Duke Blue

07-08 in Recap

2008-04-03T00:44:00.000-07:00

Well I've had some time now to take some perspective on the season and what happened. It was pretty clear that the season took a turn for the worse after the UNC game. The disparity is actually quite stark.

In the first half of the ACC season, Duke scored 693 points and surrendered 573 points on 597 possessions - that's 1.16 points per possession scored and 0.96 points per possession surrendered for an efficiency margin of an astounding 0.20. At this point, we as Duke fans were justifiably excited about our season. At the end of this stretch of games, we were 8-0 in the ACC, 20-1 overall and performing at an extremely high level.

At some point (I like to look at the UNC game) and for some reason (read on for some hypothesis), Duke's effectiveness on both offense and defense dropped by about the same amount each. In the 2nd half of the ACC season, Duke scored 647 points and surrendered 617 points in 600 possessions: scoring 1.08 ppp, surrendering 1.03 ppp for an efficiency margin of only 0.05. Well, what went wrong? I have no answers, but I am fairly confident it's NOT a few things:

MYTH: Duke's shooting woes started because of fatigued legs or something similar (reason why Duke's offense got worse)

Basically, I'm not going to argue that Duke shot just as well in the last 8 games as they did in the first 8 games. In the first 8 Duke shot 55.6% eFG, and in the second 8, they shot 49.6%. It's obvious that they shot much worse. But the assumption in this statement is that Coach K didn't play enough players, they got tired and the long distance shooting (which was essential to Duke's success - sub-myth #1) suffered.

The truth is actually that Duke shot better from 3 (37.7% to 36.7%) and shot 3s slightly more often (41.4% of the time against 40.3%) in the 2nd 8 games of the season. The huge difference came in Duke's 2 point shooting. Duke shot 55.9% from 2 in the first half of the ACC season, a number that dipped down to 44.7% in the second half.

The biggest question is why that is? Was it a function of something Duke was doing wrong, or the function of something the opponents were doing differently? In other words, was it scouting that exposed a previously unknown weakness or did a weakness arise as the season went on? My tentative and unsatisfyingly conservative answer is: a bit from column A, a bit from column B. My sense just from watching the games was that Henderson's injury really hindered his offensive effectiveness. He was obviously still a very useful player, but he was also a very versatile offensive player near the beginning of the year.

It would be stupid of me just to suggest that Henderson's injury was 100% of it though. In the first 8 games, Duke's opponents blocked 28 of Duke's shots. In the final 8 games, Duke's opponents blocked 51 of Duke's shots. Obviously the big contributers to that total that were absent in the first 8 games were Boston College (21st best block rate, and with Tyrelle Blair, the player with the 9th highest block rate in the country at 14.2%) and Wake Forest (the 14th best block rate, with James Johnson, Chas McFarland and David Weaver all sporting 5-9% block rates). And of course, the biggest contributing game was the North Carolina game in Durham where UNC blocked 15 of Duke's shots behind tremendous defensive performances of Danny Green and Deon Thompson.

As I said, I think part of this was scouting. It's easier to block the shot of a 6'3" or 6'4" perimeter player driving to the basket than a 6'9" or 6'10" player in position for a similar shot. It's possible that teams played less to take away the 3 and more to block or contest the 2s in the second half of the season. A team as dependent on guys creating good 2 point shots off the dribble as Duke was required either excellent 3-point shooting every night or hitting the 2s - especially considering how average Duke was on the offensive glass all season.

This was the significantly most important difference between Duke's offense in the two halves of the ACC season. Duke did turn it over slightly more often (17.5% vs. 16.9%) and rebounded slightly worse offensively (32.5% vs. 34.8%), but the one huge glaring difference was Duke's struggle in converting their twos in the second half of the ACC season.

MYTH - In the 2nd half of the season, Duke was abused more heavily by big men or quick guards scoring easy baskets (reason why the defense got worse)

Actually it appears that in two key areas related to defensive play on the interior, Duke improved in the second half of the ACC season. Teams shot 51.2% inside the arc against Duke in the first half of the season, and 47.7% inside the arc in the 2nd half. Additionally, Duke grabbed 65.5% of possible defensive boards in the 2nd half as compared to 63.2% of defensive boards in the first half of the year.

The decline in defensive effectiveness appears to come chiefly from 3 factors: teams shot much better from 3, teams turned it over a bit less often against us, and teams hit their free throws.

Uniformly throughout the ACC season, teams barely took 3s against Duke. Whether this was a result of Duke's defense or because teams perceived more of a weakness on the interior defense is ultimately unknowable and irrelevant, but Duke is consistently among the top of Division I in fewest 3 point attempts allowed per field goal attempt. Now, in the first half of the season, Duke opponents took only 101 3s, and made just 27 of them (26.7%), whereas in the 2nd half of the season teams made 42.1% of their 3s (45 for 107). Obviously good 3 point shots have to be created. I saw the Wake game and the Miami game - quick guards breaking down Duke's defense and requiring help left shooters open and guys hit their shots. That was, without a doubt, a contributing factor. Though, I am not sure it was the only factor. Sometimes, teams just shoot better against you.

The turnovers were noticeable but not a huge reason for Duke's defensive decline. In the first half, Duke caused 149 turnovers in 597 possessions - thus, opponents lost 25% of their possessions to turnovers. In the second half, Duke caused 144 turnovers in 600 possessions, leaving 24% of opponent possessions empty. The difference is there, but it's not huge. Duke continued to turn teams over late into the season, just slightly less often.

Finally, free throws. Whether by luck or providence, teams shot a fairly abysmal 61.7% against Duke in the first half of the ACC season, making 116 of 188 free throws. In the second half of the season, Duke's opponents shot fewer free throws (156) but made just 2 less. I'll readily admit that the first half of the year, Duke probably benefited from opponents shooting poorly from the stripe. This wasn't always just dumb luck (see: Clemson's season long woes from the stripe - minus the one mystical game against Duke in the ACC semis of course - who's bitter?), but if teams shot as poorly in the 2nd half of the season from the line and from 3 as they did in the first half, I estimate Duke would have surrendered about 0.97 ppp - negligibly worse than the first half (probably due to fewer turnovers). More realistically, you should expect your opponents to shoot about 70% from the stripe. If that happened consistently all season - Duke would have had about a 0.99 ppp in the first half of the season, and 1.02 ppp in the 2nd half - not such a huge difference and still successful (frankly not on a Kansas or UCLA level of defensive dominance, but pretty good nonetheless).

So what's the point of all this? Well, clearly Duke played worse down the stretch. Clearly the team did not perform up to the expectations either of the program or that the team held for itself up to and including the first North Carolina game. But it's not always doom and gloom, it's the end of the world, Duke was exposed, it's smoke and mirrors, it's this, it's that. Sometimes the explanations are pretty rational. It seems to me that teams became more adept at attacking Duke's defense, but the biggest problems in the 2nd half of the ACC season came offensively. Teams scouted the players well, one of Duke's best inside-the-arc offensive players was fairly badly injured and for whatever reason, they were unable to finish around the basket like they did earlier in the year.

It's not all terrible - Duke hit over 50% of their 2s in 4 of the final 8 games (including 2 of the losses, oddly enough), had a fantastic offensive game against Georgia Tech in the ACC tournament (47.4% from 3, 54.3% from 2, 40% offensive rebounding rate). I am not sure you can say that the Clemson game was a poor performance as much as it was Clemson playing very well and hitting free throws. The one weekend Duke stayed in the NCAA tournament was a nightmare through and through. Were the players sick? Perhaps. It's ultimately irrelevant. The point is really that the way Duke performed that weekend is incongruent with Duke's performance even the previous week and certainly "down the stretch." Often fans remember only the last and worst memories of a season and no doubt many will walk away from 2007-08 remembering how close Duke came to joining a none too illustrious club of #2 seeds to lose to a #15 and how Duke lost a relatively comfortable lead against West Virginia and were embarrassed to the media by the West Virginian players. Fair enough, but it's pretty unfair for a team that played extremely high levels of basketball deep into the season before one unfortunate weekend derailed the team.

I leave this post with a bit of a stat dump: herein are the stats of each major player in ACC play only for 2006-07 and then 2007-08 including Duke's team performance for both years. There is no doubt the team and all the constituent players improved dramatically from 07 to 08 and there is no reason why fans should not be excited to see these same players improve once again from 08 to 09. In my estimation, Duke fans have a little too often called for a reboot and should appreciate the quality of players Duke has right now. Perhaps Duke in 08 is not as good as UCLA in 08 or North Carolina in 08 or Kansas in 08, but it's a luxury as a Duke fan to believe that we should always be among the elite teams, but a foolish one when one consider just how difficult it is to be that good year in, year out. Enough of the didactic nonsense, here's the goods.

2006-07

Player	%Minutes	Ortg	%Poss	Floor%	3P%	eFG%	TO%	FTRate	OR%	DR%	Ast%	Stl%	Blk%
DeMarcus Nelson	78.9%	99.1	24.8%	47.1%	34.5%	51.5%	19.6%	20.9	5.4%	13.7%	14.6%	2.8%	1.1%
Josh McRoberts	88.9%	103.8	21.1%	51.2%	20.0%	53.2%	21.5%	38.6	7.0%	20.6%	15.6%	2.2%	5.7%
Jon Scheyer	83.8%	120.5	19.0%	53.3%	34.7%	50.3%	12.1%	47.4	4.2%	8.2%	9.3%	2.3%	0.4%
Greg Paulus	84.3%	105.0	22.2%	45.6%	41.1%	54.7%	23.9%	21.1	1.4%	7.2%	23.7%	1.7%	0.2%
Gerald Henderson	49.0%	99.2	22.5%	48.7%	35.7%	52.4%	22.4%	20.8	5.1%	11.6%	13.1%	1.5%	0.9%
David McClure	55.4%	105.6	11.6%	53.5%	50.0%	52.0%	22.7%	39.2	10.1%	17.7%	3.9%	2.8%	3.0%
Lance Thomas	33.9%	84.0	16.4%	44.8%	0.0%	61.3%	39.6%	67.7	11.4%	12.2%	0.8%	1.9%	0.9%
Brian Zoubek	13.1%	68.3	19.2%	37.4%	0.0%	50.0%	47.2%	110.0	11.8%	19.5%	4.0%	0.0%	3.4%

2007-08

Player	%Minutes	Ortg	%Poss	Floor%	3P%	eFG%	TO%	FTRate	OR%	DR%	Ast%	Stl%	Blk%
DeMarcus Nelson	80.2%	116.0	24.2%	57.4%	45.7%	59.6%	16.1%	62.3	5.3%	13.3%	17.4%	3.3%	0.6%
Kyle Singler	77.7%	107.9	23.0%	48.3%	34.8%	52.7%	17.9%	24.7	7.0%	14.7%	8.4%	2.4%	2.1%
Gerald Henderson	69.4%	107.0	22.4%	55.0%	25.0%	51.2%	17.7%	62.6	6.6%	13.1%	11.6%	2.3%	2.1%
Jon Scheyer	71.4%	129.3	16.9%	58.8%	37.7%	54.9%	11.8%	51.3	4.0%	9.8%	15.0%	2.9%	0.8%
Greg Paulus	71.9%	124.1	18.8%	51.0%	41.8%	55.0%	13.2%	30.5	1.5%	7.4%	19.6%	3.7%	0.4%
Nolan Smith	34.4%	103.7	22.9%	47.1%	40.7%	57.3%	27.1%	29.0	4.1%	11.0%	16.9%	1.0%	0.4%
Taylor King	19.1%	93.4	21.6%	36.9%	30.0%	40.8%	13.0%	14.3	7.4%	12.9%	5.9%	1.9%	3.1%
Lance Thomas	45.3%	96.3	13.8%	52.1%	0.0%	48.9%	18.5%	80.0	10.9%	14.2%	2.3%	2.6%	2.9%
Brian Zoubek	9.2%	108.1	11.3%	52.9%	0.0%	60.0%	17.0%	20.0	9.6%	16.5%	3.0%	1.9%	6.3%
David McClure	20.9%	81.7	10.1%	39.1%	0.0%	35.3%	29.3%	5.9	8.4%	15.5%	7.2%	1.7%	2.1%

