Caught Up

Well exams are finally over and I'm finally caught up with defensive ratings. I haven't tallied them for the season yet, and probably won't until after the Pitt game tonight.

Speaking of the Pitt game, this should be a really exciting game and a great test for Duke since DeJuan Blair is clearly the most skilled and powerful big man Duke has faced all year. We have heard so much from the "experts" about how Duke will struggle defending the post this year, so this will be an illustrative game.

Pitt is an interesting team. They lost 3 key seniors from last year's Sweet 16 squad (Graves, Gray, Kendall) but might be better this year with the addition of super-frosh DeJuan Blair, a 6'7" 250 lb post player with very long arms who shoots 57.6% eFG, is a monstrous rebounding (21.9% ORB rate, 24.0% DRB rate) and who is an excellent defender (7.9% block rate, 6.4% steal rate - wow). Their point guard, Fields, has been excellent for them all year, sporting something like a 3.5 A:T ratio. Sam Young is probably their best overall player, an athletic junior 6'6" swingman who can rebound very well (9% ORB rate, 19.5% DRB rate), and shoot 3s (14 for 25 on the year). He plays the most minutes with the highest usage rate.

In addition to those three main pieces, Pitt has a few guys who can shoot really well from 3 (Ramon and Cook both shot over 40% last year). They have 6 upperclassmen in their 8 man rotation (3 seniors, 3 juniors) and have a ton of experience playing in the Garden and on a big stage.

Duke's advantage will be depth. Despite the fact that Pitt plays 8 guys 10 minutes or more and a 9th about 9 minutes, Pitt doesn't have real depth in the sense that outside of Fields, Young and Blair, their offensive weapons taper off a little. Cook and Ramon can shoot 3s, but neither can carry their team. Offensively they are an excellent rebounding team and take care of the ball. They are a pretty good shooting team overall but it must be remembered that they have not played the best defenses this year.

Blair, for all his dominance, doesn't play a whole lot - a bit over 20 minutes. I suppose that is related to early conditioning issues, or maybe foul problems (that, I don't know). At any rate, you have to expect that Fields will play more than he has all year on a stage like this, and that Young and Blair's performance will be paramount for the Panthers to pull off the win. When they are sitting, you have to think Duke has a huge advantage because 1 through 8, Duke does not see a huge drop in talent.

Of most interest to me will be seeing how Duke deals with Blair when he is playing. Who will guard him? With Lance Thomas questionable, you have to think a guy like McClure would see a fair amount of time on Blair. Obviously Zoubek will at times, but I worry about that match-up because Zoubek is better suited guarding other really tall guys, whereas Blair is smaller with great strength and mobility.

For Duke a lot of this will just ride on how we shoot. Pitt is pretty good defensively, but no team thus far has really been able to contain our perimeter attack and prevent open looks from 3 or in the lane. A big question for me is, how will they guard Duke? Some teams this year have guarded Duke by trying to prevent the penetration with a zone or with a lot of help defense, and in all cases so far, they have been burned from 3. It's really hard to catch this Duke team on an "off night" shooting because 7 guys are greenlit to shoot 3s whenever they are open, and of those guys 6 are up near or above 40%. If Scheyer is off one night, King might be on. If both are off, Paulus is probably on. Nelson has been on fire from 3 recently as well. Albany's game plan (granted, it was Albany) was to take away the 3s, and Duke still managed to create 26 good looks from 3 and hit 15 of them.

Obviously the other big issue will be rebounding. What will Duke do to keep Pitt off their offensive glass? So far this year, Duke has played 2 very good offensive rebounding teams in Illinois and Wisconsin, and against Wisconsin, we did a very good job limiting second chance opportunities, whereas against Illinois we clearly didn't. I felt that Illinois game was sort of "flukey" because a number of offensive rebounds bounced around in scrums and ended up in Illinois' possession, and we should all know from Football outsiders that fumble recovery is largely a product of luck.

Finally of interest is foul trouble. Pitt has had a pretty poor free throw rate thus far (even Blair has), so that suggests that they aren't quite as aggressive attacking the basket as other teams like North Carolina or even Duke. It will be important for Zoubek, McClure, and Singler to stay out of foul trouble.

If Duke can execute offensively, stay out of foul trouble and limit Pitt's second chances reasonably, then I can almost guarantee that Duke wins. None of that is written in stone though.

Exams

I'm facing about a couple weeks of studying/writing papers to finish up the semester, so it might be a bit before I'm completely caught up on defensive stats/ratings from the Wisconsin and Davidson games. Luckily for both this blog and the Duke team (6 games in 12 days), there is not another game until next Saturday (home against Michigan - who lost to Harvard in what I consider an appropriate and poetic statement) - I should be caught up by then.

Duke 82 Wisconsin 58

Coming into this game, Wisconsin had given up just .679 ppp all year, completely dominating the defensive glass (grabbing 81% of possible defensive boards) and playing overall suffocating defense, holding teams to 25.9% from beyond the arc and 37.9% from inside the arc. Against Duke, they looked lost tonight as Duke spread the floor and hit 9 3s in the first half on their way to a 48-25 halftime lead.

A couple of days ago, I identified some points to look for in the game. To follow up:

• What will Wisconsin guard? Well at first it seemed like nothing. On the inside, the Badgers did a good job collapsing and preventing good looks. I was also impressed how hard they hustled back on run-outs. They didn't show Duke a zone and none of their guards were capable of really containing Henderson or Nelson's penetration. Duke had very few bad looks as a result, and took a big lead early.
• Rebounding. Not surprisingly, Wisconsin did a good job rebounding the ball, but Duke also did a great job preventing Wisconsin to get the kind of second chance opportunities that Illinois had. Illinois grabbed 18 offensive rebounds to Duke's 23 defensive rebounds, whereas Wisconsin grabbed 17 offensive rebounds to Duke's 28 defensive rebounds (37.8% ORB for Wisconsin - close to 6% lower than their season average). Duke's good work on the defensive glass allowed for the smaller Devils to push the tempo well.
• Pace. On this, I was wrong. Well, sort of. I said that the game would probably not be fast paced. I anticipated a game more like Illinois where both teams kept good care of the ball. Well, Duke rebounded well on the defensive glass (as noted) and forced 18 turnovers on 74 possessions (basically 1 in 4 possessions). Furthermore, after a couple of games where Duke played a more normal pace, the Devils pushed the ball every possession hard and rarely waited long before finding a good shot.
  
