Duke vs North Carolina, Live Thoughts

We sometimes talk about how hot shooting is unsustainable, (Duke started 7-of-9). But hot shooting is sustainable if a team only takes high percentage shots. It may be too hard to record it for every game, but for these high profile games, someone should be tracking the shot difficulty (easy, contested, forced). Duke is getting all easy looks.

Grayson Allen failed to convert an alley-oop. Well, if Duke wins, North Carolina fans will always have that GIF.

You know when you are playing with some tiny NERF basketball in the backyard with your younger cousin, and you throw the thing around like the ball weighs nothing and the basket is huge. That’s Jahlil Okafor’s world. His one-handed off-the-lane throw-in doesn’t seem human.

Marcus Paige takes a step-back three near the six-minute mark of the first half. That’s a bad shot in any world. That’s the look of a frustrated player. I’m in foul trouble, I’m not getting major minutes, I’m just going to force one up.

Somewhere a North Carolina fan is cheering for Joel James (3-for-3 on the night, passable defense on Okafor) and saying that at least Desmond Hubert is injured so Roy Williams can’t inexplicably take James out. And then Joel James foot makes the play-of-the-day, as Okafor comes down on James foot and Okafor twists his ankle. Duke led 42-36 at the time of the injury.

Somewhere the 76ers are doing the math. (Well, if we drafted another injured center at the top of the draft, and held onto that asset for a couple years, and just tanked one more season…)

Wait, Okafor returns from the locker-room minutes later, and Duke extends the lead while he is out. Duke fans breathe a huge sigh of relief.

Second half: North Carolina is now scoring like crazy in the paint, but the big story is that the Tar Heels are actually getting some stops. I’m not sure if this is sustainable. Duke misses an open three, Okafor misses a seemingly easy basket inside, but the Tar Heels take the lead on another inside dunk.

North Carolina now leads point-in-the-paint 42-22. Obviously, if the Tar Heels were going to win, they were going to win this stat. But given how many points Duke got in the paint in the first four minutes of the game, this has completely turned around.

Now Paige is being guarded by Duke big man Amile Jefferson. North Carolina plays it perfectly, spreads it out, and let’s Pagie go one-on-one. But he still can’t get by. It always seems like a mismatch when a big-guy is on a speedy guard, but it rarely plays out that way in college. Switching is a completely underrated defensive strategy.

Okafor gets an “and-one” inside to give Duke the lead back. Eh, I’ve seen it, I’m not going nuts like the crowd. Okafor dives around Kennedy Meeks for a steal and rolls on the floor for a loose ball. Now that’s impressive! My first round evaluation is going up.

Everyone’s going to talk about North Carolina’s offensive rebounds and paint baskets in the second half, and that’s true. But in 14 minutes of second half play, they’ve given up 13 points. This is what is concerning me about Tyus Jones. Early in the year, if Duke was in trouble, he’d drive the lane and get a lay-up. Now he’s driving, not getting the angle, and forcing up a circus shot. He goes right far too often. The defense seems to have him scouted. Jones is 2 of 8 in the second half. North Carolina’s defense is playing so much better now.

Probably the best way to describe North Carolina’s defense is “not giving up”. If a team gives up that many threes, normally the defense starts crowding the perimeter and giving up on the inside. North Carolina has doubled-down on the interior, while still allowing fewer open three point looks than in the first half.

UNC’s Nate Britt catches the ball, and drives the lane between four Duke defenders. That can’t happen. Did Duke just wave the white flag right there?

Justise Winslow tries to spark one last run. He does it on offense, and on defense? Winslow’s block of Brice Johnson looks to be all-ball, but they call a foul. Johnson makes both free throws to extend the lead back to five.

But wait, why did I give up on Tyus? Instead of driving right, he drives center, gets fouled, and makes the free throw. Then Tyus scores on the subsequent possession on a drive from the wing. If Jones is getting in the lane, with Okafor and those shooters, I don’t know how you stop the Blue Devils. But all that did was tie the game.

North Carolina can win it at the buzzer, but Paige misses a three. There is a long offensive rebound and time expires. Um, I’m pretty sure at least two Duke players fouled North Carolina players in that final scrum. Diving into someone’s knees and hitting someone from behind aren’t legal moves, but no ref is going to call that against Duke at home. And so we go to OT.

Duke takes the lead and the crowd is going nuts, but Okafor misses two straight free throws, making him 0-6 at the line, and you can just see the energy suck out of the building. JP Tokoto is going to get a “quadruple” double someday in a pro-league, points, rebounds, assists, and turnovers. His pass to Hicks gives North Carolina the lead and his bucket extends the lead to three.

Duke takes the lead back because Okafor is inhuman. OK, the scary thing about Joel Embiid last year was how good he was given how raw he was. The scary thing for Okafor is how polished he is. No one in college can back a defender down from 12 feet away quite like him, and I’ve watched a lot of Frank Kaminsky. Okafor doesn’t have the outside game yet, but he has the agility.

North Carolina has one more chance down three points with 5 seconds left. The Blue Devils foul North Carolina to prevent a three to tie and Nate Britt makes the first free throw. Hmm, all North Carolina needs is an offensive rebound here. Am I the only one thinking they might have a better chance at an offensive rebound than a contested three? Britt has a beautiful high-arcing miss, Marcus Paige makes a spirited effort and gets walloped in the face, but Duke grabs the rebound and holds on to win.

