Oregon has length and athleticism, primary characteristics of an effective zone. I may be wrong, but when I watched the St. Joe's game, though Oregon was great with rotating and helping with that length, I thought St. Joe's over-passed a little bit. There were multiple times when there was enough of a window to get a good shot off, and the player didn't pull the trigger. A lot of time the end result was a worse look. Maybe that is partially a product of not seeing teams with that length very often in the A-10. With Allen, Ingram, Kennard, and Jones to an extent, I doubt Duke is going to consistently pass up those kinds of looks. They just need to be making them at a reasonable rate.
Oregon, it is
- Thread starter dukiejay
- Start date
While we're here, let's just win the damn thing. Go Duke!
OFC
OFC
For the first time naybe ever, Duke is not the 1 seed in this game. We've seen us lose this gane too many times. I kinda like how the pressure isn't really on us. Can Oregon handle the pressure of being the one seed AND playing Duke? Somewhat uncharted territory for them. I think it all plays into our hands.
I simply disagree. One, I think our press break against Louisville was very solid for 70 of the 80 minutes we played against Louisville. We wore down @ Louisville, but that wasn't really because of anything Louisville had done. It was because that game was being played on the heels of an incredibly taxing contest against UNC where we played about 30 minutes of the game with 5 guys, and were deep into a Louisville game where we had largely relied exclusively on 5 guys. Thursday will be a completely different situation; as we enter the game rested and will Matt Jones available.
Two, the key for Brandon is that he's very hard to trap in the first place because he can easily see and throw over the trap before it gets there -- whereas a smaller guy like DT can't easily see or throw the ball out of a trap involving a bunch of 6'4 or 6'5 guards. While it's certainly true that BI is not going to have the strength to fight through a trap -- reality is that no press break is going to have a ton of success fighting through traps. And I certainly don't think DT has the strength to break through traps. The point is to avoid the trap in the first place. And BI is critical to doing that. Now, that's not to suggest that he'll be solely responsible for bringing the ball down the court. But, I'm pretty sure he's going to be our pressure release against significant full court trapping.
Three, beyond the zone, I think this is a tough game for DT to play in. Oregon has very big guards across the board and plays a lot of zone. If we're able to run our sets without him, I think this is game where we see a lot of the Kennard, Jones, and Allen perimeter.
The good thing about playing in the modern ACC is that there are now so many different types of teams in the league that we get a pretty good look at every style of play during the course of the season. While it's true that we didn't play particularly well against Syracuse, I think that experience shooting over length will really help us prepare for Thursday. Also, any press we see will probably pale in comparison to what we saw from Louisville. While I think Oregon's going to be a huge problem for our defense, I highly doubt they do anything particularly remarkable to stop our offense -- except that they have athletes better suited to defending BI and Allen one-on-one whenever they play man.
I've been reading different articles on the game and a few from Oregon and they had a breakdown of us and after reading it and seeing them compare their team to us I know we'll win LOL. One article said we asked coach about this scouting report and he said he won't get much sleep thinking about how to beat us lol
we looked vulnerable to the press. that said i am certain that we worked on this in practice and hopefully we will take advantage of numbers when we have them.
when you give K time to prepare he will have an effective game plan - no doubt.
but to me, for this team it really comes down to making our 3's. we got to make them to stretch their D.
when you give K time to prepare he will have an effective game plan - no doubt.
but to me, for this team it really comes down to making our 3's. we got to make them to stretch their D.
well said.
i think matt just needs to be Matt. Not Allen. he needs to do the things he does well. be a solid defender, pass, look for opportunities. play within himself.
Small comment on Duke vs Louisville............ Matt didn't play @ Louisville, so I think that really helped. As it's much more difficult against the press on the road. I'm not trying to pick on Matt, but it is what it is, if we're getting pressed, he can't be in much.
Just like last year if we were up by a few points late in the game Okafor couldn't be in because of his poor FT shooting.
