Posting this a little early but with a noon tip I thought that would be okay.

Duke plays host to the Miami hurricanes for a noon tip on ESPN.. at the time of writing we are a 6 point favorite (huh?!?!?!?!) not sure how that came to be but Vegas is Vegas so who knows..

Miami ranked 17 comes into the game with a record of 15-3 with a lose to NC St being the only common one, they also hold an impressive win over Virginia. Miamis top 4 players are all averaging double figures with the top 3 being over 14 ppg(must be nice)
Miami is coached by Jim Larranaga, ninth most wins of active coaches with over 700. He is the only coach in ncaa history with 100+ conference wins at 3 division 1 schools. Coach played ball at providence then played a year over seas before going to davidson as an assistant coach(one thing in doing the Gameday thread I’m shocked at how many coaches have a tie to NC, it’s actually pretty incredible) he eventually became an assistant at UVA before head coaching roles at bowling green, George Mason, then Miami. In 11 yrs at Miami he’s been to 5 ncaa tournaments which seems low to me for as good as they’ve been.. 3 of those resulted in sweet 16 runs and one elite eight. Of course we all remember his amazing final 4 run in 06 with George Mason.

This one is like all the rest this year.. must win. We always play like crap after a break from games so I unfortunately expect the same.. at least we get it over with early in the day (kidding.. sorta)

Duke-63
Miami-72

Do we think/know if Roach suffered the same injury as Kyrie Irving that kept him out for an extended period of time at Duke? If so, it is likely we won’t see Roach the rest of this season

The only player on the team who looks like a lottery pick is Flip. Whitehead could go on reputation, but he needs some work and Lively needs a lot of work on the offensive side, but right now unless somebody catches on fire another year would be to their benefit.

Kinda shocking how he was the #1 rated recruit. Averaged a pedestrian 14 and 14 in high school. He played 14 minutes on the team USA summit and contributed 8 points 3 rebounds

Also eybl stats are super weak with 8.4 ppg and 6.4 rpg

Just weird. I get it. 7’2 athletic guy… but damn looking at production wise he should’ve been a top 50-75 guy. Did everyone get fooled as in scheyer and analysts alike?

Another tough game but this time back on the road.. after an impressive 2nd half win over Pitt we should learn if that was the start of a turn for this team or not. Game is scheduled for a 5pm tip on ACCN with Clemson a 2 point favorite at time of writing.

Clemson has been to me the surprise of the year in the ACC. They are a team I always like to root for outside of playing us and love when they can make the tournament. They are 14-3 and undefeated in conference. 2 of their 3 L’s I would consider “bad” against South Carolina and Loyola Chicago, the other L was against Iowa who is very solid, but we did beat them! Clemson is coached by Brad Brownell in his 13th season(can’t believe it’s been that long wow!) 218-166 at Clemson with 3 ncaa appearances (seems really low) and 1 sweet 16. Prior to Clemson he coached at Wright State and UNCW where he was quite successful at both.

Vegas tends to be right a lot and duke tends to not only struggle on the road but struggle at littlejohn. We have lost 2 of the last 3 on the road to Clemson (Pisgah was at all 3, those L’s suck leaving that place!!!) we have struggled mightily on the road this season. With all that said I’m going…

Duke- 77
Clemson-85

I know most of y’all probably don’t really follow Duke Women but the ladies are playing UNC tonight. This may be the best squad the women have had in a while. They’ll be hard to stop tonight if they can pressure Carolina and run like they have been. I hope Duke can win tonight and stay undefeated. #GoToHellCarolina

Recruiting update with Tyler on Rivals:

Here's a list of the underclassmen Duke has heard from who are planning to attend junior day on Jan. 21:

Trying to be more accessible and present on the board, so I want to try something ...

Please consider this a permanent AMA thread. Ask what I think of Duke basketball. Ask what I've heard about injury situations or coaching moves. Ask what the future of this site holds. Ask ... away.

I don't want to say "nothing is off limits" because I'm sure something is. But we'll cross that bridge if anything off limits is actually asked.

If I can add some transparency: There are far more negatives than positives to covering Duke *and* Wake Forest. For those familiar with NC geography, I live in Kernersville and will be moving closer to Durham in a few months. My goal is to grow the Duke site and in the near future (a year or two) move over to covering Duke only.

I plan on being here for the long haul -- or at least until Rivals tells me to get lost.

Right here:

If you are available Thursday night, head over to Chapel Hole as the fight Kara Lawsons take on the Cheats. Game is on ACC network. Duke has been one of the best defensive teams in the nation and starting to hit more consistently from downtown.

