Monthly Archives: March 2013

Duke Basketball

Maryland loss should serve as a wake up call for Duke

RCP_8674GREENSBORO, N.C. - You can prepare all you want to, marvel at your latest accomplishments, hear that you will likely be a number one seed in the coming NCAA Tournament and so on, but if you don't bring it on game day, you will soon be home watching other teams on television. That's the case for Duke Basketball after an upset loss to a Maryland team that looked hungry, while the Blue Devils looked bloated from having gotten their money's worth at a Las Vegas buffet.

The team was talking the talk, confident after demolishing  archrival North Carolina six days earlier, and the stage seemed set. Duke was playing in its home away from home, the Greensboro Coliseum, where they had not lost an ACC Tournament game in nine years. But it wasn't long before it dawned on many that Duke was about to lose their second consecutive ACC Tournament game in similar fashion, in a setting where their comfort in their surroundings seemed irrelevant.

A season ago, Duke stumbled out of the gate in the NCAA Tournament in its own backyard, losing a shocker to Lehigh. One would think lessons were learned from that game, but after last evening's second consecutive loss to the Terps, Duke suddenly looks shaken and they are once again home early, never having time to unpack their bags at a tournament site.

Fortunately for Duke, they'll play another day, but if they do not right the ship and find the mental and physical toughness it takes to advance, it will be another disappointing end. And that just doesn't seem like the end a team led by three seniors is destined for.  But those same seniors are in need of a little soul searching themselves after last night's performance, where Duke never even held a lead in a game they had all the reason in the world to be up for.  After all, it's been awhile since Duke has lost consecutive games, much less conference games, to anybody.  And now they've done so in what was the team's first ACC quarterfinal loss since 1997.

Maybe it's time for some tough love and reflection for this Duke team.  They'll have plenty of time to wallow in the misery as they await the pairings show early Sunday evening. And in all likelihood, they'll be knocked from that number one perch, and if that happens, the second game of the NCAA Tournament will feature an opponent as tough or tougher than was Maryland.  And at this point, even winning the first game is not guaranteed.

Earlier this season, Duke looked like the best team in the nation, and their chemistry was something to marvel at.  The efficiency with which the team played was nowhere to be found on Friday against Maryland.  But it wasn't just efficiency and chemistry.  Some of it was more basic basketball.  Poor shooting.  Effort on the glass.  Don't get me wrong here. Maryland deserves a lot of credit for the way they played and instead of folding their tent as they easily could have, they showed fight.  But Duke was not prepared to combat the effort.  "We weren't the Duke team that's played most of the season, so I'm disappointed with our performance," said Coach Krzyzwski.

Last season, some blamed the late collapse on injuries, others on team chemistry, but now it is time to let go of excuses.  The players cannot point fingers, and they haven't.  But they each need to take responsibility too.  For Duke to rebound from this loss, they have to know the four letters on their chest will not win a game.  The Blue Devils must learn, or re-learn, that they have to treat every team and every player they face with the utmost respect in order to beat them. They have to get back to the basics of Duke Basketball, meaning on game day they play as hard as they have prepared, and the seniors have to lead.

Let's face it: 27-5 is still the mark of a pretty good team, but in this day of short attention spans and "what have you done for me lately?"  how this team and the seniors will be remembered depends now on how they respond to two consecutive tournament losses. The three senior leaders' legacy in is their collective hands.  They're the ones who have to right this ship.  Duke must rekindle its fire, or I'll be unhappily expanding on this article again soon.

Duke Basketball

ACC Tournament Notebook – Duke opens with Maryland

12Thornton starting and Sulaimon coming off the bench

I like the move Coach Mike Krzyzewski made here in that it puts a player on the court in Tyler Thornton who adds experience while giving Duke spark off the bench in Sulaimon.  Thornton is one of the Blue Devils better defenders and he can add toughness while in the game, but you can bet that there will be a game in Greensboro where Sulaimon will come off the bench and his presence will be felt.  So look for Thornton to be steady in the role of a starter and Sulaimon to make his mark and give the Blue Devils a needed lift.

First things, first

A lot of fans look ahead and it would seem that Duke would have to make it through a Maryland team still determined to be the Blue Devils rival and UNC a week after Duke swept them in the regular season.  But Maryland is first on the docket and they will present some problems with their size. The key for Duke will be to hold Dez Wells down and if they can keep him from getting hot from beyond the three-point stripe, they should hold an advantage with their quickness and Kelly stretching the floor.  Look for Duke to try to take an early lead and I think we'll see a hungry Mason Plumlee wanting a little revenge on Alex Lin and company.

