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Duke Men's Basketball 2013-2014 Discussion Thread

ACC play only (numbers are a tad rough):

Opponents' 3FG% was 33% for the season, 32% in the last 10 minutes. Not a factor.
Duke's defensive rebounding was 34% for the season, 34% in the last 10 minutes. Not a factor.
Opponents' FT% was 64% in the first 30 minutes, 70% in the last 10 minutes. Not as big a factor as it looks--the Wake game accounts for a lot of this.
Opponents' FT rate was much higher in the last 10 minutes, but of course it would be. Hard to evaluate.

Now on to the interesting stuff.
Opponents' 2FG% was 48% in the first 30 minutes (equivalent to 150th nationally), 57% in the last 10 minutes (equivalent to 347th).
And as mentioned, turnover percentage fell off a cliff, from 21.5% of possessions in the first 30 minutes to 10% in the last 10.
 
Avoiding fouls would certainly play a larger role in 2FG% than in 3FG%.
 
I consider all these teamrankings stats close to final since Duke is done and the season has only a few more games left.

Great stats, not much room for improvement next season:

#7 assist/turnover
#8 turnover percentage
We have a smart team that generally takes care of the ball and makes good passes, despite how much we hate them.

#11 3pt percentage
#25 eFG percentage
Long range shooting and shot selection was generally great, despite how much we hate them.

#45 steal percentage
The infuriating defense created lots of steals, despite how much we hate them.

#1 opponent 3pt made per game
This is K's only objective on defense. Mission Accomplished.

Horrible stats, must improve next season:

#219 FT rate
They didn't get to the line. A lot has to do with choosing to take 3s, but this is bound to improve even without much change in shot selection, which was excellent, because of Okafor and hopefully more usage for Amile. Winslow could be good at creating contact and finishing as well.

#204 defensive rebound percentage
While the offensive rebounding was actually quite good (#67), Duke was apparently too busy chasing guys off of 3s and going for steals to box out and watch the ball. More size (Okafor) will help. Plumlee is strange in that his brothers were fantastic defensive rebounders but he isn't great for his size. Small sample, though. Most important might be a tweaking of The System.

#236 foul percentage
Fouling on an average of one out of four defensive possessions is disgusting. Teach our players how to defend without fouling so much. This has a lot to do with The System as well. Also, Hairston.

#235 2pt percentage allowed
#151 eFG percentage allowed
We all know about this problem. System, scheme, idiot coach, idiot players, whatever. More size will help. I think it's mostly just prayer and faith. K sees these numbers. Frustrating.

#219 block percentage
I separated this one despite its close relationship with 2pt% allowed and eFG% allowed because, unlike the others, I don't see this improving drastically even if K wants it to. Okafor can help a little, but it seems most people project him as a below average shot blocker for his size and wingspan. Still helpful. Winslow might actually help shot blocking/altering just as much with help defense. He averages about 2 blocks a game in very slow tempo high school games.


There is hope. It's mostly on the coaches, IMO. Size matters.
 
Thanks for crunching the numbers, Dr. Klahn.

Obviously their usefulness depends upon the question being asked. We see that in ACC play the offensive numbers do not seem to change in the final 10 minutes. That's all well and good, but I would also be interested in seeing the numbers during "high leverage situations" (Klahn's phrase earlier in the thread).

More specifically, what were the numbers in losses? I mean, that's what we care the most about right? Why did we lose those games?

Getting back to the high leverage situations, I guess we would have to define it first. In keeping with Zack's 10 minute increments, I think the last one,10:00-00., would be the place to start. Also, I don't think a double-digit lead during the final ten minutes would be considered "high leverage." So if we limit the definition to single-digit games during the final 10 minutes we would be left with:

ND, CL(2), UVA (2), SY (2), MD, UNC (2) NCST

A cursory glance at the losses shows 3FG % at less than 20 percent. Obviously not good.

Is there a way to isolate the games above? I would do it but I have no idea how.

We've talked about these guys being mental midgets, but I do not think it was limited to the defense. When there was game pressure, I think the offense was just as bad.
 
In the losses, Duke was outscored 249-172 in the final 10 minutes, in 165 possessions. That's an offensive efficiency of 1.04 PPP, which is obviously a dropoff, but these are losses after all.

It's a defensive efficiency of 1.51 PPP, which should never happen in organized basketball.
 
Laettner defending Coach K, but also explaining why you can't rely on one-and-dones to carry the team.

 
Last edited by a moderator:
To tie that last point up, at the ten minute mark of the 9 losses, Duke was up in 4, tied in 3, behind in 2. All games were within 4 points at the 10 minute mark.
 
Thanks, Klahn.

Based solely upon my recollection of those losses, I thought the numbers would be much worse. But then again, I'm old so my memory isn't to be trusted under any circumstance.
 