Matt can and will get the job done. Coach K has seen enough in practice to trust Matt's ball handling and decision making. One thing I like about Matt is that he doesn't seem to get in a hurry unlike DT at times. Let's just win dammit!
I like it when Duke is in the "underdog" role because everyone seem to overlook and underestimate us like in 2010 and we all know how that turned out.
I always love it when we are the under dogs and you better believe it motivates Coach K. Do people think Oregon is thrilled to be playing Duke Thursday night. I guarantee that Okl. is pulling for Oregon as well as everyone else left on the dance floor. OFC
Agree to disagree. There are 2 ways to break the press. Via dribble or via pass.
Sure, Brandon can break the press via pass, but again that means he won't be scoring on the other end, and we really need that.
However, if DT is able to avoid the trap before it gets there, than he can dribble past anyone. And DT dribbling up the middle of the floor, with Grayson, Luke, and Brandon on the wings, well that just makes me excited.
DT is gonna get 15-20 min this game at least, and he needs to shoot confidently if Oregon leaves him wide open. I also think DT has the best chance to shut down Oregon's freshman PG, don't recall his name, but he hit big shots against St Joes.
Oregon runs a 3/4 court zone trap scheme. It's not a traditional press where they aggressively try to trap the catch. Instead, they typically allow the inbounds pass to come in and then try to funnel the dribbler into a corner by how they arrange a couple couple tall / athletic wings in a zone scheme. Unless you have Kyrie on the roster, you're not going to have much luck breaking that press by having one person dribbling the ball. This is not an aggressive, attacking press like Louisville or even UNC-W that crowds the ball handlers and gives up straight line drives to the hoop. While it does generate some turnovers, the real goal is to prevent the other team from getting into their offense until late in the shotclock.
DT will certainly play a lot -- as everyone needs to play. But, frankly, DT's going to have serious problems with their size and length. While Oregon doesn't have a true 7 ft. space eater, this is probably the longest / most athletic team we've seen at the 1-4 spots. It's pretty impressive. They've got a 6'4 PG and then a collection of 6'6-6'9 bouncy athletes. I didn't know much about them before, but this is probably the most athletic team I've seen all season. Closest analogy is Miami -- but Oregon is longer and more athletic across the board. While this team doesn't have NBA shooting or skill-level, it's got the athleticism / length / speed at the 1-4 spots that you'd normally see at the next level.
Since I started watching some Oregon, I think the keys for us are as follows:
(i) Avoid live ball turnovers / reckless drives where the Oregon block starts the break
(ii) Hope Oregon is off from the perimeter / Rebound when they do miss
(iii) Make a large volume of 3s
(iv) Plumlee's going to need to play extremely well; as he's the one guy on our team that should have a clear physical size/strength advantage over anyone Oregon runs at him.
The more I've watched Oregon, the more I think this will be a very hard contest for us to win. Oregon is very very good when they're playing well (though they can be a bit erratic). To win, I think we need to play a very clean game (e.g., limit turnovers, hold our own on the boards, avoid major foul trouble), make shots, and hope Oregon isn't as efficient as they can be offensively.
(i) Avoid live ball turnovers / reckless drives where the Oregon block starts the break
(ii) Hope Oregon is off from the perimeter / Rebound when they do miss
(iii) Make a large volume of 3s
(iv) Plumlee's going to need to play extremely well; as he's the one guy on our team that should have a clear physical size/strength advantage over anyone Oregon runs at him.
The more I've watched Oregon, the more I think this will be a very hard contest for us to win. Oregon is very very good when they're playing well (though they can be a bit erratic). To win, I think we need to play a very clean game (e.g., limit turnovers, hold our own on the boards, avoid major foul trouble), make shots, and hope Oregon isn't as efficient as they can be offensively.
Yale and UNCW were good teams, and with our current roster, when we play a good team, we have a slight margin for error, which we definitely needed this weekend.
I would consider Oregon a 'great' team, and throughout the season, when we play a great team, (UNC, UVA, UK, @ Miami) we really don't have any margin for error, since we are so thin and young.
