Will Duke Be Able To ‘Flip The Switch?’

Entering the ACC Tournament Duke has dropped 2 of its last 3 games, both on the road. One to a team playing for its NCAA life, the other to the hottest team in the ACC. Dropping two of the last three is not the way anyone wants to head into their conference tournament.

The recent losses have worried some Duke fans. Like me.

Some people think that Duke has yet to play its best ball. I beg to differ. I think they are past playing their best ball. They haven’t really made any progress on the offensive end in the past few games. They’ve been static and don’t seem to have the same toughness they did last year.

Right now, teams need to be playing better than they did the game before, or at least show some signs or growth. Last year, that was true of the Duke Blue Devils. Not this year. Yes, they have senior leadership, but so did the 2005-06 team and look what happened to them.

There are similarities with this years team and that team, which was led by seniors JJ Redick & Shelden Williams. That team hit their peak too early, lost a couple of games late in the season. They were able to rebound and win the ACC Tournament, but then they were bounced by LSU in the Sweet Sixteen because they did not have enough scoring options.

Every game (save the Georgia Tech game) since the first UNC game has been pretty much the same. Let Nolan Smith drive the ball into the lane, maybe he’ll shoot, maybe he’ll look for someone on the perimeter. That’s about it. Sometimes Kyle SIngler will get the ball, run around a screen and take a shot.

There doesn’t seem to be an effort to get the big men involved in the offense. Unlike last year, Duke does not have three guys to take care of the scoring game-in and game-out. During last years’ run, Duke could afford to have Brian Zoubek and Lance Thomas do nothing but rebound and play defense because Jon Scheyer was out on the perimeter with Smith & Singler.

This years team does not have that luxury. Smith and Singler will get their 40 points a game, but there is no consistent third scorer to help them out. Seth Curry has been the ‘third option’ most often, but he’s disappeared almost as frequently (Virginia Tech anyone?). Andre Dawkins has been more cold than hot recently. Ryan Kelly has all but vanished and the Plumlee’s can each play good games, but never at the same time.

All of these factors give me a sick feeling that, one, this team will not be able to win the ACC Tournament; and two, that getting knocked out in the Sweet 16 is more likely than a trip to Houston.

It would be nice if they come out and flip a switch in the ACC Tourney. They have a great opportunity to get off to a good start in their first game against either NC State or Maryland, they’ve beat both teams twice this season. After that they will most likely play either Florida State or Virginia Tech, two teams who have shown the ability to beat the Blue Devils this season.

I know that Coach K is a Hall-of-Fame coach and Duke has won 9 of the past 12 ACC Tournaments, but its not as easy as ‘flipping a switch’ once the post season starts. There needs to be growth, signs that something is happening and people are growing into their roles.

I am not seeing that right now and it has me worried. I hope I am wrong and that Duke will be able to turn in on, win the ACC Tournament. If that happens, I will gladly eat crow.

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Duke Comes Up Short Without A Third Scorer

So what went wrong?

Obviously it starts with the 3-point shooting, or lack thereof. Just 4-of-20. Twenty percent. Not good.

In all three of Duke’s losses the lack of 3s has been one of the main problems, but it wasn’t just that.

What else was the problem Sunday’s night? Duke has been able to overcome poor shooting nights from three this year and still win. (Maryland 6-21, Butler 8-26, Virginia 5-20, all these games Duke shot worse than at Florida State and still won.)

It wasn’t the defense. They held Virginia Tech to under 40% from the field and 32% from three. The Hokies missed plenty of shots from up close, most of which came with a Duke hand in their face. Nolan Smith held the conferences second leading scorer, Malcolm Delaney, to just 11 points on 4-of-15 shooting.

If it wasn’t the defense, then it had to be the offense. Coach K agreed.

“Our offense let us down tonight,” Blue Devils coach Mike Krzyzewski said.

I agree with that.

They shot under 40% from the field, including 20% from 3-point land and looked out of sorts all night. They had just 6 assists (a season low) on 23 baskets, a sign that Duke was playing too much of a one-on-one pro kind of game. Something that is very anti-Duke.

Duke also missed plenty of good looks. Ryan Kelly missed all of his 3-point shots with nary a hand in his face. Singler was just 1 of 7 from deep, and most of those were good, open looks.