Duke 06-07	Duke	Opp.
eFG%	52.6%	50.0%
TO%	22.2%	21.8%
ORB%	34.0%	29.1%
FTRate	22.1%	33.7%

Tempo	66.7
Offensive Efficiency	103.8
Defensive Efficiency	99.3

3-point FG%	36.1%	37.4%
2-point FG%	52.0%	48.2%
Free Throw %	68.9%	74.7%
Block %	9.2%	10.6%
Steal %	10.4%	10.9%

3PA/FGA	30.8%	22.5%
A/FGM	49.6%	51.6%

Duke 07-08	Duke	Opp.
eFG%	53.6%	50.9%
TO%	17.2%	24.7%
ORB%	33.3%	34.9%
FTRate	29.6%	37.6%

Tempo	70.3
Offensive Efficiency	113.2
Defensive Efficiency	99.1

3-point FG%	37.4%	34.0%
2-point FG%	51.8%	50.9%
Free Throw %	68.8%	66.6%
Block %	7.5%	11.7%
Steal %	13.1%	7.2%

3PA/FGA	41.1%	22.3%
A/FGM	49.9%	45.7%

Finally, I leave with this - to help us remember the good times in the coming months of darkness!

Rematch - UNC at Duke

2008-03-07T12:38:00.000-08:00

My apologies to whoever actually reads my blog about my scant updates during the ACC season. It's been an up and down ride (mostly up, to be sure) with a couple disappointing losses mixed in with a number of satisfying 'revenge' wins.

At this point in the season (15 out of 16 conference games played) we know who teams are. There's no more excuses left like "Well they can't do that against conference opponents" or "watch them fall apart on the road." In this post I am using ACC-only stats for UNC and Duke because I think out of conference scheduling tends to inflate personal and team stats.

First I want to comment on just how astounding the similarities between Duke and UNC are at this point, quantitatively.

Duke


Tempo		74.93
Offensive Efficiency		113.17
Defensive Efficiency		99.11

North Carolina

Tempo		74.70
Offensive Efficiency		114.00
Defensive Efficiency		99.06

As it stands, Duke (13-2 overall, 7-0 at home, 6-2 on the road) and UNC (13-2 overall, 6-2 at home, 7-0 on the road) play an almost identical pace, and have almost identical offensive and defensive efficiencies in conference (slight edge to UNC, but Duke has played 1 more road game than UNC has).

What is even more remarkable than that is that the two teams accomplish this in completely different ways. Once again, the ACC comparison:

Duke

	Duke	Opp.
eFG%	53.60%	50.96%
TO%	17.17%	24.72%
ORB %	33.33%	34.91%
FT Rate	29.57%	37.64%

3-Point FG %	37.43%	34.01%
2-Point FG%	51.82%	50.95%
Free Throw %	68.75%	66.57%
Block %	7.45%	11.68%
Steal %	13.11%	7.21%

3PA/FGA	41.08%	22.34%
A/FGM	49.88%	45.67%

As you can see, Duke's offense runs on a tripod of protecting the ball, getting good shots (especially 3s - 41.1% of Duke's shots are 3s in ACC play), and getting to the line. Some have noted that the combination of a high FT rate for Duke (almost 30%) and a very high 3PA:FGA rate is unusual and perhaps unintuitive, given the fact that 3 pointers tend not to draw many fouls. No doubt that is true, and I don't have exact numbers yet to support this claim, but my position is that Duke's shots are largely of the "layup" or "3 pointer" variety. Some players on occasion take the "mid-range" shot (Scheyer has some, Henderson, Paulus, Singler) but it's a rare shot. Duke's offense is built on the layup or 3 pointer model - a model that is incredibly intelligent.

Defensively, Duke's success hinges almost entirely on causing turnovers and preventing teams from taking 3s. The Duke defense is built on funneling opposing players into "dead zones" on the court (mid-range shots) and allowing those shots while trying to limit the layups/3pointers. The big weakness, in my estimation, is the lack of a real "help" presence in the paint for both blocking/altering close shots and rebounding, as those are Duke's main problems defensively. As a result, often Duke finds itself sending opposing teams to the line often, but the depth of this Duke team (Wake game notwithstanding) allows them to squeak by without debilitating foul trouble. Duke is often criticized for "switching" on screens on defense - largely a result of having few players who really can only defend in the paint (Zoubek being the obvious one) and being loaded with players capable of defending on the perimeter or in the paint (Henderson, Nelson, Thomas, McClure, Singler). Obviously none of those guys is a dominant paint defender, but the versatility really allows this Duke team to switch unlike any other team in the ACC and be successful doing so.

North Carolina

	UNC	Opp.
eFG%	51.57%	48.88%
TO%	19.43%	18.76%
ORB %	42.86%	29.07%
FT Rate	30.60%	28.51%

3-Point FG %	37.04%	32.84%
2-Point FG%	50.45%	48.67%
Free Throw %	78.44%	66.79%
Block %	10.14%	10.12%
Steal %	8.90%	10.88%

3PA/FGA	21.88%	34.73%
A/FGM	53.52%	54.48%

UNC, by contrast, takes very few 3s. They shoot well from the field, but not exceptionally well. Their biggest offensive strengths are in rebounding the ball extremely well on the offensive glass and getting to the line (and hitting those free throws - first in the ACC at 78.4% - if only Duke could hit that percentage from the line...). Hansbrough accounts for a huge portion of those free throws (139 of the 302 made; 171 of the 385 attempted) as he is by far their most aggressive player. My theory here (and it's not a novel one) is that aggressive players taking "lay-up" type shots (Hansbrough, Henderson, Nelson, Ginyard) are more likely to get fouled than guys who are more finesse or jump-shot oriented (Ellington, Thompson, Paulus, Singler). Their FT rates certainly support that theory at any rate.

Defensively, UNC follow the same model as Georgetown or Stanford - they don't cause turnovers - they just play good positional defense and contest shots, then limit second chance opportunities. Unlike Duke, the "Carolina system" is a more structure, more traditional basketball system based on the 5 traditional positions. On screens, UNC forwards tend to hedge hard (sometimes too hard) and recover rather than switching. UNC's biggest weakness defensively has been defending offenses that depend on guards creating off the dribble (UNC struggled, relatively, with Clemson, Duke and Florida State more than they did against other squads in the ACC). Often times this means that teams can get good 3 point looks based on a drive and kick after the help has come. Indeed, almost 35% of UNC's opponents' shots have been 3s, and they are shooting almost 33%.

At any rate, the match-up is legendary in its perfection. Duke has trouble guarding aggressive, strong big guys and UNC has trouble guarding drive-and-kick offenses. Just like in the first game, it should be fascinating to watch the match-ups develop.

As it stands, I think Duke will win this match-up and it's not just because I'm a huge Duke fan who will be in the stands for his final game as a Duke student - but rather because I think it is essential to turn Duke over if you are going to beat Duke. Obviously, it's possible to beat Duke without that (look at the NC State game - Duke had only 8 turnovers and escaped with a 1 point win), but I think that takes more extraordinary circumstances (for instance, NC State shooting 61% eFG from the field and 86% on 29 free throws from the line). When Duke turns it over on less than 20% of its possessions this year, Duke is 20-0, and 12-0 in the ACC. When Duke turns it over on more than 23% of its possessions, Duke is 2-3 (with one of those wins being against Eastern Kentucky) and 1-2 in the ACC. Again, turnovers tend to be undervalued by the college basketball media at large because so often is the focus on how Duke lacks a big man and too infrequently is the focus on the fact that Duke's most potent offensive weapon is its ability to make-up for a lack of offensive rebounding by limiting turnovers.

That being said, UNC has not proven itself in ACC to be a team that is capable or willing of causing many turnovers. Furthermore, at home Duke has not had a game with a TO rate over 20% since Eastern Kentucky in late November. Everyone knows UNC will out-rebound Duke. Duke knows it, UNC knows it, anyone knows it. The game won't be decided on the boards, because Duke doesn't value rebounds the same way it does turnovers.

The second reason I think Duke wins is Wayne Ellington. In 3 games against Duke, he has struggled each time. There is no guarantee he does now, but I think on the road against a heated rival, in a hot, loud building with his best friend hounding him all night - I'd be surprised if he had a great night.

Just to remind everyone about the first game between these teams:

	Duke	Opp.
eFG%	55.30%	42.75%
TO%	18.11%	24.02%
ORB %	27.50%	42.55%
FT Rate	24.24%	43.48%

Tempo	82.83
Offensive Efficiency	107.46
Defensive Efficiency	94.17

3-Point FG %	44.83%	17.65%
2-Point FG%	45.95%	48.08%
Free Throw %	59.26%	63.33%
Block %	11.54%	10.81%
Steal %	13.21%	3.62%

3PA/FGA	43.94%	24.64%
A/FGM	53.33%	60.71%

Duke protected the ball, shot well, got to the line and caused turnovers. UNC shot very poorly from 3 point range but rebounded very well and got to the line and shot pretty near their ACC average inside the arc (they average about 50%). Both teams basically did what they do well but Duke managed to protect the ball and UNC didn't, and UNC shot poorly from the outside. If tomorrow's game looks anything like that - Duke wins again.

I look forward to an exciting, up-tempo, well-played game that ends with a proper send-off for DeMarcus Nelson - a player who really epitomizes all that is great about college basketball. A guy who fought injury, who played out of position, who witnessed the worst Duke season in a decade with him at the helm, and then who rose to become one of the best seniors in the country and a great leader. I'll be clapping until my hands go numb for DeMarcus tomorrow night and win or lose, he'll forever be one of the finest Blue Devils ever, both on and off the court.

Oh hey, did I mention Tyler Hansbrough is a weird looking dude?

The Value of Turnovers

2008-02-18T20:16:00.001-08:00

So Duke has lost a 2nd game on the season, falling to Wake on the road 86-73.

While there are many reasons Duke lost this game, I want to focus on one: turnovers. In fact, the similarity between Duke's loss to Pitt and Duke's loss to Wake is pretty stark (minus the fact that, well, 5 Duke starters did not foul out against Pitt).

Against Pitt, Duke turned the ball over 20 times in 73 possessions. That game, Duke shot 14 for 26 from the free throw line. Against Wake, Duke turned the ball over 22 times in 84 possessions and shot 13 for 25 from the free throw line.

Ignoring every other problem in those games (poor shooting, trouble defending certain players, etc), both games would have been won had Duke: (1) hit free throws, and (2) protected the ball.