Freshmen Ranked 21-40

Today I continue my series, looking back at how the RSCI Top 100 freshmen have performed. Here was a numeric look at the freshmen ranked 61st-100th and the freshmen ranked 41st-60th. (These rankings technically start at #22 because Devin Robinson and James Blackmon were tied for 20th. Both will appear in the final piece in this series.)

The group of players ranked 21st to 40th in last year’s recruiting class have to qualify as at least a mild disappointment at this point. Typically, you’d expect at least half the players in the 21-40 range to be impact players. But this year, only a handful have stood out.

The biggest busts would be #39 Craig Victor, who couldn’t crack Arizona’s rotation, and will transfer to LSU rather than stick around another season. #30 JaQuan Lyle was ineligible at Oregon and will now attend Ohio St. And #31 Florida’s Brandone Francis and #36 UCLA’s Jonah Bolden were ineligible too. Of the sixteen remaining players, (I count Missouri’s Montaque Gill-Ceaser as a Top 40 recruit, even though he reclassified from the 2015 class), ten are averaging less than 6 PPG.

Louisville’s Shaqquan Aaron was ineligible for the start of the season, but since he debuted he has not shown any offensive game. Even when Aaron played 24 minutes in the recent win against Pittsburgh, he didn’t score. Louisville’s Quentin Snider (table below) has an ORtg of just 87. Suspending Chris Jones was probably the right thing for Louisville in the long-run, and Quentin Snider at least showed a little fight, scoring in double figures in Wednesday’s loss to Syracuse. But without more production from its highly ranked recruiting class, Louisville’s ceiling is limited.

Joel Berry has suffered through some injuries, but has been a fairly passive player for the Tar Heels. Michigan’s John Beilein has been great at developing unranked players into efficient scorers, but he has struck out with Kameron Chatman so far. Chatman has the lowest ORtg of any player in these two tables.

But before you give up on these players, look no further than a player like Georgetown’s Isaac Copeland. Copeland averaged 3.9 PPG in his first 15 games, and he has averaged 11.0 PPG in his last 10 games. Now, I can already see some segment of the “Smart” fan community snickering at that comment. At least some of Copeland’s scoring explosion is simply due to more playing time. But playing time is not random. When players play well in practice and play with confidence, they earn more playing time. Copeland is playing better than he was earlier in the season.

Let’s spend a minute on the three big success stories. Devin Booker has made 45 of his 100 three point attempts this year. He’s playing just 21 minutes per game, but averaging 11 points per game. Teams get punished when they double-team Kentucky’s interior players or play zone defense because of Booker’s great outside shooting. He may not be Kentucky’s most important player, but he’s still a key piece on a championship-caliber team.

Melo Trimble is the only aggressive player (24 percent of possessions) and efficient player in these two tables, and that’s in large part because of his success at the free throw line. But get ready for the unstoppable force meets the immovable object. Wisconsin and Michigan almost never foul, and Maryland faces both teams in the next two weeks. Trimble is also a fairly productive defender, with 36 steals.

Trevon Bluiett had one of his quietest offensive nights of the season against cross-town rival Cincinnati on Wednesday. But his two free throws late proved to be the game-winners. And until Wednesday, he was Xavier’s leading scorer.

I’m going to use the two UNLV players to talk about Seton Hall. Sometimes the worst thing a team can do is win early. Seton Hall had a very young team with middling expectations. But the Pirates looked good in the non-conference schedule and beat Villanova early in league play. The Pirates suddenly reset their expectations to a high level. Then recently, the team has fallen apart. If you look back relative to preseason expectations, for a Seton Hall team with so many freshmen, a 5-7 Big East mark would be nothing to be ashamed of. But given the recent trend, Kevin Willard’s job might actually be in jeopardy this year. On the flip side, UNLV has never really felt like a tournament team. Even though they had more elite freshmen and maybe should have been a bubble team like Seton Hall, they’ve never been close. And Morgan and Okonoboh have been a shade disappointing. But because expectations never got raised this year, I think everyone thinks we need to see how these freshmen develop as sophomores before we reach a final verdict on UNLV head coach Dave Rice. Seton Hall’s Kevin Willard deserves the same opportunity, even if things seem like they are now spiraling out of control.

Thomas Welsh actually strikes me as one of the bigger busts on this list because UCLA has had ample playing time available, and he hasn’t seized more of it. At least with someone like Ohio St.’s Keita Batest-Diop you can say he’s been stuck behind Marc Loving, and played well when given the opportunity.

I’m not sure Reid Travis is 100%. He’s been a much quieter offensive player since his return, he looks slower on defense, and Stanford has lost 4 of 5 since its star prospect has returned to the rotation.

VCU needs Terry Larrier to do some big things now that the injuries are piling up, but he’s been very inconsistent. He’s had some brilliant games, but just as many games where he was a non-factor offensively.

Finally, Montaque Gill-Ceaser has spent much of the season suspended by Missouri. Players who leave high school a year earlier than expected don’t always make mature decisions.