Duke-Wake Forest prediction thread

[rome8180]

[ben][/ben]

 

[TS9]

Let's not dick around with the easiest remaining game on the schedule, please.

 

[DukeInPeru]

If it wasn't for our guaranteed use of stall ball at the end of blowouts, I would have voted a larger margin.

I am not totally against stall ball because while it does cause us to have smaller margins of victory, I think limiting possessions is probably is the best way to maximize the probability of a win when you have a big lead.

***Note: I came to that conclusion without any statistical evidence, and I am too lazy to crunch the numbers. It is very possible (guaranteed?) that I have no idea what I am talking about.

 

[SeanMayTriedToEatMe]

Line is out really early for this one. Duke is favored by 16.5 points.

 

[deepdarkblue]

If it wasn't for our guaranteed use of stall ball at the end of blowouts, I would have voted a larger margin.

I am not totally against stall ball because while it does cause us to have smaller margins of victory, I think limiting possessions is probably is the best way to maximize the probability of a win when you have a big lead.

***Note: I came to that conclusion without any statistical evidence, and I am too lazy to crunch the numbers. It is very possible (guaranteed?) that I have no idea what I am talking about.

Eye test tells me stall ball is much preferred over heaving up late game 3's while not getting offensive rebounds.

 

[rome8180]

Line is out really early for this one. Duke is favored by 16.5 points.

Interesting. Sagarin would have us favored by more like 12.

 

[SeanMayTriedToEatMe]

Line was only up briefly and hasn't been put back up anywhere. Maybe it comes back out lower, but I wouldn't be surprised if Vegas and the betting public has decided to throw out all the trash play Duke showed until recently.

 

[StopThePumpFakesShav]

Kenpom has it at -9; would think it settles in the 11-12 range.

This game and the Clemson game exemplify the difference between the ACC and most other conferences and even between the ACC of today versus of 5-10 years ago. You're coming off an emotional home game against UNC or a tough road game versus Virginia for a game against a team in the bottom half of the conference. You'd think that you can play poorly and still kind of coast your way to a double digit victory, even if a bit ugly. But these are games against top 40 Kenpom teams. Clemson and Wake are tournament quality teams without the records to show for it- and they're comfortably tournament quality, projecting to 9 seeds or so based on Kenpom.

I would think in years past we've followed up big games with blah games that didn't really register as horrible because we didn't lose or they didn't necessarily come down to the last possession. But that may have been just a function of lower quality opponents. In 2015, we followed up the big @UVA win with a 6 point home win to #86 Georgia Tech. We followed up the 30 point home ND win with a 3 point win @ #99 FSU. And there was of course the OT win @ #176 VTech.

Long winded way of saying that I'm half expecting a one possession game with 3 mins to go.

 

[rome8180]

Does the Kempom prediction factor in home court? That is worth 3+ points.

 

[rome8180]

And yes, STPFS, I almost predicted a close win. The reason I didn’t is that I don't think we will be overlooking Wake after they almost beat us.

 

[ZackM]

Does the Kempom prediction factor in home court? That is worth 3+ points.

Yeah, he does.

 

[SeanMayTriedToEatMe]

Yeah, Duke is only favored by 11. Not sure if it was a glitch on the website I look at or if some sportsbook actually opened them at 16.5 earlier.

 

[SeanMayTriedToEatMe]

Line is up to 12-12.5.

 

[deepdarkblue]

It will be interesting to see how the team approaches this game. Will they be disinterested in this meaningless WF team, or will they see it as a chance to improve on their previous meeting? In particular, will Tatum see this as an opportunity to make a statement, after his anemic performance (8 points, 5 fouls, 5 rebounds, 3 TOs in 21 minutes) in the first game?

If Duke wins this by 20 or more, we win the title. There, I said it.

 

[deepdarkblue]

Well I won't have to worry about that prediction now.

 

[bdotling]

That was gross. I'm not sure why we were so content to switch the high PnR. A hard hedge would have been way more effective like we did versus Miami.

 

[krsmith16]

We could probably react to PnR by just falling down or dabbing and it would be just as effective.