MBB: Duke vs. SMU (Sat 1/4, 2:15pm ET, The CW) Pregame and In-Game Thread

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The #4 Blue Devils ring in the new year with a new ACC opponent in a new ACC city: they fly to Dallas to face the SMU Mustangs this Saturday afternoon, airing on The CW (listen, live stats). You can watch the game by finding your local CW affiliate or streaming on The CW app.

While the Mustangs are new to the conference, they have played Duke before... but it's been a while. According to GoDuke, the two teams have met 4 previous times; the Devils are 3-1, losing once in Honolulu in 1983, but winning on the road in 1977, at home in 1978, and in the 1988 NCAA Tournament (a second round game in Chapel Hill).

That 1977 road win would have taken place in Moody Coliseum, SMU's 7,000-seat arena, which first opened in 1956 and is still their home floor. Mike Gminski was a sophomore on that Duke team, and while he does call games for Raycom Sports on The CW, I don't know if he's available and/or assigned to Saturday's game. (If he were, that would be quite something. Pep talk?)

Last spring SMU let go of second-year head coach Rob Lanier despite a 20-13 record; he's coaching at Rice now. This set off a bigger chain reaction in the coaching carousel that anyone could have imagined: Andy Enfield left USC to take the SMU job, Eric Musselman left Arkansas for USC, John Calipari left Kentucky for Arkansas, Mark Pope left BYU for Kentucky, and Kevin Young left his assistant job with the Phoenix Suns for BYU. What else might have happened because a mustang flapped its wings? Duke's loss in the Champions Classic? The college commitment of top 2025 recruit AJ Dybantsa? The fight on the Auburn plane that forced the team to turn back? I'd argue that all of those events took place because of the coaching change at SMU.

Coach Enfield rose to fame in 2013 by giving the world Dunk City, his high-flying Florida Gulf Coast team that reached the Sweet Sixteen as a 15 seed, upsetting 2-seeded Georgetown and 7-seeded San Diego State. He parlayed that into an 11-season stay at USC, making 5 NCAA Tournaments, including an Elite Eight appearance in 2021. And now he has SMU at 11-2 overall and 2-0 in the ACC, with a home win over Virginia and a big road win at Boston College (103-77: recap, box score, highlights, full replay).


It's sad that I have to note this, but SMU joins Duke, Clemson, and Pittsburgh in having one of the conference's 4 wins this season over an SEC team. They beat LSU by 10 on a neutral court in December. Well, that's slightly misleading; it was the Compete 4 Cause Classic at the Comerica Center in Frisco, Texas, which is in the greater Dallas-Fort Worth area, and about 30 minutes from Moody Coliseum. The players presumably awoke from their own beds that morning, so it's more like a semi-home situation. Still, it's a rare win for our league. The Mustangs did not participate in the ACC-SEC Challenge (SMU and Stanford were the extra men's teams left out), but they did lose at home to Mississippi State just before Thanksgiving.

Coach Enfield did not have to rebuild the entire SMU roster from scratch, like Pat Kelsey did at Louisville. It's more like a renovation project; the Mustangs squad is composed of 5 returning players, 7 incoming transfers, and 4 freshmen. Welcome to the ACC.

PROBABLE STARTERS

6-0 redshirt junior guard Kevin "Boopie" Miller #2 (15.4 pts, 3.3 reb, 5.9 ast, 1.5 stl)
6-7 grad forward Matt Cross #33 (10.7 pts, 8.2 reb, 1.8 ast, 1.0 stl)
6-3 junior guard B.J. Edwards #0 (10.2 pts, 3.9 reb, 3.5 ast, 2.4 stl)
7-2 freshman center Samet Yigitoglu #24 (9.8 pts, 6.0 reb, 1.3 ast, 1.0 blk)
6-11 junior forward Yohan Traore #21 (8.9 pts, 5.1 reb, 0.6 ast)

TOP RESERVES

6-4 fifth-year guard Chuck Harris #3 (12.2 pts, 2.3 reb, 1.9 ast)
6-4 fifth-year guard Kario Oquendo #8 (10.2 pts, 2.9 reb, 0.8 ast, 1.0 stl)
6-9 grad forward Keon Ambrose-Hylton #22 (4.6 pts, 2.5 reb, 0.3 ast)
6-10 junior forward Jerrell Colbert #20 (4.2 pts, 2.5 reb, 0.2 ast, 1.2 blk)
6-6 junior guard AJ George #10 (2.3 pts, 1.3 reb, 0.3 ast)
6-9 grad forward Tibet Görener #5 (2.0 pts, 1.2 reb, 0.2 ast)

