The Carters
- Thread starter IPSYCHOSIS
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Show, this is what I said. I said we may need all four cause we have hardly any experience.
mcntires@gmail.com
I wanted Nova badly. Sure, they annihilated Kansas.
But our zone was designed to take away the opposition’s 3 ball. I’m aware that Kansas finally cracked our zone and proved it had holes.
Give K a full 5 days to prepare against Jay Wright, combined with our zone in the 65k seat Alamodome, and I think it’s a 50/50 game. I’d rather be relying on our big guys to dominate inside than Villanova relying on three’s against our zone.
But our zone was designed to take away the opposition’s 3 ball. I’m aware that Kansas finally cracked our zone and proved it had holes.
Give K a full 5 days to prepare against Jay Wright, combined with our zone in the 65k seat Alamodome, and I think it’s a 50/50 game. I’d rather be relying on our big guys to dominate inside than Villanova relying on three’s against our zone.
What's comical Hart is his feathers seem ruffled over you and me. Yet I could care less who he talks with or takes places. Cliques are all over this board, yet our little 2 man clique really chaps some (him).
Trending now, we have to many “future millionaires” , all we do is “ try to support the NBA” and “ I’ll just hold my excitement “ til the end of the season” , and see if we have a deep run. But hey, things change I guess. All good.
Mac and I love the program, players, coaches too.Hes followed Duke basketball closely 30+ years and made a couple games this year. I've followed Duke hoops, football, baseball, etc most all my life.... We just see things differently from you sometimes. It certainly doesnt bother me.OFC
I'm not going to be be able to get good sleep if Bagley isn't taken as the top pick. That's why I've been a little edgy lately. I'm learning to put things in perspective.
Nothing wrong with the guy who's almost pissing down his leg with excitement over the next season, and there's nothing wrong with holding some excitement either.
Nothing wrong with the guy who's almost pissing down his leg with excitement over the next season, and there's nothing wrong with holding some excitement either.
No I'm not mistaken. I've never thought or said you were an nba fan. You get really excited over our talent the last couple seasons. Nothing wrong with that. Nothing wrong if someone doesn't quite share your enthusiasm either. That doesn't make one way or the other better.
I was as excited as you this past season, and I had higher hopes than some. I based it thinking Duke would bounce back from the disappointing 17 team. It's the first time ever where I put too much praise onto so many freshmen at the beginning of a season.
Who says I'm not excited about the upcoming team? I didn't expect a title at the beginning of the 14-15 season. With these young teams we don't know how good we will be truly until January or February.
I disagree WRT Allen, but he was certainly better in the Zone rather than he M2M. But Allen was a disaster in the M2M. He was much better in Man this year relative to the last 2 years, so I think some people are misevaluating how truly horrific he was in the zone. For the previous 2 years, Allen was the second worst man defender to ever play big minutes at Duke. Luckily for him, he played with Luke, who was a slightly worse M2M defender. But those two were, by a huge, huge margin, the worst Man defenders ever to play in Duke's main rotation in the Coach K era.
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Allen was noticeably better in Man this year. But he was still awful. He was just much, much worse the last 2 years.
They'd have murdered a lot of previous national title winners with the way they shot vs Kansas. I think a lot of folks are remembering Nova's mediocre performance in the title game vs a mediocre UM team.
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Their shooting display, and it was more of an exhibition, vs KU is what Duke would have had to deal with. Vs our Zone, after a week to prepare for it, could have been ugly.
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90 title game vs UNLV ugly.
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If Duke had played better in the regular season, or the ACCT, we'd have been on the other side of the bracket.
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Nova would have murdered us if we'd been in the FF instead of KU. If we'd been their opponent in the title game...……………..
did you forget about how horrible the 2006-2007 and 2013-2014 Duke teams were on defense? Greg Paulus was terrible on defense.......
We'll never know for sure Patrick...Sure it could have been decisive, as you infer. I simply think perhaps not. K would have had a week to HOPEFULLY shore up the holes in the zone, and PERHAPS with Grayson willing us as captain and our senior leader WILLS US to a very competitive showing.
Thats's the thing- you have to go all the way back to the '90 title game to denote a FF game the Devils were truly embarrassed.How many times have we been back since '90? Eight if IIRC....5 Titles and 3 narrow losses: two to UConn, 1 to Arkansas. K's experience is pretty special during that span.
However I totally respect all your points sir, in breaking down our defensive strategy, etc. Ultimately it may have come down to what Mac alluded to earlier: Duke had the better TALENT, but NOVA would have won because they had the better TEAM.
Enjoy the good dialogue w/you- OFC
I doubt any coaching could have overcome that shooting. Because it wasn't just shooting. They were moving the ball well getting very good shots and just stroking it. Honestly, it was one of the best NCAAT performances (in a competitive game, ie no 1 v 16 walkovers), and possibly the best FF performance since we got obliterated in 90 vs UNLV.
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Anything is possible, but that was a quality KU team that Nova spanked. And it was over mid way through the first, and Nova took their foot off the gas.
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My opinion that Duke would not have won that theoretical game is less about Duke and more about how well Nova played that day. My frosh year, during the Spring semester, Duke played at UMD and just walked the Terps. It was over 5 minutes in and we were on fire. To me, that was the Nova team that day. No one was beating them. That was the best they'd played in several years. A good team that played as well as possible. It is hard to beat a team like that.
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But, like I've said, if Duke had been on the other side of the bracket...... The Championship Game edition of Nova would not have liked seeing Duke.
Very fair point. Paulus was terrible on D. He's probably third on my list.
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Luke was bigger and probably more athletic than Paulus. Not a lot more athletic, but Luke was a better athlete. Allen a little bigger/longer than Paulus, and much more athletic.
