My Take on Jim Boeheim's comments from last weekend.

More of a Wake Forest story because that's one of the programs named by Boeheim, but I think there's plenty of Duke interest (and general ACC/college basketball) in this, too.

Boeheim is a miserable curmudgeon, but he's not wrong about the pay-for-play aspect of NIL being off the rails. That's the gross trend of where things have gone in college basketball -- and ACC coach hurling accusations shouldn't detract all that much from the point that NIL needs to be curbed to *some* degree.

Quick turnaround for the team, which I like. We should be in a momentum building high right now with a great win against Carolina and a 3 game win streak. We travel to Miami to face off on ESPN for a 7pm tip. At time of writing we are a 4 point underdog.. also at time of writing we are unranked but I’m curious to see if we sneak back to 24 or 25 when the poll drops today.

Since our last meeting Miami has went 3-1 with two good wins against Clemson and VT. The one loss came to a strong Pittsburg team, who I’m glad we don’t have to play on the road. Miami is currently tied with NC st for 4th in the conference, a place we would take with a win tonight.

We need to keep this going, this is the second of the 3 game skid we were all afraid of and to get a win in Miami where the worst we could do is 2-1 during the stretch would feel so nice. I’m finally seeing some life from a team that I wasn’t so sure about. I think we keep it going and keep building toward a nice finished product-

Duke-72
Miami-68

First of all, have mad respect for Duke basketball as a whole but I have not been impressed at all with Jon Scheyer as your coach. I'm sorry but there's no way Coach K gets blown out by 28 points to NC State and then by 23 against Miami.

I don't know I've watched a bunch of Duke games and it just feels to me that Duke is poorly coached.

What do you guys think?

Am I wrong? I mean Duke trailed the whole damn game tonight against Miami!! That's absurd.

Two days later they are still building condos jacking up 30 threes when they are a bad at it. Two days later D-live is swatting balls out of the air. Once they knew the refs were going to call the game loose and their weak attempts at attacking the lane were not going to work than the threes started flying. There were missed calls on both sides especially down low.
UNC relies on shooting free throws as a part of their offense, instead, find a new offense even Leaky said in his presser HB is playing hero ball. He let’s players go one on one hoping they will win their match ups just like they do it in the NBA. There is no doubt UNC has the talent and experience to be a top 10 team.

Preview for tomorrow night's game.

Programming: I'll be watching from home and remote covering.

Predictions:

Miami isn't going to have another outlier game offensively; Duke will need to outpace Miami to win this one.

Tyrese Proctor breaks through his 17-point ceiling for a career-high.

We still wind up talking about how much of a difference Dereck Lively II can make defensively.

After all the injuries and set backs losing to Purdue and Kansas which is no shame and having a first year coach. Duke is back in the top 25. NC State is 22 , Miami is 19 and Virginia is 9. UNC pre season number 1, well they did not make. Oh, what a shame.
Duke seals the deal tonight and takes care of business at UVA on Saturday than some where between 12-15 range.
LET’S go DUKE

ITS RIVALRY TIME BABY!!! Game time 630 on ESPN. At time of writing we are favored by 3 points.

The battle of the blues. Both teams come in tied for 6th place in the ACC. We are riding high on a two game win streak while the holes are coming in having lost to our man Jeff capel. Duke is undefeated at home and Carolina (like us) struggle on the road with a 2-4 record. The holes are coached by Hubert “cackles” Davis in his second year at the helm who without a miraculous NCAA tourney has been underwhelming in his time at Carolina with an “old” team. Prior to head coach cackles was an assistant at uNC and prior to that an ESPN homer analyst. The coaching staff also features former Carolina star Sean May who I heard once put a chapel hill Golden Corral, cookout, and bojangles out of business in the same day.

We will have our work cut out for us and I’m really torn on what to predict here.. we’ve played solid as of late and shown progress but we still let teams back in and when you do that eventually you get bit. Carolina hasn’t been impressive either.. and as individuals you would think this team was unstoppable but they clearly aren’t.., but they may have a coming out party as they did last year. The game while exciting feels way down compared to years past but we need to make a statement and this is the game to do so. It would really say something (to me at least) if we are able to finish the season higher then Carolina in the ACC standings .. with that said-

Duke- 77
Carolina-69

LETS GO DUKE

Trying to be optimistic!

