Amid the cacophony of message board chatter and gnashing of teeth over the fate of Duke's season yesterday, some cooler heads prevailed. I'm talking, of course, about some of college basketball's better analysts, who offered their breakdowns of the Blue Devils' 93-78 loss.
Perhaps the best post-game wrap-up came from Basketball Prospectus's Asher Fusco. Fusco points out that the astronomically high points per possession numbers from St. John's yesterday were only the third-best numbers it has had this year. Fusco also says that Lavin's ingenious motion offense was the reason why the paint looked so open all game.
That lack of effort led to a truly awful defensive performance against St. John's. The Red Storm tallied 1.26 points per possession, nearly a fifth of a point better than the next-best Duke opponent this season (Michigan State's 1.07). Even more jarring was the fact that St. John's offense posted its third best showing of the season—only Drake and Northwestern allowed this offense to score more efficiently.
Oddly enough, St. John's performance against Duke seemed less of a fluke than their output against Northwestern. Steve Lavin's team ran its offense to near perfection at times on Sunday, turning crisp back-cuts and on-target entry passes into easy points. Lavin also deserves credit for an offensive gameplan that took advantage of some hard-to-find matchup issues. Lavin spread his motion offense out, at times moving all or most players outside of the three-point arc and bringing either of the Plumlee brothers or Kelly with them. The Red Storm guards—and even quick forwards Justin Burrell and Justin Brownlee—took advantage of the empty paint to convert 58 percent of their two-point attempts.
The Dagger's Jeff Eisenberg says that the loss of Irving means a loss of dribble penetration offense (hence a lack of open shooters), among other things. This was commonly brought up after the stagnant look of the offense in the loss at Tallahassee, but it does bear repeating especially since Duke shot 5-for-26 from three yesterday.
Eisenberg goes on to say, though, that the Blue Devils lack lateral quickness on the perimeter without Irving, a charge that Nolan Smith and Tyler Thornton would seem to refute.
The absence of Irving has also limited Duke's ability to create open looks via dribble penetration. Whereas a quick point guard like Irving can get in the lane, force the defense to collapse on him and kick to open shooters, the rest of the Blue Devils aren't as skilled in that area. As a result, the team is taking more contested jump shots, contributing to their poor shooting against Florida State earlier this month and their 1 of 21 3-point shooting prior to the final five minutes on Saturday.
ESPN.com's Eammon Brennan makes a point that would have been thought absurd at the beginning of the year, when Duke faced down a non-conference schedule of Michigan State, Marquette, Kansas State and Butler: Duke has had few quality wins this season. A Big East game against a battle-tested team would be one of those quality wins, but the Blue Devils failed this one.
The evidence therein: Duke has at least two so-so losses on its resume (a road loss to Florida State being the other). It has very few, if any, “quality” wins. Instead, Duke’s best victories have come over Michigan State, Kansas State, Butler and Marquette, all teams that could theoretically miss the tournament. And it plays in an uncharacteristically “down” ACC, a conference that lacks another true contender and might have only one ranked team (the Blue Devils, naturally) by the time Monday’s poll is released. (Florida State lost 62-44 at Clemson Saturday. Guh.) Even if they win out the rest of the way -- which is unlikely, too -- a bad ACC means the Blue Devils won’t have many more chances to impress the selection committee going forward.
See any other expert opinions on the loss yesterday? Let us know in the comments.
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