• Foul trouble. Duke's defensive pressure actually caused some minor early foul trouble on Duke's guards, with only Lance Thomas really suffering from foul trouble in the paint. Zoubek ended up playing a much smaller role than I anticipated - though it's not surprising why. Early on Duke tried to attack Wisconsin with superior quickness - and the formula worked spectacularly. Furthermore, with King on fire (5 for 9 from behind the arc) and Singler playing well too, the line-up that seemed to see a lot of time included King and Singler at forward positions.
  

Some additional notes on the game:

• 8 players played double digit minutes with Zoubek played 7. Zoubek dropped some rebounds, but overall played well defensively and had one nice post move that was negated by an iffy offensive foul. I still have hope!
• Can we lavish King with any more superlatives? While all the national focus is on Singler (and quite deservedly so), King has quietly shot 19 for 37 from behind the arc and has an eFG% of 71% for the season to date. Add to that that he has turned it over on only 7.2% of his possessions, has a defensive rebounding rate of 19.3%, an assist rate of 11%, a steal rate of 3.4%, and a block rate of 5.2% and he's looking to be one of the big steals of this class. I have always thought King would be a dangerous weapon to have, but I never dreamed that he could have such a knack for causing turnovers and just playing smart basketball. He will be the next great hated Duke player - a leftie white guy who is animated, shoots 3s and isn't particularly athletic. I just hope we'll have the guns around so he won't have to carry the team like JJ did.
• Greg Paulus is shooting north of 46% from 3. Jon Scheyer is shooting 50%. Taylor King is shooting over 51% from 3. Duke as a team is shooting 42.4% now. Frankly I don't care if Duke is dependent on the 3 point shot if they shoot at this clip. For the record, the team is shooting 58.1% eFG for the season with just a 20.6% TO rate. I'd like to see the turnovers be reduced even more (tonight's game against Wisconsin was a good example of how we can avoid stupid turnovers).
  
• Gerald Henderson is evolving into a star. For the season, he now uses 27% of Duke's possessions at about 109 efficiency. His turnovers are down (15.9% TO rate), his rebounds are up (16.4% DRate), has a good assist rate (13.6%), and has the 3rd highest block rate on the team (4.5%, behind King's 5.2% and Zoubek's 8%).
  
• Wisconsin turned it over on 1/4th of their possessions, which is a full 7% higher than their season average of 17.8%.
  

In other ACC/Big 10 news:

• The ACC is clowning the Big 10

That's all.

Duke 78 EKU 43

Duke beat Eastern Kentucky by 35 yesterday (78-43) in a game that is hardly worth mentioning. EKU played a strange zone and tried to prevent Duke's penetration while disguising the defense as man (thus, enticing players to try to drive to the basket). To their credit, it frustrated Duke's offense, holding the Devils to 12 points in the first 10 minutes. After some offensive adjustments, Duke went on to score 66 in the next 30 minutes of play.

Interesting stats:

• Duke had the worst game of the year in terms of turnovers, turning it over 20 times in about 69-70 possessions. Luckily the Devils also shot 67% eFG from the field. A game this sloppy in the future will mean a loss. Hopefully the Devils go back to being careful with the ball.
• Duke is shooting 41.7% from behind the arc for the season, and over 57% from inside the arc.
  
• Taylor King and Jon Scheyer are 25 for 48 from beyond the arc on the season.
  
• King has a 139.3 individual efficiency and almost 25% usage so far, with only 3 turnovers. Classic catch and shoot player. He was described in HS as a "stick of dynamite" and I'm not sure a better analogy could ever exist.

Anyway, another tough game tomorrow against Wisconsin. Since Wisconsin is in the Big 10, they are obviously a great rebounding team (if you can't score, you need to be able to at least rebound), and they're big and physical and very good defensively. They don't turn it over often. They have lost a lot of offense from last year. They aren't a very good shooting team. Sounds like Illinois in some ways.

Things to watch out for:

• What will Wisconsin guard? If they try to man-up, Nelson and Henderson will have to be in attack mode offensively. If they play a softer man or a zone, look for lineups with King, Scheyer, and Paulus to get a fair amount of floor time.
  
• There's almost no question that Wisconsin will outrebound Duke - the question is will it matter? Can Duke guard offensive rebounds that lead directly to points? Can Duke shoot well enough to not need offensive rebounds? So far Duke has shot very well from the field, but didn't guard Illinois particularly well when trying to score off the offensive glass. Look for that to be a point of emphasis.
• The game will not likely be fast paced. Coach K has said that this team will play a more up-tempo game than last year's team. That is true, but an essential part of playing up-tempo will be causing turnovers against a stingy Wisconsin team. The game won't be as fast as Duke wants unless the Devils can control the defensive glass pretty well or force a fair number of open court turnovers.
• Who is in foul trouble? Zoubek will probably play a reasonably big role in this game. If he commits dumb, quick fouls, Duke could find itself severely out muscled in the middle.
  

Prediction? Let's say, Duke 76, Wisconsin 59

Duke 77 Marquette 73 and Season comparison thus far

This was a huge win for Duke. The difference was that in the first half (where we enjoyed our biggest lead), we only turned it over 4 times. We made a number of stupid mistakes in the 2nd half and Marquette got back into the game. We shot the ball very well and were led by Singler and Nelson's exceptional efforts. The other difference maker from last year is that while last year Dominic James was 9 for 15 for 25 points and McNeal had 17 points and 6 rebounds, this year we gave James different looks, putting a healthy Paulus on him, putting Smith on him, putting Nelson on him, changing up and playing some zone and even putting Singler on him for a couple of possessions. This year James shot 4 for 16 and McNeal only had 7 shots and 4 fouls.

