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- Oct 7, 2012
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Duke goes through the motions one more time before going through hell.
BOSTON COLLEGE
Tuesday, February 5, 7:00pm ET, ESPN
Cameron Indoor Stadium
Kenpom Information
BC: 111 overall, 84 offense, 147 defense
Projection: Duke 91, BC 66 (Duke 99% to win)
Revenge Game
Believe it or not, even with at least three NBA first round picks and a second round pick on his roster, Coach K managed to bring home a loss from BC last season. The non-Gary Trents on Duke shot 2-17 from 3, Ky Bowman torched the inept Trevon Duval (as shown above) for 30 points and BC generally shredded Duke's classic, terrible man-to-man defense for 89 points. You can bet that all four of Duke's returning players who were embarrassed in that game - Bolden, DeLaurier, Goldwire and O'Connell - will be out for vengeance in this one.
Another Test for Tre
6-1 junior Bowman is the only interesting thing about BC, whose fans must be wistfully smiling about the Al Skinner era at this point. In eight seasons, Steve Donohue and Jim Christian have combined to finish outside the top 200 on Kenpom as many times as they have finished in the top 100 (twice). Bowman gives BC a chance to be competitive a few days per year, and he's their only hope.
Through BC's first 8 ACC games, Bowman has been on the bench for a total of 2 minutes. For the season, he leads the nation in percentage of minutes played. He's good at most things point guards should be good at, but to give you a sense of how much less lazy he is than his teammates, he's 2nd on the team in defensive rebounding percentage, at 18.8%. It would be a shame if Duke had a player who normally shuts down opposing point guards; this game would be laughably unfair in that case.
at VIRGINIA
Saturday, February 9, 6:00pm ET, ESPN
John Paul Jones Arena
Kenpom Information
UVA: 1 overall, 4 offense, 2 defense
Projection: UVA 70, Duke 66 (Duke 34% to win)
Biggest Game
This is it. This will probably end up being the highest leverage game of the college basketball season. If Duke wins, it would be very difficult for UVA to overtake Duke in the race for the #1 overall seed in the NCAA Tournament, as well as the priority in geography that comes with it. The opposite is also true. Both teams have similarly hellish ACC schedules ahead, followed by a brutal conference tournament that could very well feature 4 top 10 Kenpom teams in the semifinals. UVA has been the best regular season program of the past six seasons, finishing at 4, 6, 4, 12 and 2, and currently sitting at 1, on Kenpom. The program is a clockwork machine. It wouldn't be realistic to expect them to fall behind Duke in seeding after grabbing a 2-game lead in the loss column. However, Duke is playing fairly decent basketball this season, too. It wouldn't be realistic to expect them to fall behind UVA in seeding after sweeping the season series.
College basketball can be a revolting product. Most people have better things to do than watch a 52-47 Big Ten game, Kentucky blow out the SEC every season, or that clown of a coach, Kevin Keatts, pilot his team to 24 total points against Virginia Tech. Then you have those rare college basketball games where everything comes together, a perfect storm of: (1) two objectively great teams playing against each other; (2) an extreme contrast of styles, (3) an extreme contrast of roster-building philosophies; (4) David vs. Goliath undertones, with confusion over who is actually David and who is actually Goliath; (5) Duke playing on the road; and (6) one of the most captivating players, and potentially the best player, in history. This is the game you tell people to watch if you want them to give college basketball a chance. This is the game where all you analytics nerds throw away your protractors and graphing calculators, simply watch what happens on the court and only care about whether your team wins or loses.
at LOUISVILLE
Tuesday, February 12, 9:00pm ET, ESPN or ESPN2
KFC Yum! Center
Kenpom Information
Louisville: 13 overall, 14 offense, 31 defense
Projection: Duke 79, Louisville 74 (Duke 67% to win)
Surprisingly Loseable Game
Chris Mack has done a stunning job in his first season at Louisville. After losing arguably the four most important players from a team that wasn't very good last season, Louisville wasn't expected to be a factor in the ACC, let alone nationally. 7 of their 9 remaining regular season games are against top 50 teams, with 4 games against top 10 teams, so the wheels could still fall off. For now, after starting the season at 63 on Kenpom, Louisville is on track to finish higher than any of Mack's Xavier teams and earn a 3- or 4-seed in the NCAA Tournament.
