Final Thoughts on Yesterday and This Season

[jwill133]

I'm just as heartbroken as everyone else. Yesterday sucked for so many reasons. We had so many opportunities to seize control of that game and failed to do so. The things that bothered me the most....
-Another slow start, mannn it would have been nice to jump out on them early. Every tournament game we started out slow, MSU just seemed so much more prepared than we did.
-We got outcoached. I love K but yesterday was a disaster. MSU scored after EVERY SINGLE timeout, I'm pretty sure we turned the ball over after every single timeout. The VT game too, why are these teams able to run beautiful plays for backdoor lobs/wide open three's and every single one of our baskets seems like we have to work our hardest just to score??
-All year I have complained that we don't run an offense, and well...we didn't run an offense all year. It was tough to score a lot against a great, veteran, strong defense like MSU when our whole offense was "Rj, Zion, go 1 on 1."
-How big of a play was it when we were up 30-21, got another stop, RJ doesn't throw it high enough to Zion and Zion fouls. Jack comes in for Zion and next thing we know were down 34-30 at half. We could have ended the game before halftime, but you know, we made too many immature dumb turnovers.


I had a blast this season, this is a team I will never forget. From the UK domination to the UVA sweep to the comeback at Louisville to the ACC Tournament, there were so many great moments. Sure, we had too many injuries during the ACC and came up short in the tournament, but there's no denying who the best team was this year, it was Duke and the whole country knows it. I felt so bad for our guys yesterday, mainly Tre. Zion, RJ, and Cam are about to become multi-millionaires (in Zion's case, probably a billionaire, seriously) but watching Tre cry during the press conference made me cry. I love that kid so much and would go to war with him everyday of the week.
No one is ever gonna forget about this team, ESPN and CBS will be running Zion highlights for the end of time. Selfishly, all year all I cared about was getting #6 so that I could feel great and be relieved for the next few years. Looking back, all I should have cared about was these kids and watching them perform to the best of their abilities, and we got to do that.

 

[DukefanKY]

Agree with everything you said.....but GOD I wanted this one! It just sucks that these guys aren’t in the final 4 as hard as they worked all year and everything they’ve been through.
Losing by just one point make it doubly tough for me as well. So many ways we could have scored 2 more points or prevented them from it. That late 3 was a dagger big time

 

[Mac9192]

Nobody wants to hear this, but as a team, we didn't improve. We know every team wants to win it all, but as important as that, they want to be peaking come tournament time.

We weren't, and really haven't gotten better as the season goes, since 2015, and that team finally did when it really mattered. We were beat by Notre Dame by 10 in the acc tournament a week earlier.

 

[Pirateman0618]

Spot on I wrote on the premium board that K is the best to ever do it hands down. But everyone has a prime and unfortunately I think K is past his. There were so many times this season he did things that made me scratch my head. And then to say we're not a deep team yr after yr well gee who's fault is that? With all the overwhelming talent we've had the last 3 yrs 0 final fours is unacceptable.

 

[AlanInNJ]

Good analysis Jwill as usual, I can't disagree with any of it.

Pirateman I think you are being a little extreme.

End of the day we made freshman mistakes yesterday. Our youth beat us. MSU is a good, experienced basketball team. I think we won several games this year solely because of our raw talent; UVA #1, UL, UCF, VT last weekend. What I saw yesterday were countless throw aways starting from the very first possession. They weren't pressure D turnovers which were created. Zion throwing the ball out of bounds to end the half and RJ with a wild pass out of bounds come to mind. I cannot bring myself to even look at the stats like I normally would, but I think we had 17 turnovers, and more than half were literally handing the ball to MSU. No way we beat a team like that when they have 16 more possessions than we do. It was our youth on display. It's so easy to forget these are 18 year old kids playing on a HUGE stage.

Yet even with all that we were right there, up three with a minute to play. A veteran team beat us, they made their last two shots from the field, we missed our last two plus a FT. Game over.

I am so sad and depressed this train has stopped. Man alive it was fun to watch when it was rolling. All the best to those who leave for the NBA. Make us proud boys!

 

[FearTheBeard]

Loved 99% of the season.

Hated 1% of the season.