The people asked for it… so the greatest poster on the board will now deliver.

What does Pisgah think about posters?? Many have wondered few actually know, this thread will answer that fun question with some good answers.

*don’t be a snowflake, this should be fun. We all have our quirks and posting styles that others pick up on, if you don’t wanna get called out don’t post that way. IF you become a snowflake and cry about what I say(or anyone else) I will use my honorary title as DI MOD (unofficial) to BAN you(not really but play along and don’t be a douche, we don’t want this thread to actually get locked)

King list of DI-
1. @pisgah101 the best of the best, this board almost fell apart when he left. He talks about himself in the third person because like Bob Dole, he will one day be (almost) President

That’s all of the king list

I will continue shortly..

Three of the 4 annual participants - Duke, Michigan St and Kentucky - aren’t even in the top 25, with Duke and Michigan St getting only a handful of votes and Kentucky not getting any. And Carolina isn’t making an argument to replace anybody in that group. Only Kansas is holding up their end of the bargain. Paradigm shift or anomaly? My gut tells me the outliers are just that, and will return to being perennial powers, but will they become the overwhelming dominant forces in their respective conferences again? MSU in particular seems to be sinking into mediocrity, and when Izzo retires (probably not too long before that happens), some of their mystique will be gone. Kentucky is Kentucky, and after Calipari leaves (probably sooner rather than later, if BBN has their way), they’ll get a top notch coach who, not burdened by some of the ethical constraints imposed at other schools, will quickly pull their program up. I’m rooting for Jon, but the jury is out as to whether he can get the program to run at the level K did for many years. IMO, the answer is probably whether he can find the right blend of OAD’s, retaining not-quite-ready-for-the NBA players and transfers, and get away from the heavy OAD approach we’ve been on - I don’t think it’s an X’s and O’s Issue.

Some of those Clemson clods were intentionally taking cheap shots against Flip whenever they could. Dirty play at it’s fineest

Previewing tomorrow evening's game.

Programming: I'll be making the trip down, so I'll have full on-site coverage.

Predictions:

A few growing pains for Dereck Lively II, but he remains active.

At least 12 points for Mark Mitchell.

Tyrese Proctor struggles against Chase Hunter.

I think Duke loses, but not in the same fashion as the road losses at WF and N.C. State. I just think Clemson gets ahead with 3s, and the difference in Duke finding a way to come back against Pitt vs. not being able to in this game will be home vs. road.

It's a recurring NIGHTMARE!!! Our season long trend of 3 pt misfires. 12 long range bombs fired 2nd half produced a goose egg of makes. That's hard to do even if 4 and 5 stars are TRYING!!!

What's worse, Coach Scheyer will not address this problem. Come on coach, I beg of you to give Jaden Schutt a chance. What have you got to lose?? Sacrifice a few points on D to get at least ONE VIABLE THREE POINT THREAT on the court???

We played MUCH BETTER today on the road, but if we hit just 3 of 12 second half from the arc, we win. Now we have a weak off to incorporate some Schutt and shooting in our offense.

OFC

I meant to post this on Wednesday night and had forgotten. I also omitted the BC one as well. Oh, and Flip, this one is Flip. I loved what we saw from Lively and Proctor. Hopefully, that growth continues on the road this weekend at Little John.

It seems we have big game after big game and things don’t change tonight. Pitt rolls in with our very on Jeff Capel with them. As of writing we are a 9 point favorite at home with a 7pm tip on ACCN.

Pitt is a good team looking for a good win in Cameron. 3 of the 5 games they have lost were before thanksgiving, and the last two were by 1 point each including a Saturday lose against Clemson that made the tigers the first place team in the conference. Their wins include Carolina, NC St, and Virginia. As mentioned and known by all the panthers are coached by Jeff Capel who has an overall record of 213-179 with stops at VCU, Oklahoma and Pitt, he’s led his teams to 3 ncaa tournaments with one elite eight, that may or may not have been strongly helped by a freak named Blake Griffin. Outside of his head coaching Capel was on the duke sidelines for 7 years, and according to the Pittsburgh basketball coaching information page capel was responsible for recruiting, and developing every NBA player we had during his tenure here.

Helping capel coach is his brother Jason who Pisgah had the opportunity to talk to one time at a high school game when he was recruiting for Appalachian St during his time there. I told him even though I was a Duke fan it was nice to meet him and his buddy said oh so you prob like Jeff better to which I responded of course and Jason laughed audibly.. I should add the kid he was recruiting did not go to app lol..