Had we taken better care of the ball in the second half, I think Duke would have won fairly easily. Even so, the close game was a good experience for this Duke team.

In lieu of posting specific stats for this game, I've decided that since the 06-07 season started with a schedule similar to this year, that I would compare the stats for our returning players and for the team for the first 5 games of last year against the first 5 games of this year.

		Duke				Opp.
	2006		2007		2006		2007
eFG%	57.1%		58.0%		40.7%		45.4%
TO%	26.6%		19.5%		24.4%		25.9%
ORB %	43.7%		37.9%		31.2%		31.4%
FT Rate	35.1%		29.3%		28.5%		31.0%
Tempo	66		74
Offensive Efficiency	110.7		120.6
Defensive Efficiency	81.1		85.7
3-Point FG %	46.2%		41.6%		27.5%		35.0%
2-Point FG%	53.9%		55.8%		40.5%		42.6%
Free Throw %	72.3%		73.8%		62.3%		67.1%
Block %	13.2%		13.7%		6.2%		7.8%
Steal %	13.7%		13.6%		11.5%		7.6%
3PA/FGA	21.2%		32.9%		29.6%		28.2%
A/FGM	53.1%		52.9%		45.5%		51.3%

Player		eFG%		TO%		Floor%		Efficiency		Usage		PPG
Demarcus Nelson	2006	64.6%		21.1%		56.1%		116.7		21.7%		13.3
	2007	55.4%		19.3%		55.5%		111.6		22.0%		12.7
Jon Scheyer	2006	54.7%		20.0%		51.0%		124.5		13.2%		8.7
	2007	62.5%		17.3%		55.9%		128.5		16.8%		10.4
Greg Paulus	2006	47.6%		46.2%		38.1%		83.6		23.9%		7.6
	2007	58.6%		24.5%		50.9%		117.7		16.7%		9.6
Gerald Henderson	2006	44.4%		13.6%		51.3%		95.5		23.1%		5.6
	2007	53.9%		11.5%		56.6%		114.0		24.8%		11.9
Lance Thomas	2006	60.0%		23.0%		57.8%		107.0		22.8%		8.4
	2007	57.9%		15.0%		65.5%		124.5		12.9%		6.7
Brian Zoubek	2006	65.2%		29.9%		57.9%		112.3		38.4%		8.3
	2007	61.1%		20.4%		61.0%		121.5		19.5%		5.9
Marty Pocius	2006	50.0%		45.9%		27.6%		65.9		15.0%		1.4
	2007	54.6%		21.6%		52.6%		119.9		25.8%		5.5
Kyle Singler		65.6%		20.2%		60.8%		128.4		23.3%		14.9
Taylor King		61.5%		12.7%		49.9%		122.7		23.2%		5.8
Nolan Smith		43.8%		27.3%		45.2%		97.1		24.8%		6.4

• It's clear that every player has improved. What's interesting is that Nelson was playing as well, roughly, last year for the first 5 games as he did for the rest of the season. He was a big part of Duke's early season success, and when he became less of a factor last year, obviously, Paulus became much more of an offensive factor. At this point last year, however, Nelson had played 159 minutes. This year he has played 140 (which averages to 28 a game). I think we'll find Nelson a stronger presence by season's end as a result.
• Even though Duke's defense has been a fair bit less efficient this year than at this time last year, the difference hasn't been a result of McRoberts' absence. Most people thought we'd have trouble defending near the basket and rebounding defensively without McRoberts in the line-up. Thus far, the difference has been that teams have shot 35% against us from beyond the arc, something that simply cannot continue. In addition, at this point last year, teams were shooting around 62% from the free throw line (by the end of the year teams shot 69% from the line), and this year teams are shooting 67% - so clearly, we will give up more points from the line (a more realistic number, actually). We've done as good a job defensively rebounding as we did last year at this time, and caused more turnovers. In addition, our block rate is nearly identical to what it was last year, even though teams are shooting about 2% better from inside the arc.
  
• Offensively we are tremendously improved. We are actually rebounding offensively worse than last year at this time (though a 38% ORB rate would be great for the season if we keep it up), but our turnovers are the real key. It's amazing what turning the ball over on 7% fewer possessions opens up - over 10 more points per 100 possessions.
• Lance Thomas so far this year has a free throw rate of 89.5. In other words, he has taken 17 free throws and only 19 shots from the field.
• Paulus' improvement is most stark. Not only is he turning the ball over much less often (10 turnovers vs 21 from last year - in a faster paced game), but he's shooting a higher percentage and playing much better defense.
• Last year at this time we had 25 blocks, 13 of them from McRoberts. This year, we have 28 blocks with no one logging over 6.
• We have 8 fewer steals this year than we had last year at this time - without McClure, who had 10 by himself. I think he will be an invaluable defensive addition to our line-up later in this season.
• As can be seen, all freshmen are playing well. Smith is having the hardest time acclimating himself offensively, but he looked improved against Marquette and had a solid Maui tournament. King has only played 55 minutes, probably because of his defense and because of Singler's exceptional play, but when he has been on the court, he's been a great offensive weapon.
  

Happy Turkey day!

Duke 79 Illinois 66

Again, Duke slowed it down and allowed the deficit to shrink a bit at the expense of wasting time. As a result, this was Duke's lowest scoring game of the year so far and the slowest paced game of the season, but a very efficient game for Duke. This is a good, tough, physical Illinois team that we beat tonight and it's a good, quality win.

Tomorrow night we have a rematch with Marquette from last year. Instead of providing in depth stats for tonight's game and tomorrow's game, I'm going to provide a up-to-this point in the season comparison between Duke 07-08 and Duke 06-07 since both squads will have played Marquette and 1 other quality team in the first 5 games. Obviously Duke started 4-1 last year. Marquette looked exceptional today against Oklahoma State - but OSU also looked very emotionless and stale. Marquette will be a great test for us, but even if we lose the game, I think we'll compare very favorably to last year's team. However, I think we can win.

