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Duke Basketball 2014-2015 Discussion thread

STPFS, more possessions in those Duke losses could be partly due to Duke fouling to extend the game and Duke rushing shots trying to get back into the game as well.

I also think Duke's tempo stats are somewhat understated due to K's end of game tactics. When Duke gets out to a lead, as we all know, Duke starts walking the ball up the floor and milking the shot clock, sometimes as early as 8 minutes left in the game. I'd be interested in a pace breakdown of Duke through about 35 minutes of a game.
 
rhfarmer said:
STPFS, more possessions in those Duke losses could be partly due to Duke fouling to extend the game and Duke rushing shots trying to get back into the game as well.

I also think Duke's tempo stats are somewhat understated due to K's end of game tactics. When Duke gets out to a lead, as we all know, Duke starts walking the ball up the floor and milking the shot clock, sometimes as early as 8 minutes left in the game. I'd be interested in a pace breakdown of Duke through about 35 minutes of a game.
Click to expand...


On the first point, I thought about that, but wouldn't any losing team try and do that, thus increasing total possessions even in a game Duke is winning? On the second point, I do think Duke's tendency to go to the stall perhaps a bit earlier than other teams could be a factor. I agree that pace stats through first 35 minutes (which should generally control for intentional fouling and stall ball) could be helpful.
 
As far as the losing team goes, I guess it depends on how bad the deficit is. If Duke is up by 15 or more pts with 8 minutes to go, most coaches would probably not want to extend the game, and Duke would really be defending the 3 point line, making quick looks hard if the losing team is not interested in shooting lay ups.

I figure on the whole, Duke's wins are going to err on the side of lopsided about 3/4's of the time out of conference and about 1/2 the time in conference. Duke's losses are probably going to be a bit closer, possibly creating more possessions (although in the last few years, Duke has had some disgusting beat downs laid on them).

That is my evidence free take on things.
 
Next season ideal:

PG Tyus 35% usage 40 minutes
SG Matt 15% usage 30 minutes, Allen 20% usage 10 minutes
SF Kennard 20% usage 25 minutes, Ingram 15% usage 15 minutes
PF Jefferson 15% usage 30 minutes, Ingram 15% usage 10 minutes
C Plumlee 15% usage 20 minutes, Jeter 15% usage, 20 minutes

With Tyus, a really fun team to watch that will defend and take a ton of 3s and easy layups. Take Tyus away and it's nothing.
 
Good news from tonight is that the trend of defensive rebounding improving seems to be continuing. We've strung together several games in a row now where we've done well on that end against some good rebounding teams.
 
Justise turning into an animal on the defensive boards helps although it doesn't look like we rebounded particularly well defensively last night
 
I took a look at how Duke is performing relative to expectations and relative to opponent strength in ACC play. Games that were early in the season are not going to be as useful to look at, since Vegas expectations are based less on actual performance at that point; the beginning of the ACC schedule seemed like a nice cutoff for this.

Boston College (#125 Kenpom currently): +0.5 (beat spread by 0.5 points)
@Wake Forest (#115): -7.0
@NC State (#59): -21.5
Miami (#63): -31.0
@Louisville (#10): +14.5
Pittsburgh (#95): 0.0
@St. John's (#40): +2.0
@Notre Dame (#17): -5.5
@Virginia (#2): +11.5
Georgia Tech (#75): -11.0
Notre Dame (#17): +21.0
@Florida State (#124): -8.0

Duke is 4-1-0 against the spread against top 50 teams in ACC play, with an average performance of +8.7 points relative to the spread.

Duke is 1-5-1 against the spread against sub-50 teams in ACC play, with an average performance of -11.1 points relative to the spread.

There is only one team between #17 and #59 in this sample, and the result against #40 was close to the spread, so we could look at top/sub-17 or top/sub-25 or top/sub-59 and everything in between, and it would tell pretty much the same story of a team that has recently been basing its effort level, focus and preparation on the strength of the opponent.

Duke's remaining games are @#78, vs #12, vs #85, @#160, vs #78, vs #115 and @#12. I would expect two more good performances the rest of the way, both against North Carolina.

It seems Duke's biggest hurdles will be winning their first game in the ACC Tournament and their first two games in the NCAA Tournament. If Duke ever plays Kentucky, I would expect Duke to blow out Kentucky, but I do not expect Duke to make it past the second round of the NCAA Tournament.

During those seasons when Duke seemed to play at the same level almost every game and never lost too badly, most Duke fans wished they had a team that could find another gear for the biggest games, like Florida 2008 and UNC 2009. We have that team this season. Unfortunately, we also have Jahlil Okafor.
 
It cannot be explained by anything else other than focus or lack thereof. I know this post is half tongue in cheek, but I would expect the focus to be there for the NCAAT.

If they finish with the 4 seed in the ACC, they'll have to play L'Ville or ND or UNC in the quarters. LOL. It's time to start rooting hard for ND and LVille to lose to shit teams. With LVille's offense and ND's defense, this is possible, but it's going to require teams like State and Miami to stop being so fucking horrible against everyone but Duke.
 
I'm just worried that we won't take our first couple opponents in the tournament seriously because, you know, they're just Mercer or Lehigh.

Hopefully Cook's presence will negate that.
 
Vegas must be pricing this "flip the switch" effect into its lines at this point, which makes the disparity in performance even more ridiculous. It's not the hypothetical and false "if they ever do play anyone good" switch that FSU football was believed to have, either. It's a real thing that has been happening. I'll probably run the basic correlation and r-squared numbers for ACC and full season on Excel at some point.
 
SM, I feel that you are analyzing the numbers incorrectly. This is a Vegas issue. They don't understand that they are dealing with a bunch of teenagers and a senile coach who won't play his best player.
 
rhfarmer said:
SM, I feel that you are analyzing the numbers incorrectly. This is a Vegas issue. They don't understand that they are dealing with a bunch of teenagers and a senile coach who won't play his best player, Marshall Plumlee.
Click to expand...
 
Duke's best scenario for the second round then is a team with a big name that they'll instinctively assume is good (like UCLA) to keep their focus, but actually sucks so that Duke's B game (i.e. we play hard but just happen to miss enough shots to lose to a good team) would still be enough to avoid an upset.
 
Basically we need our path in the NCAAT to be as tough as possible against all good teams. Otherwise we lose 1st or 2nd round.
 
Here is the basic "flipping the switch" correlation graph, beginning with the Wisconsin game:
http://i.imgur.com/DLB2vR7.jpg

DLB2vR7.jpg
 
The r-squared value isn't great, but it's significant because the expected value is zero. There should be no correlation at all between performance against the spread and any variable. If any significant correlations existed, the oddsmakers would not be doing their jobs and the casinos would be losing money.

Based on the trendline formula, we should expect Duke to fail to cover the spread at Syracuse by about 3 points. -0.1142 times 78 (Syracuse's Kenpom ranking at start of game, if it stays where it is now) plus 6.1434 equals -2.7642.

We should expect Duke to cover the spread in each game against North Carolina by about 5 points. -0.1142 times 12 (North Carolina's Kenpom ranking at start of game, if it stays where it is now) plus 6.1434 equals 4.773.

If Duke were to play Kentucky in the Tournament, we should expect Duke to cover the spread by about 6 points. Let's hope Kentucky would not be favored by more than 6 points. If Duke were to play a team ranked #200 in the 1st round of the Tournament, we should expect Duke to fail to cover the spread by about 16.5 points. Let's hope Duke would be favored by more than 16.5 points.
 
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