It may sound cliche', but from here on out, we have to be playing our best basketball in order to win. (not the case last year, we shot very poorly in the Utah Sweet16 game and still won.) So yes it is a requirement for us to make at least 8 threes, play Oregon even on the glass (if we advance, it will turn into "compete on the glass"), and of course limit turnovers.
We have a large enough sample size to see that this Duke team is never going to be great on defense. But if we limit teams to one shot, and don't turn the ball over which leads to easy dunks, I believe we can hold our own defensively.
I would consider Oregon a 'great' team, and throughout the season, when we play a great team, (UNC, UVA, UK, @ Miami) we really don't have any margin for error, since we are so thin and young.
It may sound cliche', but from here on out, we have to be playing our best basketball in order to win. (not the case last year, we shot very poorly in the Utah Sweet16 game and still won.) So yes it is a requirement for us to make at least 8 threes, play Oregon even on the glass (if we advance, it will turn into "compete on the glass"), and of course limit turnovers.
We have a large enough sample size to see that this Duke team is never going to be great on defense. But if we limit teams to one shot, and don't turn the ball over which leads to easy dunks, I believe we can hold our own defensively.
If we only hit eight three's then I'm afraid it's going to be a long night. On the season we average nine made three's per game. Again, that's the average. Eight seems like too small a number to beat a top five team, especially when you consider we're not a team that's going to pound the ball inside.
We already know what we're going to get on defense. Oregon will be able to score because 1) we're not very good defensively, and 2) because with our lack of depth we have to be so careful as to not get in foul trouble, thus little defense.
Duke needs to shoot well, avoid foul trouble, make free throws, limit turnovers, don't get blown away on the boards and not get rattled.
We already know what we're going to get on defense. Oregon will be able to score because 1) we're not very good defensively, and 2) because with our lack of depth we have to be so careful as to not get in foul trouble, thus little defense.
Duke needs to shoot well, avoid foul trouble, make free throws, limit turnovers, don't get blown away on the boards and not get rattled.
We beat virginia with 8 3's and beat UNC with 7 3's. Lost to UNC and hit 13 3's. For me key 1 is rebounding, 2 is minimal turnovers, 3 getting to and hitting ft, 4, fg%.
Starts and stops here. And I would even go as far as to say Free Throws down the stretch. If we're shooting free throws late in the second half, it means a few things. We're up, we're driving, and we have the momentum in our favor. That is huge especially if you're playing a higher seed.
Duke can score with and against anybody, but the real key is how efficient the points are in the last 6 minutes of the game and those free throws are the most efficient as they happen with no time running. Gotta get the ball in Grayson and Luke's hands in foul situations early and often.
I said AT LEAST 8 threes, as in the bare minimum. We lose to UVA if we don't make 8 threes. I don't think we will be "going crazy" from the 3 point line, because we actually have an advantage on the interior, which is rare with this team. Regardless of the number of threes we make, it is the % that will tell the difference. Oh, and we must win the free throw line battle, which worries me because a match-up zone doesn't usually draw a lot of fouls.
This team struggles in two major areas, rebounding and transition defense....Our offense doesn't concern me in the slightest we are firing on all cylinders right now....What does concern me is that we have games where we are out rebounded by 20-30 rebounds which almost can't be true but is true....With teams shooting around 40-50% on average from the floor that is almost like letting a team start with 20 points and then throwing the ball up for the first time, just remarkable. Additionally, when we turn the ball over or take a poor shot our opponents are doing a great job turning that into instant offense by pushing the ball up and exposing our transition defense....We will score points tomorrow night, but the deciding factor whether we win lose or get blown out will be how close can we keep the rebounding margin and how well we limit bad shots and turnovers.
I think the key to the WHOLE game is to score more points then Oregon OR stop Oregon from scoring as many points as us.
Just sayin'
Just sayin'
The Crowd's Line had Duke as a -1.5 favorite 2 days ago but I'm not sure if that's changed since then.