Duke basketball 2015-2016 discussion thread

[childress22]

Coach of the year to me is Pitino. That team lost almost every contributor from last year's team, which wasn't amazing to be begin with, and somehow became a top 10 team nationally. Adding a couple of solid grad transfers was key, but isn't enough to explain the jump they made. Dude is fucking magician. Too bad about the prostitutes, though.

Yeah, I can see that. I can't think of anyone with a better claim.

 

[childress22]

That said, don't think he'll get the votes this particular year because hookers.

 

[best4heisman]

Yea, no way it happens this year. Gotta figure it will be Larranaga, which is tough to argue with.

 

[Slap the Floor]

I think Buzz Williams is a much better coach than Greenberg. But they have no talent, and the league is much tougher than it was when Greenberg was coaching.

I don't think they have no talent, necessarily. They're pretty young. I think their entire team comes back next season, and they have like 4 or 5 underclassmen averaging over 6 points per game and playing big minutes, and their top 2 scorers are juniors. He also has a 6'10 240 3-star from Oak Hill coming in, which is a good pick-up. I think he's going to have VT in the tournament next season.

 

[SeanMayTriedToEatMe]

Here are Duke's plus-minus stats for the complete regular season, as compiled at DBR:
http://forums.dukebasketballreport.com/ ... inus/page3

Name - +/- - Mins - Per 40
Allen - 324 - 18:33:48 - 11.6
Jones - 266 - 16:08:38 - 11.0
Ingram - 263 - 17:29:30 - 10.0
Plumlee - 220 - 15:52:16 - 9.2
Kennard - 217 - 13:04:53 - 11.1
Jefferson - 139 - 04:33:30 - 20.3
Thornton - 122 - 13:49:19 - 5.9
Jeter - 36 - 03:24:28 - 7.0

Lineup - +/- - Mins - Per 40
Plumlee Ingram Jones Kennard Allen - 97 - 04:01:11 - 16.1
Plumlee Jefferson Ingram Jones Allen - 50 - 01:10:19 - 28.4
Plumlee Ingram Kennard Allen Thornton - 39 - 02:29:25 - 10.4
Jefferson Ingram Jones Kennard Allen - 25 - 00:20:29 - 48.8
Plumlee Ingram Jones Allen Thornton - 24 - 04:28:11 - 3.6
Ingram Jones Kennard Allen Thornton - 23 - 00:27:07 - 33.9
Jeter Ingram Jones Kennard Allen - 21 - 00:42:06 - 20.0
Plumlee Jefferson Kennard Allen Thornton - 13 - 00:12:35 - 41.3
Jefferson Jones Kennard Allen Thornton - 12 - 00:16:54 - 28.4
Jeter Ingram Jones Allen Thornton - 11 - 00:29:42 - 14.8
Plumlee Jones Kennard Allen Thornton - 11 - 00:49:54 - 8.8
Jefferson Jeter Ingram Kennard Thornton - 10 - 00:11:13 - 35.7
Plumlee Jefferson Jones Allen Thornton - 5 - 00:33:12 - 6.0
Jeter Ingram Jones Kennard Thornton - 4 - 00:18:11 - 8.8
Jeter Ingram Kennard Allen Thornton 4 - 00:23:39 - 6.8

I took out every lineup with under 10:00 of playing time. The four lineups in bold are interesting to me. One of them, the lineup with Jefferson at the 5 and Ingram at the 4, was the lineup of death. However, the Plumlee Jefferson Kennard Allen Thornton lineup was bizarrely our 2nd best lineup, albeit for only 12:35 all season.

It's also worth noting that when we were forced to play Ingram at the 5 for 27 minutes this season, Duke was actually awesome, at +33.9 points per 40. It was our 2nd best lineup that got over 15 minutes.