BENCH PLAYERS

6-2 grad guard Jackson Young #35 (2.0 pts, 0.0 reb, 0.0 ast)
6-0 junior guard Trey Utter #31 (0.0 pts, 0.0 reb, 0.5 ast)
6-11 freshman forward Mitchell Holmes #13
6-4 freshman guard Niccolo Kalischer-Stork #23
6-7 freshman forward Chance Puryear #1

Actually, two of their players are already familiar with the ACC. Kevin "Boopie" Miller played at Wake Forest last season, while Matt Cross was a Miami freshman and Louisville sophomore. Many of their teammates also have power conference experience from the Big 12, Big East, Pac-12, or SEC: fellow starters BJ Edwards and Yohan Traore were freshmen at Tennessee and Auburn, respectively; among the reserves, Keon Ambrose-Hylton spent his first two seasons at Alabama, Jerrell Colbert was at LSU and Kansas State, Tibet Görener began his career at Arizona, Chuck Harris spent three seasons at Butler, and Kario Oquendo previously played for Georgia and Oregon.

As the Mustangs begin the bulk of their inaugural ACC schedule, their scoring offense is 1st in the league and 13th nationally, while their bench scoring is among the top 20 in the sport. (Stampede?) Coach Enfield has 3 starters and 2 reserves averaging over 10 points per game, while the two big men in their starting frontcourt are not far from joining them as the team's 6th and 7th double-digit scorers. Still, Bart Torvik projects Duke's top 10 scoring defense to dictate the game and win 79-70.

The following tables compare SMU and Duke, mostly with team stats from Basketball Reference.

TABLE 1

Category SMU (11-2, 2-0 ACC)Duke (11-2, 3-0 ACC)
Points Scored87.2 (13th nationally)79.6 (96th)
Points Allowed70.8 (172nd)59.0 (8th)
Scoring Margin (NCAA.com)16.4 (30th)20.6 (13th)
Bench Points (NCAA.com)33.1 (18th)22.7 (189th)
Total Rebounds40.8 (27th)39.6 (47th)
--- Offensive Rebounds13.4 (38th)11.7 (129th)
--- Defensive Rebounds27.5 (59th)27.9 (40th)
Assists16.5 (66th)16.4 (69th)
Assist/Turnover Ratio (NCAA.com)1.35 (94th)1.59 (29th)
Steals7.8 (117th)8.2 (88th)
Blocks4.1 (88th)3.6 (141st)
Turnovers12.2 (185th fewest)10.3 (39th fewest)
Personal Fouls17.2 (208th fewest)15.8 (105th fewest)
Field Goal Percentage49.6% (26th)46.9% (105th)
2-Point FG Percentage55.3% (101st)57.4% (54th)
3-Point FG Percentage39.1% (21st)35.6% (108th)
Free Throw Percentage74.9% (86th)75.1% (79th)

TABLE 2

CategorySMU (11-2, 2-0 ACC)Duke (11-2, 3-0 ACC)
NET Ranking (NCAA.com)#30#3
--- Quad 10-23-2
--- Quad 22-01-0
--- Quad 34-02-0
--- Quad 45-05-0
KenPom (Ken Pomeroy)#43#2
--- Offensive Efficiency21st9th
--- Defensive Efficiency92nd3rd
--- Tempo68th259th
Fastbreak Points (NCAA.com)16.0 (22nd)11.8 (124th)
T-Rank (Bart Torvik)#54 (T-Page)#3 (T-Page)
--- Experience2.205 (122nd)1.015 (357th)
--- Talent58.888 (29th)81.357 (3rd)

NET quadrants explained:

The quality of wins and losses will be organized based on game location and the opponent's NET ranking.

Quadrant 1: Home 1-30, Neutral 1-50, Away 1-75
Quadrant 2: Home 31-75, Neutral 51-100, Away 76-135
Quadrant 3: Home 76-160, Neutral 101-200, Away 135-240
Quadrant 4: Home 161-353, Neutral 201-353, Away 241-353
Ken Pomeroy defines efficiency as an extrapolated measure of points scored (offensive) or allowed (defensive) per 100 possessions against an average opponent. The more points you score and the fewer points you allow, the better. Tempo refers to the number of possessions per 40 minutes against an average tempo: the higher the rank, the faster the tempo. Faster isn't necessarily better; Houston is among the 5 slowest teams, and is KenPom #3.
Bart Torvik offers some clarification on Experience and Talent in the comments here. Experience "is based on class year (3 for senior, 0 for freshman) with caveat that it actually counts how many years a guy has played 10 games in, so if a guy is listed as a soph even though he's played two full years already, he'll count as a junior." Talent "is based on composite recruiting ranks weighted for minutes played."
 
