Did State Give Up?

As I stood in the stands in Cameron, I saw the half-time score at 46-37 in favor of the visiting team and wondered what the hell was wrong with my team. It's now the second straight game where we have trailed by 9 at half. A little part of me thought that we might actually lose, but another part of me was just worried that there was some problem with our defense that was being easily exploited by our last two opponents: something that can be very worrisome since we have the biggest game of the season so far coming up next Wednesday.

Duke took a 10-4 lead by pressuring the ball effectively, causing turnovers and attacking the basket aggressively, but then took a number of possessions off, reached more than defended with their feet and got into foul trouble as a team early. State shot 13 free throws in the final 5 minutes of the first half to take that half-time lead. Again, like with Maryland, Duke looked completely lost in the first half. Here are the first half stats.

		Duke	Opp.
eFG%		50.00%	65.38%
TO%		19.15%	24.28%
ORB %		18.75%	50.00%
FT Rate		54.17%	65.38%
Tempo		73.10
Offensive Efficiency		101.23
Defensive Efficiency		125.85
3-Point FG %		22.22%	80.00%
2-Point FG%		60.00%	52.38%
Free Throw %		72.22%	70.59%
Block %		14.29%	0.00%
Steal %		16.18%	8.21%
3PA/FGA		37.50%	19.23%
A/FGM		54.55%	46.67%

Again, like with Maryland, Duke stormed out of the locker room. State's lead had been erased when Paulus hit a 3 with 16:17 to go. After State made a couple of good plays to take the lead back to 55-52, Paulus hit another 3 to tie it. I am fairly sure at this point, State's players gave up.

From this point forward, Duke outscored State 37-17. Duke's offensive performance in the 2nd half is just absurd. Here are the stats:

		Duke	Opp.
eFG%		76.56%	50.00%
TO%		13.21%	30.35%
ORB %		76.92%	30.77%
FT Rate		18.75%	77.78%
Tempo		60.55
Offensive Efficiency		181.67
Defensive Efficiency		85.88
3-Point FG %		63.64%	0.00%
2-Point FG%		66.67%	64.29%
Free Throw %		66.67%	57.14%
Block %		0.00%	9.52%
Steal %		13.49%	6.61%
3PA/FGA		34.38%	22.22%
A/FGM		42.86%	44.44%

Even though Duke won this game by 20, I think there is some reason to be concerned about the current state of Duke's defense. While we started the season off exceptionally strong defensively and continued to be consistently excellent defensively for most of the season, 3 of the last 4 games have been lackluster defensively. To be fair, in all three games the poor defense was isolated to the first half, but such a game could spell disaster against a team with an elite offense like UNC.

I will need to re-watch the State game, but my impression was that after some early problems with Duke's pressure, State dropped 4 guys inside the arc and tried to slowly move the ball with screens and methodical dribbling into a position where they could get it to Hickson. That being said, a lot of their offensive success in the first half was due to shooting 4 of 5 from 3, and getting 13 free throws in the final 5 minutes.

Next Wednesday we will need to put together a complete game - two halves of excellent basketball if we are going to steal one from Carolina on the road. We need to play well defensively, we need to attack offensively, we need to have all 10 guys who get significant minutes on the same page and playing well. I will say this though - if we shoot as well as we did in the 2nd half against State, against any team, we will win. I don't think that's a terribly controversial position though.

Next up: Miami on Saturday