Game Thread [2021-22] Duke at Wake Forest

[SeanMayTriedToEatMe]

Wednesday, January 12, 7:00pm ET, ACC Network
Lawrence Joel Veterans Memorial Coliseum

Duke will try to shake off a bad loss and the lingering toll of COVID-19 against a program looking for a signature win to push them back into national relevancy. Steve Forbes enjoyed a lot of winning at East Tennessee State before Wake gave him a chance. He’s turning things around quickly in only his 2nd year and is looking like a smart hire.

It’s not hard to imagine a court storm after this one, with a sea of swirly black and yellow tie dye and the Omicron variant sparking a new era of Wake basketball. All it would take to fully awaken the sleeping giant (pun intended), which was nearly killed for good by Danny Manning, might be one more baffling performance by Duke’s players and coaches.

Expect Duke to be favored by only 6-8 points.

 

[Devilsforlife]

Loss. 7 Duke players will somehow foul out, too.

 

[DrKlahn]

What’s that you say, Duke struggles against older guards?

 

[aiw]

That's unbelievable

 

[TS9]

What’s that you say, Duke struggles against older guards?

View attachment 1292

Wikipedia says this dude is 22 so someone has fucked up somewhere

 

[childress22]

Wikipedia lists his birthday as June 1999 FWIW.

 

[SeanMayTriedToEatMe]

This team is super old. 5 of their top 6 guys are seniors.

They’re spectacular at making 2s, whether at the rim or from midrange. They’re bad at making 3s and they don’t like to take 3s. A defense geared toward preventing 3s is just going to look silly against them.

Mark Williams is a decent defender against 2s, which would probably be very useful to keep on the court in this game. But that would mean AJ Griffin, a reasonably efficient offensive player, can’t play much. Going to be some tough juggling for the coaches in this one, in choosing between Williams and Griffin.

 

[DrKlahn]

That might be too old. Maybe he’ll have back pain and need to ride the exercise bike all night

 

[DrKlahn]

I want to see the birth certificate

 

[torontoduke]

That's racist

 

[Pantone287]

Yet another game that any parent volunteer coaching his son's YMCA team could easily win with this roster, but that K will lose by actively minimizing his players' strengths and putting them in position to fail.

Honestly, you couldn't ask for a better matchup for our roster than that profile. Yet I have no faith we'll actually win.

 

[SeanMayTriedToEatMe]

Alondes Williams, whether he’s 27 or 22, is a really good player. Another guy who could win ACC POY. He has exploded like Wendell Moore this season, except without COVID ruining his season like it has for Moore. Sucked for two years and now suddenly an advanced stats god averaging 20/6/5.

He’s not even relying on great shooting from 3 or the line to put up his ridiculous stats - he’s improving as a shooter but still not very good. He does his scoring damage with 63% 2pt shooting and a decent volume of trips to the line with 73% FT shooting. The craziest thing is his 33% assist rate. Apparently destroys defenses single handedly.

29% usage
123 ORtg
10.6 BPM
29 PER

 

[SeanMayTriedToEatMe]

Wake’s starting lineup goes:

PG 6-5 Alondes Williams (can shoot)
SG 6-2 Daivien Williamson (can shoot)
SF 6-8 Isaiah Mucius (great shooter)
PF 6-9 Jake Laravia (great shooter)
C 7-0 Dallas Walton (can’t shoot)

That’s pretty huge for college. It becomes clear why they’re so good at making 2s.

These defensive matchups for Duke would seem ideal:

Moore on Williams
Roach or Keels on Williamson
Griffin on Mucius
Banchero on Laravia
Williams on Walton

If the Griffin switch doesn’t get flipped by the coaches in this game, it’s a real possibility that it never will before he goes off to the NBA as a top 10 pick.

 

[SeanMayTriedToEatMe]

I do believe there’s a decent chance K takes Roach or Keels out of the starting lineup for this one. It was always going to take a perfect storm, including an even worse individual performance than usual with turnovers and/or bad defense + a Duke loss to a bad team + the next opponent being perfectly suited for a bigger lineup. K would never take them out simply for being awful on offense. We have the perfect storm right now.

If Griffin does replace one of those two, there’s going to be a ton of anxiety in the Duke fanbase over this game. It becomes the single most important game of the season, an absolute must-win. Just as K stops trying zone defense for the rest of the game after one possession if the opponent happens to hit a lucky shot, K probably won’t shuffle his lineup again if Duke doesn’t win this game, no matter what the circumstances are. Wake could win a close game while going 12/15 from 3, with Griffin being the star of the game and Roach/Keels shooting 2/20 FG, and we would still never see Griffin over Roach/Keels again.

 

[Pantone287]

Yeah, hopefully this is the game K makes his "genius" move of putting his best player into the starting lineup. He likes to do stuff like that coming out of a couple bad games, so I could see it happening.

Even with how bad K is, all we really need is for Moore to stop being Moops, and for AJ to lock down a spot with Roach/Keels having to compete for time rather than having unlimited leashes to fuck around all game. That's enough to win the ACC.

Wake really couldn't be a better matchup, though. Big ball, don't stretch the floor a lot, lumbering non-shooting C, a 6'5 guard who drives most of their offense. We should win unless we completely shit our pants.

 

[krsmith16]

We’re gonna completely shit our pants, pants.

 

[rome8180]

Rooting for a loss, tbh. At that point, hopes for a 1 seed will officially be done, and therefore any Final Four hopes. It's better not to have hope.

 

[StopThePumpFakesShav]

This is the one where K stares into space while the crowd goes insane and we lose by 10?

 

[rome8180]

This is the one where K stares into space while the crowd goes insane and we lose by 10?

Only 10? Since when did you become the board optimist?

 

[Pantone287]

AJ is apparently starting. Hopefully it's over Keels or Roach and not Mark.