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This Duke team is one of the more dangerous teams to watch out for in the Country.

Yikes. Linardi had us as a 7 (before tonight). I think we finish around a 6 personally.
Half time it showed him having Duke projected at a 9 seed in the tourney . 7-9 IMO is where they will be seeded.
 
Will NC state @ home be considered a quad 1 game? Assuming @ UNC would be one for us, closing the season with 2 quad 1 wins I feel would leap us into 4/5 seed territory. Obviously need to win both of those.
 
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also going to be one of those teams who may have a shooting nightmare in the first round in an unfamiliar arena...its why i always bet the under on the first half of NCAAT games
 
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I would just guess somewhere between a 5 and an 8 seed. All ok as anything can happen in the tournament. If there are any really formidable teams out there, I am unaware of them.
 
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There are real reasons to want to avoid the 8 seed. First round is a team about the same as we are and the second round is the No. 1 seed. It's important to get to at least the 7 seed if not the 6th.
 
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10 teams ranked in the top 25 at 21-8 or worse...one being Creighton at 19-11 ???...yet we cannot even get into the top 25....gone are the days of Duke being given the benefit of the doubt!
 
Big difference between 8 and 6 seed. We are trending towards 6, assuming we don't get swept this week.
 
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I really want to move up this week. We don't want Houston in game two, or even a decent team in round one. Gotta get off the 8 line.
 
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Check the ACC standings, how big is the blown call @ UVA now? Miami and the Hoo’s at 5 league losses. Duke with 6. Oh well, let’s not cry over spilt milk with a six game winning streak, a double bye for next week, sweep of chapel hill college and improved NCAA seeding. J Palm and Joe Lunardi have Duke as a 6 despite the belief people had for several weeks that Duke was an 8/9 cemented seed unless a deep ACC Tourney run happened.

If you had told me going in that Lively would have 4 fouls with 17 to go I would have figured holes for the W but the better team found a way to get it done. Did Hubert get an acceptable number of free throws this time? Talk about two stabbing daggers with Jeremy’s driving layups to put Duke up 4 in Durham and 3 in Chapel Hill in the closing seconds. Tonight though belonged to Fillipowski. Btw check Leaky Black and Caleb Loves stat line.
 
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I agree now. But before we beat NC State and UNC on the road, there was not much data to support this. Now there is. We really proved ourselves this week.
 
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If anyone can figure out why Duke has not been ranked in the top 25 at least during the last week, please explain it to me. In the top 25 there are four teams with the same 23-8 record as Duke, Texas #9, K-State #11, Texas A&M #24, and Xavier (which Duke beat) #19. There are two teams at 22-9, Baylor #7, Tenn. #12; five teams with 10 losses Indiana 20-10 #15, Providence 20-10 #20, Twerps 20-10 #21, TCU 20-11 #22, Kentucky 21-10 #23, and Pitt 21-10 #25. Anti-Duke bias maybe? Arithmetic mistake? Anti-ACC bias? Big 12 favoritism? All of the above? OFC
 
It's probably because the ACC is down. We only have a few wins over ranked teams. Xavier, Miami. NC State and Pitt are top 30ish teams.
 
If anyone can figure out why Duke has not been ranked in the top 25 at least during the last week, please explain it to me. In the top 25 there are four teams with the same 23-8 record as Duke, Texas #9, K-State #11, Texas A&M #24, and Xavier (which Duke beat) #19. There are two teams at 22-9, Baylor #7, Tenn. #12; five teams with 10 losses Indiana 20-10 #15, Providence 20-10 #20, Twerps 20-10 #21, TCU 20-11 #22, Kentucky 21-10 #23, and Pitt 21-10 #25. Anti-Duke bias maybe? Arithmetic mistake? Anti-ACC bias? Big 12 favoritism? All of the above? OFC
A little bit of everything you listed, Devil. There's a strong Anti-ACC bias in sports media outside of this area unless it is the cheats.
 
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We should be ranked tomorrow. Last night was a big road win for us and we're playing great. I still think sweet 16 is a nice goal; although I won't complain if we go further. But we could still get a difficult round 2 match up.

I think higher rated teams are more concerned about having to play Duke as opposed to Duke having to play them. Again, this feels like 2013-14 Kentucky going into the tournament as an 8th seed. Lots of talent that is starting to peak at the right time. Nobody wants to see that in the 2nd round.
 