Unfortunately, the 1% has a greater impact at the moment.

 

[Mpm277]

Yesterday's loss came down to turnovers. We had a higher FG%, 3PT%, FT%, and more rebounds. But TEN more turnovers than them.

 

[WI#1Dukie22]

^ that’s super painful

 

[duke198025]

and 9 blocks

 

[WI#1Dukie22]

2 years in a row. A lead with less then 2 mins left. 0 final fours. 18 and 19 will be remembered in the same way as 99,02,04 for me- and damn did we take those years for granted!

 

[chov1125]

I mentioned it in the game thread but if we had gotten the one stop we needed when we went up 3 with 1:30 left I think we come out victorious. One stop is what we needed. Instead we gave up an easy lob and the rest is history.

 

[bullcity gamer]

I enjoy every Duke season. Obviously this season did not end how we all wanted it to, but it was still a fun season nonetheless. @jwill133 it was nice to meet you and your brother at Louisville prior to watching our Blue Devils make the improbable comeback at The KFC Yum Center.

 

[Mpm277]

I'll always remember this season just for the joy it was to watch Zion play.

 

[crazyduke3]

Pretty disappointed because I know without question they could have won it all.

But FAR more happy and satisfied because this team regularly gave all they had and played tough defense.

I have whined and cried on this board for years to see Duke play defense. They did. I demand to win the ACC. They did.

So I'm supremely grateful to behold such a superb basketball season. And especially to get to see the wonder that is Zion. Great year.

 

[gottagonow]

I will always remember this season as the season of the highest expectations in the beginning of the season after we beat UK like a drum.

We had the players to play great but couldnt stay consistant. I will miss Zion, Barrett and Jones and the boys and thinking we were really going to win it all at times but I had concerns after the beginning of the season with inconsistent play. Never have I ever been so excited about a player as I was with Zion and I will remember his greatness the rest of my days. I had fun and the guys gave me much joy.

 

[df64]

Those turnovers killed us. MSU has typically been worse at turning the ball over. Go figure. That probably happens 1 in 10 games we play them. Thing that got me is the last 2 D possessions. We had 4 foul to give. How do you give up a wide open 3? You hedge crazy hard, bump every cutter, go for th turnover or charge call. A foul costs us nothing. At the end, same thing. Bump, hold, go for steal, jump in front for a charge. Make the ref make a call! How does a guy break totally free?!!!

 

[Bludvls1]

I keep going back to the final minutes at the end of the first half. Being up by nine and in control. When the half time horn sounds, we’re down by four.

 

[bullcity gamer]

I keep going back to the final minutes at the end of the first half. Being up by nine and in control. When the half time horn sounds, we’re down by four.

Our guys failed to take advantage of the 9 point lead. Unfortunately when The Blue Devils went on runs this season against good teams they failed to punish the opposition (exception being Kentucky).

 

[HeLooks2MuchLikeDave]

Those turnovers killed us. MSU has typically been worse at turning the ball over. Go figure. That probably happens 1 in 10 games we play them. Thing that got me is the last 2 D possessions. We had 4 foul to give. How do you give up a wide open 3? You hedge crazy hard, bump every cutter, go for th turnover or charge call. A foul costs us nothing. At the end, same thing. Bump, hold, go for steal, jump in front for a charge. Make the ref make a call! How does a guy break totally free?!!!

When Tre picked up that first foul that way, that was exactly what I thought would happen. But then they kinda just backed off of MSU.

I remember when they cut to commercials and we were up 3 with 1:30 to go, I went outside and took a leak in my backyard and the sky was bright blue, the trees were vibrant green, the sun was radiating on its way down, my adrenaline was surging, and I had a huge grin. Thought we were gonna take it down. Man, I wish I could get that feeling back again.

 

[kingbluedevil]

After watching this game again Zion and the starters played great after resting couple minutes. We might should have given Zion more rest

 

[BlueDevilWildcat]

When Tre picked up that first foul that way, that was exactly what I thought would happen. But then they kinda just backed off of MSU.

I remember when they cut to commercials and we were up 3 with 1:30 to go, I went outside and took a leak in my backyard and the sky was bright blue, the trees were vibrant green, the sun was radiating on its way down, my adrenaline was surging, and I had a huge grin. Thought we were gonna take it down. Man, I wish I could get that feeling back again.