That being said, Wake has a fantastic young team who needs to learn to win on the road. Adding in what scout ranks as the 4th best class in the country for 2008 (including 2 5 star recruits - 7' center Ty Walker and 6'8" wing forward Al-Farouq Aminu, as well as 4 star 6'10" center Tony Woods) to the already lightning quick backcourt of Smith and Teague and Wake will likely be either favored to win the ACC next year or among the top 2 or 3 teams (along with usual suspects Duke and UNC). Smith, Teague, Aminu, Johnson and Walker will make a very talented, but very very young, core group for Wake next year.

For the above reasons, however, I am not convinced that this loss portends some inexorable decline in the way Duke has been playing so far. One key thing for Duke fans to potentially lose sleep over is the health of Gerald Henderson's right wrist. Henderson sprained it against UNC in a game where he took 10 shots and had 12 points. In the three games since, Henderson has been 4 for 15. That said, during that stretch Nolan Smith had also been recovering from a hyperextended knee he suffered against Maryland that set him back. Against Wake, Nolan shot 8 for 12 for 21 points in 18 minutes of play. If he can get back into the groove he was in earlier in the ACC season, it might take some stress off Henderson to produce offensively and he can let his wrist heal. Sprained wrists suck. I fell while skiing in the winter of 2006 and my wrist wasn't 100% for a good 5 or 6 months. I hope Henderson's wasn't as bad as mine.

Miami will be a good test to see how this team rebounds. In the first meeting, Duke only turned it over 11 times on 72 possessions and shot 26 for 40 from the free throw line. Again in a hostile environment, if Duke can protect the ball and hit free throws, we should walk away with a win. Miami is a bit of a better match-up for us than Wake, so here's to hoping the players come out prepared to play hard.

Duke at North Carolina

2008-02-05T10:59:00.000-08:00

Well after a moderately unimpressive 15 pt win over Miami, Duke set its sights on bitter rival UNC who sits 1 game back in the ACC standings.

This year's match-up between the two should be intriguing on a number of levels that last year's weren't. First, this is the first time the teams have faced off since the Henderson/Hansbrough incident in the Dean Dome last year. While the players are over it, the media and the fans are not (what are the media and fans there for if not to dwell on stupid things to ham up a story?), and UNC fans will likely not give Gerald Henderson a particularly good welcome.

Last year, the teams were both largely new. Duke had 3 sophomores, a freshman and a junior in the starting 5 last year with 3 other freshmen coming off the bench. UNC had 3 freshmen in the starting 5 to go with senior Reyshawn Terry and sophomore Tyler Hansbrough. Add to that that UNC was cutting up the ACC (they were, in fact, very dominant in spite of their 11-5 record) and Duke was squeaking by and in the midst of a 2 game losing streak when they first met last year, and you have a fairly uninspired meeting between the two.

A year has made a lot of difference. UNC sits at 21-1 (6-1) and Duke at 19-1 (7-0). If the battle for supremacy in the ACC wasn't enough, if the history between the programs wasn't enough, if the return of Gerald Henderson to the Dean Dome wasn't enough... to add to all of that, the styles of the two teams are as diametrically opposed as I can imagine (I suppose one could play a slow tempo and the other fast - so they both have that in common).

Duke is a guard oriented offense without a post-presence and current with 4 guys hitting over 40% of their 3s. Duke is a deep team, playing 9 deep (probably 10 when/if Zoubek is healthy). Duke's offensive strengths are in shot selection (55.9% eFG for the season) and protecting the ball (18.2% TO rate) and getting to the line with aggressive play attacking the basket (28.8 FT rate). The Devils take a lot of 3s (37.9% of Duke's shots are 3s, 83rd in the nation), and move the ball very effectively. Defensively, the Devils are based on perimeter pressure and forcing opposing offenses farther and farther out from their comfort zone. They force teams to move across the court rather than move towards the basket which leads to uncomfortable offensive sets, bad shots, and loads of turnovers. On the interior though, Duke's defense is not fantastic as Thomas, McClure, Singler and King are all fairly small for guarding the post at this level.

UNC is almost entirely different. UNC is a forward oriented offense, focused on taking few 3s and attacking the offensive glass. In fact, Southern Utah is the only Division I school to take 3s less often than UNC. That being said, UNC is also the best offensive rebounding team in the country with an ORB rate of 42.9%. Despite taking so many 2s, the Heels' 2-point FG% is not spectacular at only 51.6% and they are a fairly average 3 point shooting team when they take them. Their strength offensively is relentlessly attacking the basket, getting offensive rebounds and getting to the line (29.9 FT rate). Defensively, they are less versatile than Duke and have more trouble defending in the perimeter, but their excellent defensive rebounding and their bigger, stronger interior players allow them to defend the post a bit better. The biggest defensive weakness of UNC's so far this year has been in transition, because outside of Lawson and maybe Ginyard, they really lack the kind of quickness and speed needed to get back on defense against an up-tempo team.

So here you have it. UNC is strong at what Duke is worst at; Duke is strongest at what UNC is worst at. It's like the immovable object meets the very weak force, and the unstoppable force meets the very weak object. It's very clear that both will give, but to what degree? Who will be able to defend just good enough to pull out the win?

One key to the game are injuries, obviously, as Ty Lawson sprained his ankle in the 2nd most publicized ankle sprain of the last week and a half. Without Lawson, UNC's offense falls into relative disarray. Consider that without Lawson in two games this year, UNC has scored 66 and 67 points on 70 possessions (in both games), whereas with Lawson at the helm UNC is the most efficient offense in the country. Lawson creates so many easy baskets for the Heels by just turning on the motors and blazing his way down the court and through defenders for an easy lay-up. If Lawson is hampered by his ankle or does not play, UNC turns into something of a half-court oriented team and is far more prone to turnovers and taking jumpshots. That said, Thomas might be a better defender, but he will be facing fresh Duke guards while he racks up the minutes late in the game.

UNC's gameplan will be pretty obvious. In the half-court they will set screen after screen trying to force Duke defenders to switch into a serious mismatch on Hansbrough, then dump the ball inside and go up strong. I like the fact that our defenders are versatile enough to be able to defend inside and out to some extent, but it might be a good idea not to switch if it ends up with Paulus on Hansbrough somehow. Just a thought. This is exactly what Maryland and Clemson did with some early success.

Defensively Duke will need to cause turnovers and force UNC to take jumpshots. The closer the Heels get to the basket, the more offensive rebounds they get, and while Duke is not a terrible defensive rebounding team, it's been clear this year that good offensive rebounding teams can attack the glass pretty effectively on the offensive end with superior size and strength. That's not a shocker. Clemson is about as effective an offensive rebounding team as UNC.

UNC, on the defensive side, will need to prevent penetration and will need to hope Duke is not shooting well from outside.

Bold predictions:

The team that shoots better will likely win!
The team with fewer turnovers will likely win!
The team with more points on the scoreboard at the end of the game will almost certainly win!

At any rate, here I will post my new favorite Scheyer-face picture for good luck. This is a big game for both teams. If Duke wins, it puts the Devils 2 games ahead of the Heels and on the inside track for the #1 seed in the East. If Duke loses, the two are once again tied (indeed, UNC will be up on tiebreaker) and the 2nd half of the season will be a war.

Oh, and.. GO TO HELL CAROLINA, GO TO HELL!

Did State Give Up?

2008-01-31T23:13:00.000-08:00

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

Maryland: A Tale of Two Halves

2008-01-29T12:14:00.000-08:00

If ever this overused cliche used in the title of this post has been appropriate, it very well should be this game against Maryland over the weekend.

First Half

Maryland started off with great intensity and were successfully using their substantial frontcourt advantage to attack Duke, as well as executing a well scouted gameplan replete with effective cuts to the basket that exploited Duke's tendency to use guards to help on the blocks. Indeed, Maryland shot 65.5% eFG from the field against Duke in the first half, as well as rebounding 41.7% of available offensive boards to take a 9 point lead to halftime. One thing I found strange was how the announcers seemed to suggest that Duke was only in the game at half-time because Maryland had committed 13 turnovers to just 6 for Duke (a 28.5% TO rate for Maryland). But is this not Maryland's MO? Duke recorded 7 steals, as well as several offensive fouls - they were not unforced turnovers reflecting a mental lapse. This is exactly what most analysts should have expected coming in to the game: Duke would force Maryland to turn the ball over. Perhaps they should have said, "Maryland's white hot shooting is the only reason they are now in the lead against a Duke defense that has caused them to turn it over on almost 30% of their possessions!"

Duke, on the other hand, came out looking offensively stagnant. For the half, the Devils shot just 42.8% eFG and had a 26.1% offensive rebounding rate. The good news was that Maryland, predictably, was not causing Duke to turn the ball over.

At this point, while I was worried, I still knew that Maryland did not hold as big a lead as they could have shooting as well as they were and rebounding as effectively as they were.

The tempo-free team stats broke down like so:

	Duke	Opp.
eFG%	45.83%	65.52%
TO%	14.55%	28.54%
ORB %	26.09%	41.67%
FT Rate	25.00%	62.07%

Tempo	82.45
Offensive Efficiency	101.88
Defensive Efficiency	123.71

3-Point FG %	27.27%	33.33%
2-Point FG%	48.00%	69.57%
Free Throw %	81.82%	72.22%
Block %	4.35%	12.00%
Steal %	15.37%	2.43%

3PA/FGA	30.56%	20.69%
A/FGM	40.00%	77.78%

Second Half

It's hardly worth even mentioning that the key sequence of events in the second half came in the first minute. Maryland began with Osby turning it over, leading to Lance Thomas scoring on the other end. Immediately, DeMarcus Nelson stole the in-bound and laid it up to cut the lead to 5 within the first 40 seconds of the 2nd half. After Singler stole the entry pass to Osby at the other end, Duke ran a flawless inbound play straight to Nelson on the block who missed a layup but got the subsequent tip-in. Now with exactly 1 minute elapsed in the 2nd half, Maryland's substantial 9 point half-time lead was trimmed to 3. Sound familiar?

The second half was simply dominated by Duke. Maryland looked flat - perhaps tired or emotionally spent against a foe with greater depth and intensity than any team they have faced. The teams battled back and forth for the next 15 minutes or so, but Duke ultimately pulled ahead to take an 84-75 lead with 4:33 left. The stall was used quite effectively for the last minutes, despite Maryland pulling it to within 3 at 84-81 on 3 pointers by Hayes and Gist, and despite Vasquez getting to the line for a crucial 1 and 1 after Paulus made a costly turnover. Maryland had their chance then to make it a game for the last 2:42, but Duke closed out with good free throw shooting and a clutch driving lay-up by Nelson.

The second half team stats look thus:

	Duke	Opp.
eFG%	57.81%	50.00%
TO%	11.25%	25.51%
ORB %	50.00%	31.58%
FT Rate	43.75%	32.14%

Tempo	71.10
Offensive Efficiency	143.46
Defensive Efficiency	92.83

3-Point FG %	42.86%	33.33%
2-Point FG%	56.00%	50.00%
Free Throw %	77.78%	55.56%
Block %	9.09%	8.00%
Steal %	17.01%	8.44%

3PA/FGA	21.88%	21.43%
A/FGM	17.65%	76.92%

Completely different games.

Coming up: Duke has two games this week at home against North Carolina State and Miami. I will try to post what I think will be the key for the Devils in those games, but I hardly think I need to mention that Duke will be heavily favored in both affairs.

Next Wednesday is Duke at North Carolina.