Fun stats from tonight:

• Duke scored over 1.22 points per possession with only a 21.7% offensive rebounding rate. That happens when you shoot 64.4% (26 for 45 overall, 6 for 14 from 3) from the field and only turn it over on 17% of your possessions.
• Rebounding was a problem for us tonight - Illinois rebounded 43.9% of their available O-boards, while we only grabbed the aforesaid 21.7%. This is not shocking - Illinois was one of the better defensive rebounding teams last season, grabbing over 70% of available boards. They were a good, but not great, offensive rebounding team. But then again, a lot of their boards tonight on the offensive glass really just slipped right through Duke players' hands.
  
• Illinois only turned it over 10 times - but Duke played exceptional perimeter defense even so. They shot just 21 for 61 from the field, 4 for 15 from 3. We contained penetration very well. I wonder if this was an intentional strategy by the staff or more of an inability to cause turnovers. Either way, Duke will need to disrupt Marquette's guard play to throw off their offense. If James and McNeal are having a tough time getting good looks, Duke will probably win.
  

Duke 83 Princeton 61

I think the final score belies the nature of the game. Duke jumped out to a 31-4 lead and basically coasted the rest of the game, easing up on the defensive pressure a little and slowing the tempo a little. Perhaps it was a good tactical decision knowing that there is another game to be played tomorrow in a hot, humid gym where cramps are notoriously ubiquitous. I'm amused and shocked by the alarmist fans who consider a game where we led by 30 multiple times in the 2nd half after jumping out to a 31-4 lead to be unimpressive.

But hey, what about Kyle Singler, eh?

Player Stats		Eff.		Usage		Floor%		Real D-Rat		Real Stop%		%Dposs
Kyle Singler		136.1		29.0%		62.3%		76.0		70.2%		19.5%
Lance Thomas		117.3		16.5%		63.8%		86.6		4.4%		5.2%
Greg Paulus		100.5		15.9%		44.1%		83.5		44.1%		10.1%
Gerald Henderson		133		19.8%		66.3%		82.7		48.0%		14.1%
DeMarcus Nelson		102		18.9%		52.4%		67.6		84.1%		26.6%
Nolan Smith		83		18.2%		40.1%		40.4		113.4%		41.5%
Martynas Pocius		65.6		19.3%		31.0%		78.1		67.6%		15.4%
Dave McClure		N/A		N/A		N/A		62.3		76.5%		44.2%
Taylor King		108		18.3%		46.3%		86.7		31.0%		15.8%
Jon Scheyer		145.7		16.1%		70.0%		81.4		52.7%		17.5%
Brian Zoubek		104.2		25.9%		54.3%		79.9		52.6%		30.3%

Team Stats		Duke		Opp.
eFG%		49.32%		54.26%
TO%		15.04%		27.91%
ORB %		48.72%		9.09%
FT Rate		13.51%		29.79%
Tempo		73.13
Offensive Efficiency		113.50
Defensive Efficiency		83.42
3-Point FG %		25.00%		50.00%
2-Point FG%		53.70%		45.45%
Free Throw %		66.67%		71.43%
Block %		12.12%		5.56%
Steal %		16.75%		5.47%
3PA/FGA		27.03%		29.79%
A/FGM		38.24%		40.91%

• The conventional box score limits how impressive Singler's performance was tonight. Not only did he grab 1 out of 5 defensive boards he could have grabbed, but he had 9 offensive rebounds, nearly 35% of the boards he could have grabbed on the offensive end. That all being said, I don't feel that Singler carried Duke at all. I feel like he did some little things that really helped, and I feel like he was the benefactor of good team play. He's a quiet player, but the ultimate and perfect team player.
• Most shocking really is the differential in eFG%. eFG% is the most important stat correlated with winning, and yet Duke shot about 5% worse from the field than Princeton and won. What should we take away from a performance like this? Well, first of all, in spite of the poor shooting, we were pretty efficient on offense because we took care of the ball. Only 11 turnovers on 73 possessions. The completely dominance of the offensive glass was also pretty helpful.
• Princeton came into this game taking 3s on over half of their shots. Tonight they only took 14 3s on 47 total shots. In spite of shooting very well from the outside, Princeton was just not able to produce many points from their outside shooting. Inside the arc, Duke shot well (almost 54%) and Princeton shot poorly (around 45%).
  
• I don't know that I've seen a Duke team this aggressive on the boards. Singler and King both contribute a lot and, I think, will more than make up for the loss of McRoberts.
• Poor 3 point shooting again - which is 2 out of the first 3 games of the season. I didn't really feel a lot of these shots were forced either. Should we be concerned, or at least happy that we are getting good looks at this point in the year?
• Defensively, the perimeter really dominated. Smith in particular had an excellent offensive game, being credited with 2 steals, and forcing 2 other turnovers. He's struggled offensively these last two games, but there's no doubt that defensively he's very gifted (though he certainly showed his lack of experience letting a very easy backdoor cut go for a basket - one of 3 baskets he allowed tonight). McClure (playing out on the perimeter) and Nelson both contributed substantially to the overall defensive effort.

Overall hard to be too upset. I wish we had shot better, but we sort of hit cruise control once we took a 30 point lead. We'll most likely play Illinois tomorrow (who currently leads Arizona State and the Love Boat 47-31 with about 15 minutes left) which should provide us with an interesting test. We will need to play 40 minutes that game, and pressure pressure pressure. Of all the teams here, we should be the most capable of sustaining hard play for 40 minutes because of our depth. Let's see it tomorrow.

Thursday Thursday

Duke doesn't play again until Monday, a first round game in the sweltering Chaminade gym in Maui against Princeton. In the mean time, there is a lot of college basketball being played.

