Sunday, December 02, 2007

Duke 79, Davidson 73

I unfortunately did not get to watch this one - no ESPNU at the house, and no sports bars in the greater Seattle area open at 9am (why 9am is too early to enjoy a beer and a ballgame is beyond me). It sounds like it was an excellent contest, with Davidson employing the pick-and-roll especially well (note: very few teams do this well - it will likely only be a problem again this year if we play Georgetown in the tournament). Duke kept Davidson at bay throughout the game, getting spurts at key moments to ensure that the lead was never relinquished. Henderson and Paulus both played excellent games - both seem to be willing to take a shot at key moments, and both made some big defensive plays (a highlight reel block for Henderson, a key steal for Paulus) in the second half to help keep the spread.

Close games are probably 70% luck and 30% execution. Last year, we lost a lot of close games because we relied entirely on the luck component - the '06-'07 Devils were not a team that executed very well down the stretch. This season's team has executed substantially better, and that has helped swing the luck back in Duke's favor a little bit. That's not saying that Duke was lucky to have won either this game or the Marquette game - only that this year's team is better suited for the late-and-tight situations than last year's team (which lost almost every late-and-tight game after Dec. 1).

Here's the HD Box:




O. Poss D. Poss +/- Pts 2PM-A 3PM-A FTM-A FGA Ast TO STL BLK ORB DRB
Henderson 60 58 +16 21/66 7-14 1-3 4-5 17/42 4/14 4/60 0/58 3/51 1/25 7/33
Thomas 48 47 +10 4/50 2-2 0-0 0-0 2/35 0/16 0/48 0/47 0/49 2/21 0/38
Paulus 60 59 +7 11/66 1-1 3-6 0-0 7/46 4/19 3/60 1/59 0/54 0/28 4/33
Singler 56 57 +3 14/58 3-5 2-5 2-4 10/43 3/16 3/56 0/57 1/52 1/27 11/34
King 22 20 +1 3/25 0-2 1-4 0-3 6/20 1/7 1/22 0/20 0/17 3/14 0/7
Zoubek 7 8 +1 0/11 0-0 0-0 0-0 0/6 0/3 0/7 0/8 0/7 0/3 0/3
Smith 14 16 -1 0/13 0-0 0-0 0-0 0/11 0/4 1/14 1/16 0/14 0/8 1/10
Scheyer 48 48 -2 15/55 2-4 2-4 5-5 8/41 2/14 1/48 1/48 0/43 0/27 4/22
McClure 0 1 -2 0/0 0-0 0-0 0-0 0/0 0/0 0/0 0/1 0/1 0/0 0/0
Nelson 55 56 -3 11/51 1-4 2-3 3-6 7/41 3/15 2/55 0/56 1/52 3/27 2/35
Duke 74 74 +6 79 16-32 11-25 14-23 57 17/27 16/74 3/74 5/68 10/36 30/43





0.500 0.440 0.609
62.96 21.62 4.05 7.35 27.78 69.77

It's tough to say without having seen the game, but these numbers suggest that Thomas had the most success of all our bigs defending the pick-and-roll. It was Davidson's bread and butter offense, and the fact that they scored just 40 points in the 47 possessions while he was on the court at least raises the possibility that his presence helped cut down those easy baskets. Also, notice the assist distribution among the Duke players - two with 4, two with 3, and four others with at least 1 assist. The Devils may not have a dominant assist-man this year, but the team as a whole moves and shares the ball well.

Duke team and player stats and lineup stats are updated through today's game. For ACC stats, I've decided to drop my coverage, and refer you here for player stats, and here for team stats. Once the conference slate gets started, I'll likely resume the team conference-only stats, but I doubt I'll have time to maintain the player leaderboard.

3 comments:

Brad S said...

How do the relative efficiencies of UNC and Duke against Davidson compare?

I listened to part of the Duke game, and they appeared to be up easily in the 1st half (~16 pts), not sure what happened to tighten it up later -- well, presumably it was Curry.

Paul Rugani said...

UNC-Davidson was more of a defensive game, while Duke-Davidson was a better offensive game. UNC put up just a 93.5 offensive efficiency, which was a worse performance than any game last season (it has since been topped - or bottomed, depending on your perspective - just barely, with a 93.0 against Ohio St.). Carolina already has three offensive performances in the 90s, which is one more than all of last season.

Can't authoritatively answer the second question, as I didn't see the game, but my understanding is that it's some combination of our shooting going a little cold and them pick-and-rolling us to death.

Michael said...

Duke took a 43-28 lead in the first half and looked comfortably in control. After a couple defensive lapses, the score was 43-32 at half. Coming out into the 2nd half, Duke turned it over twice and Paulus launched an ill-advised, contested 3 that was basically an airball straight into Curry's hands. Off of the first 2 possessions, Davidson scored 5 points, and Curry hit a 3 in transition after the Paulus airball.

After that, Duke calmed down and controlled the game, taking as much as a 12 point lead with under 5 minutes to go.