Re-watching the game right now:
-First two defensive possessions of the game I did not like Duval's on ball defense. I thought he allowed penetration too easily. He wasn't really down in his stance the way you would want from someone guarding the ball. This is something that could potentially really hurt us down the line against a team like Notre Dame for example that is a rich man's version of Elon. Allowing players like Matt Ferrell (?) and TJ Gibbs of ND to get deep like that will put our bigger line-ups in extremely tough close-out situations as well as almost surely causing our rotations to breakdown. Fortunately, we will have time to figure out the above. Michigan State won't pose that threat. They are also big inside and will try to run with us and muscle us inside just like Izzo teams always try to do against UNC and Duke.
-Allen is so good. His situation of his junior/senior season reminds me a lot of when Seth Curry was asked during his junior season to play the PG spot on the Rivers team. When Curry moved off-ball his senior season and Cook took over at PG, Curry was much more efficient, much more comfortable and produced a lot more. Curry had a great senior season. I think we all expected Allen to be awesome this year, but I just think the comparison between Curry and Allen is very similar regarding their role changes.
-I really love how Duval plays in transition. One thing which I was not expecting at all was for Duval to be so poised and under control in transition. I was expecting him to try and fly up the floor and make plays at full throttle. He played like this in the exhibition as well, but he rarely goes full throttle when pushing it up the floor off of a rebound. His eyes are always up and he is rarely, almost never, looking for himself to score. He is specifically very focused in on finding Trent Jr and Allen on the perimeter for threes. There was a point in the second half where (he did this in the exhibition too) where he is leading the break and begins to attack the rim, but as he neared the paint he pumped the breaks and looked behind him trying to find Allen and Trent Jr spotting up on the 3pt line behind him. He was under control and found them. I think his overall composure has been one of the more pleasantly surprising things I've seen from this team. Even in the half-court, he's not forcing anything. He doesn't turn the corner on ball screens towards the rim out of control. Yes, he'll take the jump-shot (as expected everyone goes under) but it's still a decent attempt, hopefully he starts to knock them down. I'm very pleased so far with Duval.
-At around 17:00 in the first half they put Bagley and DeLaurier into a ball screen situation. Bagley switches and DeLaurier initially doesn't and he retreats inside the 3pt line, leaving the ball handler open for a 3. Despite his momentum moving backwards, DeLaurier quickly bursts out and gets his long arm up putting a decent enough contest on the shot, which was missed. Very impressive athletic ability.
In general, DeLaurier is a complete defensive juggernaut. He's constantly switching onto guards and harassing them. They can't shake him. He's too quick to straight up blow past, and his arms are long enough that even with a nice step back, it's hard to create enough separation for a clean look at a mid-range jump-shot (but even if he was allowing clean mid-range looks off of the dribble, that wouldn't be the worst thing). He loves to rebound, he's very active. Fun player. Perfect for this team. He would've helped a lot last season had he been ready or if the staff had tried to develop him.
-Bagley is close to being one of, if not, the most dominant forces I've seen in CBB. Everyone is aware of his high motor, his elite athletic ability and measurables. But he's close skill wise. He needs to improve his right hand which everyone can see, but he's pushing the line on developing a nearly unguardable skill set from within the paint (similar to Jabari). He needs to be a little more patient and a little bit more under control, but because of his strides, you can't stay in front of him and really guard him when he puts it on the floor and drives from the perimeter. One, two steps and he's inside the paint on one dribble, and with his size it doesn't matter if you ultimately stay in front of him, you're not going to get an ideal contest. Right now he's missing a lot in there because IMO his pivot footwork and pace isn't quite there yet. He is taking a lot of straight line drives which are much easier to defend. He just needs to slow down a little bit and when he gets into the paint just get to a stop on two feet and just do whatever he wants next because he'll score.
I'm personally fine with him taking a couple of threes per game. If nothing else it draws the defense further out on him, and, I think he can eventually begin to make that shot enough where teams will mark it in their scouting report to get out there on it. That's the ideal situation, where he forces teams to at least contest. As long as his 3pt shooting is on low volume I'm fine with it, because I think long-term the reward outweighs the 2, maybe 3 misses he's experienced so far per game.
