Duke Basketball 2017-2018

[torontoduke]

Most definitely. Need him to hit those corner 3s to open things up. It would be nice if he was a competent team defender as well, but I'm more optimistic about his offence.

 

[DrKlahn]

This team looks like a hot mess to me, especially after Grayson gets injured/murdered.

 

[torontoduke]

It certainly could be a disaster with injuries to Grayson and/or Duval. Thin on backcourt depth.

 

[TS9]

Regardless of injuries, there are going to be so many missed shots. We might have to resort to the gunky putback game that UK/UNC often do so well – unless we suck at rebounding again, in which case oh well whatever.

 

[rome8180]

Regardless of injuries, there are going to be so many missed shots. We might have to resort to the gunky putback game that UK/UNC often do so well – unless we suck at rebounding again, in which case oh well whatever.

We're never that great at rebounding, even in our best years. Don't see us being UK/UNC-level dominant on the boards.

 

[Slap the Floor]

Regardless of injuries, there are going to be so many missed shots. We might have to resort to the gunky putback game that UK/UNC often do so well – unless we suck at rebounding again, in which case oh well whatever.

We're never that great at rebounding, even in our best years. Don't see us being UK/UNC-level dominant on the boards.

We've never really had a front court like this one, though, so IMO it is hard to gauge. This is the first time where we've had a front court that rivals some of those front courts UK has had where they are athletic, big, long and versatile enough. UNC's front courts are usually different in that their big men are old school and play well back to the basket with a set jumper extending to the elbow, they then design their offense on sending big, athletic big men to the glass.

We don't need to do what UNC is where we have designated spots on the floor for offensive rebounders. Also, since I'm on UNC, this is the first time I can remember where we have a clear and obvious advantage against them inside.

 

[physicsfactor]

2013? Arguably 2015 as well even though the numbers might not suggest it due to style of play.

 

[Slap the Floor]

2013? Arguably 2015 as well even though the numbers might not suggest it due to style of play.

2013 and 2015 both had very good front courts but neither one of them is like this in terms of style. This is one of the more unique CBB front courts I've seen. Bagley and Carter can both switch onto a 3, possibly even a 2 depending on the opponent, yet they are still going to be very good rebounders and rim protectors and provide a dominant presence inside. Usually when your bigs can switch out like that, you're giving up something defensively, yet we aren't. Neither one of them has to be chained to the post, yet, both are extremely active inside.

I'm half joking half serious here, but just in terms of style of play this front court has the potential to be the face of the new wave of front court players coming through. How front court players play the game has changed rapidly, and young players coming up are being developed to be athletic, capable of playing and guarding multiple positions, having a greater array of offense than just back to the basket post offense, etc. We've seen individual cases of this, but I don't think we've seen a tandem do it together yet. Assuming Coach K doesn't screw this up, this tandem will really be something.

 

[Slap the Floor]

It should also be noted that I believe, at the top anyway, that next season's CBB is significantly stiffer than this past season. Arizona, Louisville, Kansas, Michigan State, Wichita State and Kentucky are all going to be VERY good.

 

[DurhamSon]

New Draftexpress only has Bagley from our team in the top 9 picks. Maybe media expectations can finally be tempered somewhat.

 

[Slap the Floor]

I'm very disappointed in our baby shit soft OOC schedule this season. We play Michigan State on a neutral floor, then we get Butler/Texas in the semi-finals of the Phil Knight tournament, Indiana on the road and then St. John's in NY. Those games are fine, but, I would have liked to have 2 more tough OOC games. I'm sure we could have set something up with Florida, Xavier, Minnesota, UCLA, or Rhode Island on a neutral floor.

 

[TS9]

I'm very disappointed in our baby shit soft OOC schedule this season. We play Michigan State on a neutral floor, then we get Butler/Texas in the semi-finals of the Phil Knight tournament, Indiana on the road and then St. John's in NY. Those games are fine, but, I would have liked to have 2 more tough OOC games. I'm sure we could have set something up with Florida, Xavier, Minnesota, UCLA, or Rhode Island on a neutral floor.

On the other hand, the weak OOC schedule, combined with the most favorable ACC schedule Duke has had in a while, is a gift-wrapped path to a No. 1 seed, with the obvious caveat that we will, as usual, find creative ways to fuck it up.

 

[physicsfactor]

Slap, I was simply responding to your post saying this is the first year Duke has a clear and obvious advantage in the frontcourt vs UNC.

 

[SeanMayTriedToEatMe]

Something that would help our offensive rebounding immensely is Bagley never taking a shot outside the paint. Either play volleyball at the rim until your layup goes in or be in position to go after rebounds when your teammates put up shots.

I would expect the coaching staff to put up with high volume jumpers from Bagley and Carter, since recruiting will suffer in the future if they force star OADs to change their games. That would make us a terrible offensive rebounding team statistically no matter how good those two may be as rebounders.

However, I think there should be a massive improvement in defensive rebounding over the typical Duke team. Duval should be an elite rebounding PG, to go with what we assume are two excellent rebounding big men. 6-9.5 wingspan, wide frame and probably a huge vertical. He should rebound like a typical Duke SF.

Allen has been a good defensive rebounder for his position, especially last season. Playing a lot of PG, his defensive rebounding rate (11.3%) was much higher than Bolden's and slightly under Jeter's. Much higher than Jackson's, almost double Matt Jones's. Taking Jones's terrible defensive rebounding (6.0%) as an SF out of the equation will help, or at least not hurt, assuming Trent cannot be much worse. Trent averaged about 5 rebounds per 40 in FIBA and U16/17 play over 26 games, while Jones averaged 3.4 rebounds per 40 last season.

