matchup."

He just articulated what I've been thinking for months (and I'm sure it's not just me): Jon Scheyer knew that 2024-2025 was the Cooper Flagg Season, and that any offseason changes were about building a team around him, and not simply adding him to who was there. It was a near-perfect effort of roster construction; the only nitpick is that Coach Scheyer didn't quite get the backcourt depth he needed. He did try in the portal with Braeden Smith (Colgate to Gonzaga) and Derin Saran (UC Irvine to Stanford), and maybe there were others he pursued.
 
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