Figured I'd get this up here early. Just a few thoughts to get us started over the next few days:

- UNC plays Pitt tonight, 7 p.m. on ACC Network. A couple of things to watch for: RJ Davis' health (got beaten around at Syracuse last week) and how UNC defends Jamarius Burton (I think his skillset/shot selection is close to Jeremy Roach).

- We'll have a press conference at Duke on Thursday afternoon. I think I'll have a separate story off of that, and then will have the preview posted Friday.

- I'll be at the game with full coverage (obviously -- haven't missed a home game this year).

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So Kyrie wants to be traded because the Nets, to their credit, don’t want to give him an extension. I hate saying this about one of our own, but he is one the most self-centered selfish professional athletes I can remember. He signs contracts for mega bucks, then finds every reason not to fulfill them. Unbelievable sense of entitlement. Tragically, one of the most gifted players ever. Durant has been careful not to publicly throw him under the bus, but he must be frosted.

Preview story for tomorrow night's game is free to read.

As is this story on Jon Scheyer.

What a game. Not mistake free but well-played whistle to buzzer.

Do we have any updates?

GTHC GTH! Watching coach Scheyer out-coach Hubey was just phenomenal!



Also, GTHC GTH!

I remember when Jaden Schutt was being recruited that his body type, speed, shooting ability and passing reminded me of John Scheyer all those years ago. I have seen nothing that makes that comparison less viable.

Is the gap between Scheyer and Schutt ball handling ability? That is the only reason I can think of that would confine Schutt to the bench even when the crying need is outside scoring, especially after the first 13 shots were missed. What am I missing?

Obviously, the Schutt / Scheyer comparision is not original with me:

The idea of playing Schutt more is not original with me either:

If there's already a thread on this, please feel free to delete/merge this one.

Latest from ESPN has Kyle at 13, Dariq at 21, and Dereck at 27. Draft Express has this to say about each:

• Kyle: Size A, Versatility A, Shooting B-, Defense B, Consistency B-. Described as a stat sheet stuffer unlike any freshman in college basketball history, he needs to improve his 3-pt shooting, but given his free throw percentage (77%) and good form, that's expected to improve.
• Dariq - no specific breakout but focus is on his shooting (39.7% from 2 pt range, worst of any top 100 prospect), inability to shake defenders, and lack of explosiveness. NBA case for him is 3-and-D potential.
• Dereck: Size/Reach A+, Defense A, Finishing A-, Strength C-, and Productivity C-. They make the case for him to return to Duke but expect him to be drafted based on his measurables and defensive versatility.

Of these 3, I'm most intrigued by the chance of Dereck coming back. While that's unlikely, the potential to realistically improve on his weaknesses could make the case for a Mark Williams type of improvement in his Sophomore year. While still unlikely, a sizable NIL might make this an interesting decision for Dereck.

Alright.. this game we can discuss a little extra I think.. I will do a Gameday thread Saturday(or late Friday don’t want to take the risk of getting that one up late) but let’s discuss some, not predictions or anything but keys to the game, favorite duke Carolina memories, if you’ve attended a game in the past tell us about that experience…. If you live in NC share the pain of losing and going to school/work the next day 😆

Lawson said during her recent presser that the players told the assistants and they confronted the table at FSU who refused to change the ball but the head official did. The ACC would not let her appeal the game. If this were a Men’s game the ACC would be in an uproar.

Well, Duke managed to hold on to the game. We really should have won by double digits.
Dereck Lively II getting into foul trouble really gave Wake their best chance.
I saw several complaints in the game thread about Dereck being on the bench. I do not think they realized that he was sitting with 4 fouls. Sure he could have gotten in, but I think Scheyer was saving him for emergency purposes. Plus Young was giving us some smart minutes.

His absence really showed on the glass in the second half as our dominance in rebounding really suffered.

After having an absolute beast of a first half, Roach almost disappeared in the second.
I like to watch the stats in five minute increments. Last game we had good balance in every five minute segment. This game we slipped into some scoring droughts. For about 30 minutes of the 40 we did look good. Nice even scoring, good ball movement, etc.

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Back to Cameron we go to take on the demon deacons from Winston Salem. Game is scheduled for a 7pm tip on espn. At time of writing duke is an 8 point fav.

Important game for both teams as we need to build off of the GT win and can’t afford to lose any games at home. Wake after a great start has lost 3 straight and I’m sure a win in Cameron and season sweep of duke would make their season.

I think we build on Saturday and get some revenge

Duke-75
Wake-60




Sorry for the delay of thread I had to run around with some clients all morning and just got free!