The other two bolded lineups are the main lineups with Jefferson out, which show how Duke performs with Thornton vs. Kennard in the 5th spot - we are 12.5 points better per 40 with Kennard in that lineup than with Thornton. There are plenty of flaws with this thinking, but based on these numbers, if K were to shift to 36 minutes each for Allen, Kennard, Jones, Ingram and Plumlee, with 8 minutes of Jeter and 12 minutes of Thornton (instead of Thornton's usual 28 without Jefferson), Duke would be about 5 points better per game. A 5-point swing would shift 4-5 of Duke's losses to wins this season.

 

[deepdarkblue]

http://www.newsobserver.com/sports/college/acc/duke/article64463122.html

Within the first three minutes of Duke’s 76-72 loss to North Carolina, Derryck Thornton had missed two shots, recorded two turnovers and committed one foul.

He was quickly replaced by freshman guard Luke Kennard.

Freshman guard Thornton only played 15 minutes versus the Tar Heels, his lowest total since returning to the starting lineup Feb. 2 at Georgia Tech. His decision-making early certainly didn’t help an offense that struggled to generate anything beyond mid-to-long range jump shots.

UNC is so terrible, they could barely capitalize on this. It's still disgusting to me how winnable this awful game was.

 

[childress22]

So, pull for State or Wake to win today?

 

[physicsfactor]

I would say Wake. They are objectively horrible. State is just bad. My only worry about Duke facing Wake is foul trouble. I don't think Wake can replicate its first half at Cameron shooting. State has scored well on Duke twice this season. Plus playing State probably means a lot of PT for Thornton since <eye test> he's the only one who can slow down Barber </eye test>.

*eta* And State has at least beaten someone since the new year. They have won @Pitt (43), vs Miami (12), and vs Clemson (51) plus wins vs Wake (128) and vs BC (254). Wake's only wins since January were vs State (87) and vs BC (254). Wake has only beaten two teams in the top 80 all season, and they were both in November.

 

[DrKlahn]

Rooting for Wake, with Devin Thomas punching a guy and getting suspended.

 

[krsmith16]

Wake all the way. I cam't stand the thought of Abu and Freeman killing us with offensive rebounds and Rowan lighting us up from 3.

That's exactly what would happen of course.

 

[SeanMayTriedToEatMe]

Duke should be favored by 9-12 points over NC State.

 

[SeanMayTriedToEatMe]

Clear from these top 4 games that UNC and Kentucky are huge draws.

 

[SeanMayTriedToEatMe]

Duke is a 7.5-point favorite against NC State in the ACC Tournament.

The wheels have come off and everyone knows it.

 

[SeanMayTriedToEatMe]

Duke is a 2.5-point favorite against Notre Dame in the ACC Tournament.

 

[rome8180]

ND has really fallen apart on offense in the latter half of the season. They will drop 100 on us.

 

[krsmith16]

Yeah I've given up on Duke stopping anyone. If we were a little deeper I would call for run and gun offense ala 80s Oklahoma and Loyola. Why the fuck not? In a jump-shooting contest, I like our chances.

 

[torontoduke]

This is one of the physically toughest Duke teams I have every watched. Thornton, Jones and now Plumlee have played through tough injuries. Pretty impressive how quickly Marshall bounced back from taking a shot in the face today.

 

[Slap the Floor]

This is one of the physically toughest Duke teams I have every watched. Thornton, Jones and now Plumlee have played through tough injuries. Pretty impressive how quickly Marshall bounced back from taking a shot in the face today.

To me, that's why I enjoy this group. Unlike the 2012 and 2014 teams, I think this group embodies what Coach K tries to instill into his teams. Sure, this team certainly has their flaws. We struggle on the glass, and our defense is bad, but you can't question that this group of plays extremely hard, and that they play together as a team. It's a group I personally enjoy watching. I've pretty much thrown out all hopes for a championship (ACC or NCAAT) and am just enjoying them for what they are.

 

[StopThePumpFakesShav]

Dukiesrock, in a game where Duke is favored in Vegas, is picking Notre Dame tomorrow. If that doesn't sum up where this Duke team is right now, not sure what does.

 

[Thain]

Duke was favored in Vegas today and I took NC State. Was the right decision.