We need to take care of our home this season as it appears we will struggle on the road. This would be a really good win for us and maybe help build a little momentum before we go to littlejohn Saturday.

Duke- 68
Pitt-66

Preview for tomorrow night's game.

Programming: I'll be there with full coverage.

Predictions:

Duke wins but it's going to be tight, within 3-5 points.

Dariq Whitehead keeps coming on strong, at least three 3s, at least 16 points.

Jacob Grandison provides a boost off the bench, scores in double figures.

Saw on yahoo sport that we only have 3 first rounders and none in the lottery. I was sure that Flip had played his way into the top 10. I hope that he comes back for a second season.

At 4-0 with wins over unc and UVA!

This is a two part question but both come from the same problem-

We don’t get better and miss the tourney, this would indicate the players and coaches made little to no adjustments and sucked it up..

1. Do these “superstars” return for a second year and if so what do we do with next years “superstars”

2. Is Jon’s seat warmed at all? Hubert pre duke win last year was getting toasty with fans, would Jon be the same way? His recruiting is excellent but it wouldn’t take long for the product to be bad enough that nobody wants to come

So, I was thinking about where guys were compared to where I thought/hoped they'd be at this point of the season and truthfully there are not a lot of guys who are at or exceeding expectations. Here are my very subjective, not well-thought-out, midseason grades for everyone. I'm not giving concessions for injuries that slowed progress, so Lively and Whitehead for example might be getting judged a little more harshly than they deserve. Also, lots of time left in the season so plenty of time to turn some of these grades around.

Let's assume a B grade is someone who has met but not exceeded expectations:

Ryan Young - A - A clear highlight with his scoring, his passing, and his effort.

Blakes - B+ - expectations weren't high for him with Roach and Proctor being ahead of him in rotation but he's had a couple of really nice games and plays good D and makes smart decisions with the ball when he gets minutes.

Flip - B - had a stretch there where he was overperforming expectations but I think has come back to earth. Being a top 5 recruit and meeting expectations, though, is nothing to scoff at.

Mitchell - B- - had a couple of great games early in the season and plays with effort, but seems to have way too many games where his stat line is like 6 points, 4 rebs, 2 assists in 25 min. That's not the level of production you want from a starter on a top 20 team.

Roach - C+ - Like Mitchell, had a couple of really nice games but overall he's not really someone we can count on consistently to score in the teens or to dish out 6-8 assists a game. Did not see the sort of improvement from year 2 to year 3 that we'd have hoped for.

Whitehead - C - he's the guy I expect most from in the second half of the season. If he doesn't average 15+ points the rest of the way and something like ten combined rebs/assts per game, we won't come close to our potential. We're seeing flashes of that now. Hope he stays in the starting lineup.

Grandison - C - expected him to shoot a bit better, to defend a bit better, to maybe avg another assist or two per game, and to earn more minutes. Still shooting 35% from 3, so definitely not bad. But a lot of his looks from 3 are wide open so you'd really hope he'd be in the low 40% range at this point.

Proctor - D+ - I swear this kid has the skills to be a top 3 guy on a team like ours, but he's not showing it. Lacking aggressiveness on offense and on the boards. Not making shots. Not really making the team better when he's on the floor. Looking for him, like whitehead, to really turn it on the second half of the season but I don't have quite as much faith in that happening as I do in Whitehead.

Lively - D - For the #1 overall recruit he has struggled mightily. I like his effort and he doesn't seem to hang his head when he only gets 12-14 min a game and that's great. But... other than rim protection he has a LOT of room to improve in all areas. And as a team our coaching staff needs to figure out how to utilize him better. I just have to believe that part of this is about us not utilizing him as we should.


Thoughts? What am I way off on here?

Thanks to all who have listened over the last five seasons.

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First , who is the pg on this team ? Roach, Proctor, Blakes?
I have not seen no one but Young step up as a leader and it says something when two of the opposing players have one less point at one portion of the game snd more assist then the whole team?

What exactly has Lively done to start?
He does not rebound or score but might block a couple shots.

Grandison does nothing that I do not see Schutt capable of doing . At this point I’m back on my nagging on him as a fifth year senior at 24 .

What’s the offense ? ISO? One on one ? Because I think everyone agrees, it has not improved any .

Is the defense regressing ? I think so .

What are the coaches doing ? Seat warming ? I saw no fire from any one ! That includes the players .

I say , IMO and I’m no coach at all. Some tough love needs to be given or this team could really go down hill quick .
Just my opinion. What’s yours ?