Pittsburgh and North Carolina

[childress22]

We outrebounded them! It was by one damn defensive rebound, but we outrebounded them.

 

[StopThePumpFakesShav]

I was never all that worried about the rebounding. It was the the transition D that was going to fuck us. And Hicks really isn't all that good of a rebounder so can't blame that part on his absence if you're UNC.

It's somewhat unsettling that we needed a great 3 point performance to win, but also thought they got some more calls than we did and their midrange game seemed absurdly good. Justin Jackson played like an NBA player on a big stage which isn't the worst thing in the world for us. It really felt like Luke Maye did more than score 8 points and get 2 rebounds, didn't it?

 

[physicsfactor]

Maye was great at getting his shot blocked

 

[rome8180]

Maye and Jackson both seemed to play over the heads. I know Jackson is very good, but some of those shots he made just didn't look possible.

 

[rome8180]

This made me laugh several times. All I needed was a reference to "verve" or "strong face" for it to be complete.

“We both played lights out tonight. That’s a great basketball game. Talk about two teams that are deserving to win. They’re really good. I want to thank their staff. Jeff’s [Capel] father has ALS. Their staff is involved and Roy and I are going to do something together. But tonight we did something together just to bring awareness for ALS. Those guys on the other bench are good friends and terrific guys. We rebounded. We had a wash on rebounds. They only had seven offensive. It’s tough to take away the two things they the best- transition and offensive rebounding. It’s tough to take away both. They motor down the court. We did a decent job with it, but on rebounding we really fought hard. That was a key to the game. Grayson [Allen] had an amazing game. The last few ball games he’s played so darn well. Everybody played well. I was really proud of my two freshman big guys. They’re coming on. For them to get the minutes they did today. If you’re a player you have a chance to be tight, to be nervous, it’s a big-time game. They haven’t played to the level that they will play eventually. Jayson [Tatum] in the second half was lights out. Again, it’s a freshman being in a game like this. You can get knocked back and they can knock you back. For me, I think [Justin] Jackson is as good of a player as we have played against all year. His movement, he never gets tired. And [Joel] Berry and [Kennedy] Meeks. They are good. We are good. I am so grateful we won. We beat a really good team and we played very well. God bless us, that was a heck of a win.”

 

[rome8180]

His whole press conference kind of sounds like Trump-speak. Fascist.

 

[niveklaen]

His whole press conference kind of sounds like Trump-speak. Fascist.

???nothing was huge, nothing was sad, nothing was fake news - and why bring politics into it at all???

 

[physicsfactor]

Rome didn't quote the part where Coach K talked about how big his penis is.

 

[rhfarmer]

I definitely don't have any problems downstairs--Coach K

 

[StopThePumpFakesShav]

The poor 3pt shooting is mainly on the regression by Allen and Jones as shooters from last season. We knew we couldn't count on Jackson or Tatum to be great 3pt shooters this season, and Kennard's expected improvement has balanced the freshmen out anyway. Allen and Jones have killed the offensive efficiency with unexpectedly bad 3pt shooting, but there is reason for optimism if you want to be a Duke homer.

Allen 3pt%, last season: 42%
Allen 3pt%, this season: 34%
Allen 3pt%, last 3 games: 45% (13-29)

Jones 3pt%, last season: 42%
Jones 3pt%, this season: 34%
Jones 3pt%, last 9 games: 40% (17-43)

Those season percentages aren't typos - Allen and Jones have had practically the exact same regression as shooters. If you want to continue to believe in this Duke team, you can look at what these two players did last season and look at what they've done lately, and conclude that they will both in the low 40s% from 3 for the rest of the season. If we normalize Allen and Jones to be 40% 3pt shooters all season, it results in 16 extra made 3s, or 48 extra points (but we need to lower that "extra points" number a bit to account for 33% offensive rebounding by Duke). Call it 43 extra points, or slightly less than 2 extra points per game. 2 extra points per game would put Duke at #6 instead of #14 in offensive efficiency (dividing by Duke's average of 70 possessions per game).

So if all we did was have Allen and Jones shoot at bottom end of their expected ranges all season, fixing nothing else about the offense through better shot selection, better play calling, better usage distribution, etc., then the offense would be #6 in the country and good enough to contend for a title.

All of this thought process would be reasonable if we also believe the major difference between last season's offense and this season's offense is NOT the reduced spacing from having Tatum at the 4 instead of the better-shooting Ingram or using a Tatum+2 bigs lineup a lot, or other more meta problems with the offensive scheme or blend of players this season. I tend to believe it really isn't a spacing problem, since the 2010 team hit 3s just fine and Allen and Jones aren't taking very many contested and/or off-the-dribble 3s. Oh, and Kennard is making 46% of his 3s in the same offense that Allen and Jones are being forced to suffer through.

TLDR: Hit open 3s.

Duke has moved from approx 95th in the country earlier in the ACC season in 3 pt percentage to 41st. Now hitting 38.4 as a team. Maybe helped a bit by a bunch of games being in Cameron of late, but still. Up to 7th on offense, which is higher than we've been in awhile.