Virginia and other such

2008-01-14T15:53:00.000-08:00

I find it amusing that my last entry is entitled "caught up" to indicate that I have been diligent getting back on track with real defensive ratings and posting on my blog - and it was 3 weeks ago.

At any rate, Duke beat Virginia 87-65 last night in their first impressive game since the 111-70 win over Albany. Only shot 11 for 31 from 3, but shot nearly 64% inside the arc - so I think I can live with a subpar shooting performance from outside.

Duke's tandem of point guards combined for 17 points shooting 62.5% eFG, had 8 assists, 1 turnover, and 3 steals (plus who knows how many FTO since I am certainly and inexorably behind again).

My current goal is to do real defensive ratings for all games and then to calculate game-by-game individual W/L and then total W/L, concepts that I can explain in some depth at a later time. My sense is that it won't be too terribly enlightening but it should be interesting to look at.

Caught Up

2007-12-20T07:35:00.000-08:00

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

2007-12-02T10:00:00.000-08:00

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

2007-11-27T23:14:00.000-08:00

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

2007-11-26T17:05:00.000-08:00

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

2007-11-22T10:08:00.000-08:00

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

2007-11-20T21:27:00.000-08:00

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

2007-11-19T21:36:00.000-08:00

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

2007-11-15T14:17:00.000-08:00

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?

2007-11-14T11:14:00.000-08:00

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

2007-11-12T23:06:00.000-08:00

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

2007-11-09T22:32:00.000-08:00

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.

A Long Winter in Lexington

2007-11-08T11:47:00.000-08:00

So Gardner-Webb beat Kentucky last night. It was really a demonstration not of a team losing a game, but of a team getting soundly beaten. So much has been said both by esteemed members of the college basketball media and of Kentucky fans about the renaissance in Lexington that was to come as a consequence of Tubby's departure. You know, maybe that will still happen, but UK fans can't be too optimistic about this season. In fact, I'm going to go out on a limb and predict outright that Kentucky will finish the season outside of the Top 25 as a worse team than they were last year. I think too many people bought into the notion that Tubby Smith was actually doing a poor job developing players and creating a team, when in fact, people should have been criticizing these players.

Kentucky has probably the most storied program in the country, and it was only 3 years ago that Kentucky had a team finish 28-6 and lose in double overtime in the Elite Eight to a surprising and streaky Michigan State team (that deposed my beloved Devils). So it's not surprising that media pundits (who, I surmise, mostly don't watch the games) expect Kentucky to be a top 15 team each year. That being said, Kentucky last year was not a particularly good team. In fact, I would confidently say that Duke last year was better than Kentucky. The past two yers, this Kentucky team gave up almost 1 point per possession defensively, mostly because the 06 and 07 UK squads were totally unable to cause turnovers like the earlier successful UK teams did. For years, UK's defense was successful in large part because of very aggressive play that caused a lot of turnovers. This is even true for Pitino's mid-90s teams. In spite of Rajon Rondo's 4% steal rate in 06, Kentucky still managed to cause turnovers on only 20% of their opponents' possessions, a number that dipped from 25.5% the year before. With Rondo's departure, UK found itself causing turnovers on only 18.4% of their opponents' possessions in 07. What indication do we have that Kentucky's guards will suddenly explode defensively?

The prospects for the team's offense are equally bleak. Now, to be fair, Patterson and Legion look like very solid young players who will become the backbone for future Kentucky teams, but for now, their involvement in the offense is limited by their inexperience and their youth. Neither are freakish superstars like Derrick Rose or Brandan Wright who are immediately ready to take over college level games. That being said, Kentucky relied last year on Randolph Morris who, in spite of a fair amount of criticism from UK fans, used a beefy 27% of UK's possessions while he was playing, and did so with an impressive 112.5 efficiency. He shot nearly 60% from the field, while grabbing over 22% of the defensive boards he could. He was also a solid defender and shot blocker, blocking 8% of opposing teams' 2 point shots.

As far as the guard-play, it's not that I doubt that the players have improved - well, after seeing them play, maybe I do a little - but their track record has not given much reason for optimism. Crawford and Bradley have neither been very effective producing turnovers, and Crawford seems to have regressed offensively since his freshman season in 2006.

At any rate, the most troubling part of Kentucky's situation is not necessarily what was or could have been, but what is. Kentucky opened the season against Central Arkansas, a team who finished 10-20 in the Southland conference last year, rated 274th out of 336 on Pomeroy's 2007 ratings. Against this defensive powerhouse, Kentucky managed to put 67 points on the board... on 65 possessions. The game looked like a blowout because the Wildcats managed to hold Central Arkansas to 40 points, but an offensive effort barely exceeding 1 point per possession against a bottom dwelling Division 1 school was certainly not the way Kentucky fans wanted to start the season. I was not terribly shocked by the 68 point in 73 possessions performance against Gardner-Webb. Maybe more shocking was the fact that UK's players were entirely unable to adjust to the backdoor cuts run on nearly every play by GW players. Poor perimeter defense and an anemic offense spells disaster once UK hits the bulk of its schedule.

Now I boldly predicted that the Cats will finish outside of the top 25. That might be a stretch, but I'm just going to go with it. There are rumors that Gillispie had a full speed practice the day of the game, and that the UK players may not be in the kind of shape to deal with that and then a game. The players did look sluggish, but I wonder when players aren't diving for loose balls if its fatigue or bad habits that hinders them? Things might improve for Kentucky, but at this point the team has managed to score 135 points on 138 possessions against two low-major Division I schools. Even Duke last year, who was maligned publicly and constantly for their offensive effort, scored 158 points in 138 possessions against cupcakes in our first two games. It could be a long season for Kentucky fans - perhaps the worst since a 14-14 season in 1990.

Duke 105 Barton 44

2007-11-04T11:44:00.000-08:00

One day after #8 Michigan State lost its first exhibition game to Division-II Grand Valley State in double overtime, I have to say I was slightly concerned when I looked up at the scoreboard with about 9 minutes left in the first half and saw Duke trailing Barton by 5, 16-11. Two days after Duke scored 134 points in 40 minutes, we found ourselves having scored 11 points in 11 minutes.

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.

Next up: NC Central, November 9.

The Season Kicks Off! - sort of...

2007-11-01T18:15:00.000-07:00

So the season kicked off against Shaw tonight. I know (almost) no one reads this, but I just want to thank Robert Brickey for coming home and having his team play in Cameron. Although this whole enterprise opened up a number of questions for me. Was it Krzyzewski or Brickey's idea to have the exhibition? What does Brickey say to his kids before the game? I mean, they don't actually expect to win or even be remotely competitive right? Can Duke be considered unsportsmanlike for running the score up to 134-55 or should all observers consider it like a glorified practice against another team?

I guess the way I see it, the guys playing Division II ball are probably not going to be heading to the NBA in a few years, or even Europe. I don't know much about Division II gyms, but I imagine that their gyms aren't quite like Cameron and their fans aren't quite like Duke fans. I also imagine that it's rare for them to face off against Hall of Fame coaches (though they will face two in 3 days after this weekend). So on some level, I have to think the whole experience is fun, to some extent, for them. I mean, it's never fun losing by 79, but in a few weeks they might look back and think "Playing in Cameron was pretty cool. Meeting Coach K was pretty cool. Playing against a top flight Division I program was pretty cool." Replace Cameron with the Smith Center and Coach K with Roy Williams after Saturday as well. So, then, is it really wrong for K to treat this as a glorified practice? It's important for Duke's guys to all get play and to get to practice their defensive schemes and offensive sets. If that means the score ends up as 134-55, then so be it. Ultimately the game doesn't matter, so you can't run up the score... right?

Oh well. Anyway, you can find the box score for the game over at goduke.com right now, and you can find the HD Box on Paul Rugani's Duke blog. Here I'll give you some efficiency and usage stats, and other interesting stats of note.

Individual Stats

Player	Eff.	Usage
Kyle Singler	163.1	21.6%
Lance Thomas	150.4	20.6%
Greg Paulus	124.3	19.1%
Gerald Henderson	130.5	17.0%
DeMarcus Nelson	131	27.3%
Nolan Smith	151	25.8%
Martynas Pocius	172.7	15.7%
Taylor King	140.9	14.2%
Jon Scheyer	141.1	15.4%
Jordan Davidson	200	10.9%
Brian Zoubek	102.2	19.0%

Team Stats

	Duke	Shaw
eFG%	61.63%	37.69%
TO%	13.67%	36.45%
ORB %	52.50%	22.22%
FT Rate	32.56%	13.85%

Tempo	95.1
Offensive Efficiency	140.9
Defensive Efficiency	57.83

3-Point FG %	28.57%	35.00%
2-Point FG%	70.69%	31.11%
Free Throw %	77.78%	66.67%
Block %	15.52%	4.44%
Steal %	22.51%	4.21%

3PA/FGA	32.56%	30.77%
A/FGM	51.02%	28.57%

Obviously, these stats are ridiculous. Kyle Singler is not going to have a freshman season with a 163+ efficiency. Duke is not going to cause turnovers on over 36% of opposing possessions and we are not going to play 95 possessions a game. We will not have an efficiency margin of well over 80.

Shaw is really, really bad and it's easy to look good when you're playing a terrible team. But that being said, you can still make some constructive comments. Paulus looked quicker (but not really quick or anything) and more comfortable in transition. He looked more skilled on defense, but still not a gifted defender. He's a good passer and a good shooter, but he just lacks elite athleticism to break down defenders in the half-court. That's ok, we will push the ball. It's obvious from our play in this game that we are not ever walking the ball up the court. It's also obvious that Coach K is ready to use a deep bench and press. He even used a zone. Maybe hanging around D'Antoni and Boeheim all summer rubbed off a little?

I think my biggest comment is that Nelson needs to not use as many possessions as he did. He took 16 shots and made 5. Last year, he had our highest usage rate, at 24% (Zoubek's 28% is ridiculously affected by turnovers and he was hardly a regular player) with an efficiency of 103.5. I was hoping this year the usage would go down for Nelson as Singler and Henderson stepped into the forefront of the team. For the record, Singler and Henderson were a combined 16 for 22 from the field. Why did Nelson take 16 shots? To be fair, he missed a number of easy shots that he should get by the time the season is in good form, but it was still troubling. Smith only had as high a usage rate as he did because he shot 10 free throws despite shooting just 4 shots from the field (Hansbrough would be put to shame by his 250 Free Throw rate!).

The outside shooting was a little troubling. It's strange to think that we scored 134 points and still only shot about 2% better than Florida did last year. They also shot 40% from behind the arc for the year, and we shot 28% tonight. Most of the misses were wide open shots - I am not terribly concerned because I know how good Scheyer and King can be from behind the arc.

All in all, fun game to watch. Should be a fun season at any rate. Very up tempo. The players and fans will have a lot of fun this year.

Blue-White rundown

2007-10-28T11:55:00.000-07:00

The season kicked off with the Blue-White scrimmage last night with the Blue squad winning 69-64 behind 21 points from Gerald Henderson and 19 from Taylor King. I didn't have a chance to do defensive stats for the game (and probably won't be able to do any until the real games start against NC Central), but I did have a chance to look at the tempo-free stats, as valuable as 30 minutes of intra-squad scrimmaging can be.

The efficiency and usage stats in particular I found to be pretty useful because they sort of jived with performances from last year, and also sort of fell in line with expectations for most Duke fans.

