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Player Mark Mitchell

Pantone287 said:
I don't think the roster is as bad as it's being excused as being. Mitchell, for example, should probably be really good. Even in dumpster fires like today, where we're running zero offense and you don't remember him doing much, he's putting up winning lines, like 14/6/3 blocks on 4-6/0-0/6-7.

This is with 1) playing his giant self at the 3 next to two court-condensing bigs, 2) running 0 sets all season for him, and 3) having him get the ball exclusively 25' from the rim. If there was ever a setup for a player of his skillset to fail, that's it.

If you put him on some random, mediocre P5 team with veteran guards and decent coaching, he's probably a star OAF PF that we groan about not having anyone like.
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Yeah, the spacing is a problem for him.

Also, if you notice we'll go through stretches of five minutes where we do run stuff for him and he'll rattle off five straight points. The OOB plays we run for him have been especially successful. Then he's back to being forgotten.

It's gotta be easier to run some stuff where he catches the ball going downhill. We've been doing a lot of that for Whitehead.
 
Devilsforlife said:
I think the guards are as bad as advertised, but there’s some solid pieces elsewhere.
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Scheyer's biggest failure this year is how he handled the guard rotation over the summer.

Roach wasn't good last year. Neither was Blakes. But for some reason he thought Roach, Blakes, and a reclass freshman would be a good enough backcourt to compete. I know Proctor was pretty good against Pitt, but I doubt he's suddenly figured it out. And we don't need him to be "pretty good" once in a while. We need him to be great every game to be a good team.

Scheyer had the chance to address this by getting a star portal player. Instead, he got Grandison. And he doesn't even play Grandison enough for some reason.

I remember when homers on Twitter were like "See, I told you Scheyer had a plan!" once Proctor re-classified. And I was like, "Yeah, I was afraid this was his plan. And it sucks." I feel vindicated. This may go down as our worst backcourt ever, depending on Whitehead's improvement and whether you even consider him a guard.
 
This the world you live with when you recruit like we recruit. Top portal players want to come to someplace and be the #1 or #2 usage guy on the team. They don't come here to sit on bench. So when you have the reputation of 3 top 10 recruits. They automatically look elsewhere, these guys aren't scouting HS players, so they don't know that Lively isn't much of an offensive player.

They know Duke's reputation as a team that gets top players who want to make the NBA after 1 year, and they see you're bringing 3 top 10 players, and they really aren't going to try to compete with that when there are a dozen options out there.
 
Not sure what he thinks he's doing on off ball defense. Regularly makes "rotations" to no man's land that serve no purpose except to give the driver an easy dish to a wide open three point shooter. It's slightly concerning that Scheyer thinks he's a good defensive sub...
 
I'm with the "Mitchell should be playing 4" people, all the way. In no way is he a small forward. He should be backing up Filipowski, who's also a 4, and just pretty much better at all the things on both ends.

Dariq also had some poor off the ball rotations today.

All that said (and fully mindful of the fact the offense still needs work) what does it mean that these guys can be as bad at rotations as they are and our team defense is still better than maybe all but 2 of Krzyzewski's last teams? I don't think it's overplay stuff. It just seems like a lot of the defensive fundamentals everywhere else are being coached better (and ball screen coverage for sure).
 
I think both he and Dariq are strong on-ball defenders and weak off the ball. This is hardly surprising for freshmen. Off-ball defense is harder.

I also think Mitchell has had a lot of bad defensive "luck" as crazy as that sounds. I swear every time he misses a rotation it results in a corner three. So it looks worse to the viewer than other guys who miss rotations with fewer negative consequences.
 
I don't agree that Mitchell should be subbing in for Flip because I still think we should only be playing one big. The frontcourt should be Mitchell-Flip. Lively's improved play hasn't changed my mind on that.
 
rome8180 said:
I don't agree that Mitchell should be subbing in for Flip because I still think we should only be playing one big. The frontcourt should be Mitchell-Flip. Lively's improved play hasn't changed my mind on that.
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I'm a small ball devotee, I swear. Give me McLeod and Carrawell at the 4/5 all day. Whatever. But something about Mitchell and Flip as the frontcourt just seems to be not as good as either of those guys at the 4 with either of Lively/Young at the 5.
 
Feels like he's reached a bit of a freshman wall with finishing on his drives. For a huge athlete, he's had too many Reddishesque conclusions to penetration lately. Hopefully he can adjust and get over the hump.
 
childress22 said:
rome8180 said:
I don't agree that Mitchell should be subbing in for Flip because I still think we should only be playing one big. The frontcourt should be Mitchell-Flip. Lively's improved play hasn't changed my mind on that.
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I'm a small ball devotee, I swear. Give me McLeod and Carrawell at the 4/5 all day. Whatever. But something about Mitchell and Flip as the frontcourt just seems to be not as good as either of those guys at the 4 with either of Lively/Young at the 5.
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I don't think the sample has been big enough to meaningfully know anything about it.
 
To be clear, the whole point of centering the ball into the middle of the zone is to get the defense to collapse. When Flip was in the middle, he either turned and fired quickly, which is an open shot but not a good shot, or he dribbled towards the space between the center of the zone and the back wing of the zone. You have to bring the center forward and the wings in. It gives you so many options at that point.

And there's no hurry. If Flip turns around, and no one defends him, then he can get an 8 footer instead of a 15 footer. If the center approaches him, Lively is there for the lob. If the wings collapse in, Dariq, Proctor or Mitchell are on the wings ready to shoot. If nothing opens up, pass it back out front.

That particular iteration of the Cuse zone was the worst I've ever seen. There's really not much in the way of an intimidating shot blocker or dynamic guards to poke passes away. Other than Roach giving away 2 dunks with AWFUL decisions in transition, the defense looked pretty easy to pick apart.
 
Sorry, but we need to quit acting like a wide open 10-footer for a capable shooter is not a good shot.

Just because something's in the midrange doesn't automatically make it bad. And yes, I saw where you said he could get an "8 footer instead of a 15 footer." But if you watch, most of his shots were well inside the FT line. So he was doing that.

All that said, I was disappointed with the results with Kyle in the middle. Mitchell was clearly better at it last night. But I had no problem with Kyle taking that shot several times.
 



He’s our least rattled freshman, IMO. Seems to thrive with bigger stakes, and was clearly the guy having the most fun telling the fans to go home/fuck off immediately upon Filipowski sealing the win. The closest thing we’ve had to Justise. Totally different personalities, though. Justise would’ve been in some animalistic crouching position just staring at the crowd for a minute. Mitchell was laughing and waving at them.
 
Yeah, I still wish he took a few more shots. But part of what makes him good is that he doesn't take bad shots, so I'm not sure how much his volume can increase.
 
One way, I guess, would be if we set some more off-ball picks for him to cut to the rim. I'd love to see a bit more of that (for him or Flip).
 
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