On Coach K’s TV show....

[Quavarius]

he mentioned how everyone is complaining about Duke not being a great 3-point shooting team and he gave a great reason as to why that may be: he stated we exert so much effort on defense that it doesn’t make us a great perimeter shooting team. I agree. Compared to past teams who didn’t exert a lot of effort on D, they of course were great perimeter shooting teams.

Speaking only for myself, but I prefer the D over the 3 (I’ll get to that later). We lost a lot of tournament games recently by not being able to stop other teams AND not being able to hit from 3. Stopping teams from scoring will win you a lot of games, especially if you are efficient and score in other ways. We have just enough offense to still win by 15-20 in most games. With elite perimeter shooting to go with elite defense, we’d have a scoring margin of over 30 a game.

I did a little research and was blown away with what I found. Here are some numbers thus far (before the Virginia game today):

We shoot .486 from the field (22nd best); our opponents .383 (6th best)

We shoot .308 from 3 (316th best); our opponents .288 (9th best)

We shoot .676 from the FT; our opponents .692

In conclusion, we are scoring 11% higher than our opponents from the field. Our opponents shoots worse than us from the 3-point line and our opponents only shoot 1% better than us from the FT line.

Our FG and 3-point defense BOTH rank in the Top 10 nationally! So, 3 point shooting may be our weakness, but it’s also our opponents weakness when they face us. Now, yes, included in those numbers are a lot of cupcakes and the worst of the ACC and those numbers will probably change once we play our tougher league opponents. Our current overall strength of schedule rank is 21st.

So, the next time anyone pick apart our poor 3 point shooting %, remind them of our opponents and their lack of scoring from the field, 3 and FT line against us.

 

[MyDudeG]

Shooting doesn’t always travel, but defense does. It’s what gives us a much higher floor than some of our teams in the past. I just can’t see a realistic way this team gets bounced early in the tournament.

 

[jwill133]

All year I've felt this is our best chance to roll through the tournament since 2002. We just have such a massive margin of error compared to Duke teams of the past and also compared to the field this year.
2004 was close, but I think the field that year was much stronger than this years field. That 2004 UCONN team was really good, though we had them beat and the refs screwed it up. UK was also really good in 2004 (shout out to UAB for beating them in a 2nd round upset.)

The margin of error we get is due to our defense and our talent on offense. We can have a putrid shooting night, and still get to 70 just based off of our athleticism and ability to dominate in transition.

The Final 4 games will probably be tight games, but before the Final 4....the only way I see us getting knocked out is an injury, or some insane stat like us shooting 1-25 from 3 and the other team making 10+ 3's.

 

[dukehokie]

he mentioned how everyone is complaining about Duke not being a great 3-point shooting team and he gave a great reason as to why that may be: he stated we exert so much effort on defense that it doesn’t make us a great perimeter shooting team. I agree. Compared to past teams who didn’t exert a lot of effort on D, they of course were great perimeter shooting teams.

Speaking only for myself, but I prefer the D over the 3 (I’ll get to that later). We lost a lot of tournament games recently by not being able to stop other teams AND not being able to hit from 3. Stopping teams from scoring will win you a lot of games, especially if you are efficient and score in other ways. We have just enough offense to still win by 15-20 in most games. With elite perimeter shooting to go with elite defense, we’d have a scoring margin of over 30 a game.

I did a little research and was blown away with what I found. Here are some numbers thus far (before the Virginia game today):

We shoot .486 from the field (22nd best); our opponents .383 (6th best)

We shoot .308 from 3 (316th best); our opponents .288 (9th best)

We shoot .676 from the FT; our opponents .692

In conclusion, we are scoring 11% higher than our opponents from the field. Our opponents shoots worse than us from the 3-point line and our opponents only shoot 1% better than us from the FT line.

Our FG and 3-point defense BOTH rank in the Top 10 nationally! So, 3 point shooting may be our weakness, but it’s also our opponents weakness when they face us. Now, yes, included in those numbers are a lot of cupcakes and the worst of the ACC and those numbers will probably change once we play our tougher league opponents. Our current overall strength of schedule rank is 21st.

So, the next time anyone pick apart our poor 3 point shooting %, remind them of our opponents and their lack of scoring from the field, 3 and FT line against us.

I’ve been banging the “field goal percentage defense coupled with an exceptional rebounding” team drum for a while now, but IMO, it’s still a surface stat. The bottom line is, keeping all of that in mind, this team also has cohesion and talent. Mix that with a master mind on the bench and you have a recipe for success.

IMO, this is K doing a good of deflecting. We have plenty of energy for oops and transition buckets, but not 3’s. Meh. He knows the team isn’t shooting well and he has been working on a variety of ways to get them better shots.

We’ve seen it the past few games. The team is trying to get more natural and more in rhythm shots than the “standstill three” that he wanted prior to Canada. We just haven’t seen much success with it yet (26% and 29% St John’s and BC). What has been nice is that the guy taking the most threes, Cam, has been on. That’s helpful.

 

[OldasdirtDevil]

I’ve been banging the “field goal percentage defense coupled with an exceptional rebounding” team drum for a while now, but IMO, it’s still a surface stat. The bottom line is, keeping all of that in mind, this team also has cohesion and talent. Mix that with a master mind on the bench and you have a recipe for success.

IMO, this is K doing a good of deflecting. We have plenty of energy for oops and transition buckets, but not 3’s. Meh. He knows the team isn’t shooting well and he has been working on a variety of ways to get them better shots.

We’ve seen it the past few games. The team is trying to get more natural and more in rhythm shots than the “standstill three” that he wanted prior to Canada. We just haven’t seen much success with it yet (26% and 29% St John’s and BC). What has been nice is that the guy taking the most threes, Cam, has been on. That’s helpful.

I agree, 'hokie. There is no foundation for believing this was going to be a 'good' 3 point shooting team. Coming in, RJ, Zion, & Tre weren't known for their 3 point shooting prowess...only Cam (and he's starting to show it). Alex is good, but he doesn't play much, and Jack was really good early, but he's lost his confidence. That doesn't mean we can't make 3's, but as you said, we need good in rhythm shots when we do take them. We can improve, but this team is not the typical 3 point shooting Duke team...and thankfully we don't have to be.

OFC