Feels like it's been over a decade since Duke buried some helpless 1st round opponent from the start without letting it get back to single digits, even the E8 and title winning teams.

Duke handled Hampton fairly easily in 11, but the last super-impressive opening weekend I can recall from memory was probably 2004, when we cruised past both Alabama State and Seton Hall.

I thought the 2010 team handled UAPB just fine.

TS9 said:

I mean, I know Duke's ACC schedule was a hell house this year, but by Friday it will have been nearly 10 weeks since we had a 20-point lead in a game.

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We did lead FSU by 19.

There was a point in the 2nd half of 2015 Duke's first round when I was certain they were going to lose.

Someone had a good post on TDD reviewing the last 7-8 first round games or so. I remember starting poorly against Robert Morris in 2015 but hardly remember it being close in the second half. But that's what happened. Seemed like we stretched it back to 20 quickly so it was only a couple of tense minutes.

It's true that the issue may just be that you've got consistently young teams and they're going against grizzled 3-4 year vets that know how to play and stay in games. That's who's winning these smaller conferences.

This seems like something SMTTEM would put together. A lot of pretty good information on here:

https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B2inoL ... 5ZSEk/view

I am going to try to identify common characteristics of players who have killed Duke's defense this season, and then see if any realistic NCAA Tournament opponents have this type of player. Alternatively, we could discover that a certain "type" of Duke killer doesn't exist, and the player who tears up Duke's defense to end Duke's season could be practically anyone.

Below are the players who have had high usage (24% or greater), high efficiency (120 or greater) games against Duke this season, while playing at least 20 minutes. Positions are designated based on kenpom depth charts from the past five games, which determine a player's position based on his stats relative to his teammates' stats. Bolded players are those who performed significantly better against Duke than their season averages.

Frank Mason, Kansas
5-11, 190, PG
Against Duke: 25%, 129
Season: 26%, 124

Xavier Rathan-Mayes, @Florida State
6-4, 208, PG
Against Duke: 27%, 140
Season: 21%, 112

Dennis Smith, NC State
6-3, 190, PG
Against Duke: 43%, 121
Season: 28%, 110

John Collins, @Wake Forest
6-10, 235, C
Against Duke: 38%, 127
Season: 30%, 124

Bryant Crawford, @Wake Forest
6-3, 200, PG
Against Duke: 32%, 134
Season: 26%, 116

Michael Young, Pittsburgh
6-9, 235, C
Against Duke: 28%, 133
Season: 30%, 111

Justin Jackson, North Carolina
6-8, 210, SF
Against Duke: 25%, 122
Season: 24%, 120

Shelton Mitchell, Clemson
6-3, 195, PG
Against Duke: 27%, 140
Season: 22%, 110

John Collins, @Wake Forest
6-10, 235, C
Against Duke: 33%, 145
Season: 30%, 124

Bryant Crawford, @Wake Forest
6-3, 200, PG
Against Duke: 25%, 130
Season: 26%, 116

John Gillon, @Syracuse
6-0, 178, PG
Against Duke: 26%, 169
Season: 21%, 117

Bruce Brown, @Miami
6-5, 190, SG/PG
Against Duke: 29%, 139
Season: 22%, 111

Dwayne Bacon, Florida State
6-7, 221, SF
Against Duke: 24%, 142
Season: 28%, 108

Bonzie Colson, Notre Dame
6-5, 225, C
Against Duke: 31%, 132
Season: 26%, 122

Of the 12 players who both killed Duke and performed significantly above their normal level against Duke, 7 are primarily PGs for their respective teams, 4 are Cs and 1 is a SF. I am counting Miami's Brown as primarily a PG to fit this narrative. I am counting Collins and Crawford twice each because they each killed Duke twice. I will refer to these 12 players as the "Duke Killers."

At first look, it seems we may legitimately have a "Matt Jones Effect" on our hands, which pains me to admit. Jones generally doesn't guard opposing PGs or Cs without a switch, because that would leave Duke's bigger players like Amile Jefferson and Harry Giles to guard guys who are too quick for them, or it would leave Duke's smaller/daintier players like Grayson Allen and Frank Jackson to guard guys who are too big for them (I am using "daintier" because Allen actually isn't significantly smaller than Jones).

Jones generally appears capable of guarding anyone in between PG and C. Apparently, he and Jayson Tatum have been doing a decent job of preventing the "in between" players from killing Duke above their normal levels. If Jones has been assigned to opposing PGs or Cs, I would assume the results have not been great, which would also lead to the list of players above. From this perspective, it seems that the eye test is being validated.

I will now move on to common characteristics of the Duke Killers, besides their positions of PG or C. My assumption is that free throw attempt rate will stand out, as it indicates a player who is either quick enough to break down a defense and get to the rim frequently or big enough to get in good position around the rim frequently. This would presumably be effective against Duke's usual defensive scheme, which was 7th in the nation in preventing 3pt attempts this season and 4th in 3pt% allowed, but 149th in 2pt% allowed.