A Different Mack
Mack did well at Xavier, but one concern you could always raise about his coaching competence was his disregard for 3s. His Xavier offenses were almost always outside the top 200 in 3pt attempt rate and his Xavier defenses were almost always outside the top 250 in denying 3s. He didn't seem to care about the thing that has revolutionized the sport. Now, in his first year at Louisville, he has suddenly placed great emphasis on 3s; Louisville's offense is in the top 100 in 3pt attempt rate and their defense is in the top 100 in denying 3s. Whether or not this is because of a higher talent level at Louisville than at Xavier, Mack is likely to continue his enlightenment going forward, since his overall results this season have been the best of his career.
Jordan Nwora (pictured above), a 6-7 sophomore stretch 4, is Louisville's best 3pt shooter, hitting 40% on 6 attempts per game. He's also Louisville's best overall player. He can put his name on draft boards with a good performance head-to-head against Zion.
NC STATE
Saturday, February 16, Time TBA, ESPN or ESPN2
Cameron Indoor Stadium
Kenpom Information
NC State: 39 overall, 53 offense, 40 defense
Projection: Duke 88, NC State 70 (Duke 94% to win)
Must-Win Game
4 of Duke's remaining 10 regular season games are on the road against top 15 Kenpom teams. This is not one of those games. This is a relative gimme. After two consecutive seasons of losing to NC State, both in embarrassing fashion, no Duke fan can be confident that this will be a win, but it needs to be. NC State pushes tempo by pressing more than any other team in the country, they're bad at protecting the ball and they're bad at defending 2s. Regardless of anything else, this should end their chances against Duke.
@dub_seahawks
Any time you, as the head coach of a power conference basketball program, allow your team to be held to 24 points over the course of an entire game, and allow two of your players to look like they did in the photo above, the shine is gone. The jury is still out on whether Kevin Keatts will be a better coach than message board troll.
A basic question that arises from looking at NC State's roster is why 6-0 sophomore Braxton Beverly plays more than 6-1 junior Markell Johnson. For the season, Beverly averages 28 minutes and Johnson averages 22. Johnson is back from an injury that cost him 3 games, but the recovery doesn't explain the significant difference in minutes, especially given that Johnson is the much better player in just about every way. The only rational conclusion is that Keatts, like his predecessor Mark Gottfried, is a white supremacist. Perhaps the opportunity to beat Duke at Cameron will entice Keatts to put aside this ugly side of his character and put his team in the best position to win.
BOSTON COLLEGE
Tuesday, February 5, 7:00pm ET, ESPN
Cameron Indoor Stadium
Kenpom Information
BC: 111 overall, 84 offense, 147 defense
Projection: Duke 91, BC 66 (Duke 99% to win)
Revenge Game
Believe it or not, even with at least three NBA first round picks and a second round pick on his roster, Coach K managed to bring home a loss from BC last season. The non-Gary Trents on Duke shot 2-17 from 3, Ky Bowman torched the inept Trevon Duval (as shown above) for 30 points and BC generally shredded Duke's classic, terrible man-to-man defense for 89 points. You can bet that all four of Duke's returning players who were embarrassed in that game - Bolden, DeLaurier, Goldwire and O'Connell - will be out for vengeance in this one.
Another Test for Tre
6-1 junior Bowman is the only interesting thing about BC, whose fans must be wistfully smiling about the Al Skinner era at this point. In eight seasons, Steve Donohue and Jim Christian have combined to finish outside the top 200 on Kenpom as many times as they have finished in the top 100 (twice). Bowman gives BC a chance to be competitive a few days per year, and he's their only hope.
Through BC's first 8 ACC games, Bowman has been on the bench for a total of 2 minutes. For the season, he leads the nation in percentage of minutes played. He's good at most things point guards should be good at, but to give you a sense of how much less lazy he is than his teammates, he's 2nd on the team in defensive rebounding percentage, at 18.8%. It would be a shame if Duke had a player who normally shuts down opposing point guards; this game would be laughably unfair in that case.
at VIRGINIA
Saturday, February 9, 6:00pm ET, ESPN
John Paul Jones Arena
Kenpom Information
UVA: 1 overall, 4 offense, 2 defense
Projection: UVA 70, Duke 66 (Duke 34% to win)
Biggest Game
This is it. This will probably end up being the highest leverage game of the college basketball season. If Duke wins, it would be very difficult for UVA to overtake Duke in the race for the #1 overall seed in the NCAA Tournament, as well as the priority in geography that comes with it. The opposite is also true. Both teams have similarly hellish ACC schedules ahead, followed by a brutal conference tournament that could very well feature 4 top 10 Kenpom teams in the semifinals. UVA has been the best regular season program of the past six seasons, finishing at 4, 6, 4, 12 and 2, and currently sitting at 1, on Kenpom. The program is a clockwork machine. It wouldn't be realistic to expect them to fall behind Duke in seeding after grabbing a 2-game lead in the loss column. However, Duke is playing fairly decent basketball this season, too. It wouldn't be realistic to expect them to fall behind UVA in seeding after sweeping the season series.
