Was there cause for concern? At the time I was concerned mainly because if the game was even remotely close, it would be tremendously embarrassing, but not because of how Duke was playing. Our defense was pretty good - at least we were causing a lot of turnovers, but occasionally there were breakdowns after 30 seconds of good defense leaving a guy relatively open for a 15 foot jumper or a lay-up. Barton found itself in the bonus pretty quickly as the ticky-tack fouls piled up during Duke's full-court pressure. Offensively, we looked a little stiff, but overall a lot of our offensive woes were simply missing open shots. Those will drop when guys find their rhythm. Our 3 best shooters have all looked a little off in the pre-season, but I'm not terribly concerned.
Then things came back around. We started hitting shots, we made fewer defensive mistakes, and our depth and tempo wore Barton out. The 16-11 score quickly became a 47-27 halftime score and the embarrassment scare was long over. Here's the efficiency numbers and team stats for the game.
| Player | Eff. | Usage | ||
| Kyle Singler | 177.2 | 23.3% | ||
| Lance Thomas | 82.8 | 7.6% | ||
| Greg Paulus | 54.4 | 12.9% | ||
| Gerald Henderson | 125.3 | 24.9% | ||
| DeMarcus Nelson | 129.8 | 28.4% | ||
| Nolan Smith | 115.9 | 32.8% | ||
| Martynas Pocius | 149 | 12.0% | ||
| David McClure | N/A | N/A | ||
| Taylor King | 95.1 | 19.0% | ||
| Jon Scheyer | 136.1 | 15.6% | ||
| Jordan Davidson | N/A | N/A | ||
| Brian Zoubek | 140.3 | 11.1% | ||
| Duke | Opp. | |||
| eFG% | 51.32% | 36.79% | ||
| TO% | 15.63% | 43.26% | ||
| ORB % | 52.38% | 28.95% | ||
| FT Rate | 35.53% | 20.75% | ||
| Tempo | 83.15 | |||
| Offensive Efficiency | 126.28 | |||
| Defensive Efficiency | 52.92 | |||
| 3-Point FG % | 22.22% | 20.00% | ||
| 2-Point FG% | 61.22% | 39.47% | ||
| Free Throw % | 79.41% | 45.45% | ||
| Block % | 8.16% | 0.00% | ||
| Steal % | 27.64% | 4.81% | ||
| 3PA/FGA | 35.53% | 28.30% | ||
| A/FGM | 52.78% | 55.56% |
McClure played about a minute at most (good to see him back in action - though he was definitely sloppy), and Davidson didn't take a shot, hence they have no ratings or usage.
It's easy to see that Smith, Singler, Henderson and Nelson carried the team. It's also easy to see that our offensive efficiency would have been much better if we had hit the plethora of open 3s we had. Actually, had we made just 5 more of the 21 3s that we missed, our efficiency would have been almost 20 points higher at 144. Our offense did a good job creating opportunities to hit shots - we just need to hit them. What shocked me was just how many turnovers we caused. I was expecting that Barton would turn it over less often than Shaw, since, frankly, Shaw is a bad team for a Division-II squad, whereas Barton is actually a good D-II team. Apparently I was wrong. I think a combination of tempo, fresh legs, and constant defensive pressure just broke Barton - who very well might have still been a little tired from their game against State on Thursday. 36 turnovers for a game is just unreal.
Now that the presumed 3 best teams in the ACC have been in action against common opponents (Duke has played Shaw and Barton; State has played Barton; Carolina has played Shaw), it's interesting to look at their respective performances - not as some indicator of relative quality vis-a-vis one another, but rather as, perhaps, a preview of the way the teams will be able to compete with Division I talent.
Coming into the season, I thought State would have a very good front-court, but a weak back-court, and had a suspect defense. In their exhibition with Barton, the Bulldogs scored about .82 points per possession (ppp) on them (57 points in about 69-70 possessions). In Duke's game with Barton, the Bulldogs scored .53 ppp (44 points in about 83-84 possessions). Does this really tell us anything about State's defense? Unclear. I'll reserve judgment until the real games start, but it can't be terribly encouraging.
There are some interesting notes about UNC and Duke's relative performances against Shaw, too. Most people would generally suspect that UNC will have one of the better defenses in the ACC, along with Duke. Against UNC, Shaw scored about .66 ppp (62 points in 93-94 possessions), and against Duke, Shaw scored .57 ppp (55 points in 94-95 possessions). There's no difference so huge there that it really jumps out at us, and it sort of supports a conclusion that Duke and UNC will have defenses of similar quality this year. UNC's performance offensively left something to be desired, mainly because of poor outside shooting, and more turnovers than Duke. I don't think it's indicative of anything, though. Coming into this season, I'm skeptical about UNC's outside shooting - but it's hard to really criticize them for it at this stage when I still maintain that Duke will be the best 3 point shooting team in the ACC and has had an abysmal pre-season from behind the arc. at any rate, UNC appeared to have no interest in taking 3s against Shaw - attempting only 13 in their 65 shots.
Ultimately you can't learn a lot about the teams, but it's still a little fun to compare the games (especially because Duke had the best performances!). At any rate, there's a few other notes worth mentioning about Duke only.
- In two games, Duke has taken 70 free throws, and made 55 of them (about 78.5%). Say what you will about the worth of exhibition games, you can't simulate free throw shooting any better than this. Last year in our exhibition games, we shot 45 for 65 from the line, which was pretty close to our season average (about 68%). I would be shocked if we shot 78% from the line, but I am at least confident that we'll shoot 72% or better. Even more encouraging has been DeMarcus Nelson's 14 for 18 shooting in the 2 games. If Nelson had simply made 17 more free throws last year, he would have had McRoberts' offensive efficiency with about 2.5% more possessions used.
- Kyle Singler is 20 for 23 in two pre-season games. A lot of these were lay-ups created by the our guards and wings, and a lot were in transition, but it just goes to show how Singler is always in the right place at the right time and does what he is supposed to do. Great player to have around.
- In two games, Scheyer is 2 for 11 from behind the arc. Taylor King is 3 for 12. Greg Paulus is 2 for 10. Ouch. Most of their shots have been open looks too, many of them in transition. Shooting 3s in transition takes a little bit of time to get used to, but I have no doubt that these guys will come around.
- Last year Shaw scored .60 ppp on a Duke team that went on to have one of the most efficient defenses in the country. This year, Shaw was supposed to be better and scored .57. Does that teach us anything? Probably not.
- Last year, NC Central scored .81 ppp on us, and we scored 1.19 on them. This is their Division I debut. I would like to see an improvement on those numbers as a welcome to the big leagues next Friday.
- Although not as bad a start as this year, in our exhibitions last year we shot 13 for 43 from behind the arc in two games, and went on to shoot over 38% for the season. This year, we have started 14 for 55 in two games.
- Last year in our two exhibitions, we averaged about 75 possessions a game. In our two exhibitions this year, we averaged 89 possessions a game.
1 comment:
Hey! I just want to shower some praise your way and hope you can keep up the blog throughout the season. It's great to see some tempo-free/DeanO stats and detailed analysis being done for Duke.
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