We should be ranked tomorrow. Last night was a big road win for us and we're playing great. I still think sweet 16 is a nice goal; although I won't complain if we go further. But we could still get a difficult round 2 match up.
I actually prefer not to be ranked. We've played really well not being ranked. I've seen so many teams finally get ranked then lose the next game and get knocked right back out. I want our guys to stay hungry.
 
It's probably because the ACC is down. We only have a few wins over ranked teams. Xavier, Miami. NC State and Pitt are top 30ish teams.
Well look at the records of the top half of the ACC, and they compare very closely with the top half of the other conferences. I do not think that the ACC is THAT down. Duke is now no. 21 in the latest poll. Kansas is No. 3 after getting drubbed again. Go figure. OFC
 
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For several years the ACC has been labeled down, primarily because so many of the ACC teams have stumbled at the beginning of the season. It happened again this year (apparently the ACC’s 8-6 record in the ACC-Big Ten Challenge wasn’t enough to offset some pretty bad early season losses by the league). And yet last year we had 2 in the FF and 3 in the Elite 8. I suspect we’ll enjoy watching the other overrated conferences crater again this year…
 
As mentioned, Duke is at 21 as of today. Virginia is 13, Miami is 14, and Xavier is 15.

We beat Miami at home then they smoked us in Miami. We beat Xavier early in the season on a neutral court. And more recently we beat (lost to) UVA at UVA.

So, we're 0-2 against top 10 teams (Kansas and Purdue), but 2-2 or 3-1 (I count UVA as a win) against teams in the 10-20 range.

Definitely better than things were looking three weeks ago for us, even if we aren't where we hoped to be preseason. If we manage to get a five seed, then we're playing a 12 in round one and likely a 4 in round two. Those should be winnable games. If we get to the second weekend, I'm going to be happy. Even if we're a six and playing an 11 then a 3 seed, there's at least some hope. I don't like our chances, though, as soon as we're up against a 1 or 2 seed.

If only the tournament was played in Cameron...
 
I definitely think we can get to the sweet 16, or even further. But yeah, getting through those first 2 games might be difficult. Right now a 4 seed in the second round would be a U Conn, , Miami, or Indiana level team. Winnable, but certainly a more difficult game than we are used to in round one and two. And then a one seed in the sweet 16. Last year we barely got by a play in MSU team. I do think if we win this week we could grab a 4, which would be huge. And the team is playing very well.
 
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Many like minds here. I think we consider the S16 a successful year. Anything beyond that is gravy IMHO. I kinda feel like if (when) we lose it will be a game where we beat ourselves; 2 key guys foul out early or we go 1 for 27 from 3 or we have 24 turnovers. Someone said it on another thread, shooting on a neutral court could be what does us in.

But all that said, I like where we are right now. We have beaten some good teams on the road recently, and we have been finishing games by making tough plays, making FT's and playing tough defense. There is not one team in the country that has me thinking "we can NEVER beat them!".
 
Thank You Jon for parking Lively. Watch the final 3:21. Lively was critical. Blocked a leaky shot, altered an RJ Davis drive and had the rebound and pass out to Kyle for the layup to seal it with 2.2 secs. No W without lively who did all that with 4 fouls. Talk about seriously impacting a game without scoring points!
 
I do not think this is a strong year for mens ncaa basketball. If Duke could find some consistent outside shooting and avoid early mistakes and dumb turnovers, I believe we can play with anyone in the field. Hell, we almost beat Kansas early on before we could call ourselves a team and before Lively and Grandison were ready to play. Finally, defense is usually the key to winning tournament games. BTW, we win the ACC tournament.

OFC
 
I don't post anywhere as much as I used to but this Devils Illustrated HOF'er doesn't blow smoke with proclamations like this unless I truly believe it. Don't be down about Saturday as these kids wanted that game badly and they fought hard and should have won it. Had the correct call been made (as the ACC has stated it should have been) then one free throw wins the game. They're not going to finish first or maybe even top 4 and they're unranked right now which will have them off the local and national radar but that's fine. They're ridiculously young and have taken their lumps, Jon has not had his full roster of players for most of the season which only increases the learning curve and it's no secret on what they have to improve on. A big one being the damn turnovers. We can already see subtle changes taking place that could make a big difference later. I like having Proctor take a larger role in ball-handling duties which not only frees up Jeremy to be that attacking guard with his quickness, it allows Procter with his height and ability to read situations to make plays himself or find open guys. That mid-range jumper he has utilized quite a bit is a good example. The dunk he had off the bounce the other night was sensational, and I thought for sure UVA had it almost stripped before he made the one handed throw down. As the announcers love to remind us, he could still be in high school.

