MBB: Duke 86, Notre Dame 78 Postgame Thread

Coach Shrewsberry comments here: https://goduke.com/documents/2025/1/11/Duke_vs_Notre_Dame_Opponent_Coach.pdf

Includes this: On the run at the end of the game: “I mean, be honest with you, they took their foot off the gas. That's probably something that [Jon Scheyer] is talking about right now in the locker room. Or he's going to watch film with them about it. Some of the threes they missed, Kon missed one that hit the bottom of the rim. They had some turnovers. Had some guys turning shots down. They relaxed. They got [up] big and they relaxed.That's what it was. Our guys kept fighting. Credit our guys for keeping the fight, for giving ourselves a chance. We had to try and do something. Mix things up. It was stuff that we're just doing it, on the fly, to try and change some things up and get momentum going our way.
 
That was the weirdest 30pt beatdown disguised as a close game that I can remember! I echo what others have said - super all-around game from Cooper Flagg and of course, I hope Maliq is ok and back out on the court soon (but his demeanor on the bench and the fact that he wasn't even standing to cheer has me very concerned).

But, seriously, that game was...odd. We looked like we were about to absolutely blow their doors off and then the refs decided to tighten it up with some ticky-tack calls against us - and non-calls against ND. I swear, Man-Man got fouled on most of his dunks today (there's one replay they showed where he clearly got hit on BOTH arms by the same guy as he was dunking it with crickets from the zebras). Kudos to Notre Dame for continuing to fight when it just felt like there was no way they were going to win today. Even when it got close at the end, I wasn't worried (except about the $20 bet I made for us to cover the spread). We had some lapses on D for sure where we left 3 point shooters open but...they also pulled some 3pt shots straight outta their collective patooties, too. I do wonder if Cooper's teammates weren't kinda on cruise control when he was seemingly doing anything he wanted for a long stretch of the 2nd half but, at the end of the day, the coaches got some teachable moments out of it and we got the "W".

PS - How about more love for Maluach's 19 pt / 10 rebound day today?! So sorry Brown got hurt, but Man-Man proved he can play big, valuable minutes for us, which, much like my blessing from the Dalai Lama in lieu of a tip, is nice :D
 
Jon's strategy with Isaiah right now seems to be to give him a 5-8 min "heat check" early in each game and then ride him for more minutes if he's hot.
I’m definitely not in favor of this strategy. While it sounds great in theory, in reality you don’t want a player taking a shot knowing that if he misses he is going to be on the bench for the rest of the game. I would like to see him get time to get into the flow of the game and see how he performs.
 
Maluach has exceeded all my expectations. Soft hands (I think he just flubbed one pass today), great FT stroke, perimeter defense skills, and, most surprisingly, very few personal fouls. Brown’s defense is more disruptive but Maluach’s is more intimidating. Happy to see him handling the heavy minutes load today.
 
Amazing effort by Cooper without being selfish. And kudos to Notre Dame. Couple things that was slightly annoying: is it just me or referees are kind of being really nitpicky about our "fouls" and sometimes coming up with phantom calls for obvious stuff while not calling very obvious fouls on us. Maluach is hit in the arm all the time yet very few are called. And I really really do not like Bilas on Duke games. While trying to be "impartial" he has some really questionable takes. I felt like refs really ruined the flow of this game by calling seriously minor stuff (and in a somewhat inconsistent way which is the worse of it). I think other than Flagg all our starters had 3 or 4 fouls. Notre Dame was even worse, though somewhat to be expected from talent mismatch.

I think the high number of fouls called on us plus a short bench this game caused us to back off a bit. They were calling a lot of touch fouls in some cases which was worse for us.
 
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Also I am glad this game happened the way it was in some ways because we were afraid we wouldn't be tested or have clos games and here we are. This is in the long run might be really good for us. And also showed that Flagg can take over if he needs to without doing crazy spins.
 
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