I think this game will tell us a lot about how dominant Duke will be in the ACC. SMU can score but struggles on defense. This will be a hostile environment and we will need to score efficiently to win. I’m worried we get behind early and repeat the Kansas game with poor execution at the end. Hopefully this is more Louisville than Kansas…
 
I think this game will tell us a lot about how dominant Duke will be in the ACC. SMU can score but struggles on defense. This will be a hostile environment and we will need to score efficiently to win. I’m worried we get behind early and repeat the Kansas game with poor execution at the end. Hopefully this is more Louisville than Kansas…
I have no read on this SMU team as I haven't seen them play and can't tell much from schedule. I put more weight on Enfield's job at FGCU than USC. He made the mistake of signing Bronny James and the circus that followed him.

SMU students may be back because they start school on Monday. While I'm not sure you can convert them into basketball fans even if the league reverts to the past, Duke is still Duke (to borrow from Pete Gillen). I also note they were selling SRO tickets to this game a few weeks ago. Duke fans/alums in Texas rarely get to see Duke in person so I'm hoping more than a few of them find their way in the building. How that all adds up to enhance or negate the Duke as Superbowl effect is TBD.
 
SMU students may be back because they start school on Monday. While I'm not sure you can convert them into basketball fans even if the league reverts to the past, Duke is still Duke (to borrow from Pete Gillen). I also note they were selling SRO tickets to this game a few weeks ago. Duke fans/alums in Texas rarely get to see Duke in person so I'm hoping more than a few of them find their way in the building. How that all adds up to enhance or negate the Duke as Superbowl effect is TBD.

Definitely a heightened environment in Dallas this weekend. According to On3's Joe Tipton, SMU is using the game as a draw for 6 future recruits:


Can SMU re-create a Cameron-like atmosphere? Research their opponent and prepare some cheers? the Call their student section the Moody Maniacs and have them call out "Come Sit With Us" to the prep prospects? Have a designated fan carry the Baby Armadillo?
 
So having been going to SMU basketball games since the Jon Koncak years, it is going to be a very hyped-up environment on Saturday. There will be a fair number of Duke fans in the crowd--maybe like Auburn at CIS, probably more is my guess--because SMU basketball hasn't rebuilt the fan loyalty that was destroyed by a ticket re-seat money grab right after Larry Brown had left and just as Tim Jankovich began leading a long, slow decline. But it will be loud and overall quite hostile.

SMU has been figuring out lineup and chemistry issues, and have been pretty impressive starting with the LSU win, though the shooting is still streaky and the defense way more inconsistent than Duke's. It should be a fun game; it sucks that it won't be seen by more people.

I posted pics and descriptions of Moody Colisuem here, by the way.
 
The #4 Blue Devils ring in the new year with a new ACC opponent in a new ACC city: they fly to Dallas to face the SMU Mustangs this Saturday afternoon, airing on The CW (listen, live stats). You can watch the game by finding your local CW affiliate or streaming on The CW app.


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I think it's the same deal as football. The app doesn't work for sports.
Because my "local" station setup is a weird deal where two local broadcast companies control CBS, NBC, ABC, FOX, and CW between them, I don't get CW on DirecTV. The channel that some CW stuff comes on is the same channel as Fox for me.
 
The #4 Blue Devils ring in the new year with a new ACC opponent in a new ACC city: they fly to Dallas to face the SMU Mustangs this Saturday afternoon, airing on The CW (listen, live stats). You can watch the game by finding your local CW affiliate or streaming on The CW app.
The app doesn't work for sports.

@BigWayne is correct about live viewing. The CW Sports page has a scrolling banner with the following image:

cwbroadcastonly.jpg

"Live on broadcast only". So find your affiliate. (Also note that Duke-SMU is the second game of a doubleheader, so prepare yourself for a possible delay, especially if the Wake Forest fans decide to storm the court and attack, say, NCSU's Ben Middlebrooks.)

A web search seems to suggest that next-day replays are available on The CW app, but I'm not sure that applies to ACC basketball. Seven ACC games this season have aired on The CW...