• It's not exactly a bold prediction, but I noted last week that UNC had played sloppy offensive basketball in their two exhibition games, and would be in for a fight if they did so against Davidson. Sure enough, the Heels came out sloppy in their half-court and transition offense, and had only a 7 point lead at half-time. UNC came out looking rusty again in the 2nd half and saw their lead evaporate. Until the end of the game, Davidson stuck right with the Heels, taking advantage of turnovers and effectively doubling Hansbrough. Roy Williams played Danny Green (a 6'5" wing) at the 4 spot in a very unconventional showing of small-ball. UNC escaped with a 4 point win in what a lot of Tar Heel fans are calling a big win against a quality team. Well, maybe. Stephen Curry is also 19 for 52 for 44.2% eFG (made 8 3s) against ACC teams in 3 games. I just think UNC played a really bad game.
• John Gasaway just published his preview of the Big East, part 1, and I wholeheartedly endorse his conclusion that Roy Hibbert is both underrated, and a dominant force in college basketball. In fact, Hibbert is my pre-season vote for National Player of the Year over a certain farm boy down the road. Why? Hibbert brought dominance to both sides of the ball last year like no other returning player. From his 130.8 efficiency and 22.8% usage, to his 67.1% eFG, his amazing 9.3% TO rate, his superlative 14.6% ORB rate and his exceptional 11.4% block rate, Hibbert does everything a big man needs to do with excellence. He was in large part the cause of Georgetown's tremendously efficient offense, and their stingy 2-point defense (allowing opponents to shoot only 43.2% (among the best in the country). Tonight Hibbert and Georgetown face off against Michigan. It will be interesting to see if they can provide us with a sharper showing than their opener against William and Mary.
• Blake Griffin and the Jeff Capel coached Oklahoma Sooners face off tonight against super frosh Derrick Rose and the Memphis Tigers in an actually televised game (Thanks Time Warner for not carrying ESPN 360 here). Oklahoma defended well last year inside the 3-point arc, and it will be fun to see if the Sooners can frustrate Memphis inside the arc and force them to shoot. Of course, the Sooners also guarded the 3-point line well last year too. This is also my first opportunity to see Blake Griffin playing at the college level. I can tell you, I wish Duke had landed this kid.
  

What do these stats mean?

Just as a matter of clarity, I figured I would ensure that I had a good reference available for all the ratings I use for Duke over the course of the season.

Floor Percentage

Floor% is calculated as personal scoring possessions divided by total individual possessions. The idea is that it tells you how reliable a scorer a player is. Often big men have higher floor percentages, while scorers/outside shooters have higher efficiency (because of the high number of possessions they have with 3 points). Scoring possessions include actual field goals made and free throws, while individual possessions also include missed shots and turnovers.

Individual Efficiency (or offensive rating)

It's a complicated formula that tells you the points a player produces per 100 individual possessions. I say "produces" because it's not just a matter of scoring, but it also takes into account assists and offensive rebounds. For instance, in spite of the fact that DeMarcus Nelson was Duke's leading scorer in 06-07, McRoberts actually produced more points per game (13.88 to 13.13) because of his 20.63% assist rate as compared to Nelson's 13.93% assist rate.

Usage Rate

Usage rate is basically a calculation of what percentage of the team's possessions a player "uses" when he's on the floor. A player "uses" a possession when the possession ends with something he does - whether that's turning the ball over, making a basket, shooting free throws or missing a shot that isn't rebounded offensively. With 5 players on the court, a perfectly balanced team would have each player with a 20% usage rate, and not-shockingly, the majority of players land within the 18-22% range. Players who use more than 25% are legitimate stars who carry a huge burden for the team (some examples: Durant used about 32% in 07, JWill used about 31% in 01, Redick used about 29% in 06, etc.). The combination of usage rate and efficiency over the course of 4 years or over the course of a season can tell a lot about a player. Some players can use a lot of possessions pretty efficiently (for instance, Durant used 32% of possessions in 07 with a 117 efficiency), and others can carry a smaller load very efficiently, but has trouble if he carries a bigger burden. This way, we can determine what the best "roles" for individual players are based on where they can maximize their offensive efficiency.

Stop Percentage

This is a calculation of stops per possession. A stop is when a defensive player ends a possession without the other team scoring. Calculating this stat requires a number of unconventional stats like forced misses (not blocks), forced turnovers (not steals), defensive field goals made, defensive free throws made, and forced free throw misses.

Individual Defensive Efficiency (or defensive rating)

Basically a calculation of points given up (from both free throws and baskets) divided by total defensive possessions (which includes misses, turnovers caused, etc). As I've noted, this rating has a number of limitations. For instance, a player who is a team's main defender will often get the hardest assignments - and might give up more points than a player who is guarding a lesser player. This is probably more a concern in the NBA than at the college level because there are fewer 25-30+% usage players in the college level. In fact, I imagine Duke will only run into Hansbrough as major guys who use over 25% of possessions regularly.

Defensive Usage Rate

The estimated defensive ratings (based on conventional stats), assume a 20% usage rate for each player. However, using more elaborate defensive stats, we can determine which players are most involved on the defensive end. Not shockingly, the two most involved players in Duke's first two games were Zoubek and Singler respectively. The nature of the game usually means that help defenders will often be involved in defensive plays while on the floor. One interesting note for usage rate is that it might suggest something on its own when compared with a player's replacement. In other words, in Duke's first two games, Paulus has had a defensive usage rate of about 22% and 31%, while Nolan Smith's in the same period has been 6.3% and 1.7%. To some extent, that is affected by the fact that Paulus has caused more turnovers, but also because players have shot fewer shots over Smith than over Paulus, in spite of the two of them playing the same position and guarding the same players. Could that suggest that Smith has been in superior position to prevent his man from wanting to try to score, whereas Paulus (for any number of reasons: less quickness or more gambling for turnovers) has defended many more shots because his man seems more aggressive? Maybe. If this becomes a trend for the season, it might tell us more.

Others

There are a number of other per-possession stats that I use pretty freely here, but they are easier and more intuitive. Defensive rebounding rate is simply the percentage of possible defensive rebounds a player or team grabs. For players, it's the same calculation but the total rebounds available (that is, the sum of team defensive rebounds and opposing team's offensive rebounds) is multiplied by the percentage of the minutes they have played. Offensive rebounding rate is the same idea. Assist rate is the percentage of baskets a team scores that an individual assists on while he's playing. Block rate is the percentage of the other team's 2-point baskets a player blocks. Steal rate is the percentage of opposing team's possessions that a team or player steals the ball on. Turnover rate is the percentage of a team or individual's possessions that ended in turnovers.