What killed the team was the lack of a third scorer. Over the last 5 minutes Virginia Tech out rebounded and out shot Duke as they were able to concentrate on just two Duke shooters which lead to a 15-4 run to end the game. Smith and Singler were hounded and looked reluctant to pass the ball to someone else on the floor.

Smith and Singler attempted to do everything themselves and couldn’t. They didn’t have that third scorer on the floor who could take the pressure off them. They are one player short of the ‘Big Three’ from last year, and it cost them.

There is no Jon Scheyer in the wings to save this years team, and that should scare most Duke fans.

Duke Looks To Repeat, But…

Weren’t we here last year?

The similarities between this years team and last years team run deep.

A Duke Blue Devil team trying to figure out exactly who they are.
A struggling Kyle Singler.
A Duke guard on the road to becoming ACC Player of the Year.
Big men who look to rebound first, get the ball back to the perimeter shooters second and score third.
The borderline 1-slash-2 seed.
The embarrassing loss to a Big East team.
The most recent victory over a non-ACC team.
26-2 this year, 24-4 last year.

So does that mean a loss at Virginia Tech is on the horizon, just like last when they lost at Maryland? Could senior Malcolm Delaney pull a Greivis Vasquez and will his team to victory over Duke? It’s a game that Virginia Tech needs to win to solidify their post season resume, so you know they will come out all guns blazing.

There is one glaring difference between this years team and last. And, no, its not Zoubek’s epic beard.

The big difference is last year Duke was led by ‘The Big Three’, this year its been ‘The Big Two’. Just like in math, three is better than two. Three is safer than two as well. How many two-legged stools have you ever sat on? Ones that you bought at IKEA don’t count, those Swedes know how to defy gravity.

This year, the ‘Big Two’ has morphed into the ‘Big One-and-Three-Quarters’. Nolan Smith has been even better than anyone could have hoped, but Singler has hardly played up to his preseason predictions and that ‘third scorer’ that every teams needs, has yet to fully emerge.

Right now, that third scorer role is being filled by Seth Curry, but at different times this year its been Andre Dawkins, Ryan Kelly and even Mason Plumlee. Curry has proven to be able to come up big in big games (UNC) and has the best overall game for being Duke’s ‘third scorer’, he can spot up or drive to the hoop. It was nice to see Curry come up big in a tough game because Duke is going to need a game like that from one of those guys to make it to Houston.

Without a true third scorer, this years team reminds me of the 2005-06 team. A team with two outstanding players (Redick & Williams) and a bunch of other guys who could score in double digits [Freshmen Josh McRoberts & Greg Paulus; Sophomore DeMarcus Nelson; Seniors Sean Dockery & Lee Melchionni], but didn’t do it often enough to be called a ‘third scorer.’
Those other guys combined for 35.3 points in 2005-06. This year, those other guys [Curry, Dawkins, Kelly & both Plumlees] combine for 36.5.

You remember that team, don’t you? Number one for the majority of the season, but you were never really comfortable with them, at least I wasn’t. I felt they were over rated for the entire season, but when you start 17-0 and 27-1, its tough not to stay in the top 3 all season. Then, in the Sweet 16 against LSU, when Redick shot 3-of-18 (11 points), Duke needed that third scorer to avoid losing to an inferior team. They didn’t get it, McRoberts had 9, Paulus has 7, Nelson had 4.

Last year Duke could absorb a bad game by one of the Big Three, even during the tournament run. Singler was 0-10 from the floor versus Baylor in the Elite 8 and Duke still able to win behind a career game from Smith and advance.

This year they would be hard pressed to win such a game, in fact, they were. In the UNC game, Singler was held in check and it took an all-world effort from Nolan Smith and a huge game from Curry. They scored over 70% of Duke’s points that game, that is not something they can count for any stretch of time.

The one thing that Duke hasn’t had to deal with since Kyrie Irving went out also happens to be every Duke fans worst nightmare.

Nolan Smith having a bad game.

Right now, I don’t think that Duke would be able to win a game where Smith has a bad game. Singler would step up, but who else would be there to carry the load for the Blue Devils?