Below are the free throw attempt rates of the Duke Killers in conference games, along with their conference ranking in the stat. All of the Duke Killers are from the ACC.

Rathan-Mayes: 41%, #15
Smith: 50%, #6
Collins: 54%, #4
Crawford: 46%, #11
Young: 41%, #18
Mitchell: 41%, #16
Gillon: 47%, #9
Brown: 41%, #19
Bacon: 24%, NR
Colson: 42%, #14

Bacon is the odd man out here, both in position (SF) and in free throw attempt rate. All other Duke Killers are PGs or Cs, and have top 20 free throw attempt rates in the ACC. If we consider Bacon a one-off fluke, the narrative and becomes clear: If Duke loses another game this season, we have good reason to believe the main reason will be a PG who can penetrate Duke's no-3s defense or, in a less likely event, a C whom Duke's big men cannot rebound with or otherwise handle inside.

We knew this already, though. This should set our minds at ease that we are right in how we envision Duke ultimately being killed in the NCAA Tournament. I may follow up by scouring Duke's region for these sorts of players, but that should be the easy part. I'm not sure any other common characteristic would be helpful to know about, since I suspect they would be things like having a high 2pt% or 3pt%, which would simply make the player an efficient player in general.

So we need to hope like hell that SMU (or NMSt) beats Baylor before Motley and Lecomte can kill Duke.

I'm not sure I believe the Matt Jones effect. He has guarded PGs a lot this year and has been torched like everyone else when he does so.

Also, that tends to confirm that Kentucky would destroy Duke. Thank goodness they are on the other side of the bracket.

I think SMTTEM was saying MJ Effect only applied to when he defended non-PG/non-C. Him being torched by PGs is expected.

I probably misread. Whatever.

Thanks to Klahn, I've already convinced myself we're going to lose to Troy so the rest of the bracket isn't relevant.

physicsfactor said:

Also, that tends to confirm that Kentucky would destroy Duke. Thank goodness they are on the other side of the bracket.

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UNC is going to absolutely destroy them barring another 50 point game from Monk. I don't know if I've ever been more certain that a team will win their bracket than I am with UNC this year.

So UNC didn't technically have any Duke killers on the team? I guess that explains the h2h results.

Who was the last duke killer for them anyways. Zeller, maybe? Wouldn't that be something if you have to go all the way back to Lawson? Certainly would explain the 13-5 stretch.

Wonder if incoming UNC frosh Jalek Felton will play like the not-fat version of his uncle, who I imagine was a Duke Killer, or more like Duke-Roadkill, Dexter Strickland. If such a roadkill list existed--UNC players whose efficiency plummets against Duke-- he'd be right there with NBA champion James McAdoo.

I miss Turnover Jesus

I tend to view issues with point guards and centers as more of a systematic weakness rather than that of any particular defender. Just as our offense forces space on the opposing defense, our defense tends to create space for opposing offenses. Compound that with constant switching that provides numerous mismatch opportunities for a patient or well-coached offense, and you wind up with the situation we currently have. Less mobile wings, catch and shoot guys and shooters run off screens tend to get covered up pretty well, but capable bigs and points operating one-on-one in space, often with a mismatched defender are going to run wild.

We used to be get away with the overplay because our help defense was so good. But since teams have increasingly adopted the 3-guard, perimeter-oriented offense that K pioneered (thanks a lot, K), the help is too far away to actually help, and/or the space gives competent players plenty of room to rotate/make the extra pass and slice us up. Basically K planted the offensive seeds that kills his defensive philosophy. Young players don't help, either.

We could go packline to take away the drive and post game, but UVA seems vulnerable to good perimeter teams. Zone might work, but since K already finds rebounding superfluous, we may never get a board again. We could go all super-athlete like Louisville, but they sacrifice a lot on the offensive end. K has chosen to let c/pgs go wild to prevent a rain of threes, and just hope to outscore people. Barring the ability to recruit lots of super athletic 2-way guys, probably works almost as well as any strategy. '88 Flying Illini would be the perfect team in this era.

It works fine if you have a good to great defensive rebounder, IMO. Full eye test here, but if we had anyone approaching healthy Amile, or Mason levels of rebounding, even with the rest of the same shit we'd be putting up a top fifteen D minimum, with 5 losses on the season, 3 wins against unc, and a 1 overall seed.

Cavs fans have noticed. Cleveland's defense went into the toilet when their rebounding went from 9th in the league to 24th after K Love went out.

To that I would also add that since we typically play small for offensive purposes, we are vulnerable to good centers.

It's also worth pointing out that we didn't actually lose any of the games where a center destroyed us.

I think deeyoukayeee is on it. I think that Matt and Jayson are good defenders of wings, to be sure, but that our D systematically is more spread out than other teams'. That probably contributes to us being 7th nationwide in 3pt attempts allowed, and 4th nationwide in 3pt % allowed, but it opens up driving lanes by making our guys have to rotate from further away. Tatum can do it. A healthy Amile does it a lot of the time. Bolden hustled for three halves of basketball the season. But that's it.