Why did you take a leak in your backyard?

 

[spike05rk]

I really thought this was the team to cut down the nets. Hard to see K having this talented a team again anytime soon or ever. Personally I think this was K’s last chance to get #6.

 

[Laettner]

Why did you take a leak in your backyard?

I had that feeling minus the leak. Wish i could get it back too.

MSU 3pt set was so simple but Tre & Z got tangled up causing open look.

 

[Laettner]

I really thought this was the team to cut down the nets. Hard to see K having this talented a team again anytime soon or ever. Personally I think this was K’s last chance to get #6.

In post-game K had different look than in past years when we exited. He knew a big opportuntiy vanished.

 

[Longtimeuserbannedyearsago]

I had that feeling minus the leak. Wish i could get it back too.

MSU 3pt set was so simple but Tre & Z got tangled up causing open look.

Tre made a huge mistake there. Winston was screening Zion, and Tre didn't switch or help.

It has to be tough for Tre when he did absolutely nothing offensively and got beat pretty bad all game on D. Rare for him to get beat on D like that. Winston just out smarted him, but tre put no pressure on him on D and winston could just float around resting.

 

[acc hoops]

Did Duke ever use the zone press? Sure would have liked to have seen Jordan on defense for last 2 minutes. Leave Javin in to rebound but sit Cam and use the press.Go for steals and give 2-3 fouls.

 

[Longtimeuserbannedyearsago]

Did Duke ever use the zone press? Sure would have liked to have seen Jordan on defense for last 2 minutes. Leave Javin in to rebound but sit Cam and use the press.Go for steals and give 2-3 fouls.

It was clear K was not going to his bench so he couldn't press because it would have wore out dukes starters. Definitely a head scratch. It's like K thought, "we can get by with pure talent on this one, lets not do anything specific for MSU". Almost worked. Players better mentally, and a better game plan, no reason duke doesn't win by 10. That wasn't a talented msu team.

 

[RanDEVILman]

It was a sweet season for the most part. Some untimely injuries that may have thrown off the momentum every now and then...again. Overall, another great year. I know people on here say it a lot, but we are spoiled. K may not be exactly the coach he was, but the program is as good as its been. Its hard for programs like ours (UK, Kansas, UNC) to judge a season's success based on Final Fours or NCAA Championships, for the simple reason that winning titles is really hard. Any little thing, bad match ups, hot/cold shooting, missed FTs, can doom a team that has more talent. For 99% of the basketball programs in the world what Duke did this year would be remembered forever. For that 1% though its not good enough. Not saying this is necessarily a bad thing, but we are lucky to get to sit back and watch high quality exciting basketball every single year. This year was no different.

 

[HeLooks2MuchLikeDave]

Why did you take a leak in your backyard?

Because I had to pee

 

[Longtimeuserbannedyearsago]

It was a sweet season for the most part. Some untimely injuries that may have thrown off the momentum every now and then...again. Overall, another great year. I know people on here say it a lot, but we are spoiled. K may not be exactly the coach he was, but the program is as good as its been. Its hard for programs like ours (UK, Kansas, UNC) to judge a season's success based on Final Fours or NCAA Championships, for the simple reason that winning titles is really hard. Any little thing, bad match ups, hot/cold shooting, missed FTs, can doom a team that has more talent. For 99% of the basketball programs in the world what Duke did this year would be remembered forever. For that 1% though its not good enough. Not saying this is necessarily a bad thing, but we are lucky to get to sit back and watch high quality exciting basketball every single year. This year was no different.

No doubt, k's recruiting has been magnificent. There's just been a lack of player development and improvements throughout the season for my liking. I hate UNC, but man does Roy's teams improve throughout the year. Roy isn't getting the same talent K is, so it's a different dynamic. Duke just needs to find a way through recruiting AND development to be able to constantly put pressure on other teams offensively and defensively. This walk the ball up crap is killer, and we've been doing it for far too long because of a lack of bench. I get duke not winning it all every year despite having the most talent, but I can't handle duke not improving and not seeing our coaching making a difference.

