Game Thread [2023-24] at Georgia Tech

[Dukewins]

I think Flagg is going to be incredible, but I'm not sure it will matter. The coaching sucks.

At least we'll be surrounding him with some shooters.

You think so? That was supposed to be the case this year. Shooters only make shots if you run good offense for them.

I don't think we have anybody that even resembles a "shooter" on this years team. McCain was supposed to be decent but he has fallen off a cliff.

Hopefully next years crop is better.

 

[DrKlahn]

In a two road game week, I typically write off the second game as unwinnable. A 3-loss Duke team is going to get some bad press. That’s why I will look to D-F as a beacon of positivity and perspective.

I knew I could count on you guys

 

[Inveigle]

Bad Duke: No playmakers. Throwing somebody the ball then standing around watching to see if they make a play isn't a good offensive alternative.

We don't rebound, make assists. We don't play TOGETHER as a team. You would hope they'd start turning a corner but it just isn't happening.

 

[dukeboy911]

Is it really a loss though if you get 100k likes on your next dance video?

 

[DurhamSon]

I think Flagg is going to be incredible, but I'm not sure it will matter. The coaching sucks.

At least we'll be surrounding him with some shooters.

You think so? That was supposed to be the case this year. Shooters only make shots if you run good offense for them.

I don't think we have anybody that even resembles a "shooter" on this years team. McCain was supposed to be decent but he has fallen off a cliff.

Hopefully next years crop is better.

I agree with you on the Sophs. They are what they are at this point, the sample size is big enough. Not giving up yet on Foster/McCain though, there's a very real scenario where they pop starting sometime in January as they get fully acclimated to college ball and suddenly these 4-16 shooting games turn into 7-18 or w/e and the one possession losses into one-two possession wins with no other changes in the 'coaching'.

But yeah, when other coaches are boasting how they don't respect one of your wing starters enough to put a man within ten feet of him on the corner, and he doesn't do anything to dissuade them of that notion, or your big PF starter with the most usage 15 months into his time on campus is still sub 30% from deep, there's no statistical/historical indication they are just waiting to be unleashed if only X was different. I think we'll see this validated by their pro careers the same other bad shooters at Duke the last twenty years showed. I'd at least be compelled by such an argument if they were currently getting bad quality looks, but the majority are exactly shots you would *want* any shooter with skill to take.


Other good/great Duke teams since 2017 (the last good shooting Duke team) had this same issue and were still good/great, I think the other posts pointing to a lack of can't miss OAD phenom like a Paolo/Zion, or even a tier below that like Hoss/Bagley/Carter

 

[rome8180]

I think Flagg is going to be incredible, but I'm not sure it will matter. The coaching sucks.

At least we'll be surrounding him with some shooters.

You think so? That was supposed to be the case this year. Shooters only make shots if you run good offense for them.

I don't think we have anybody that even resembles a "shooter" on this years team. McCain was supposed to be decent but he has fallen off a cliff.

Hopefully next years crop is better.

I agree with you on the Sophs. They are what they are at this point, the sample size is big enough. Not giving up yet on Foster/McCain though, there's a very real scenario where they pop starting sometime in January as they get fully acclimated to college ball and suddenly these 4-16 shooting games turn into 7-18 or w/e and the one possession losses into one-two possession wins with no other changes in the 'coaching'.

But yeah, when other coaches are boasting how they don't respect one of your wing starters enough to put a man within ten feet of him on the corner, and he doesn't do anything to dissuade them of that notion, or your big PF starter with the most usage 15 months into his time on campus is still sub 30% from deep, there's no statistical/historical indication they are just waiting to be unleashed if only X was different. I think we'll see this validated by their pro careers the same other bad shooters at Duke the last twenty years showed. I'd at least be compelled by such an argument if they were currently getting bad quality looks, but the majority are exactly shots you would *want* any shooter with skill to take.