DrKlahn said:
In the losses, Duke was outscored 249-172 in the final 10 minutes, in 165 possessions. That's an offensive efficiency of 1.04 PPP, which is obviously a dropoff, but these are losses after all.

It's a defensive efficiency of 1.51 PPP, which should never happen in organized basketball.
Click to expand...


When you add in ECU, Vermont, Alabama, Michigan, Pitt, Maryland, Syracuse2, Clemson2, NCState2, which I believe were all of the other games that were within single digits at the 10 minute mark, you get to 375 PF, 441 PA, 318 possessions. Offensive efficiency is 1.18 PPP, consistent with the season long efficiency. Defensive efficiency is 1.39.

And this probably understates things because my cutoff doesn't include UVA1 or UNC2, since those were double digit leads. (So was UCLA, but that wouldn't cancel out the others.)
 
It's not like other teams are bringing boatloads of students to these games--a few small schools like Mercer have done that, but the big schools don't do it. It's alums and boosters and casual fans that have to turn out.
 
With the Kennard announcement, this reminded me of the highlight of this past season for me was really when we still though we were good and Tyus/Jahlil/Justise committed. Nothing to do with games, just recruits we got. Justise especially given we never felt like the front runner with him. I feel the same with Kennard given everybody said UK from the get go and wasn't really expecting this until after his visit. Good times for rosterbating hypotheticals, not for actually winning championships.
 
Yeah, and we were getting wind of PJ being ineligible at the same time. So basically, we thought we were going to be kings of the basketball world for two straight years and that Carolina was going to the NIT.

I wonder if Jabari is cursed like Barnes? We make fun of Barnes for not winning anything, but Jabari has been just as bad. I guess at least he got some individual awards.
 
rome8180 said:
Yeah, and we were getting wind of PJ being ineligible at the same time. So basically, we thought we were going to be kings of the basketball world for two straight years and that Carolina was going to the NIT.

I wonder if Jabari is cursed like Barnes? We make fun of Barnes for not winning anything, but Jabari has been just as bad. I guess at least he got some individual awards.
Click to expand...

We make fun of Barnes not winning anything while being a total douchebag. Jabari isn't cursed with the same level of sociopathy, even if his trophy closet is just as bare (excepting of course his legendary 4/4 in Chicago public leagues). He's a better player and person.

Obviously if he dubs himself the 'Moorish Mormon' or something ridiculous like that, I take it back.
 
This is as much about next season as it is the current. I'm asking questions and offering a bit of a critique in search of either counter arguments or affirmation.

This year I saw something that most of the time did not resemble Duke basketball. The team has abundant individual talent across the board. Parker, Hood, Sulaimon, Jefferson, etc can all play and at least a few of them clearly have a shot at a decent NBA career. But the failings of the team seemed to be in situations where the 3s were not going down. The ball movement, from my perspective, was often poor. It was as if most of the times down the court they would either leave it to Jabari or let whomever had the hot hand shoot from the outside. Historically I feel like Duke has had more of a team game on offense. I would argue that the absence of better team play cost us dearly. OK, so am I alone in this perspective?

Assuming that some of you out there agree, I would argue that ultimately this is an issue of coaching. And don't get me wrong, I'm a big fan of Coach K, I started following Duke BB in the early 80s watching his teams, I respect what he's accomplished and I have had great enjoyment watching his teams. He's obviously one of the all time greats and I love following the team that he coaches. That said, my assertion is that the lack of team play and the failure of the team to overcome adversity in some of these games really was a failure of the coaching staff. I expected more strategy, adjustment, and dynamic movement on offense and it never seemed to materialize. But it did not and it's the job of the coaches to make those adjustments. So what happened? Was it the coaching or something else?

And what does that mean for the 2014-2015 season? With the amazing recruiting class coming in and some of the holdovers, it seems that we'll still have incredible talent. But without better team play, will it really matter? I'm curious to see what happens next.

Lest anyone perceive this as dissing the staff or the team, please do not. I'm a lifelong fan and always will be.
 
The thing is your entire post seems to blame our struggles on our offense. We actually had possibly the best in Duke basketball history (and certainly the best since 2003 when Kenpom started measuring adjusted offensive efficiency). It wasn't lack of ball movement or over-reliance on the three that let us down. It was our awful awful defense. Our offense may have been the best in Duke history, but our defense was also probably the worst.

And I happen to agree the blame should be put on the coaching. But I just disagree with what the problem was, and I think the numbers bear me out pretty strongly here. #1 offense, #117 defense. If we had played defense at anything like the level we did in 2010, say, we would have gone undefeated.
 
You are much more attentive to the numbers than I, so I can't dispute what you're saying. And I do recall seeing a lot of easy buckets from guys not being covered. But I maintain that the offense didn't look good at critical times. That said, we agree that we had a coaching problem this year. And that's not something I would have expected to say. So does anyone have theories as to the source of the problem? I've always thought our coaching staff was top notch and am somewhat at a loss.
 
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