Blue
Player	Efficiency	Usage
Gerald Henderson	131.73	27.78%
Taylor King	129.81	20.22%
Brian Zoubek	104.56	17.50%
Greg Paulus	115.36	14.32%
DeMarcus Nelson	108.84	19.77%

White
Player	Efficiency	Usage
Kyle Singler	120.79	30.28%
Lance Thomas	92.73	16.30%
Nolan Smith	91.83	29.72%
Jon Scheyer	112.74	14.60%
Jordan Davidson	97.15	10.90%

Blue was a better team and these numbers sort of reflect that pretty obviously. They shot 10 for 19 from behind the arc, overall had an eFG% of around 65%. White stayed close behind Singler's incredible game (23 points on 9 for 17 shooting, 2 assists, 6 ORBs, 3 DRBs) and by causing 15 turnovers (25.9%), but Blue was ultimately too much.

Overall as a team (both sides), we shot over 40% from behind the arc, and the game was played at a breakneck pace - 77-80 poss per 40 minutes. It's doubtful that we'll be able to keep a pace like that all season - most teams play much slower these days and fast and slow teams tend to average out to medium speed when they play - but it shows that we're going to try to push the ball more this year, which is a welcome change from the standpoint of the fan and concerns for recruiting. Players love to play a fast pace and it's always been a drawing point for Duke: we play fast.

At any rate, it's hard to glean too much from the Blue-White game. Thursday we'll play Shaw University in an Exhibition. Most likely we'll win by 40. Again it will be hard to glean too much. As I recall, last year through the exhibitions and the first few games of the year, Zoubek was actually our star offensively. Nevertheless, our performance against Shaw and Barton will yield some useful information and start to answer some questions about this team.

Does Paulus make more mature decisions this year?
Will our freshman be able to contribute more immediately than our freshmen did last year? Is Kyle Singler the best freshman in the ACC?
Will Gerald Henderson live up to his potential?
Can we get our offense back to Duke levels? Can we reduce turnovers and take better shots?
Can we defend the post?

To me those are the chief questions for this team. If the answer is yes to them all, I think we contend for the ACC title and can go deep in the tournament, though that might be a little optimistic. Hell, it's the preseason - when is optimism more warranted for any fan of any team?

A Tale of Two Players

2007-10-25T21:25:00.000-07:00

Ken Pomeroy recently wrote an interesting piece about what constitutes similarity from one player to another. His ultimate thesis was that mainstream media fixates on a pair of players, usually because of superficial similarities, but rarely delves any deeper into the subject to find players that produce similarly on the court. I have long believed that Mike Dunleavy was the 3rd pick in the 2002 draft mainly because he was white. While Dunleavy was a fantastic player at Duke, I also have no doubt that the ceaseless Larry Bird comparisons would not have existed if Dunleavy wasn't white. At any rate, that's neither here nor there. The point of this post is to look at the careers of two Duke players removing from the analysis all mention of names, years they played, who their teammates were, and so forth. Unfortunately, unlike the comparison that Pomeroy fixates on at the end of his article (Kevin Durant and Luke Harangody), the two players in this comparison are both of the same race. And they play(ed) the same position. And they play(ed) for the same school. Comparisons would seem to be inevitable... but between these two players they almost never happen.

To start, I don't know Pomeroy's system of creating "similarity scores." That's fine. I'd rather just list important stats for both players to get a more accurate picture of what each player brought to the table. We'll start with his freshman year.

Player	3P %	2P %	eFG%	FT%	TO%	FT Rate	Ast%	Stl%	PPG	ORating	%TMPoss
Player A	35.6%	34.7%	42.9%	76.9%	35.1%	54.6%	33.0%	2.7%	11.6	93.4	19.1%
Player B	31.4%	40.7%	43.0%	78.4%	33.0%	50.3%	26.1%	2.7%	9.2	92.6	17.2%

One quick word on the stats chosen. I originally also looked at offensive and defensive rebounding rates, and block rates, but I don't find either very illustrative. Both players had insignificant block rates and rather low rebounding rates. It's hardly important. I also want to point out that "PPG" is not points scored per game, but points produced per game, which is a different calculation involving an estimate of how many points this player individually created/produced for the team. It takes into account, for instance, assists (as are most important for this comparison). It also takes into account total team points scored, which can vary from team to team based on tempo and overall offensive efficiency.

At any rate, it's very plain to see that these two players had shockingly similar freshman seasons at Duke. They shot a nearly identical eFG%, predicated by one's ability to shoot a bit better inside the arc and the other's ability to shoot 3s slightly better. They shot a nearly identical percentage from the line. They both had tremendous turnover problems. Player A got to the line a little more often, but nothing incredibly significant. They had nearly an identical rate of stealing the ball. However, Player A assisted many more baskets while on the court, and not shockingly had a higher points produced per game, even though both players operated at about the same individual offensive efficiency. Player A also used more possessions - another contribution to his greater points produced.

Player A probably had a better season, but the difference is not compelling. Now we move on to the second year.

Player	3P%	2P%	eFG%	FT%	TO%	FT Rate	Ast%	Stl%	PPG	ORating	%TMPoss
Player A	40.4%	44.8%	53.8%	72.8%	29.8%	34.2%	31.5%	1.9%	13.6	104.8	19.3%
Player B	45.0%	46.3%	57.5%	75.3%	27.2%	28.4%	23.5%	2.1%	11.9	105.7	21.0%

Both players have improved dramatically, but still remain pretty similar. It's now evident that Player B has improved his shot a great deal and outshoots Player A convincingly. Again they have very similar FT percentages and turnover rates - though both improved. It seems Player A remains able to get to the line more often than B, though both saw their free throw rate drop noticeably. Both suffered a dip in their assist rates (1.5% for Player A, and 2.6% for Player B). Again they have very similar steal rates (though both saw it drop from their freshman numbers). At any rate, at the end of the day, they produce about the same points per game yet again (the difference mainly in the assist disparity). Both improved their offensive efficiency - and significantly, Player B did so while also increasing his individual importance in the offense. As a freshman, he only used 17.2%, but as a sophomore he increased that number to 21%. As a side note, it is more rare to see a player both improve his efficiency and improve his usage - it reflects a great deal of improvement. As Pomeroy notes here, a player with a usage of about 17.1% his freshman year will most likely end up with a usage of about 18.2%. Player B here increased his to 21%, which is somewhere in the 80-90th percentile I would imagine. A substantial improvement.

Well by this point, it's probably no surprise who these players are. Player A is none other than NCAA All-Time leading assist man, and starting point guard for back-to-back national champions, Bobby Hurley. And Player B, of course, is none other than perhaps the single most criticized and maligned Duke point guard in the K era, Greg Paulus.

Seeing as how the two players followed a pretty similar course of improvement over their first two years, I think it's at least moderately illustrative to look at Bobby Hurley's Junior campaign as, perhaps, a preview of things to come.

Player	3P%	2P%	eFG%	FT%	TO%	FT Rate	Ast%	Stl%	PPG	ORating	%TMPoss
Bobby Hurley	42.1%	44.4%	53.7%	78.9%	25.8%	46.8%	35.1%	1.9%	15.5	113.7	22.4%

As can plainly be seen, after his sophomore year, Hurley saw another year of improvement across the board. He shot better from the field, he turned the ball over less often, had a higher assist rate than he ever had (after having a slightly down year his sophomore year), produced more points, and at a higher efficiency, while carrying a larger offensive burden. Hurley is absolutely beloved by Duke fans - considered by many of them as the greatest point guard in NCAA history, and at any rate the greatest point guard in Duke history. I think what this demonstrates is in that any accurate and demonstrable way, Paulus and Hurley had at least similar freshman and sophomore years, and both improved nearly across the board in every major stat associated with their position. I suppose that's the difference between Hurley having Grant Hill and Christian Laettner and Greg Paulus having... who exactly in 06-07?

I can also use this time to dispel some myth that Bobby Hurley was a tremendous defender and Paulus is an atrocious defender. They had an identical rate of stealing the ball their first year (and Paulus actually had a higher defensive rebounding rate both years for whatever that's worth - by about 2%) and Paulus actually had a higher rate his second year. Hurley was chiefly an offensive player in nature, which worked just fine considering how absolutely good his teams were offensively (the 1991-92 team is one of 3 Duke teams to crack an efficiency of 1.2 points per possession). What is sometimes overlooked is that the 1991-92 Duke team is (shockingly) the third worst defensive team in terms of raw efficiency that Duke has fielded in the last 20 years, giving up .9987 points per possession (most Duke teams give up somewhere between .9 and .95, and the awful 95 and 96 teams gave up 1.06 and 1.02 respectively). If anything, Paulus is probably a better defender than Hurley was. And he did it with a broken bone in his foot that needed to be removed. As an aside, do people still believe that defense wins championships? After Florida's mediocre defense in the tournament last year, I hope that myth has been dispelled. The 34-2 Duke squad in 92 is pretty persuasive evidence against that myth too.

Ultimately my point isn't that Greg Paulus is as good as Bobby Hurley. That argument would never fly with anyone - where are Paulus' rings? Where are his endless accolades? I think what the comparison does show, though, is that perhaps we, as Duke fans, should be patient with Paulus. His talent is really awfully similar to Hurley's talent - and neither were in the same stratosphere as Jason (Jay) Williams who developed into a monster as a sophomore. The biggest difference is the level of talent surrounding Hurley vis-a-vis Paulus. This year, most Duke fans are expecting our team to be much improved offensively. Whether that comes true or not, I think we can very reasonably assume that Greg Paulus will have a very successful junior season offensively.

Durant/Oden and Practice

2007-10-20T00:55:00.001-07:00

It's late so I'm keeping this (relatively) short. Reading back over some of my earlier posts, I suppose I ought to feel a bit silly advocating so strongly for Oden now that he appears to be quite injury prone. Oh well, he's still young and surgeons are insane these days. I just hope he comes back and is able to compete at the level we know he could when we saw him play in the Final Four. He seems like a really good kid who doesn't deserve this kind of bad luck.

As for actual Duke basketball, there's not much to say. I got to see a team practice last Wednesday and that was exciting. It looked like everyone who returns had improved, and the freshmen look competitive (Singler looked outstanding). Henderson and Singler will likely be All-ACC at the very least. The style the coaches were advocating was a real up-tempo Phoenix-like game, which perfectly suits a team without a true big guy but with a great number of athletic wings and guards.

My short preview for the season: Duke will win a lot of games, some of which they maybe shouldn't. However, some games we'll run into foul trouble guarding big guys and have issues defending the paint and lose games we maybe should win. I also think we'll be fine rebounding and be one of the best perimeter defensive teams in the country (up there with Kansas and UCLA), as well as a very good 3 point shooting team. Such a team is volatile and unpredictable in some ways because if shots are dropping, they can seem unbeatable. I can see a team like this losing in the first round or going to the Final Four. Either way, I'm excited just to see what the hell we're going to look like this year.

USA USA USA

2007-09-11T12:14:00.000-07:00

Though it is still the off-season, at least the NFL season has started so we don't need to suffer through the monotony of another baseball infested summer.

On the basketball end of things, though, we at least had the pleasure of watching Team USA compete in the FIBA Americas tournament, if compete is really the right word to use. Let me get the qualifiers out of the way. This tournament was not full of powerhouse teams. Argentina was missing Ginobili, Oberto and Nocioni, and the next strongest teams are Brazil and Puerto Rico - neither of whom are real international powers (although with Nene and Barbosa on Brazil's squad, they certainly have a good looking future). Compared to these teams, the USA looked like the Spurs vis-a-vis a college team - giving as much credit to the international competition as possible.

