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Duke Basketball 2014-2015 Discussion thread

Something like this seems more realistic to me:

BC (Win)
@ Wake (Loss) (first true road game in conference, but perhaps this is inapplicable when we get the first true road game loss out of the way @Wisc, but probably not)
@ NC State (Win)
Miami (Win)
@ L'Ville (Loss)
Pitt (Win)
@ ND (Win)
@ UVA (Loss)
Georgia Tech (Win)
ND (Win)
@ FSU (Loss)
@ Syracuse (Win)
UNC (Win)
Clemson (Win)
@ VT (Win)
Syracuse (Win)
Wake (Win)
@ UNC (Loss)

13-5.
 
I always predict five or so losses in the ACC. And the conference has only gotten tougher, so I see no reason why that should change this year, especially considering our schedule.
 


T.rex arms > 7'6 swingspan



Who?



Found the first guy who will fall out of the rotation by conference play



Blacker than ever, and not fat black (jabari, jiggy)



Will Sheed ever realize that having a shooting percentage at the rim lower than his three pointer is the only thing keeping him from playing 30+ minutes?



Lots of arm flailing




24-12 team, 9-9 conference play, NIT final
 
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The only tweet that I am concerned about there is the one on Okafor. The scouting report yesterday noted that he struggles to finish against length. Would he suck against Tarc or UK's front line? Hopefully not. But he kinda did show this weakness in the All-Star circuit.
 
Yeah, those are the most negative practice reports I ever remember reading before the season starts.

So we've got a team with a supposed #1 draft pick who can't finish over a guy who played 8.4 minutes per game last year, no spacing or shooting around this supposedly great center, a PG who can't handle ball pressure, and we're feeding the ball into a guy who can't make five-foot hook shots. Matt Jones is our best player. Our only asset is athleticism.
 
I think it was one bad practice. The CBS tweets from a week ago said he was dominating
 
Which All star circuit game are you talking about? The one where Myles Turner was allowed to skull fuck him without a foul being called? I think that's the only game he didn't win MVP
 
If it's a practice where the focus was getting the ball to Plumlee, who knows what the fuck they were working on, because that will happen in 0% of games this year
 
DurhamSon said:
Which All star circuit game are you talking about? The one where Myles Turner was allowed to skull fuck him without a foul being called? I think that's the only game he didn't win MVP
Click to expand...

Those were not fouls, they were expressions of love.

I think I am talking about the McD game but I don't really remember.
 
Plumlee right now is a better defensive matchup for Okafor than anyone Okafor has ever played against, unless he was playing against some good, huge international centers in the FIBA tournament. I don't think Myles Turner now would give Okafor more problems than Plumlee now. Plumlee is a 4th year guy with an NBA frame and NBA athleticism. I would be more discouraged about the team generally if Plumlee wasn't having an impact defensively.
 
FWIW, John TDD does seem to have been at the practice. He said he thought the best players today were Okafor, Tyus, Sheed, Quinn, and M. Jones. Justise and Amile after that.

Get ready for our four-guard lineup.
 
I think the two lineups we'll see the most will be:

T.Jones, Sulaimon, M.Jones, Jefferson, Okafor
and
T.Jones, Sulaimon, M.Jones, Winslow, Okafor

K is going to play around with the ideal lineup that includes Okafor/Jefferson/Winslow together, hoping Winslow can space the defense as a legitimate threat from 3, but I don't think it's going to work, and he'll have to resort to these somewhat small lineups instead. Definitely not small compared to everyone else, but small compared to Kentucky, who has basically already made it to this season's national title game, so we'll have to go through them at some point.

Jefferson and Winslow should each still be on the court for ~28 minutes. The Drummond/Monroe/J.Smith-like Big 3 of Okafor/Jefferson/Winslow just can't be on the floor as a trio very much. Fortunately for the Pistons, Van Gundy understands this, but unfortunately for Duke, K might not. Based on his results on offense, we should be able to trust that he'll quickly scrap a lineup that can't space a defense at all.

The key to reaching the ceiling this season seems to be Winslow developing range.
 
No surprise to me, Okafor will probably start figuring out how to beat big centers by his 2nd year in the NBA.
 
I agree about Plumlee, the guy is huge and, what, 4 years older than Okafor? Plus, when you practice against someone every day, you can learn their tendencies and be really effective even if they are much better than you are.
 
Pretty good video of practice.

http://duke.scout.com/2/1471694.html

1) Sulaimon gets his shot blocked twice by Okafor

2) Plumlee scores twice on Okafor (but also misses two incredibly short hook shots in drills, as well as bobbling a pass in the scrimmage)

3) A lot of missed jumpers. I think Jones made the only three-pointer.

4) Amile continues to be perfect
 


The work day ended with an 8-minute scrimmage – that featured both units playing zone. Krzyzewski [said] facing a zone could help players learn better shot selection – maybe a player sets his feet better and becomes more accurate against a zone.
Click to expand...

It took a while, but the Duke basketball program has determined that practicing against a zone defense might improve their offense against a zone defense.

[W]hen [Okafor] was paired with Tyus Jones, Matt Jones, Grayson Allen and Justise Winslow – four freshman and one sophomore – the young ones trounced the team [of] Quinn Cook, Amile Jefferson, Semi Ojeleye, Marshall Plumlee and Jefferson 36-22.
Click to expand...

This is good. It means the new players this season (freshmen plus Matt Jones with his shot back) should be better than the non-Jabari/Hood/Thornton players of last season, even with an extreme negative value player (Hairston) no longer around to hurt their production. And apparently we have been able to clone Amile Jefferson.
 
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I haven't watched it, but JohnTDD pointed out that in a video of them practicing their non-zone defense, Okafor and Marshall never switched out on top once, and remained inside the whole time.


Also, either Jahlil is a better shot blocker than we were led to believe, or Sheed really just is that bad at throwing crap up near the basket.
 
DurhamSon said:
I haven't watched it, but JohnTDD pointed out that in a video of them practicing their non-zone defense, Okafor and Marshall never switched out on top once, and remained inside the whole time.


Also, either Jahlil is a better shot blocker than we were led to believe, or Sheed really just is that bad at throwing crap up near the basket.
Click to expand...


Sounds like K is more open to changing things up on defense, but we're going to pressure the ball no matter what. Scheme will be simpler which should hopefully help reduce all of the fuck-ups that plagued us last year.

If M. Jones can get real minutes (approx. 20?) and the amount of time that Tyus and Cook are together on the floor is truly limited, I'm hopeful that this group can be a top 50 defense.
 
So not only are we going to not play zone D in games, we'll be even worse at man to man, because the players won't have practiced it as much. But our offense may jump up to the top spot?
 
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