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[2018-19] Kentucky (at Indianapolis), Army, Eastern Michigan

Not a good home debut. Defensive rotations extremely poor.

Interesting to see Zion playing the 5.
 
In the end it was one bad half. I think it was probably silly to think we were '91 UNLV after one win, but it's probably silly to overreact to this too. Our defensive numbers didn't even end up that bad. High possession game with a lot of shot attempts. Army shot 37% overall. Granted, they shot 40% from three on a huge number of attempts. Certainly need to close out better.
 
Yeah, I thought the defense in the 2nd half was fine, it was really mostly just a bad first half in terms of defense. Which really isn't suprising given how the media was ready to proclaim this team one of the all time great teams after Tuesday. I don't think there are many 18 year olds that can listen to that all week without getting a little too full of themselves.
 
SeanMayTriedToEatMe said:
The only positive I could reach for regarding Army is that they could be a pretty scary outside shooting team if they actually put four shooters on the floor together. They won't do that, because it doesn't seem like Army basketball coaching is the most progressive thing out there right now, but that would give them the best chance of doing anything noteworthy against Duke. Their starting backcourt shot 38% and 39% from 3 last season. They have a 6-8 guy who shot 47% from 3 on decent volume last season, but he's a backup for some reason. His other numbers look ok, so he probably should be getting more minutes. Overall, Army was #44 in 3pt% last season.

That's all there is to look forward to, IMO. Would like to see Army roll out 4-5 shooters at the same time so we get to see how Duke's defense reacts to that situation. Duke will win by 20+ regardless. Line should be anywhere from low 30s to high 30s - don't know how Vegas is going to react.
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Looks pretty accurate in retrospect.
 
I don’t know. The defense was concerning to me. It looked like the same two problems that plague Duke almost every season. 1) Nobody gets back on D. I’m not as concerned about this since games tend to slow down as the season progresses. 2) One freaking ball screen sets the defense into chaotic scramble and recover mode far too easily. This is not as frustrating after year whatever of this problem. By 2018, most TDFers aren’t stupid enough to expect even halfway decent man defense from Duke. I’m in wait-and-see mode about the zone minus Carter. Hopefully, it’s good enough.
 
It's so frustrating to see 2018 Javin and Bolden look just like 2017 Javin and Bolden.

In keeping with what I consider to be my bizarre optimism this season, I do think it's possible that K can fix RJ's chucker habits. He won't do fuck-all with the defense, though.
 
Still think we should switch all screens. Don't like a Carter-less zone. That will probably tank our offensive efficiency -- due to a lower pace -- and I don't think the defensive gains will be enough to be worth it.
 
rome8180 said:
Still think we should switch all screens. Don't like a Carter-less zone. That will probably tank our offensive efficiency -- due to a lower pace -- and I don't think the defensive gains will be enough to be worth it.
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One thing to consider is while we don’t have Carter, we also don’t have Bagley which should help the zone quite a bit.
 
I was only able to watch the last 15 or so minutes of the game, but we limited Army to 34% on two pointers, 0.92 points per possession. Seems like a solid defensive effort. Really strange seeing a Duke team allow 30 three-point attempts in a man-to-man defense, though.
 
As bad as the first half D was we gave them a lot more fast breaks than usual with all of our sloppy turnovers.
 
DurhamSon said:
As bad as the first half D was we gave them a lot more fast breaks than usual with all of our sloppy turnovers.
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Yeah they went from 4 TOs in the UK game to 12 today. Some of those were shitty RJ turnovers (travel which results in a dead ball, as example), but most of the 12 were coughing up loose balls and leading to breaks.
 
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Easy room for improvement is good. Same stuff as usual, which has usually taken forever to fix, is bad. How many times have we seen the wrong guy getting the most shots for like 3/4 of the season, or the entire season without ever being fixed? The defense doesn’t even need to be brought up anymore. K will either fix it quickly for the first time ever, or waste the talent on his awful idealistic plan for too long again. All we can do is wait and see whether he decides to win the title or not.
 
I just don't feel like this is the same old story and feel it would be a huge mistake to switch to zone.

I also am not worried about the "wrong guy getting the shots." Year in and out, it's never been our offense that's caused us to lose and it won't be this year. Sure, Zion's more efficient than RJ but offense doesn't exist in some perfect vacuum. You have to let the players play their natural roles.
 
Thinking the Barrett/Zion situation is merely “imperfect” and won’t hinder the team is preposterous when they are currently at 34% usage 107 efficiency vs. 28% usage 160 efficiency. That’s not just some slight imperfection. That’s blatantly unconscionable coaching and player understanding.
 
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