That being said, we often thought the same of international teams prior to these big tournaments and yet of late have continued to come up short time after time. What's different now? Is anything different not?

The stats suggest no weaknesses. Playing an incredibly fast tempo of 85 possessions a game (in a 40 minute game), the team maintained a 137 offensive efficiency and a 90 defensive efficiency. They shot 69% eFG holding their opponents to just 43%. They only turned it over on 12% of their possessions, and forced turnovers on almost 20%.

The rebounding statistics are actually a little strange - though I have a theory to venture about the cause. The phenomenon is that the USA, in total rebounds, actually were, as they say, "outrebounded" in a number of the games. When you actually break down the rebounds properly, you find that the USA often had a substantial advantage on defensive rebounds (as one would imagine given disparity in FG%), but were getting incredibly outrebounded offensively. Over the course of the tournament, the USA grabbed offensive rebounds on only 27.5% of their possible chances, whereas their opponents grabbed about 31.4%. Looking at the opposition's rebounding rate, it's clear that Team USA were really not giving up an abnormal amount of offensive rebounds relative to the amount of shots the team missed (which was many), but were themselves simply not rebounding offensively very often. Why could this be? Often the USA fielded Dwight Howard and/or Amare Stoudemire - both are huge and freakishly athletic (quicker than most international guards and yet almost 7' tall each).

Of course, one has to first note that the international paint is much wider near the basket, thus making offensive rebounds near the basket slightly more difficult. Big men are offensively less inclined to stay so close to the basket for as long of a period of time as in the NBA since they have much farther out to go to "reset" their 3 seconds. Furthermore, the only reason anyone wants to grab offensive rebounds to begin with is to increase offensive efficiency - rebound margin itself means nothing. When your team shoots 69% eFG and has a 12% TO rate, the need for offensive rebounds is fairly low. Otherwise on paper there is really no reason to be concerned. Generally very good offensive rebounding teams are very athletic teams with size advantages at a few key positions (as are good defensive rebounding teams). It's hard to imagine a more athletic team that outsizes their opposition at every position as much as Team USA. Just as important to their loss on rebounding margin is the sheer quantity of missed shots their opposition had. Yes, they had on the whole a tendency to grab 5% more possible rebounds than Team USA, but 31% is still a very low number. The large number of actual offensive rebounds was a result of a massive number of misses caused by a suffocating perimeter and interior defense.

Now, none of this wankery really guarantees victory in Beijing. There are still powerhouse teams out there we haven't yet faced: Greece, Slovenia, Russia, Spain, Argentina at full strength. However, I can't imagine that those teams would enter a game facing a starting 5 of Jason Kidd, Kobe Bryant, LeBron James, Carmelo Anthony and Dwight Howard with a tremendous amount of confidence. In Japan last summer Team USA lacked Jason Kidd (who is really the perfect floor leader for this style of play - keep in mind he had 46 assists to just 5 turnovers in these qualifiers and has never lost a game in international play), and Kobe Bryant (who is, frankly, probably the best player in the world). It's also worth noting that Amare sat out last summer as well given that he had been recovering from knee surgery. This summer, Team USA, for the first time in a long time, looked comfortable on the court. They looked like they were having a tremendous amount of fun running up and down the court, shooting tons of 3s, and throwing improbable alley-oops to one another. There is very clearly no team in the world who can match USA's talent, athleticism, and depth - not to mention coaching experience. However, USA is still young and they still are subject to criticisms of past years - these are just all-stars, they all have egos to assuage, they have lapses in defense (though on the whole, they played exceptional defense) and so forth. I think what we're seeing is an actual team who has been somehow brought together from a group of probably 6 future Hall Of Famers, a dozen more All-Stars, and coached by an exceptional group of experienced coaches who get along well and have similar enough styles to not conflict too much. I have long thought that Coach K is best at motivation and interpersonal skills, and not exactly a strategic master of basketball. Add with him Mike D'Antoni, Jim Boeheim and Nate McMillan and I think you have a pretty excellently drawn team of coaches.

At any rate, for the first time in 12 years, I am actually excited about watching Olympic basketball next summer. Quite frankly, this Team USA might be better than the 1992 Dream Team, but the mystique and the results will never compare because that 1992 Team was full of veterans who were already on their walk into the Hall and were playing a much, much weaker international competition. In those days, teams just had fun watching Charles and Michael dunk all over them and losing by 50, but these days international teams are really out there gunning for Team USA - to stick it to America and prove that basketball isn't just "our" game anymore. Considering that USA's closest game in the recent FIBA tournament was a 15 point win over erstwhile undefeated Argentina, shortly followed up by a 37 point win over the same team - I think that Team USA may be able to get some revenge for a decade of international shame.

Duke Rebounding 2008

2007-06-13T15:04:00.001-07:00

From my perspective, rebounding is the most misunderstood aspect of basketball. The most obvious evidence is that rebounding margin is still one of the 4 or 5 major stats that an analyst will show at half-time for any game. The idea this conveys to most people (incorrectly) is that whoever gets the most rebounds is the better rebounding team. Usually analysts will also show the stat to reinforce just how much one team is dominating another.

Of course, rebounding margin might be a sign of one team dominating the other, but not for the reasons some might think. Why are rebounds important? At the most basic level, it's the same reason why rushing is considered a fundamentally important aspect of any offense in football: ball control. The team who has more chances to score will probably win. So to that end, I'll tend to agree that yes, the team with the more rebounds has a better chance at winning, in theory. However, rebounding margin is one of the lesser stats correlated with winning, while field goal percentage is the most.

But why should number of raw rebounds matter the least in deciding who is the better rebounding team in a head to head match-up? What if one team is shooting 60% and the other shooting 30%? Obviously, the first team will have many more opportunities for rebounds (since, typically, a defense has about a 60-70% chance of getting a defensive rebound) than the first team. Very good teams without exception have many more rebounds than their opponents because very good teams shoot a much better percentage from the field than their opponents. Simple as that.

So specifically related to Duke: I actually am one of the few people who think rebounding will be the least of our concerns next year. In fact, I will contend that we will be a good rebounding team. In order to argue this, though, I need to do some groundwork.

What's interesting to note is that after Shelden Williams graduated, a lot of critics suggested that Duke would have trouble rebounding without him in the paint. Of course, in reality, the 07 Devils were a much better rebounding team than the 06 Devils. In 06, our team rebounded about 29.61% of offensive rebounds, and 60.01% of defensive rebounds. This is incredibly bad. The slightly shocking part of it all is that Shelden Williams was such a dominant rebounder (12% OR, 22.6% DR by himself). So, of course, the common pundit might suggested that losing Williams from an already abhorrent rebounding team will simply make the team even worse on the boards.

In 07, however, we were one of the best rebounding teams in the ACC. We rebounded 35.03% of offensive rebounds and 67.12% of defensive rebounds, in spite of losing one of our best rebounders of all time. How does that work? Well, one notion that I will try to dispel is the idea that our change of pace affected our rebounding somehow. In 06, we also averaged about 71.6 possessions a game, which dipped to about 66.4 in 07. The suggestion might be, then, that because we played a fairly slower game, we had more people to crash the boards and a greater ability to grab rebounds on both sides.

Taking a quick look at the stats for ACC teams this year, what I find is that there is really no discernible correlation between tempo and rebounding.

Team	Tempo	OR%	DR%
North Carolina	73.92	39.43	70.77
Maryland	73.64	36.66	63.93
Wake Forest	72.57	30.75	66.83
Virginia	71.67	33.49	66.58
Georgia Tech	70.62	41.36	67.26
Clemson	68.76	37.85	66.47
Florida State	68.22	35.01	63.89
North Carolina State	67.56	27.74	66.08
Duke	66.38	35.03	67.12
Miami	66.24	38.48	66.37
Boston College	66.16	38.07	62.65
Virginia Tech	65.57	32.71	65.78

What I find most interesting about this list, actually, is not just how little tempo has to do with rebounding, but how little offensive rebounding has to do with defensive rebounding. Boston College and NC State are especially interesting. NC State is at once the worst (by far) offensive rebounding team in the ACC, but still was a decent defensive rebounding team. BC was one of the better offensive rebounding teams in the league, but the worst defensive rebounding team. This, at the very least, really hammers home the point that the two are completely different stats and should be entirely separated. At any rate, tempo does not appear to be a substantial factor in rebounding. Duke was the 3rd best defensive rebounding team behind the much faster UNC and the faster Georgia Tech. That being said, I am still not willing to preclude the possibility that tempo has some effect on rebounding.

Now, looking at a list of the top 15 rebounders in the ACC (these are all players with over 40% of minutes - so at least 16 minutes a game or so) it seems that rebounding is mostly a function of personnel.

Player	DR%
Jason Cain (UVA)	20.65
Reyshawn Terry (UNC)	20.22
Ra'Sean Dickey (GT)	19.52
Ekene Ibekwe (UMD)	19.06
Kyle Visser (WFU)	18.74
Brandon Costner (NCSU)	18.73
Josh McRoberts (Duke)	18.71
Uche Echefu (FSU)	18.45
James Gist (UMD)	17.68
David McClure (Duke)	17.67
Tyler Hansbrough (UNC)	17.04
Jeremis Smith (GT)	16.6
James Mays (Clemson)	16.41
Al Thornton (FSU)	16.35
Dwayne Collins (UM)	16.16

Each of the three best defensive rebounding teams has 2 players in the top 15. Maryland is sort of the strange one since Gist and Ibekwe were both excellent defensive rebounders yet they still were not a very good defensive rebounding team. The problem for UMD was more that outside of those 2 guys, the other major players (Vasquez, Jones, Strawberry) were nearly non-existent defensive rebounders. This may have been affected by style, since Maryland had a tendency to shoot off on a break with those three guys leaving the frontcourt to clean up rebounds. So maybe Maryland is an example of a high tempo team that suffers on the boards because of its style.

Now it may seem an obvious and stupid conclusion that personnel has a huge impact on rebounding. But I think the conclusion is a little more subtle than that. The idea is not that you need one guy in the paint who can rebound really well or something, it's that you need a team who can come together to grab a lot of rebounds. For instance, just looking at Duke, we had 6 guys who played over 40% of minutes, and of those 6, 4 of them averaged 10% or more of the defensive rebounds (Nelson, Henderson, McClure, McRoberts). Looking at UNC, they also had 6 players who averaged 40% of minutes or more, and they also had 4 of them grab on average over 10% of defensive rebounds (Ginyard, Terry, Wright, Hansbrough). Georgia Tech had 7 guys over 40% of minutes, and 6 of them averaged over 10% DR rate (Crittenton, Young, Smith, Dickey, Peacock, West).

It seems that having one or two really reliable defensive rebounders is key, but then you also need several support guys who can contribute a lot of defensive rebounds as well. So, now that the groundwork is done, what will Duke be like in 08?

Well, the kneejerk reaction is to say that we will be worse off because of losing McRoberts. I actually don't think this is exactly true. I do think we will probably be a worse defensive rebounding team, but not because of McRoberts. Say, for instance, our line-up is Paulus, Henderson, Nelson, McClure, Zoubek next year. We would actually be a very good rebounding team with McClure and Zoubek in the frontcourt and very good rebounding wingmen Henderson and Nelson. I think this line-up will see a fair bit of burn. But factoring in guys like Singler (unproven, so I can't predict how well he'll do), Scheyer (not a good rebounder) or Thomas (could become a decent rebounder, but wasn't his first year) will probably affect our ability to rebound. That being said, though, McClure only played a little over 700 minutes this year (53% of total) with much of the time he spent sitting being filled in by Lance Thomas, and we were still the 3rd best defensive rebounding team in the ACC.