Finally, I have entirely replaced FG% with eFG%, which is a calculation where half of the 3 pointers made are added to the total field goals made. In other words, it's a calculation to try to normalize FG% to points scored rather than shots made. If I shoot 10 3 point shots and make 4 of them, I've scored 12 points on 40% shooting. If I shoot 10 15' jumpers and make 6 of them, I've scored 12 points on 60% shooting. It makes more sense to normalize the FG% so that we can tell how well individual players can turn shots into points. Therefore, 40% 3-point shooting is equivalent to 60% 2 point shooting.

Duke 86 New Mexico State 61

New Mexico State, on paper, looked like a good test for Duke. Conventional wisdom thus far this season is that without a true big man (aside from Zoubek I guess), Duke might run into problems against bigger teams who might be able to muscle around the Devils on the interior and out-rebound us. Well, test passed, I guess. While Duke did not do especially well on the offensive glass (12 offensive boards vs. NMSU's 24 defensive boards), we absolutely controlled the defensive glass, grabbing 26 defensive rebounds and allowing NMSU only 6 offensive boards. For the record, that means Duke grabbed 81.25% of the available defensive boards, against a big, experienced team.

That all being said, NMSU did not look particularly sharp. Defensively they were really unable to deal with Duke's offensive versatility and quickness. In fact, the Aggies experimented with smaller line-ups some in the second half in order to adjust to Duke, with some success (though with Duke leading 61-30, any success the Aggies had was pretty much futile).

This was also Duke's worst offensive game of the season, scoring only 1.06 ppp. When I realized this after I got home, I was a little surprised. I had thought we looked pretty good offensively in general. We shot 56% inside the arc, but only about 35% from beyond the arc (with many good, open looks - I really can't think of any 'forced' 3s that I found painful to watch). We didn't turn it over too often (17 TOs in about 81 possessions - about 21% TO rate - not great, but we've had worse). I think offensive execution was, overall, very pleasing, but we missed an unnerving number of easy lay-ups and a few too many open 3 pointers. We really ought to have scored over 100 in this game given how we played. A win is a win, eh?

Player		Eff.		Usage		Floor%
Kyle Singler		125.5		16.5%		65.3%
Lance Thomas		93.1		14.7%		44.7%
Greg Paulus		117.6		20.8%		52.2%
Gerald Henderson		79		25.6%		40.3%
DeMarcus Nelson		125		18.9%		54.0%
Nolan Smith		45.8		24.4%		21.4%
Martynas Pocius		144.1		15.8%		71.2%
Taylor King		90.7		18.5%		35.7%
Jon Scheyer		132.2		21.7%		57.1%
Brian Zoubek		105		11.8%		51.1%

Team Stats		Duke		Opp.
eFG%		54.48%		49.09%
TO%		20.98%		32.03%
ORB %		33.33%		18.75%
FT Rate		19.40%		23.64%
Tempo		81.03
Offensive Efficiency		106.14
Defensive Efficiency		75.29
3-Point FG %		34.62%		23.53%
2-Point FG%		56.10%		55.26%
Free Throw %		68.42%		53.85%
Block %		15.79%		7.32%
Steal %		13.55%		2.47%
3PA/FGA		38.81%		30.91%
A/FGM		56.25%		48.00%

Player		Est. D-Rat		Real D-Rat		Est. Stop%		Real Stop%		%Dposs
Kyle Singler		66.55		49.45		84.53%		90.29%		42.70%
Lance Thomas		81.95		78.53		46.83%		26.73%		8.99%
Greg Paulus		69.12		55.18		78.23%		92.71%		31.31%
Gerald Henderson		86.7		78.90		35.21%		17.78%		7.28%
DeMarcus Nelson		76.68		74.20		59.73%		54.43%		18.06%
Nolan Smith		90.55		76.41		25.79%		7.72%		1.72%
Martynas Pocius		75.07		80.66		63.67%		35.26%		23.23%
Taylor King		71.54		69.01		72.30%		69.29%		21.96%
Jon Scheyer		74.31		70.87		65.52%		65.91%		18.80%
Brian Zoubek		57.81		62.46		105.93%		85.47%		24.10%

Hello huge block of numbers! Here are the highlights:

• Some (mildly alarmist) Duke fans are semi-concerned over Kyle Singler's "bad" game. Let's recap. Singler shot 3 for 7 from the field, 4 for 5 from the free throw line for 10 points, 5 rebounds, 2 steals, 2 blocks, 1 assist, no turnovers, forced 2 other turnovers, and 5.5 forced misses. This was against a big and physical team. Most of his shots were an inch or two from going in and were good shots. He, thus, managed a 125.5 rating (though using only 16.5% of poss), had the highest floor% on the team (65% is very high - the highest I could find for a season was Brand in 1999 with about 67.9%), with a 49.5 defensive rating, over a 90% stop% (very, very high), while being involved in over 42% of NMSU's possessions defensively while he was playing. Singler showed why you don't need to fill the stat sheet to be an invaluable player.
  
• So did Greg Paulus. One stat absent in the huge block of numbers above (but you'd find in a conventional box score) is the fact that Paulus had 8 assists and 3 turnovers. In Paulus' 26 minutes, he assisted almost half of the baskets made. Paulus may have been our 2nd most important defensive player tonight, himself causing 8 turnovers (4 credited as steals, 4 as other forced turnovers). He constantly harassed the Aggies' various ball handlers, showing a defensive aggression he lacked last year. He looks quicker, sure, but a big part of it is skill and attitude.
  
• Smith had a pretty poor game, shooting just 1 for 6 with 3 assists and 3 turnovers. Freshmen will have growing pains. I like, though, that a guy can have a poor game, and other guys are able to step up. We may not have a single guy whose performance our team's fate depends on. When Singler sat with 4 fouls, King managed to come in and had 4 rebounds in 17 minutes (grabbing 29.4% of the defensive boards he could).
  