Other good/great Duke teams since 2017 (the last good shooting Duke team) had this same issue and were still good/great, I think the other posts pointing to a lack of can't miss OAD phenom like a Paolo/Zion, or even a tier below that like Hoss/Bagley/Carter

Watch some ball movement of Redick, Dawkins, Curry, or Kennard coming off screens and then tell me that the offense has nothing to do with it.

 

[rome8180]

Sorry, but I don't buy the "All these top 25 recruits just happen to suck at the things they were supposed to be good at at once" theory.

 

[DurhamSon]

YTTV is annoying but just for fun I went back and rewatched all of McCain's 3pt attemps

1H 18:03 -- Open near corner, calls for ball as as he is left open, two defenders on Ryan in the post. Flip passes him the ball. Jared pump fakes to lose one defender, then releases from corner. Misses in rhythm.

2H 15:11 -- Jared gets the ball on a fast break after a deflection, dribbles to the 3pt arc in stride, and let's it fly with no one within 5ft of him. Miss

2H 11:31 -- Flip inbound the ball to Stewart about 15ft from the baseline. Jared is behind him about five feet, Sean passes him the ball and he smartly steps back until he's behind the line. No defender within five feet of him by the time he let's it fly. Miss

----

I don't want to do this with every three point field goal attempt to chart which ones are actually crappy, or end of possession prayers, or heavily contested, etc, but the point is this small sample matches the larger body of evidence so far in which these are quality enough shots you just plain expect shooters to make at a higher % than we are seeing right now.



Now if the argument is we should be running more actions for our shooters, I agree, but nothing about the misses we're seeing can be much ascribed to any coaching misdecision.

 

[burksballer20]

YTTV is annoying but just for fun I went back and rewatched all of McCain's 3pt attemps

1H 18:03 -- Open near corner, calls for ball as as he is left open, two defenders on Ryan in the post. Flip passes him the ball. Jared pump fakes to lose one defender, then releases from corner. Misses in rhythm.

2H 15:11 -- Jared gets the ball on a fast break after a deflection, dribbles to the 3pt arc in stride, and let's it fly with no one within 5ft of him. Miss

2H 11:31 -- Flip inbound the ball to Stewart about 15ft from the baseline. Jared is behind him about five feet, Sean passes him the ball and he smartly steps back until he's behind the line. No defender within five feet of him by the time he let's it fly. Miss

----

I don't want to do this with every three point field goal attempt to chart which ones are actually crappy, or end of possession prayers, or heavily contested, etc, but the point is this small sample matches the larger body of evidence so far in which these are quality enough shots you just plain expect shooters to make at a higher % than we are seeing right now.



Now if the argument is we should be running more actions for our shooters, I agree, but nothing about the misses we're seeing can be much ascribed to any coaching misdecision.

Can you do a similar breakdown for Jaylen Blakes?

 

[Dukewins]

YTTV is annoying but just for fun I went back and rewatched all of McCain's 3pt attemps

1H 18:03 -- Open near corner, calls for ball as as he is left open, two defenders on Ryan in the post. Flip passes him the ball. Jared pump fakes to lose one defender, then releases from corner. Misses in rhythm.

2H 15:11 -- Jared gets the ball on a fast break after a deflection, dribbles to the 3pt arc in stride, and let's it fly with no one within 5ft of him. Miss

2H 11:31 -- Flip inbound the ball to Stewart about 15ft from the baseline. Jared is behind him about five feet, Sean passes him the ball and he smartly steps back until he's behind the line. No defender within five feet of him by the time he let's it fly. Miss

----

I don't want to do this with every three point field goal attempt to chart which ones are actually crappy, or end of possession prayers, or heavily contested, etc, but the point is this small sample matches the larger body of evidence so far in which these are quality enough shots you just plain expect shooters to make at a higher % than we are seeing right now.



Now if the argument is we should be running more actions for our shooters, I agree, but nothing about the misses we're seeing can be much ascribed to any coaching misdecision.