The point is, a lot of Duke fans want to see a return to the faster paced teams of the the late 80s, early 90s and the late 90s, early 00s. This 07 Duke team was tremendously slow by Duke standards. Yet there is also a fear that we will not be able to rebound well enough to get out on a break. I don't really believe that at all. I think we will be, again, a very good rebounding team with the tools to run a faster paced offense (71, or 72 possessions a game would be nice to see run well).

The other point I wanted to make was simply that rebounding is misunderstood and covered poorly by basketball analysts. Just look back at ESPN's top 10 best teams of the last decade: they actually criticized a 2001 Duke team for having a smaller rebounding margin despite being a more efficient offensive team than any other champion on the list and being among the better defensive teams.

More in favor of Oden #1

2007-06-05T16:34:00.000-07:00

Oregon Live has reported the results from the Orlando pre-draft camp. The link name is sufficient. Oden is incredibly fast, agile, and huge. 7' with shoes and a 7'4.25" wingspan? 9'4" standing reach? Hello!

Durant's measurements are actually really impressive... I never had any idea he was actually 6'10"+ with shoes, but that really justifies his freakish wingspan (7'4.75"). Given that wingspan, I'm not entirely shocked that he can't put up 185, but even once? I'm about 6'7" with about a 6'10" wingspan and I find benching to be much harder than my shorter friends, but even so, 185 is not particularly difficult. He'll REALLY need to bulk up a bit to take the strain of his future position in the NBA.

Durant??

2007-06-04T17:34:00.000-07:00

So I was looking over Draft Express, and noticed they had Durant going first to Portland in their mock draft.

First, let me say that yes, this is yet another blog entry by some random guy about Oden and Durant. And yes, this is yet another blog entry talking about why Oden is the better pick. I understand this is not a particularly controversial position. I just hope I can provide a couple fresh arguments for why Oden is the better pick.

Common Sense

I cannot for the life of me figure out why the Trailblazers would select Durant over Oden. I mean, it's hard to say either decision is the wrong one, especially this early in the game, but I just cannot understand why, at the forefront, a team would think Durant is the better pick.

I'll voice some concerns I have for Durant. First, he's skinny. I know he's young and will get stronger... but I think he's probably got that kind of bodytype that doesn't put on weight very easily. For Durant's first handful of seasons he will be best served as a jumpshooter probably. The size and physicality of NBA interior defenders will wear on him quickly if he drives, and I don't think he has the strength to post up on decent sized NBA power forwards. The great upside about Durant is that the kid is sort of a freak in terms of a mix of size (including knuckle dragging primate arms), skillset and athleticism. When he gets bigger, he will be a force, but does Portland really want another perimeter player offensively? Even when Durant fills out and gets used to the rigors of the NBA season, he will be a perimeter player first, and an interior player second. The answer, of course, is no.

The problem really is that you are probably not going to win with two superstar perimeter players unless one of them is named "Jordan." Look at Denver, for instance. They have a good, solid team built: Blake, Iverson, Carmelo, Nene and Camby as their principle five. Two perimeter superstars, a solid, quick PG who can defend and hit some 3s, and two good interior defenders/rebounders, but no scorers. Now, maybe Denver will mature into a complete and consistent team, but as for now, their dependence on the perimeter game for offensive production severely limits them. Portland would see the same problem if they picked Durant. Randolph is a problem anyway, and they should deal him no matter what, leaving Aldridge as their main inside option if they picked Durant. Aldridge will probably turn into a solid player, but I don't really think he'll carry a team offensively in the middle like Elton Brand or Carlos Boozer or Tim Duncan (notice how I put 2 Duke players first?).

So again, why would Portland pick Durant? If they pick Oden, they can deal Randolph and they are left with an imposing interior defense with immense upside on the offensive side. Brandon Roy has all the right tools to become a legitimate perimeter star with some good coaching and some good teammates. That's called balance, and balance wins.

Stats and Effect on Team

Durant was the golden child of the NCAA this year for his gawdy stats, but it's easy to forget that his team lost in the 2nd round and went 25-10. Some might argue that Texas just wasn't very good without Durant. Well, maybe, but Durant headlined an excellent recruiting class and there were a number of very promising players on that Texas team. In fact, they will without a doubt be a pre-season top 25 team even without Durant.

Meanwhile, Oden's team went 35-4 and lost in the NCAA title game (which was, as we all know, not any fault of Oden's). Some might say that OSU was just a better team than Texas outside of Oden. A lot of people even went as far as to say that Ohio State played better without Oden on the floor. Now at this point we all know that's wrong. In the 10 games before the NCAA tournament, Ohio State had a net +27 points per 40 minutes with Oden on the floor. In the NCAA tournament, with only two exceptions (Florida and Xavier), Ohio State dominated the opposition with Oden on the floor, and... well, didn't with him on the bench. The fact is that the Buckeyes were a rather... average team without Oden near the end of the season as Cook stopped producing. They relied too heavily on Lewis to score, but though he was a pretty solid support for Oden and Conley, he couldn't carry a great team. Cook fell off towards the end of the season after having a solid early season. At any rate, Ohio State was as good as they were precisely, and primarily because of Greg Oden.

The difference was not necessarily offensive (though, and I will get to this, I believe Oden was a better player to have on the floor in order to open up offensive options for other players than Durant was). In fact, I think it's safe to say that Oden's biggest impact is defensive. Keep in mind that Oden only played 59% of the total minutes that Ohio State played this year (missing 7 games and being a big man limits minutes), and he still logged 105 out of 218 blocks for the team. He blocked 12.7% of all opponents' 2 point shots while on the floor, and I have no idea what kind of atmospheric number he altered. The paint was virtually impossible to score from while Oden was on the floor. Furthermore, he grabbed well over 23% of the possible defensive rebounds (although, to be fair to Durant, he grabbed about the same percentage).

Now about the offensive side, obviously Durant scored more and scored in many more ways than Oden did, but Oden scored more reliably. I look here to floor percentage (essentially a stat used to estimate how often a player scores when he tries to score) and find that Oden's is an impressive 61.8% and Durant's is 55.1%. Furthermore, since Oden played in the paint and was such a dominating physical presence compared to the other college big men, he was able to net 15% of all possible offensive rebounds: a tremendous number in itself. To summarize, Oden increased his team's chances to score by dramatically increasing the team's ability to get offensive rebounds, and was a constant threat because he scored nearly 2/3rds of the times he tried. One other stat not to be overlooked is Oden's FT rate vis-a-vis Durant's. While Oden shot about 64 free throws for every 100 FGA, Durant shot about 39.6, but against different competition. I think the implication here is that Oden will almost always get an opposing big man in foul trouble and open up the middle for easy, predictable (but much less exciting) baskets while Durant will mostly be scoring with less reliable midrange jumpers and 3s (Oden shot 61.6% from the field while Durant shot 53.6% - eFG% of course).

There has long been a sort of wisdom in basketball that a great big man will bring you championships, but for some reason people have gotten away from this. My best guess is that the most hyped center of all time (Ewing) brought home zero rings to the Knicks in his long hall of fame career. Of course, that was primarily due to a freak named Jordan standing in his way, because the Knicks had championship caliber teams with Ewing in at least 2 years (and probably more). Kareem, Russell, Wilt, Walton, Hakeem, Shaq, Duncan - all these guys anchored (multiple) championship teams offensively and (most importantly) defensively, and within 10 years I imagine Oden will be added to that list.

So I ask again, Durant?? Really??

Cavs v. Spurs

2007-06-03T13:13:00.000-07:00

I like how Cleveland was able to really attack Detroit in all the right ways for 6 games. I don't like the insinuation that Detroit just played poorly throughout the series. Detroit was coming off a series where they beat a very good Chicago team pretty easily, so there's no reason to think they wouldn't be playing well. Furthermore, teams don't just randomly play poorly for 6 games straight - Cleveland forced them to play poorly. The Cavs may be ugly to watch, but they play good defense, rebound well, and are able to score well enough to win.

Now a comment about San Antonio:

Here's the thing (off topic a sec), I think San Antonio (as much as I dislike them for their style of defense and for all the Euro-soccer like whining and drama) is not an ugly team to watch play basketball. They aren't a fast team to watch play, but neither was Georgetown this season (and I think the Hoyas were great to watch - spectacular on offense). San Antonio has the best big man in the NBA right now, one of the most explosive playmakers, and an off-guard who can score from all over the court. The reason people assume that the Spurs are bad to watch is that they control the ball and keep a somewhat slow tempo. But their offense is right at the top of the league. Let's sit back and enjoy good basketball, because the Spurs are the best team in the league.

The Spurs will beat the Cavs and win another championship, but the Cavs will compete. I think 6 games is appropriate. But that being said, Duncan is not a young man and as Duncan deteriorates, so do the San Antonio Spurs. Meanwhile, LeBron pretty much single handedly took his team to the Finals, and he's 22. With Durant and Oden both going to the West, we are probably going to be looking at the Cavs in the NBA Finals a lot over the next decade or so.

Off season - blah

2007-05-28T20:37:00.001-07:00

The off-season is as dull as ever in the sports world. The NBA playoffs are becoming increasingly worrisome as the inevitable San Antonio vs. Detroit clash is actualized. I find myself watching the playoffs anyway because it is basketball. I enjoy seeing Boozer do as well as he is, but the Jazz have no prayer against the Spurs. They're more experienced, and make fewer mistakes. But I sure hate seeing them win. Bowen is a dirty player and Ginobili just annoys the hell out of me with his soccer-like dramatics. Duncan is an admirable player, but he certainly complains more than most players in the NBA (which clearly says a lot).

There is certainly recruiting news, but aside from Larry Drew signing with our rival (can't say I'm too terrified of that kid, but he should be a good player), there's nothing serious. We continue to pursue Greg Monroe and Elliot Williams, but neither have made decisions (though EMail says he wants to make an early decision - Monroe probably waits until the fall).

I hate the off-season. Baseball sucks

Spurs...

2007-05-18T21:30:00.001-07:00

Are now the de facto NBA champs. Someone knock the out please. Go Boozer.

I don't feel bad for predicting Suns in 7. I think they would have won game 5 at home with Stoudamire and Diaw. Oh well. Spurs are a very good team, but the Suns are just more exciting to watch.

What's a Superstar?

2007-05-17T20:34:00.000-07:00

When I was growing up in the late 80s, and 90s, I remember the word "Superstar" being reserved for guys like Michael, Magic, Larry, Chuck, Isiah, Hakeem, Ewing, David Robinson, and the like. Now all of these guys have retired and we have a new crop of "superstars." If you ask the average NBA fan who the superstars of the league are, the immediate response would probably be Kobe, LeBron, Shaq, T-Mac, D-Wade, KG, AI, Melo, Vince, and Dirk. These are the guys all over all the commercials. These are the high flying, 30 point a game, sneaker selling, coke drinking, commercial superstars. There are others who lack such a suave soubriquet: Steve Nash, Tim Duncan and Jason Kidd, among others. But are these guys really superstars on the court, or just on Sportscenter and in the collective imaginations of fans of athletic, Jordanesque dunks and Magic-esque no-look passes?