And that is the big difference between this year and last. And why 3 is always better than 2.

Life Without Irving? Not The End Of The Road

Did the injury to Kyrie Irving happen to the right Duke team at the right time?

When top ranked teams lose one of their top three players things usually go south from there. Duke has been lucky in the past years that they haven’t had an injury that crippled the team, leading to a 500 season or worse.

Can you imagine last years’ team losing Jon Scheyer? They most certainly don’t win the National Championship and probably don’t even get past the Sweet 16. Who becomes the third scoring option on that team? How slow do they have to play with just two guards?

What about the 2005-06 team losing Shelden Williams? Who plays inside next to freshman Josh McRoberts? Freshmen Jamal Boykin and Eric Boatang? How about an undersized and outweighed Lee Melchionni? No chance in hell that team starts 27-1 or wins the ACC Championship. JJ Redick would have needed to average 40+ points per game just to keep that team afloat. It would have been fun to watch Redick hoist 15 3-pointers a game, but they wouldn’t have got very far.
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This years team has been able to handle the loss of Irving because of the quality of their depth. Without question this is the deepest Duke team in recent memory. The 2008-09 team may have been deeper in players (nine people averaged 12 minutes a game), but this team has more talent.

The trio of healthy guards (Nolan Smith, Seth Curry and Andre Dawkins) may be the best at Duke in 10 years. The big men may be the most athletic ever in Durham. Having a pair of All-American candidates (Smith and Singler) definately helps save this team from free falling back into the pack of weak ACC teams.

They have looked good in the three games without Irving, but they haven’t played anyone that could scare them. Not only has losing one of their best three players happened during a season where they had plenty of talent, but his injury occurred at the right time of the season. Duke has played just three games in the past three weeks, all against cupcakes. This has allowed them to make the adjustment to an Irving-free offense at game speed without a real threat of losing.

While the injury to Irving removed the ‘over-whelming National Champion favorite’ tag from Duke, it hasn’t crippled them. Now the tag reads ‘another Championship contender’, which is fine by me because it means we still have a good chance to repeat. With or without Irving.

No Kyrie Irving… No Problem

The Duke Blue Devils may have to learn to live without Kyrie Irving, but it doesn’t appear the learning curve is going to be steep.

Nolan Smith led the team in scoring in his second game as primary ball-handler, scoring 22 points in a 84-47 win over Saint Louis. After scoring just two points in the first game Smith is “getting more comfortable running the point guard position, and the coaches have been telling me, once I give it up, they want me to stay in scoring mindset,” he said. “Just attacking, looking to make plays — kind of like [Jon Scheyer] did last year. That’s what they’re telling me to do.”

Its good the coaches want him to make plays more like Jon Scheyer, all Scheyer did was lead Duke to a National Championship, but Smith needs to remember that he is quicker and more explosive than Scheyer. In the Bradley game he seemed to forget this, settling for shots and looking for others. He did have 10 assists, but was 0-for-8 from the field and looked nothing like the player he was last season.

Smith was that player against Saint Louis. Driving to the hoop -often with spectacular results- and not settling for the outside shot. He only had five assists, but played a much better game, running the offense more efficiently.

Two games without Irving, two completely different looks. Just like in previous seasons when injuries hit, Coach K has shuffled rotations and offenses to find what works best.

On Wednesday against Bradley, Duke was a jump shooting team, attempting 33 three-pointers. Duke attempted only 10 three-pointers versus Saint Louis, preferring to drive to the hoop. Coincidentally, that translated into 25 free throw attempts on Saturday. They managed just 10 free throws in the Bradley game.

Seth Curry added 11 points and Josh Hairston had a career high 12 points in 15 minutes. Before the injury to Kyrie Irving, Hairston was heading for a season of DNPs on his stat sheet. The subtraction of a point guard, has altered the rotation to allow the wing forward more playing time and he has responded well.

The other freshman, Tyler Thornton, will also see more playing time. The only other true point guard had a career best four assists against Saint Louis as his role continues to change without Irving.

Duke enters finals week a perfect 10-0 and doesn’t play again until next Monday, at home against Elon. Expect more adjustments and different combinations on the floor as Duke learns to cope without their stellar point guard running the show.

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