The pieces are there for a monster rebounding team. We will see if there is anything K can do to make this team as terrible at rebounding as usual.

 

[wtbball21]

Regardless of injuries, there are going to be so many missed shots. We might have to resort to the gunky putback game that UK/UNC often do so well – unless we suck at rebounding again, in which case oh well whatever.

We're never that great at rebounding, even in our best years. Don't see us being UK/UNC-level dominant on the boards.

That's really not true. Duke's offensive rebounding is usually pretty strong. Top 100 in offensive rebounding in 12 out of the last 15 years, top 70 in 10 out of 15. That's with playing small ball, something UK and UNC do not do. When Duke has gone bigger, they shown UK and UNC dominance on the boards. The 2010 National Championship was largely won due to offensive rebounding. In fact, that 2010 team was better on the offensive glass than Kentucky's infamous 2015 team. BTW that Kentucky 2015 team was 211th in Defensive rebounding. Defensive rebounding is important, but teams typically can't take away everything and Duke clearly believes in taking away three pointers and free throws.

 

[rome8180]

Top 100 and top 70 is not high enough for what we're talking about. We need true offensive rebounding dominance to offset what is likely to be bad shooting and spacing.

And our defensive rebounding is a different issue entirely, one that has had a huge impact on our defense in recent years. I expect improvement there, but history says we'll be average at best.

 

[bdotling]

also I think we all recognize here that 2010 is an outlier in terms of style of play from Coach K

 

[SeanMayTriedToEatMe]

List of teams since 2007 who were among the top 5 on offense for the respective season and were very bad at shooting 3s and/or didn't shoot 3s very often (had a combined 3pt% ranking and 3pt rate ranking equal to or greater than 250):

2017
None

2016
1 North Carolina (#259 3pt%, #338 3pt rate) - Brice Johnson team
5 Kentucky (74, 273) - Tyler Ulis team

2015
5 Iowa (135, 301) - Roy Devyn Marble team

2014
None

2013
3 Gonzaga (59, 212) - Kelly Olynyk team

2012
2 Kentucky (37, 313) - Anthony Davis team
4 Indiana (2, 294) - Victor Oladipo team

2011
4 Pittsburgh (12, 292) - Ashton Gibbs team

2010
3 California (46, 234) - Jamal Boykin team

2009
1 North Carolina (24, 300) - Ty Lawson team
2 Pittsburgh (107, 264) - DeJuan Blair team
3 UCLA (12, 259) - Darren Collison team
4 Oklahoma (122, 128) - Blake Griffin team

2008
1 North Carolina (78, 339) - Tyler Hansbrough team
2 Kansas (14, 287) - Mario Chalmers team

2007
2 North Carolina (130, 234) - Brandan Wright team
5 Arizona (202, 287) - Chase Budinger team

A few takeaways:

1. As the whole world learns the value of 3s, it's getting harder to be relatively great on offense without halfway decent 3pt shooting. Before the Warriors and Rockets ruined basketball for old people, it was common for a team to dominate in other ways offensively and be among the top offensive teams in the country. Now, not so much.

2. It does still happen, though. Just two seasons ago, a horrendous 3pt shooting team had the #1 offense in the country.

3. How the outliers do it is no mystery. They're good-to-great at almost every other offensive factor, including 2pt%, FT%, FT rate, turnover rate and offensive rebounding rate.

4. While everyone will point to North Carolina as the 3pt-hating program to model Duke 2018 after, another program that kept coming up over and over and barely missed the cut repeatedly for this list was Gonzaga. They were barely 3pt-averse enough in 2013 to make the list and were close to making it several other times.

5. Duke fans know how Roy Williiams pulls this off consistently, because we watch his team play all the time. How does Mark Few consistently have great offense with a lack of 3pt shooting? The obvious and not very helpful point is that Gonzaga historically shoots accurately from 3 in their relatively small number of attempts. The same can be said about most of the teams on this list. That's the key to Duke 2018, IMO - they don't need to take a lot of 3s, but the ones they do take will generally be wide open and in rhythm, and they will need to make a good percentage of those shots.

6. There is another way besides the Carolina offensive rebounding way. The only other constant in Few's offensive track record is 2pt%. Gonzaga has been a super-elite 2pt shooting team almost every season, which shows a team can consistently be good at 2pt shooting if coached a certain way. Whether it's taking better 2pt shots (e.g., not what Justise Winslow did the first half of the season) or having the right players take those 2pt shots (e.g., not Matt Jones), the basic scheme/system itself can make a constant, notable difference in 2pt%, just like it can with offensive rebounding.

7. Among this collection of elite offensive teams despite poor 3pt shooting and/or lack of 3pt attempts, there were 3 national champions over 11 seasons. A team like this wins it all fairly often when considering the rather specific parameters, much more often than I was expecting to find. Duke 2018, in all its terrible jumpshooting glory, can work. It's on the coaching to make it work like the legendary Xs and Os savant, Roy Williams.

 

[CMon85]

Most definitely. Need him to hit those corner 3s to open things up. It would be nice if he was a competent team defender as well, but I'm more optimistic about his offence.

Isn't he an elite 3 point shooter? I was under the assumption that he, Trent and O'Connell are all above average 3 point shooters. Throw in Allen and I think we'll be ok.

 

[CMon85]

Does anyone have the full schedule? Has it been released yet?