How many times for MSU did you say, wow great play call off a timeout, or start of a half, etc? A bunch for me.

How about for duke. None for me.

Think about this. Duke starts game with a turnover leading to a dunk because the players don't know what the heck they are running, that's on coaching. MSU starts the 2nd half with an alley oop dunk because our players are not ready and out of position. Little things like that are a big part of coaching. Izzo manufactured about 10 points or so for MSU, I can't think of K manufacturing any.

 

[germantondevil]

It was a really fun season with a lot of hype. I know the hole fans were sick of hearing about Zion. I did not enjoy losing to the holes twice even though we were Zionless in 2 of the three games, but the ACC tourney really filled me up with a sense of hope and even though we were playing some nail biters I still thought this team was FF bound. And once you are there you have a shot at a title. Especially with Coach FF record. Once Duke is in he is tougher then.

 

[chov1125]

Tre made a huge mistake there. Winston was screening Zion, and Tre didn't switch or help.

It has to be tough for Tre when he did absolutely nothing offensively and got beat pretty bad all game on D. Rare for him to get beat on D like that. Winston just out smarted him, but tre put no pressure on him on D and winston could just float around resting.

Got beat all game on D? Kid had to put up 23 shots to get 20 points and had several instances where he questionably pushed off to get open. Add to that the ball was in Winston’s hands every single possession for a majority of each possession. It wasn’t Tre’s best performance of the season but he also worked his ass off and did a pretty decent job considering how much emphasis State put on running their offense through Winston. He also can’t defend the pick and roll himself. Javin had a great game but will always struggle defending it correctly

 

[Canadian Dukie]

The only disappointment for me was the ending,this was a super fun team to watch grow as the season progressed.They have made friends for life with each other and I wish them all the best in the future.

 

[dukiejay]

Got beat all game on D? Kid had to put up 23 shots to get 20 points and had several instances where he questionably pushed off to get open. Add to that the ball was in Winston’s hands every single possession for a majority of each possession. It wasn’t Tre’s best performance of the season but he also worked his ass off and did a pretty decent job considering how much emphasis State put on running their offense through Winston. He also can’t defend the pick and roll himself. Javin had a great game but will always struggle defending it correctly

Yeah, I though Tre was certainly above average on defense. We sometimes fail to give the benefit of the doubt to really good players. Winston is really good. That he scored 20 points on 23 shots at least says something.

 

[Longtimeuserbannedyearsago]

Got beat all game on D? Kid had to put up 23 shots to get 20 points and had several instances where he questionably pushed off to get open. Add to that the ball was in Winston’s hands every single possession for a majority of each possession. It wasn’t Tre’s best performance of the season but he also worked his ass off and did a pretty decent job considering how much emphasis State put on running their offense through Winston. He also can’t defend the pick and roll himself. Javin had a great game but will always struggle defending it correctly

Winston had 20 points, 10 assists, 4 steals, and 1 turnover. Our PG had 4 points, 5 assists, 0 steals, and 1 turnover. Yes, at times Tre played good D on him, a lot of other times he didn't, and yes Javin hedging has always been poor. Winston did have to take 23 shots, but he attacked attacked and attacked Tre all game. Tre did not attack him once and put zero pressure on him on the other side. That hurt big time. With all that said, Winston scored more points, dished out more assists, had more steals, and had less turnovers than his per game averages going against what many (including myself) thought was the pest PG defender. I don't know if Tre got worn out, i doubt it, or he just played bad. Tre also took weird risks he never takes that didn't work leading to easy baskets for MSU. But duke was at its best all season offensively with an attacking and fast break leading Tre Jones. Tre walked the ball up the court, didn't create turnovers, and didn't attack on offense. I don't know what K's game plan was, but you don't win championships getting destroyed that bad at the PG position.

Winston is a very good player. But he isn't a generational player. He isn't some amazing athlete. He just played smart, aggressive, and determined. Opposite of Tre in this game. Just like Dawkins, duke allowed the one player to have great games that they couldn't allow. That rings of poor coaching.

 

[timmuh1515]

I keep going back to the final minutes at the end of the first half. Being up by nine and in control. When the half time horn sounds, we’re down by four.