We definitely have had some good looks from 3. McCain has been able to find plenty of space on his shots. They just haven't been falling.

What's even more worrying is our free throw shooting. We are shooting 60% from the line from our last few games which is really inexcusable. Hit those free throws and we might be looking at a few more wins.

 

[rome8180]

We were one of the best FT shooting teams in the country last year. We didn't add bad FT shooters. I truly think that part is an anomaly. Can't bring myself to worry about that at all.

 

[rome8180]

What I'm speaking of when it comes to getting shooters good shots is actual off-ball movement. Watch some highlights of Andre Dawkins vs. MSU. We're not running stuff like that for anybody. Maybe occasionally for Proctor (who has his moments of being great off the ball).

 

[childress22]

The whole team could use a lot of off-ball movement period. That's the issue.

We have the personnel (lots of guards, two bigs who can pass) to run something at least a littlemore Princetony, but we're having three guys just square up around the arc, and hoping someone doubles off them onto our other ballhandler or our big, so they can catch a kickout for a standstill 3.

 

[DurhamSon]

and hoping someone doubles off them onto our other ballhandler or our big, so they can catch a kickout for a standstill 3.

I agree about running more off-ball movement, but the above *is* happening, the shots are there to be made.

This is the same McCain three I posted about yesterday, just using as an example because I wanted to confirm you can post YTTV footage from Chrome:

 

[childress22]

and hoping someone doubles off them onto our other ballhandler or our big, so they can catch a kickout for a standstill 3.

I agree about running more off-ball movement, but the above *is* happening, the shots are there to be made.

This is the same McCain three I posted about yesterday, just using as an example because I wanted to confirm you can post YTTV footage from

For sure, we're of like mind here. Our best plays, including most of those Caleb 3s against MSU, have come off Proctor drive-and-kicks, Roach drive-and-kicks, or Flip post-double-and-kicks.

But that can't be our whole offense,

 

[childress22]

Also, because I'm a masochist, I went back and watched the condensed game. I hadn't noticed the first time how many of those Tech plays at the basket were because someone's man (usually Foster's) set a good backscreen for Flip, and our player (usually Foster) didn't rotate.

That's what happened when we were up 68-66 and Tech got a layup
And when we were tied 68-68 and Tech got a dunk

No screen on this earlier play, but it's a play where Flip perfectly hits the first help rotation, but Foster just....

 

[rome8180]

and hoping someone doubles off them onto our other ballhandler or our big, so they can catch a kickout for a standstill 3.

I agree about running more off-ball movement, but the above *is* happening, the shots are there to be made.

This is the same McCain three I posted about yesterday, just using as an example because I wanted to confirm you can post YTTV footage from Chrome:

Every time I try to screenshot YTTV, I get a blank screen. How did you get around that?

 

[rome8180]

Also, because I'm a masochist, I went back and watched the condensed game. I hadn't noticed the first time how many of those Tech plays at the basket were because someone's man (usually Foster's) set a good backscreen for Flip, and our player (usually Foster) didn't rotate.

That's what happened when we were up 68-66 and Tech got a layup
And when we were tied 68-68 and Tech got a dunk

No screen on this earlier play, but it's a play where Flip perfectly hits the first help rotation, but Foster just....

Yeah, Foster has a lot to clean up on defense. I guess the good news is that he has the tools to be a good defender, and it's mostly about understanding rotations. The defense could get ugly the next few weeks if you're starting him in place of Proctor.

 

[DurhamSon]

Every time I try to screenshot YTTV, I get a blank screen. How did you get around that?

I had to disable "Use hardware acceleration when available" before I could do it on my mac

 

[rome8180]

Every time I try to screenshot YTTV, I get a blank screen. How did you get around that?

I had to disable "Use hardware acceleration when available" before I could do it on my mac

Nice. I use a Mac with Chrome, so I assume that should work. I figured it was some copyright-protection bullshit to stop people from screen capturing whole games.