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IMO, the most upsetting thing about Luke and Allen and their defensive failures was that they were largely because effort, or lack thereof. Tyler Thornton was not a great on-ball defender, but he was much better than Luke or GA, despite TT being much smaller and less athletic than either of the other two. And he was much more effective on D.
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Luke and Allen enraged me because they were so bad on D when they could have been at least decent. Luke wasn't a great athlete, but he was good enough to at least be a mediocre defender. Heck, he was drafted late lottery (or nearly so), and they don't hand those slots out to players who are extremely un-athletic, no matter how good they shoot. So, he was athletic enough to be a quality defender in college. Allen had the physical ability to be an elite defender. Obviously, instead, he was horrible..
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Bopth Luke and Grayson typified an opinion of "can't someone else do it?"
And were horrific at defense. Cook was a bad defender for 3 years before turning into a plus defender as a Sr. We've had other bad defenders in our main rotation.
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For the pastier guard comps: JJ Reddick, who didn't have nearly the physical gifts of Luke (size) or Grayson (athleticism) was a mediocre defender. What he absolutely lacked in size or overall athleticism he made up for in hustle and IQ. Jon Scheyer was approximately the same size and athlete as Luke. Heck, Jon might have been a little LESS athletic than Luke. And Jon was a very good defender for 4 straight years. As an upperclassmen, he was an elite team defender while being a plus on-ball defender. In an admitted limited sample size, AOC showed more on D last year than Luke and Grayson's (first 3 years) combined.
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In defending Luke and Grayson, and Paulus to some extent, people try to take any criticism of the three players to a certain place. But they were bad on D. Allen and Luke obviously were quality players on O, but they were horrific on D, and tended to give up nearly what they gave us. I'm not sure how their defensive failures can be glossed over or ignored.
Maybe Grayson gets a pass because of a stellar and really SAVE THE GAME effort vs Wisconsin in the '15 title game. He was tough on both ends of the court, and K said we were "dead in the water" until G ignited the 2nd half comeback.I will never forget him hounding Koenig, and diving for the ball as it was headed out of bounds near halfcourt.
OFC
Absolutely. ON the balance, Allen did far more "good" than (largely theoretical) "bad."
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It just bothers me when a player, or person, or D-bag coworker, gets a lifetime pass on current/recent failures because of some past success.
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It doesn't diminish Allen's play in the national title game in 2015 to admit that he was an awful defender for the 2 years after that, and merely a bad defender last year.
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I always expect this fan base to be more nuanced and intelligent in its analysis, and it bothers me on a personal level when we fall into the hackneyed tropes of other, less intelligent, fan bases.
The outdated overplay man to man switching defense that K prefers to play is about 80 percent of the reason why we sucked on defense over the past decade. It is also the reason why guys like Tyler Thornton got playing time over Quinn Cook. Matt Jones started at the wing over Tatum who was a better wing defender due to his 6’11 reach. Both players were offensive liabilities and their communication on defense couldn’t make up for their offensive liabilities.
Don’t disagree that k’s preferred defense has been difficult to play the last 5-10 years minus a couple years. However, I would not describe it as outdated. The nba does a lot of over play and switches on screens. This is why you see a lot less traditional bigs.
Tatum started all but the first couple games back. Matt Jones absolutely didn’t start over Tatum.
In a broad sense I would say the traditional stifling man defense has suffered the last few years because we've been more focused on recruiting OAD's....Its hard to truly master it in one year. A solid exception to this was the '15 natty team END OF SEASON ( it was inefficient on D much of the year!).
I think again, looking at the big picture these awesome talents are more focused on refining their offense than lockdown D. Thats simply the nature of the beast when you recruit these talents for one season.
K obviously is one smart cookie. Perhaps he's in the lab right now, retooling his man D to the point of simplifying it for next year's bumper crop.
OFC
I think again, looking at the big picture these awesome talents are more focused on refining their offense than lockdown D. Thats simply the nature of the beast when you recruit these talents for one season.
K obviously is one smart cookie. Perhaps he's in the lab right now, retooling his man D to the point of simplifying it for next year's bumper crop.
OFC
How can you and Tross claim to be Duke fans and say that Matt Jones started over Tatum? What? Did you two even watch that team, or even watch Duke play period? Jones never started over Tatum. How can someone claim, or try talking Duke basketball on a message board, and say something so ridiculous and false? That's as bad as saying Laettner was the best player on the 95 team, or Battier and Scheyer were a great duo.
Oh and Jack Nicklaus is going to win the US Open this week.
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Not the Matt Jones bit, but the TT playing over QC bit. K loved guys who knew what they were supposed to do in the overplay even if they couldn't actually make plays on D, and would give those guys PT at the expense of guys that didn't understand the overall concept, but that could otherwise make more winning plays.
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TT over Cook was not a sound strategic decision. We can go back over the last decade and point to a few instances where K made some poor personnel decisions over the course of a season. Sticking with the overplay, when we didn't have the personnel, and then trying to shoehorn players into that, drove most of those decisions.
Because that bit is/was central to his overall point, correct?
Starting 3 SGs, with nary a hint of PG ability between them, with 2 of them being horrific defenders, and making the 3rd (who was a good defender at his position) defend out of position at PG, was simply untenable. If there had been a top tier rim protecting C behind them.....It still wouldn't have worked.
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We'd have had to have shot 40+ percent on 25 3pt APG for that lineup to have worked.
Duke's end of the year starting Line-Up was Frank Jackson, Luke Kennard, Matt Jones, Jayson Tatum, and Amile Jefferson. Allen and Giles came off the bench. Jones and Jefferson started because they were Duke's two best defenders and proven Seniors.
I understand some of what you're saying, but you're taking it a little too far.
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