12/07: Syracuse-Notre Dame, Virginia-SMU
12/14: La Salle-UNC
12/21: SMU-Boston College, Louisville-Florida State
12/28: Eastern Kentucky-Louisville, Bucknell-Syracuse

...and none of them appear to be archived when I check The CW app on my phone:

cwapp.jpg

Maybe they're deleted after a few days. I'll try to remember to check it again for Saturday's games on Sunday. Seems kind of moot anyway, since the ACC Digital Network posts full replays of any ACC home game on their YouTube page within 2-3 days. Proof is in the links below:

12/07: Syracuse-Notre Dame, Virginia-SMU
12/14: La Salle-UNC
12/21: SMU-Boston College, Louisville-Florida State
12/28: Eastern Kentucky-Louisville, Bucknell-Syracuse

 
Given SMUs offense stats, Duke’s premier defense definitely needs to show itself in Dallas. This would also be a perfect occasion for our offense to find itself on 8 cylinders from the get-go.
 
I live about 20 mins from SMU’s campus, so I was tempted to buy tickets. But they went on sale right after I returned from my trip to Atlanta for the champions classic, and I’m now 0-2 in my last 2 attended duke games (previous game was vs NC state in the elite 8), so I decided not to risk it :D
 
It's so 2024-25 college basketball that, of 11 SMU players who average more than a minute per game (if you exclude freshman Samet Yigtoglu), they average 4 years of college basketball and 2.7 schools. College sport needs to be saved from itself.
 
I live about 20 mins from SMU’s campus, so I was tempted to buy tickets. But they went on sale right after I returned from my trip to Atlanta for the champions classic, and I’m now 0-2 in my last 2 attended duke games (previous game was vs NC state in the elite 8), so I decided not to risk it :D
Thank you kAzE for taking one for the team.
 
I went to the SMU-BC game earlier this season, so I guess that makes me an expert on SMU:)

A couple observations:

- Boopie Miller is still lightning quick and really pushes the pace. Will be interesting to see how Duke's non-lightning quick defenders guard him.

- Matt Cross is a crafty scorer. We'll see how crafty he can be against Cooper, Khaman, and Maliq.

- 7'2" Freshman Samet Yigitoglu has put up some solid numbers (10 points, 6 reb, 1 block in 22mpg), but he is extremely foul prone. He has picked up 4 fouls in 6 of his last 7 games and against BC he picked up 4 fouls in less than 7 mins.

- Chuck Harris is an outstanding shooter (49% from three this year, 41% for his career).

One other thing that I noticed was that SMU had someone (manager?, video coordinator?) sitting behind the bench with a tablet. Whenever there was a close call on the court, this person would queue up a video of the play and show it to one of the coaches (usually an assistant, but occasionally Enfield). Enfield seemed to use this to moderate his discussions with the officials. In other words, if the video showed that the ref missed a call, Enfield would aggressively express his displeasure. If the video showed that the call was correct, Enfield would pretty much shut up.

I suspect that other teams do something similar, but I haven't seen it before. I have BC season tickets behind the visitors bench, so I've seen nearly every ACC team in person at some point in the past couple years.
 
I went to the SMU-BC game earlier this season, so I guess that makes me an expert on SMU:)

A couple observations:

- Boopie Miller is still lightning quick and really pushes the pace. Will be interesting to see how Duke's non-lightning quick defenders guard him.

- Matt Cross is a crafty scorer. We'll see how crafty he can be against Cooper, Khaman, and Maliq.

- 7'2" Freshman Samet Yigitoglu has put up some solid numbers (10 points, 6 reb, 1 block in 22mpg), but he is extremely foul prone. He has picked up 4 fouls in 6 of his last 7 games and against BC he picked up 4 fouls in less than 7 mins.

- Chuck Harris is an outstanding shooter (49% from three this year, 41% for his career).

One other thing that I noticed was that SMU had someone (manager?, video coordinator?) sitting behind the bench with a tablet. Whenever there was a close call on the court, this person would queue up a video of the play and show it to one of the coaches (usually an assistant, but occasionally Enfield). Enfield seemed to use this to moderate his discussions with the officials. In other words, if the video showed that the ref missed a call, Enfield would aggressively express his displeasure. If the video showed that the call was correct, Enfield would pretty much shut up.

I suspect that other teams do something similar, but I haven't seen it before. I have BC season tickets behind the visitors bench, so I've seen nearly every ACC team in person at some point in the past couple years.
Our defense is ridiculously good. But early on the season, we did have a little bit of trouble with super quick guards. It will be interesting to see how we deal with Miller.
 
I see some interesting tactical issues in this one.

