Thursday, February 22, 2007

Duke 71, Clemson 66

Tonight's game looked eerily similar to the last Clemson game, only the halves were even more dramatically different. Duke put up 41 points in 31 possessions in the first half, despite lots of foul trouble, by shooting lights out and not turning the ball over. They held Clemson to 6 of 23 from the field, and looked completely in control. Then Clemson came out like a team possessed in the second half. They shot 67% from 2 on their way to scoring 45 points in 36 possessions. Duke's shooting didn't really desert them, but they turned the ball over 11 times in 35 possessions, including 7 of the last 17 (aiee!). Actually, those last 17 possessions were remarkable for Duke. At times, they looked downright awful (seven turnovers). But when they held onto the ball, the execution was near perfect - 2o points in the 10 non-turnover possessions (though, admittedly, at least 4 of these possessions were end-game foul situations).

The up-and-down nature of this game is reflected in the chart below. Notice that the best player in the game for Duke (Scheyer) put up a -4 while he was on the court, and two guys who didn't take a single shot (Pocius and Zoubek) put up a +8 and a +12, respectively (in case you're scoring at home, that's Duke 37, Georgia Tech/Clemson 12 in the last two games with Marty on the court). Scheyer had a great shooting performance - it's rare when guys take more than a couple shots and have an EFG% over 1, but Jon pulled it off with a 1.083. Paulus had an up-and-down game himself - his outside shooting was great, and he dished out 6 assists, but he almost pulled off the dreaded points-turnovers double-double. With this win, I think it's safe to mark Duke as a lock for the tourney. Even if they lose out (not very likely), they'll be 21-11, 8-8 in the ACC, and owners of one of the better computer profiles among similar teams.

Player
O Poss. Points OPPP D Poss. Points DPPP
McRoberts ON 61 67 1.098 59 60 1.017

OFF 5 4 0.800 8 6 0.750
Scheyer ON 48 44 0.917 47 48 1.021

OFF 18 27 1.500 20 18 0.900
Nelson ON 59 69 1.169 59 60 1.017

OFF 7 2 0.286 8 6 0.750
Paulus ON 63 70 1.111 63 60 0.952

OFF 3 1 0.333 4 6 1.500
Henderson ON 25 23 0.920 28 28 1.000

OFF 41 48 1.171 39 38 0.974
McClure ON 35 35 1.000 35 37 1.057

OFF 31 36 1.161 32 29 0.906
Thomas ON 23 18 0.783 27 28 1.037

OFF 43 53 1.233 40 38 0.950
Zoubek ON 8 15 1.875 7 3 0.429

OFF 58 56 0.966 60 63 1.050
Pocius ON 8 14 1.750 10 6 0.600

OFF 58 57 0.983 57 60 1.053








Duke Overall
66 71 1.076 67 66 0.985

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