To me this was a mistake by K.

Bringing Zion back in with two fouls. He couldn’t be aggressive. Had a turnoverin the lane being afraid to charge and then didn’t go for a block he always goes for.

MSU was rattled but was allowed to have success with Zion on the floor. I really believe if we’re down 34-30 at half without using Zion...the team comes out super confident

 

[Liftee]

Wow, a lot of negativity. Wonder if the Gonzaga, Kentucky, UNX and Purdue boards are just as negative or if any of them are glad their teams got so close to winning.

We had a flawed team. Several guys didn't step up despite having the chance. It happens. We won 2 games with a little luck and finally lost one the same way. I'm sad but was sadder when Grayson was denied a final four his senior year.

I would say that Coach K made a lot more good moves during the season than bad. Inserting Goldwire? The Cam play at the end of the Florida State game? Getting Bolden and Javin to improve? Vrank against UNX? He gets credit for all of that. Is he perfect? Never was. But I don't want anyone else as the coach of my team.

I'm terribly disappointed but feel awfully lucky to be a Duke fan.

 

[krzyzewskiville]

I mentioned it in the game thread but if we had gotten the one stop we needed when we went up 3 with 1:30 left I think we come out victorious. One stop is what we needed. Instead we gave up an easy lob and the rest is history.

I literally said the exact, same, thing...When we were up at that point I said to my son and daughter, "If we get one stop, I really like where we sit."

We all know the rest.

The other thing I'll say, is anyone that thinks K is past his prime, is out of their minds. That's someone that doesn't know basketball as well as they think they do - this is coming directly from an ex-college coach. Yours truly.

For every moment you "think" we got out coached, I can give you many moments where his decisions where perfect. One quick example.

Scheyer discussed in the last Duke basketball podcast how Coach K, in Saturday's shootaround before UCF, told the team that, and I quote, "An offensive rebound off of a free throw is going to be a huge factor in this game," so they took specific time to work on it Saturday. How he could see this other-worldly.

But that's what happens when you're the GOAT...The man deserves more from us than saying he's past his prime. I can handle questioning situational stuff, but that is just absurd...

 

[chov1125]

Winston to Mich St is apples and oranges compared to Tre to Duke. They are asked to do completely different things. I agree with a certain point. I don’t know why we walked the ball up all tournament. Our strength was transition or attacking a defense that hasn’t yet set up. Walking the ball up and trying to operate in the halfcourt played to our weakness not our strength I agree. But I just don’t know how you watched that game and came away thinking Tre did a bad job on defense. Criticize his shooting but his defense is what separated this year’s Duke team from many recent Duke teams that had to play zone because they were so bad defensively. Winston did not blow by Tre, he needed several screens on every possession. That was not an attack on Tre, it was an attack on our ability to defend the pick and roll. Ques does a solid job hedging, Javin does not. But Tre was not the issue on defense, he just can’t do it all himself.

 

[chov1125]

I literally said the exact, same, thing...When we were up at that point I said to my son and daughter, "If we get one stop, I really like where we sit."

We all know the rest.

The other thing I'll say, is anyone that thinks K is past his prime, is out of their minds. That's someone that doesn't know basketball as well as they think they do - this is coming directly from an ex-college coach. Yours truly.

For every moment you "think" we got out coached, I can give you many moments where his decisions where perfect. One quick example.

Scheyer discussed in the last Duke basketball podcast how Coach K, in Saturday's shootaround before UCF, told the team that, and I quote, "An offensive rebound off of a free throw is going to be a huge factor in this game," so they took specific time to work on it Saturday. How he could see this other-worldly.

But that's what happens when you're the GOAT...The man deserves more from us than saying he's past his prime. I can handle questioning situational stuff, but that is just absurd...

I think many on here think I’m a K homer and I will admit I defer to him in many situations. But to be fair I do think he got outcouched by Izzo in big spots. And that may not be a knock on K but a compliment to Izzo. Every single big spot they called a timeout, ran a specific play and got a very high percentage look. We didn’t. It happens. If they played again I’m confident K would get the best of Izzo, they are both hall of fame coaches. But Izzo was remarkable on sunday.