Lively/Fillipowski/Young are an excellent quartet of bigs. We saw what Lively did to Carolina, effectively owning the interior on the defensive end whether it was slowing down Bacot or swatting driving guards. Kyle has been great all year, UVA was certainly his worst game, he might even say the worst game he's played in his entire life but that's also a credit to Tony Bennett. No doubt in my kind that Tony game planned strongly for Filipowski knowing the tear he has been on and the potential damage Duke could cause inside. Dariq Whitehead gives them that versatile forward who can shoot and attack off the bounce he just needs game action. He's back now and two bad decisions with the ball aside Saturday, his scoring allowed Duke to take that lead. Mark Mitchell doesn't have the consistent shooting, however he is a warrior/disrupter defensively and averages over 8 a game.

Looking at the guards Jeremy Roach obviously is THE key guy you want on the court for his experience and abilities, he is a terrific attacking guard with excellent quickness. As mentioned earlier you can see what Jon is doing with Proctor/Roach at times in a way that his Coach utilized him and Nolan Smith. Then you have the shooter Grandison and people forget that this guy averaged 41% or higher from 3 at Illinois the last two years and he's only averaging 34% 3-point shooting so far this season for Duke which is another of those "potential" areas of improvement that would really help this team. With Blakes you have a physical guard who is a good defender, if Jon could just get more offense from him that would be a plus.

This is already a top two defensive team in the ACC allowing only 63.2 ppg. Youth, turnovers, discipline, decision making with the ball etc. a number of things that need to continue to improve. Currently Duke is a respectable 17-8 and 8-6 in the league and they are @Notre Dame, @ Cuse, host a very bad Louisville team and a decent Virginia Tech team in their next four games. Duke has a great chance to achieve a 21-8 overrall record and a 12-6 league record the next couple weeks before closing it out hosting a very good NC State team and then @ the K-Dome for the RS finale.

Keep your spirits up with this squad because they are absolutely a very dangerous team at full health that can make a run in both post-season tournaments. They're not going to do it blowing people out, they're going to do it with defense, the question is just how much can they improve on some of the issues as they have a great opportunity here the next four ball games and I'm sure the staff knows it.

Thoughts? am I preaching to the choir or could some of our folks use a little uplifting message?
NR, as last night's game proves, you are a prophet. Boo-yah! OFC
 
I’m just So happy for this team guys/gals and for Jon. What a great run they are on. There’s been a ridiculous amount of injuries this weekend and we all were sweating big time ourselves with Kyle on Friday afternoon. But Duke has dealt with injuries all throughout Nov/Dec/Jan that impacted their development and gave them some L’s along the way. Without lively for 8 games, without Dariq for a while, without Jeremy for several. Hell I had forgotten Duke beat Pitt without Jeremy in their lone meeting this year. Aside from of course wanting to see them hoist the trophy, I strongly felt Duke needed to keep playing games this weekend because the arc of improvement is still taking place and I think they got better and were able to cut some nets while doing it. What a special group this has become.

Scheyer now the fourth Duke Head Coach to win an ACC Championship and second Duke HC to win it in his first season. (Vic Bubas -1960). Only three HC’s ever won the tournament in their first year with Bill Guthridge being the other in 1998. Duke now with 22 ACC Championships, the most in league history. (Heels have 18, wuffies 10) Duke has rewritten what Tournament Tradition is in this event. Absolutely remarkable!

One of the big moves Jon made was what Krzyzewski did with him at the end of 2009. K gave the ball to Jon after the Nolan Smith at point experiment had failed. It led to an ACC Championship and set the foundation for that magic carpet ride in 2009-2010. Jon put the ball in Proctor’s hands so that Jeremy could roam, shoot and attack more. They started trending up when that move was made and Lively started to come on as a defensive force and Kyle is just a beast to handle. And they all finally enjoyed good health at the same time. Mike Krzyzewski is surely elated tonight and aren’t Jon’s parents amazing? What love for their son.
 
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