Game Thread [2022-23] at Syracuse

[SeanMayTriedToEatMe]

Saturday, February 18, 6:00pm ET, ESPN
JMA Wireless Dome

It will be another sellout in Syracuse to watch a lackluster Duke team. It’s the same old Syracuse zone, with abysmal defensive rebounding and tons of 3s allowed. The one thing Syracuse does at an elite level is block shots without fouling. They’re #2 nationally in block percentage and #12 in minimizing opponent free throw rate. Kyle Filipowski can expect to get his face, throat and arms destroyed at the rim in this game without fouls being called.

Syracuse’s best player is their 4th year center, Jesse Edwards. Edwards doesn’t have 3pt range, but he has great touch for a center from anywhere else. He’s shooting 69% at the rim, 41% from midrange and 72% from the line. On defense, he has an 11% block rate and 24% defensive rebounding rate. It’s a testament to how bad the rest of Syracuse’s roster is that they can have a guy like this in the middle of the zone and still be around #150 in defensive efficiency. The problem for Duke will be trying to exploit those other defenders on the perimeter and in the midrange - this could be gross as a weakness-vs.-weakness exercise all game.

Expect Duke to be a small favorite.

 

[torontoduke]

I'll be there.

 

[SeanMayTriedToEatMe]

Ah fuck.

 

[Devilsforlife]

Duke is 9-1 against Syracuse since 2017, only losing to them in the bizarre Tre Jones shoulder injury game at Cameron. We have consistently eviscerated their zone, but our guards are capable of turning to complete shit offensively at any given moment this year.

 

[rome8180]

Ah fuck.

Marshall Plumlee is 100% though.

 

[rome8180]

Duke is 9-1 against Syracuse since 2017, only losing to them in the bizarre Tre Jones shoulder injury game at Cameron. We have consistently eviscerated their zone, but our guards are capable of turning to complete shit offensively at any given moment this year.

Ah yes, one of the worst nights of my life.

 

[aiw]

Huge L

 

[Devilsforlife]

Duke is 9-1 against Syracuse since 2017, only losing to them in the bizarre Tre Jones shoulder injury game at Cameron. We have consistently eviscerated their zone, but our guards are capable of turning to complete shit offensively at any given moment this year.

Ah yes, one of the worst nights of my life.

January 14 is the worst day of the year, by far. 4 straight Duke losses, and we both broke up with long time girlfriends on it. Still boggles my mind.

 

[LastHearth]

Thought we’d win this but after the crap show against ND, nope.

 

[physicsfactor]

Will make 7 of 32 3s and lose

 

[best4heisman]

The ACC is so sad. A team with home losses to Bryant and Colgate is 9-6 in the conference.

Was hoping we could go 4-1 over these final five games, but that feels way too optimistic now. I guess just beat Louisville and one of State/VT and we'll be fine for the tournament?

 

[rome8180]

I think we'll win every game left but the Syracuse one.

 

[physicsfactor]

I’m going with…

L @ Cuse
W vs Lville
W vs VT
Tossup vs State
L @ UNC

So 3-2 or 2-3 depending on that home game vs @dub_seahawks

 

[rome8180]

Lol, I forgot about UNC somehow. In my defense, I was a little drunk.

 

[rome8180]

Thought we’d win this but after the crap show against ND, nope.

What sense does this make? Are we a fundamentally different team than we were before that game?

 

[LastHearth]

Thought we’d win this but after the crap show against ND, nope.

What sense does this make? Are we a fundamentally different team than we were before that game?

Every game is an additional data point, and recent data points are more relevant than the ones 3 months ago.
The only thing that saved us last night was home court. If last night was played on the road there is a good chance ND completes the comeback.
Right now I see little reason to optimistic about any road game.

 

[DurhamSon]

Thought we’d win this but after the crap show against ND, nope.

What sense does this make? Are we a fundamentally different team than we were before that game?

Every game is an additional data point, and recent data points are more relevant than the ones 3 months ago.
The only thing that saved us last night was home court. If last night was played on the road there is a good chance ND completes the comeback.
Right now I see little reason to optimistic about any road game.

And if you take our UVA performance three days earlier, that would have been enough for a comfortable win against Cuse. Your takes are quite prisoner of the moment influenced which is understandable as it happens to all of us to different extents.

Pomeroy and Vegas likely has us as a 1 to 2 point favorite which is probably accurate and not indicative of a sure win or loss

 

[LastHearth]

Of course it was a prisoner of the moment take. What, you thought I was writing a peer reviewed doctoral dissertation on the subject?
Yes, the bad performance last night, plus all the previous failures on the road, makes me think that we're more likely than not going to lose this game.
It's just my gut feeling on the subject and I never pretended it was anything more than that.

 

[childress22]

I'm not "optimistic" about the Syracuse game -- just feel like it could go either way -- but I feel like I don't mind the fact that they're coming off a big win already, and we're coming off what can be described as a "moral loss." I feel like Syracuse is different enough, and good enough, and we played poorly enough, that I at least expect us to be prepared game-plan-wise.

 

[best4heisman]

We're almost exactly a year removed from putting up an egregious 1.6 ppp at the Carrier Dome. We accomplished this by rebounding over half of our misses and knocking down 15 threes. Despite our poor shooting, the same formula should be available to this Duke team. Let Whitehead, Grandison and Roach let it rip on open threes because at any given moment we'll have two of the top offensive rebounders in the ACC down low to clean up misses (Lively currently 1st, Young 5th, Flip 13th).

As SMTTEM alluded to, this probably isn't the matchup for Flip to brute force his way inside for easy buckets. Hopefully we can run stuff through him in the middle of the zone to collapse it and set up open threes and the occasional lob to Lively.