So who are the real superstars, and why?

Jordan was not a superstar because of his ability to dunk. If that were the case, Vince Carter would be the biggest star in the NBA. Nor was he a star because he scored a lot of points (Kobe does that night in and night out, so does T-Mac, Melo, et. all). You often hear the phrase "Well Jordan made the other players on his team better." Uh what does that even mean? Maybe that's what a superstar does? Can that even be observed? Quantified? Made intelligible in any humanly way?

One person might try to argue that a player's ability to get his teammates involved in scoring due to his own playmaking skill is an indicator of superstardom. Well... sort of. It's really nice when a player of any position can rack up some assists. It shows his ability to find the open man or to create a situation where another player is able to score easily. It's surely not an exclusive or exhaustive indicator, though. Jordan only averaged 5.3 assists for his career.

Another might simply argue that when a player puts up gaudy scoring numbers (since there really is just ONE stat in basketball: points), then he is a superstar. It's a pretty simple indicator, but it's certainly suggestive of a player's skill, right? This year, 8 guys in the NBA averaged 25 ppg or more. Of those, 6 played on teams that ended up on the playoffs. Hey, that's pretty good right? Of course, only 1 of them is even still playing (LeBron).

Anyway, enough sophistry. I think (qualitatively) that a superstar can be both or neither. A superstar makes his team better by shouldering a great deal of responsibility with great efficiency. This means the player scores frequently when he tries to. This means the player does not make many bad decisions with the ball (ie take bad shots or turn it over). This means the player does what he can to produce points for his teammates by finding the open man, or crashing the offensive boards consistently and efficiently.

AI is a really good basketball player, and very few people in the world can do what he does on the court, but while he scores 27 a night, he basically does it at the league average in efficiency. Does he really do any more for his team if he scores 30 points a night at 106 efficiency (league average this year) than 2 other guys who score 15 a night at 106 efficiency? Well maybe. The idea that he can score 30 a night certainly plays into the minds of opposing players. Defenders do have to converge on him when he penetrates the lane because he is so quick, opening up easier shots to others, etc. But from a purely numerical point of view, there isn't such a big difference. If you have 5 guys on the floor who score 30, 20, 15, 15, 10 a night, each at 106 efficiency, then you have a team scoring 90 that is a completely average offense. Congratulations, and enjoy the lottery or the first round of the playoffs.

Jordan had 7 seasons with over 120 efficiency (with 105-108 league average), and a career average of 118. Magic had 6 years over 120 and a career average of 121. Larry had 2 years over 120 and a career average of 115. Barkley had 5 seasons over 120 and a career average of 119. The point? These guys (and others listed, but go look up their numbers on your own at basketball-reference.com) were so much better than their contemporaries that they could handle a substantial load of possessions per game (25-30%) and still basically score at will.

So this brings me to a current question: who are the real superstars in the NBA right now?

Kobe's never had a season over 120 efficiency, and he's never had to carry a burden any greater than Jordan did. To be fair, though, Kobe is well above the league average and is a really good player. But I don't think he can really be spoken of in the same sentence as Jordan just because of some gaudy scoring numbers. He is not nearly the player Jordan was. Maybe if his teammates can stay healthy, we'll see Kobe have a little easier time. Maybe not. Even with Shaq he was not nearly as efficient as Jordan was before Pippen.

I love LeBron, but so far you aren't talking about a guy who is just absolutely dominating his peers like Jordan, Magic, Bird or Chuck did. He steadily increased from one year to the next until this year, and after some recent comments ("This is just basketball"), you have to wonder if his heart is really in it. Nevertheless, LeBron was about as efficient as Kobe was this season (114). His team isn't nearly as good without him. I guess that counts right? LeBron could be "The Next Big Thing" but, in my opinion, he's still working on that career defining break-out season.

Dwyane Wade can't spell his name right despite 4 years of college, but he is a pretty damn good player. About as efficient as LeBron or Kobe (112 this year, probably slightly depressed due to his shoulder injury). He carried his team through to a championship last year after being down 2-0. He isn't the dominant force that Jordan was, but I don't think there's much of a debate as to whether Wade is currently a superstar or not. Bright future here. But I wonder what the Cavs would have been like if Shaq went there?

KG, though mired on a terrible team in a terrible franchise, has always been a fantastic player on both sides of the ball. Amare is one of the most efficient players in the NBA offensively, as is Steve Nash. Dirk is also fantastically efficient. These guys don't spring to mind as quickly as Kobe or LeBron or D-Wade, but may very well be better or more valuable players (though Dirk has a pretty huge monkey on his back at this point). And even though Chauncey Billups consumes probably about 10 possessions less than Kobe per-40 minutes, he's now working on his 3rd straight 120+ season over in Detroit.

Melo, AI, T-Mac, and Vince are all fighting to earn their superstardom but continue to fail.

Melo and AI had a good chance to knock off the Spurs, but why did they lose? The Spurs made less mistakes, and executed on offense better. In other words, they were more efficient. The Nuggets were erratic, excitable, and ultimately just not as good. Yet Melo and AI are supposedly two of the league's best, so what gives? Well, maybe they haven't quite earned those labels yet (sad since Iverson has been around for 10 years now). The better label (at least for Iverson at this point) is the overactive scorer who puts up deceptively valuable raw numbers at the expense of the team's efficiency.

Some "experts" argued that T-Mac should have been MVP this year. What? The guy who has never led a team past the first round, and who had a flat average (106) offensive efficiency this year on a team with a legit center to help draw defenders is MVP? Yao had a 111 efficiency, and Battier contributed his part as the very efficient role player (119), but McGrady could not manage more than league average. The point here is that T-Mac was probably an overall good player to have on Houston, but he also probably cost them a lot of games that, say, D-Wade or LeBron might not have (or, of course, Jordan).

Vince Carter is an unfortunate case. He's a fantastic athlete and maybe the best dunker ever. He went to Carolina and stayed 3 years. He came out and immediately started scoring big (27.6 by his 3rd year). Sounds familiar right? Nope, sadly for Vince, his career has largely been average since its early heights in Toronto. Once he quit on his team and forced a trade to Jersey, he was mildly above average. I have questions as to how good he would have been without Kidd, but nevertheless. The point is, Vince is not a very efficient player at all, and epitomizes the "posterize-ability" quality that seems to define contemporary superstars.

There's a reason that the most well known NBA superstars are largely not playing by even the conference semi-finals: they are, largely, not as good as billed. No one in the League is currently the next Jordan or the next Magic or the next Bird. Maybe it's an indicator that there are more good players now and that the kind of domination that Jordan or Magic exhibited doesn't happen anymore... or it could be that what sells is not what wins and that Jordan and Magic were pretty unique players, the likes of which we are not going to see again for some time, or ever.

Maybe we should just christen the 80s and 90s the era of the Superstar. Now the superstar is extinct, and we have the era of team-basketball ruling now. The best teams? Dallas, Phoenix, San Antonio, Detroit are all teams built around a number of very, very good players who play very, very well together - but none of them have a superstar like Jordan. The Superstar is extinct.

The Patterson Sweepstakes are over...

2007-05-16T13:07:00.000-07:00

And Patterson decides to go to Kentucky. As rumors fly about some nefarious activity underlying the decision, I would just like to wish Patterson the best unless he plays Duke. Of course, we never see Kentucky anymore, so whatever.

So, at least now we can be assured of what our roster will look like next year.

Tempo-free Review of Duke 06-07 (albeit a bit late)

2007-05-15T14:18:00.000-07:00

So I only recently calculated these numbers, not having entered into this kind of statistical frenzy since after the season was over. Nevertheless, here they are. These stats have been used before, so no need to explain them.

Player	% of Min	eFG%	PtsProdG	Floor %	% of Poss	Off. R	Stop %	Def. R
Demarcus Nelson	78.8%	53.8%	13.1	49.8%	24.0%	103.5	61.3%	89.7
Josh McRoberts	87.2%	50.9%	13.9	55.2%	21.9%	108.0	69.9%	86.2
Jon Scheyer	83.3%	50.5%	11.7	51.8%	18.0%	116.2	42.8%	97.3
Greg Paulus	80.0%	57.5%	11.9	46.1%	21.0%	105.7	40.1%	98.4
Gerald Henderson	46.3%	47.2%	6.6	48.6%	21.5%	96.6	50.5%	94.2
David McClure	53.6%	50.9%	4.5	48.9%	13.0%	96.2	73.4%	84.8
Lance Thomas	34.7%	56.8%	3.8	48.0%	17.3%	89.2	50.4%	94.2
Brian Zoubek	17.6%	52.4%	3.1	47.7%	28.6%	89.1	66.9%	87.5
Marty Pocius	14.5%	52.3%	1.8	38.1%	17.0%	87.9	36.3%	100.0

Some things that jumped out at me:

As maligned as McRoberts was, he was probably our most solid player offensively and defensively. He carried a larger offensive burden this year than last (when he was more efficient generally), but still managed a fairly good offensive year, and an excellent defensive year. Losing him will hurt, but with guys like Nelson, McClure, Thomas, Zoubek and Henderson (who will all be solid defenders), I think we can be a more positional defensive team instead of relying as much on help defense at the last resort.
On that note, I have to hope that Paulus recovering from an injury will really help his game. His O-rating was not spectacular, but he was quite the shooter, with our highest eFG%. His D-rating was not spectacular, but experience and a healthy foot may help him. I never expect him to be a dominant defensive presence like Nelson or Duhon but he could be a solid defender who causes a lot of turnovers like Wojo. It's worth noting that as a freshman, Paulus had an eFG% of 43, and an O-rating of 93. His D-rating was even worse, a 99.4 He's a real winner and has improved a lot despite injuries. I expect him to be a good leader next season.
Zoubek's numbers are encouraging, at least defensively. His numbers are based on limited PT, though, so it's unclear how they will translate if he has to play a lot of minutes.
You can see that our biggest troubles were offenisve in nature. Paulus was our only guy with over 50% minutes who had an eFG% over 55%. For comparison, last year we had 4. I hope bringing in guys like King, Smith and Singler who can all shoot the outside shot will help our offensive woes by stretching defenses a little and allowing guys like Nelson and Henderson the opportunity to slash. Who knows, maybe Thomas and Zoubek will show marked strides in developing low post games. And maybe we'll get Patterson too (who knows there - I'll wait until tomorrow to comment).
Nevertheless, despite having a rather unremarkable offense in terms of efficiency, we had a very young and -very- balanced offense. I love this. I felt it a bit of a liability in the Redick-era for us to place so much emphasis on one guy, especially one who had trouble with big, long, quick defenders (Garret Temple, for instance). I thought JJ would be the perfect guy for a balanced team (like Lee Humphrey at Florida), but as the centerpiece he presented problems. For example, as a sophomore he still led the team in scoring, but did so on just 21.4% of team possessions. He was efficient (122.5 rating), and fit into the team concept well. That team, not shockingly, was our last Final Four team.
Nelson had a good season. Defensively, he is what we expect: a shut down guy who forces lots of stops. Offensively, we'd obviously like to see more from him, but he's made big strides in his time here. I feel next year he can be a really good player.

All in all, an ok season. Our record did not indicate our performance. A few loose balls or rebounds going a different way, a few close shots missing or going in, and we'd have had a 25-8 or so season and not be so worried about the future.