College basketball can be a revolting product. Most people have better things to do than watch a 52-47 Big Ten game, Kentucky blow out the SEC every season, or that clown of a coach, Kevin Keatts, pilot his team to 24 total points against Virginia Tech. Then you have those rare college basketball games where everything comes together, a perfect storm of: (1) two objectively great teams playing against each other; (2) an extreme contrast of styles, (3) an extreme contrast of roster-building philosophies; (4) David vs. Goliath undertones, with confusion over who is actually David and who is actually Goliath; (5) Duke playing on the road; and (6) one of the most captivating players, and potentially the best player, in history. This is the game you tell people to watch if you want them to give college basketball a chance. This is the game where all you analytics nerds throw away your protractors and graphing calculators, simply watch what happens on the court and only care about whether your team wins or loses.
at LOUISVILLE
Tuesday, February 12, 9:00pm ET, ESPN or ESPN2
KFC Yum! Center
Kenpom Information
Louisville: 13 overall, 14 offense, 31 defense
Projection: Duke 79, Louisville 74 (Duke 67% to win)
Surprisingly Loseable Game
Chris Mack has done a stunning job in his first season at Louisville. After losing arguably the four most important players from a team that wasn't very good last season, Louisville wasn't expected to be a factor in the ACC, let alone nationally. 7 of their 9 remaining regular season games are against top 50 teams, with 4 games against top 10 teams, so the wheels could still fall off. For now, after starting the season at 63 on Kenpom, Louisville is on track to finish higher than any of Mack's Xavier teams and earn a 3- or 4-seed in the NCAA Tournament.
A Different Mack
Mack did well at Xavier, but one concern you could always raise about his coaching competence was his disregard for 3s. His Xavier offenses were almost always outside the top 200 in 3pt attempt rate and his Xavier defenses were almost always outside the top 250 in denying 3s. He didn't seem to care about the thing that has revolutionized the sport. Now, in his first year at Louisville, he has suddenly placed great emphasis on 3s; Louisville's offense is in the top 100 in 3pt attempt rate and their defense is in the top 100 in denying 3s. Whether or not this is because of a higher talent level at Louisville than at Xavier, Mack is likely to continue his enlightenment going forward, since his overall results this season have been the best of his career.
Jordan Nwora (pictured above), a 6-7 sophomore stretch 4, is Louisville's best 3pt shooter, hitting 40% on 6 attempts per game. He's also Louisville's best overall player. He can put his name on draft boards with a good performance head-to-head against Zion.
NC STATE
Saturday, February 16, Time TBA, ESPN or ESPN2
Cameron Indoor Stadium
Kenpom Information
NC State: 39 overall, 53 offense, 40 defense
Projection: Duke 88, NC State 70 (Duke 94% to win)
Must-Win Game
4 of Duke's remaining 10 regular season games are on the road against top 15 Kenpom teams. This is not one of those games. This is a relative gimme. After two consecutive seasons of losing to NC State, both in embarrassing fashion, no Duke fan can be confident that this will be a win, but it needs to be. NC State pushes tempo by pressing more than any other team in the country, they're bad at protecting the ball and they're bad at defending 2s. Regardless of anything else, this should end their chances against Duke.
@dub_seahawks
Any time you, as the head coach of a power conference basketball program, allow your team to be held to 24 points over the course of an entire game, and allow two of your players to look like they did in the photo above, the shine is gone. The jury is still out on whether Kevin Keatts will be a better coach than message board troll.
A basic question that arises from looking at NC State's roster is why 6-0 sophomore Braxton Beverly plays more than 6-1 junior Markell Johnson. For the season, Beverly averages 28 minutes and Johnson averages 22. Johnson is back from an injury that cost him 3 games, but the recovery doesn't explain the significant difference in minutes, especially given that Johnson is the much better player in just about every way. The only rational conclusion is that Keatts, like his predecessor Mark Gottfried, is a white supremacist. Perhaps the opportunity to beat Duke at Cameron will entice Keatts to put aside this ugly side of his character and put his team in the best position to win.