• Zoubek contributed 11 solid minutes, grabbing 5 rebounds, blocking 2 shots (against a 7' center) and had only 1 foul. And zero turnovers.
  
• Nolan Smith was touted as a defensive specialist when he was hyped in the months prior to the season. And yet, in two games, he has zero steals, and 1 forced turnover. Notably, though, Paulus has used many more defensive possessions than Smith has, even accounting for the greater number of turnovers he's caused. Defensive stats have limitations - what about situations where a player's defense causes a player who might otherwise look to drive or shoot to give up the ball and be unable to use a team's possession? These are assets that stats cannot really cover very well. From watching the games, Smith has looked like a very good positional defender. When he learns to step it up and show Paulus' aggression defensively (who ever thought that would make sense?), he'll be an exceptional defender.
• Not all is well, though. NMSU shot over 55% inside the arc. Could that be a sign of a troubling interior defense, or could that be just a random fluke? It's hard to conclude anything at this point. The Aggies produced almost no points from the block, and a good few of their points inside the arc came from Hawkins driving to the basket or open mid-range jumpers after a Duke player gambled, and failed, defensively. Even so, as mentioned, we dominated the defensive glass, and caused 26 turnovers in 81 possessions. One interior defensive positive is that we managed to block 6 of the Aggies 38 2-point shots (15.8% - a ratio I cannot possibly expect for the season, but encouraging for the game).
  
• The tempo belies the speed of the game, as Coach K decided to slow it down into a form of "stall ball" for most of the last 7 :30 or so. The Aggies started the game trying to run with Duke, producing terrible results. Had we continued to run, we would likely have passed 90 possessions.
  

Duke Opens Season in Rout

Duke opened up the regular season, and NC Central's Division 1 tenure, with a 121-56 rout of the Eagles from across town. Duke had its most dominating offensive performance yet, as the Devils shot 16 for 28 from behind the arc (compared to a combined 14 for 55 in the exhibitions). There's little to be critical of on the whole. It's an early season game and the team will improve, as should all the individual players. Zoubek showed a fair ability to defend, and certainly dominated the boards (30.3% ORB rate, and 31.3% DRB rate), but was uncomfortable offensively and still showed a penchant for turning the ball over. The team as a whole had a few too many turnovers, especially considering earlier exhibition play. I think, however, the turnovers weren't as destructive as they were last year. Here are the individual ratings and usage, and team stats for the game.

Player		Eff.		Usage
Kyle Singler		139.5		23.2%
Lance Thomas		192.3		9.8%
Greg Paulus		153.8		11.9%
Gerald Henderson		162.8		18.9%
DeMarcus Nelson		83.1		24.4%
Nolan Smith		148.8		24.1%
Martynas Pocius		143.6		26.8%
Taylor King		147.7		25.3%
Jon Scheyer		198.8		14.5%
Jordan Davidson		102.2		11.7%
Brian Zoubek		109.8		25.6%
Team Stats		Duke		Opp.
eFG%		68.12%		40.00%
TO%		21.63%		31.82%
ORB %		57.58%		25.00%
FT Rate		39.13%		20.00%
Tempo		83.20
Offensive Efficiency		145.43
Defensive Efficiency		67.31
3-Point FG %		57.14%		33.33%
2-Point FG%		56.10%		35.71%
Free Throw %		84.38%		66.67%
Block %		21.95%		7.14%
Steal %		12.24%		12.02%
3PA/FGA		40.58%		30.00%
A/FGM		69.23%		61.90%

• With two exceptions, these numbers are pretty consistent with the overall flavor of Duke's play in the two exhibition games. First, we actually were hitting 3s. We weren't just hitting 3s, though, we were a scorching 16 for 28. This really allowed us to have a tremendous offensive night, effectively shooting over 68%. Second, we turned it over more than we did in the exhibitions, and a lot of these turnovers were bonehead plays (and a couple question mark offensive fouls) that (we hope) will go away as the season goes on. Central played the best offensive game of the 3 against Duke so far, mostly because they managed to hit some tough shots in the 2nd half, as well as a result of Duke not properly swarming with their zone out on the perimeter. All in all it's not terribly easy to be critical of an effort that kept a team from even scoring 3/4ths of a point each time down the floor.
• One thing of note is the team ORB rate and the opposition ORB rate from the first few games and comparing them with our effort in other exhibition games in the past, and comparing them to other exhibitions played by top ACC teams, is that Duke has dominated the boards more this season in these games than UNC did in either of their exhibition wins, or State did in their game against Barton (or Duke did against Shaw and Central last year). I mean, again, it's hard to draw lasting conclusions from these performances, but you have to like the effort given by Duke players given how many Duke fans were concerned over rebounding (not I, however).
• On the subject of the Smith/Paulus debate, I want to take no sides. Both players bring strengths. Combined, tonight, they dished out 8 assists and had only 3 turnovers. Notably, 6 other players (Singler, Henderson, Pocius, King, Scheyer, Zoubek) each had 2 assists or more (Scheyer had 6). As can be seen above, tonight almost 70% of our field goals made were assisted. Compare this to last year's game against Central where a little over 48% of our baskets were assisted.
  
• Duke has once again played a game over 80 possessions. Last year we only played 8 games over 70 possessions and lost 5 of them. It's getting so hard to compare last year's team to this year's at this point, because they look almost nothing alike in spite of having most of the same players.
  

One thing I'm trying to do this year is to find real defensive ratings, individual stop percentages and defensive-usage rates. Essentially these are the reverse of offensive ratings/efficiency, floor percentage (another stat I will likely start reporting more later in the season as the competition level increases - essentially a metric to show how often a player scores when he tries to score), and usage rate. The stats to derive these numbers are largely un-kept (forced turnovers, forced misses, defensive field goals made, defensive free throws made, forced free throw misses, etc), and so until this year, I've only been able to use DeanO's estimated defensive rating formula to derive an estimated stop percentage and an estimated rating (these estimated numbers assume a 20% defensive possession usage rate across the board). Starting with this Central game, I've decided to keep these stats myself. Here's my first attempt at comparing real and estimated ratings and stop percentage. These numbers, I think, will become very useful later in the season when assessing the defensive contributions of our players. They are, of course, imperfect since they don't take into account any sort of defensive play that does not result in the change of possession - nor do they take into account the quality of the player an individual is defending (obviously if Zoubek is guarding Hansbrough, his individual rating for a game will likely be in the toilet as compared to if we're playing Central, as you're about to see). Even so, they are useful numbers when usually Duke fans have had to rely on only steal rate, block rate, defensive rebounding rate, and (possibly) rate of slapping the floor to determine defensive contribution.

