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Duke Basketball 2014-2015 Discussion thread

rome8180 said:
So...I still can't fully believe it.

I keep remembering and getting a little surge of happiness.
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Visualizing Tyus' shot/run down the court/expression is like the purely mental equivalent of smoking meth to me. It was the only thing that kept me awake at work yesterday. And although it didn't seem like it at the time - we all got so used to him doing it - a careful rehashing of all his clutch performances feels to me like that moment of being able to slightly understand one of the wonders of the universe. It sounds weird, but the closest thing I can compare it to is grasping the concept of limits in calculus or the physics of a black hole. You can see what the result is in the world, and understand what produces them, but still be in total awe of just how it can happen like it does.

The unlikeliness of Tyus Jones compared to the reality of Tyus jones will forever make the breath catch in my throat when I concentrate on it.
 
That pic is THE perfect pic. It could Plato's form for joy. It IS joy. The rest of the joy in the world is just a facsimile.
 
The paradox is that the one person who you'd think should be least surprised by the result of his actions seems more amazed than anyone.

We were all like 'settle down beavis, you hit that shit every time'. It probably is the perfect example of the disconnect between the superficiality of the audience's expectations and the performer's all-consuming struggle.
 
The reason I called him hitting it about five seconds before it happened was that it just seemed like the most Tyus shot ever. Also, they were running the same play over and over.
 
I mean, I really like everything about winning the title, but (as I just posted on TDD), a particularly nice thing about this year is that whenever a mouthbreather bashes:

1) Small ball
2) Pressure man-to-man defense
3) Having an 8-man rotation

I can just say -- STFU; Banner #5.

That will save me like 10 hours of posting a year.
 
I would laugh at your #2 over there though. Duke noticeably changed the defense in the middle of the year and definitely changed how they defended ball screens. Yes, it was more pressure for specific opponents like Gonzaga or Wisconsin who can't drive, but the tempo press was one of the more amazing change I've seen K make in the middle of a season.
 
rome8180 said:
The reason I called him hitting it about five seconds before it happened was that it just seemed like the most Tyus shot ever. Also, they were running the same play over and over.
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The way Kaminsky and Wisconsin defended ball screens was incredibly stupid. I wonder if they played those screens that way all year or if Kaminsky was just exhausted.
 
IMO, the defense was as complex and varied as it's ever been. Far more adjustments were made than last year, so to say it was as simple as pressure man-to-man is disingenuous or inaccurate.

Also, if something doesn't work four times out of five, it working the fifth time is not exactly a compelling argument in its favor.
 
Re: the reffing, I really think this is the more common take. The ESPN guys pretty much uniformly destroyed Bo for his comments.

 
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They also had reasonable success using the zone.

rome8180 said:
IMO, the defense was as complex and varied as it's ever been. Far more adjustments were made than last year, so to say it was as simple as pressure man-to-man is disingenuous or inaccurate.

Also, if something doesn't work four times out of five, it working the fifth time is not exactly a compelling argument in its favor.
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I didn't mean to downplay the successes of the 2-3 in the middle of the year, or the occasional 3-2 and the zone press. Those things may have saved our year in a meaningful way in the middle part of the season. I'm thrilled we mixed it up more on defense.

What I meant to address is that a lot of posters (on TDD, but even here, too) were saying things like

1) Pressure man-to-man worked X years ago, but is totally anachronistic now
and
2) Why would you ever play man-to-man defense with this team? They can't do it.

Both of which were certainly proven false. The tournament run featured man-to-man nearly all the time, and ball-denial pressure most of the time, and found a good deal of success.

Rome: I would look at the larger body of results, and say that just because something doesn't work when you start two Plumlees side-by-side or when you have Jabari Parker just halfassedly pretending to play defense, if it works four times out of five, it's probably an argument in its favor.
 
Well, I'm arguing that in recent years it's worked maybe one time out of five. It certainly worked this year, though of course there were tweaks and variations. But the problem in seasons prior to this year was that we weren't even seeing those tweaks and variations. Even in the title game, we went zone while Okafor was in foul trouble. Throughout the year, we guarded ball screens in a different way (again because of our personnel). We set up the lineup to be able to switch 1-4. If your defense isn't working you probably need to tweak the lineup or the defense.

Those of us arguing for a complete change in philosophy may have overstated the case. But shrugging your shoulders and saying "Our personnel sucks at this defense" is not the answer either. That's what happened last year. It certainly didn't this year. Watching the MSU game -- at a point in the season when our defense should have been "set" -- I saw at least four or five different things going on that didn't fall strictly in "pressure man-to-man."
 
I agree with all of your points above; I just still don't know about 1 out of 5.

It was pretty good in 2011 and 2013, especially with a healthy squad. 2010 we didn't overplay, so that doesn't count in either column. What are the data points for "bad"?
 
I really liked the adjustment of having Winslow be almost like a rover in the paint. He could help wherever he needed to and recover to contest most shots by his man.
 
2011 and 2013 were decent to good, I'd say. 1 out of 5 is an exaggeration. But so is 4 out of 5. So you're looking at two decent to good years, two bad years, and one great one.

2011 ended at #21, which is good enough for a run, but unlike this year I don't think that was achieved by being the #1 defense toward the end of the year. I think we held pretty steady at "good but not great." Who knows what we would have looked like with Kyrie all year. His defense left a lot to be desired, but maybe it would have improved with a full season. 2013 was pretty damn good with Kelly. Maybe we can chalk up both those years to injuries?
 
On the other hand, Kyrie could have hurt our defense as easily as helped it.

The interesting thing with this year is that our defense is, if anything, undervalued by full season metrics. We had the #1 defense when it counted. No one else was even close.
 
I'm curious how much the games in which Kyrie came back hurt our defensive efficiency in 2011; certainly the last one did.
 
Also, so I think we've agree on there being 2 bad years. You could say that's 2 out of 5, but it's also 2 out of 10, or however far you want to go back until about the 1994-5 season, prolly.
 
Ghost of MoMo still haunts Duke fans, just like the Ghost of Dante Calabria haunts UNC fans

childress22 said:
I'm curious how much the games in which Kyrie came back hurt our defensive efficiency in 2011; certainly the last one did.
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