Watch the pace

I'm not looking for the blowout in any of the Blue Devils game in Greensboro in that it will be important for teams to pace themselves with three games in three days for the teams with a bye.  It would not surprise me to see Duke get deep into its bench tonight if they gain a comfortable working margin but then again, Krzyzewskis' bench shrinks when games are close and th Terps are formidable.

You do want to win the first one for seeding implications

Coach K and his team rarely if ever look ahead, but they know losing the opener against Maryland could jeopardize a possible number on seed.  Most of the media here sees Duke as th favorite and many feel they can seal a number one seed with just one win.  Of course, Duke has made a habit of cutting down nets in Greensboro and that is their goal.

Duke Basketball

The Thing About Seniors – A look at the Duke Senior Class

Now that Ryan Kelly is back in the fold, Duke has three seniors among its top seven players (based on minutes played). We hear a lot about how Duke's defensive schemes take a long time to master, and how RCP_2848 Coach K values his seniors. But just how important is that experience to Duke's NCAA tournament hopes?

Well, let's start with the question of how often it happens that three or more seniors are part of Duke's core rotation? Assuming the seven-man rotation Coach K favors at this point of the year, the answer is not very many. Here's the list:

2010: (3) Jon Scheyer, Lance Thomas, Brian Zoubek
2006: (4) JJ Redick, Shelden Williams, Sean Dockery, Lee Melchionni
1994: (3) Grant Hill, Antonio Lang, Marty Clark
1990: (3) Alaa Abdelnaby, Phil Henderson, Robert Brickey
1989: (3) Danny Ferry, John Smith, Quin Snyder
1986: (4) Johnny Dawkins, Mark Alarie, David Henderson, Jay Bilas

That's pretty good company for the 2013 Duke squad. Five of those six teams made the Final Four, and the other was the top overall seed in the NCAA tournament. Four of the six played in the national title game. Maybe there's something to this experience thing after all.

It's worth noting that the 1995 Duke team also had three seniors in its top seven minute-getters (Cherokee Parks, Eric Meek, Kenny Blakeney). I do not include that team on the list above for several reasons. Primarily, Coach K didn't coach that team for almost the entire ACC season. Based on his history and on the longer rotations used by interim Coach Gaudet, It's probable Coach K would have distributed minutes differently. Also, Blakeney was 7th in minutes on that team, but only because junior Chris Collins missed the teams first three games, otherwise Collins would have been 7th and Blakeney 8th in minutes. In any event, the relevance of 1995 in this discussion is limited since we're looking at a correlation between seniors and NCAA tournament success and the 1995 club missed the Big Dance.

If we're trying to make any kind of definitive statement, six data points isn't all that many. So let's look at all 28 of Coach K's NCAA tournament teams:

# of seniors Year # of NCAAT wins
4 1986 5
4 2006 2
3 1989 4
3 1990 5
3 1994 5
3 2010 6
2 1988 4
2 1992 6
2 1993 1
2 1997 1
2 1998 3
2 2001 6
2 2003 2
2 2009 2
2 2011 2
1 1984 0
1 1985 1
1 1987 2
1 1991 6
1 1996 0
1 1999 5
1 2000 2
1 2004 4
1 2005 2
1 2008 1
1 2012 0
0 2002 2
0 2007 0

Obviously it's not a perfect correlation. Duke's 1991 national champion, 1999 NCAA tournament finalist, and 2004 Final Four team all had just one senior in their rotations, while the 1993 and 1997 teams had two seniors and fared poorly in the tourney. Still the trend line appears pretty solid.

Here's a summary table:

# of seniors # of teams Avg # of NCAAT wins
3 or 4 6 4.5
2 9 3.0
0 or 1 13 1.9

I'm sure a statistician could do more with the data, but with this simple view one thing seems clear: historically, despite some exceptions, Duke tends to fare better in the tournament the more seniors it has among its top seven guys. True, it's probable many other teams could say the same, but none of those teams have seniors Mason Plumlee, Seth Curry, and Ryan Kelly leading the way this season. Whether or not Duke marches its way to Atlanta this April, at least we Duke fans are starting off with an advantage.