Player		Est. D-Rat		Real D-Rat		Est. Stop%		Real Stop%		%Dposs
Kyle Singler		69.05		60.34		64.61%		67.93%		20.52%
Lance Thomas		63.54		62.16		77.44%		54.82%		25.35%
Greg Paulus		76.38		63.75		47.55%		50.82%		22.03%
Gerald Henderson		53.25		57.90		101.39%		78.46%		20.95%
DeMarcus Nelson		60.84		56.21		83.72%		80.06%		23.84%
Nolan Smith		86.35		68.59		24.36%		15.67%		6.27%
Martynas Pocius		71.82		63.35		58.17%		56.72%		17.78%
Taylor King		71.38		63.07		59.19%		56.34%		19.37%
Jon Scheyer		62.73		63.58		79.32%		60.77%		14.08%
Jordan Davidson		86.71		67.99		23.51%		12.17%		2.82%
Brian Zoubek		57.16		46.30		92.29%		91.37%		36.01%

The numbers do tend to correlate fairly well. A note on methodology: when I record these stats, I'm looking at how the possession ends. If an opposing player takes a shot, I look to see who is defending him at the time. In a zone it's challenging, because it's often a multiple man effort (as it is when a player penetrates closer to the basket). In those cases, I give fractions of a forced miss or fractions of a defensive field goal made (only in halves though - to the two most involved players). It's unfair to a player who plays good defense and has a player make shots over him (that actually happened to Zoubek twice tonight), sure, but it uses the same philosophy as when a player takes an off-balanced, ugly shot and it goes in. Forced turnovers are essentially turnovers that don't go in the books as a steal. A steal is scored when a player takes possession of the ball from the other team and keeps it in play, whereas a forced turnover is mostly drawing an offensive foul, knocking the ball off the offensive player, forcing a travel or a 5 second violation - that sort of thing. Finally I look for free throws. When a player fouls an opposing player and puts him on the line, he'll get DFTM (defensive free throws made) and FFTA (forced free throw attempts) on whether the player makes them or not. It's not entirely fair to the defensive player because he has no say in whether the shooter makes his foul shots, but it follows the same philosophy as forced misses where a player plays solid D, and the shooter hits the shot anyway. Otherwise I just use the block and steal figures scored officially.

• It's hard to not be pretty happy with Zoubek's defensive effort tonight. As can be seen, he was involved in a plurality of defensive possessions and did so admirably in general. One obvious criticism is that he fouled out. I, personally, am not terribly concerned about this, because 2 or maybe 3 of those fouls looked very questionable, and every big man fouls out at some point in time. Zoubek last year actually had a much smaller rate of fouling per opposing possessions played than Lance did (about on par with Shelden Williams freshman season). Still, on occasion he has a tendency to shoot his arms out towards his man instead of sticking them straight up. The fact that Zoubek cannot jump means little when he is essentially a 10 foot wall of meat when he sticks his arms straight up. He'll alter a lot of shots just be existing.
• At this stage I'm not terribly sure what I can glean from defensive usage rate. For instance, Paulus had a 22% defensive usage rate tonight, whereas Smith had only about 6.3%. What can we attribute this difference to, since both would be guarding the same man almost certainly? If you look at Zoubek, it's pretty clear that his huge involvement in the defense, as well as Lance's (2nd highest) is because they play low on D and will often be involved in more plays as a result of the nature of help defense. But what about with Smith and Paulus? I suppose on one hand, you could use this as evidence that the opposing team attacks Paulus more than Smith - perhaps they perceive Smith as a better defender? But even so, Paulus did his job admirably, having an individual defensive rating under the team's, while forcing 1.5 missed shots and 2 turnovers as well as logging 1 steal. One individual game will probably not really give us any insight - most of it is probably just chance. Over the long run, I expect Smith and Paulus' usage rates to even out, though it wouldn't surprise me if Paulus' was slightly higher since he is often perceived as a defensive liability.

In other college basketball news:

• UNC played their second exhibition tonight against Lenoir-Rhyne, a charming college in western North Carolina. The final was 107-52, but the Heels once again looked slightly out of sorts, turning the ball over 20 times in an 81-82 possession game. If the Heels play sloppy against Davidson, they might find themselves in a game.
• #2 UCLA and #10 Washington State opened their seasons against cupcakes Portland State and Eastern Washington respectively, and scored a combined 137 points in 130 possessions (16 more than Duke did in our opener - the Pac-10 will surely be a brisk and exciting league this season!).
  
• The Bruins scored 69 points in about 69 possessions, a surprisingly low efficiency for the #2 team in the country, caused mostly by an abundance of turnovers. This is not terribly shocking as Darren Collison is out still for a few weeks. Kevin Love impressed in his debut, scoring 22 points and grabbing 15 rebounds (but only 2 offensively) in 28 minutes.
• Michael Beasley shot 12 for 20 and scored 32 points in his college debut. That seems less important to note than his 12 offensive and 12 defensive rebounds (yes, 24 rebounds in his college debut). In spite of his alarmingly good performance, Kansas State managed to only score 94 points in 88 possessions against Sacramento State. The young Michael Beasley contributed his part, by turning the ball over 8 times. Still, this should be an exciting year in Manhattan.
• Top 25 in action tomorrow: Georgetown, Marquette, Oregon, USC, Pitt, and Stanford. I am really interested to see if OJ Mayo can take more than 40 shots in a game this season.
  

I doubt all my entries will be this long, but since it is more or less the first day of the season, it's a pretty exciting time. It's always good to start off the season with a 65 point win too.