Duke at Wake Forest - Wed, Jan 30, 8:00pm ACCN/ESPN3

[oval4]

between the refs and the (lack of) defense, I almost lost my shit during that game. most infuriated I've been watching a game in a while.

 

[rome8180]

Over the last 14 games, Quinn Cook has a 3.68 to 1 assist-to-turnover ratio.

 

[oval4]

Over the last 14 games, Quinn Cook has a 3.68 to 1 assist-to-turnover ratio.

can't tell if that's good or bad

 

[DurhamSon]

Tonight's game single handily brought Mason's season scoring average back above 18 points a game.

 

[CK86]

WTF happened? Wake blows so much ass it's unreal. How did Duke only win by 5?!?!? This sucks, get better Kelly.

I just don't understand how one player being gone can take a team from pretty good to struggling to beat shitty Wake.

 

[marleyboy4945]

Mason was fantastic offensively but his defense is really killing me lately. Its ridiculous how often he gets scored on without even really contesting the shot, looking around for help when he should be able to hold his own way better than he actually has. I was praising him and cussing him constantly the entire game.

 

[rome8180]

Missed the first half so I watched the replay. Murphy's defense was really impressive! Marshall was not bad either.

Hope Murphy gets more minutes at the four if he's going to defend like that. After the game, Coach K said Josh played "very poorly" in the first half, but that he had "equity" so they put him back in. And that he thought he played a great second half. Obviously, Murphy doesn't have equity. But I hope he can earn it with that kind of defense.

 

[rome8180]

God, I hope this mid-Feb thing for Ryan is true. He's still hopping around out there.

 

[deepdarkblue]

I thought we sucked ass and were very lucky to win that one. Guard play was still mediocre at best. Seth hit a few late shots and made some plays, but he was absent from most of the game. As far as our front court goes, NC State wheelchair guy could defend the baseline better than we did. How many times did someone go right by Mason for an easy lay-up or dunk? Lots.
We won this game because Wake sucks and had no one who could guard Mason, and I'm not sure that they even tried to double team him more than once or twice.

 

[SeanMayTriedToEatMe]

 

[rome8180]

I thought we sucked ass and were very lucky to win that one. Guard play was still mediocre at best. Seth hit a few late shots and made some plays, but he was absent from most of the game. As far as our front court goes, NC State wheelchair guy could defend the baseline better than we did. How many times did someone go right by Mason for an easy lay-up or dunk? Lots.
We won this game because Wake sucks and had no one who could guard Mason, and I'm not sure that they even tried to double team him more than once or twice.

To be fair, it seemed like they tried to trade off threes for twos. It worked too. That was the fewest threes we've made all year. If we had hit our average percentage, the game wouldn't have been close.

 

[deepdarkblue]

I thought we sucked ass and were very lucky to win that one. Guard play was still mediocre at best. Seth hit a few late shots and made some plays, but he was absent from most of the game. As far as our front court goes, NC State wheelchair guy could defend the baseline better than we did. How many times did someone go right by Mason for an easy lay-up or dunk? Lots.
We won this game because Wake sucks and had no one who could guard Mason, and I'm not sure that they even tried to double team him more than once or twice.

To be fair, it seemed like they tried to trade off threes for twos. It worked too. That was the fewest threes we've made all year. If we had hit our average percentage, the game wouldn't have been close.

Yeah, 2-for-14 on 3's, I see. Fewer attempts, with worse results. Maybe their mind set was, we don't have anyone who can guard Plumlee, so let's just try to contain their guards.

 

[NOD]

I thought we sucked ass and were very lucky to win that one. Guard play was still mediocre at best. Seth hit a few late shots and made some plays, but he was absent from most of the game. As far as our front court goes, NC State wheelchair guy could defend the baseline better than we did. How many times did someone go right by Mason for an easy lay-up or dunk? Lots.
We won this game because Wake sucks and had no one who could guard Mason, and I'm not sure that they even tried to double team him more than once or twice.

To be fair, it seemed like they tried to trade off threes for twos. It worked too. That was the fewest threes we've made all year. If we had hit our average percentage, the game wouldn't have been close.

Yeah, 2-for-14 on 3's, I see. Fewer attempts, with worse results. Maybe their mind set was, we don't have anyone who can guard Plumlee, so let's just try to contain their guards.

Actually, they were able to contain Mase to a degree in the first game by doing immediate doubles on him. The problem for Wake, of course, was that, even though Mase only ended up with 13 pts, we had gone 11-24 from 3.

This was obviously a case of Bzdelik trying a new gameplan in order to keep us from taking as many 3's. In the first game, they had largely neutralized Mason and gotten burned on 3's. So he said let's try the opposite approach.

Frankly, if Mase had shot FT's the way he did in the first game (3-9), it would've been successful.

I think they could've been more successful if they had gone for more doubles with whoever was guarding Jiggy/ Amile.

BTW, you wanna talk about growth in a freshman?

Devin Thomas in first game vs Duke -- 25 minutes, 0 pts on 0-4 from the field, 0-0 FT's, 12 rebs, 6 TO's

2nd game -- 25 minutes, 15 pts on 7-10, 1-3 FT's, 6 rebs, 2 TO's.

This kid's gonna be a problem the next few years.

 

[torontoduke]

Honestly just happy with a win. There are many problems the team seems to be working through and I hope they can be corrected in the next couple of weeks. Defense must improve.

Not going to bitch about the minutes allocation, as it seemed to work out ok (though based on what I have read maybe MP3 could have/should have played more when Mase had foul trouble).

Go Devils