- Size - They're big, regularly playing 6-11 Yohan Traore at the 4 and 7-2 Samet Yigitoglu at the 5. Collectively the pair has only made 8 3s on the season, but 6-7 Matt Cross is more of a threat from outside at the 4. Will SMU play big? I suppose that may come down to who they think is the better match up with Cooper. Despite being middling on defense, they are really good at defending 2-point shots (43%, 16th) probably due to their size.

- Pace. SMU likes to play fast. Duke's tempo numbers are low, but with a catch. Duke's average possession length on offense is 110th in DI, while our average defensive possession length is 362nd. Teams have really tried to slow Duke down, but we have tried to run on offense when possible. I've mentioned in another thread that Jon's record is much better at a slower tempo. This season, we played 3 high tempo games early, including the UK loss. Since then we've played slower games, including the Arizona game where we deliberately controlled tempo to slow them down. So, will SMU buck the trend of Duke opponents in slowing things down? If they do, will Duke be happy to go along? Generally, higher-tempo games favor the better team. Still, we haven't always been the most comfortable in high tempo games under Jon.

- 3 point shooting. Duke shoots a lot of 3s, but has only been a little above average (36%). SMU doesn't shoot very many 3s, but has shot it quite well (39%). I still have some concerns about our 3 point defense, and we'll need to be sharp. If I were SMU, I'd be tempted to play the smaller lineup, shoot more 3s, and open up driving lanes for Boopie Miller.

- Foul trouble and FT - SMU is quite good at getting to the FT line. If they get a little home cooking from the refs, we could see foul trouble being an issue. Duke hasn't had to deal with foul trouble a ton this year, so let's see how we respond if it happens.

The recipe for an upset could be this: our big team has trouble staying in front of Boopie Miller, leading to our defense getting into rotations, giving up fouls and/or open 3s. Duke struggles with foul trouble as a result. On offense, their size bothers us and we don't hit our 3s.

The recipe for a smooth Duke win could be this: SMU's size is an advantage against most teams, but not Duke. Our 7-2 freshman outplays theirs. Our guards move their feet well enough to contain SMU, and we stay disciplined enough to avoid fouls, forcing them to shoot over our length. Offensively, we continue to take a step forward, and we also outshoot them from 3.
 
I haven’t looked it up, but weren’t we pretty successful defending Boopie Miller last year? I know he’s fast but small. Did we put a bigger Tyrese on him? Maybe not, since Wake also had Sallis.

Wake fans tired of Boopie’s inefficiency last year down the stretch; not sure how Edenfield is using him, though.
 
I watched the first half of their recent game against Longwood on ESPN+, it's available on-demand for those interested.

-Their first priority is attacking the basket, usually in transition. The color commentator said Enfield buys into the old Mike D'Antoni "7 Second or Less" offense philosophy and that is obvious when you watch them. They transition from defense to offense so quickly that the ball was often at the 3 point line before the camera caught up. So, I think priority 1, is to make them take the ball out of the basket. Shooting a high percentage would slow them down, although they also push off makes.

-When Miller is in the game, he's the one pushing pace, and will often attack the rim full court. I also saw them using some drag screen action in transition with their bigs, when the big is running parallel with the guard and it's like a moving pick and roll where the guard can attack if the defense miscommunicates or can hit the slipping big if the defense doubles.

-When they settle in the halfcourt, they tend to keep the floor pretty spread and look to attack the rim as option 1. Two of the frontline guys, Cross and Traore can both attack off the dribble. Traore was a beast in the Longwood game, he is long, skilled and aggressive - Viva la France! Cross is physical as heck and tries to bully his way to the basket.

-They really feel like an SEC team, that fast, physical, swaggery type of offensive game. They definitely seem more interested in offense than defense. They mixed in a bunch of zone with their man, and also picked up full court at times. Their zone was very soft, though. Longwood was easily entering the ball to the foul line and making them pay from the midrange.

-Despite having a massive size advantage on Longwood, they didn't seem to try and post anyone up.

-The gym, as many have said, is very Cameron-esque, right down to the courtside bleacher and overall size.

-They kind of remind me of us, in that they go deep, and seem to be able to play a lot of different combinations of their 8 man rotation and have the size to go big or small.
 
I'm probably being overly optimistic, but I really wanna give these guys a 1st class welcome to the ACC basketball side of the house.
There was some noise, a meme thing going around where SMU announced a sell out V Duke. And some Duke Fan or other saying "you are welcome" and then some other SMU person from the peanut gallery referred to Duke as a bunch of "Ef'n obnoxious a-holes"...and "that we are easy to hate"...

They don't even know us... fine, LETS GIVE THEM AN ACTUAL RESON TO HATE US.
Full speed ahead
 
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