What was Coach K thinking.

denverexpat

All-Conference
Feb 1, 2006
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To be fair, the sideline reporter announced Coach K told the team to be aggressive because they had fouls to give and they apparently didn't listen.

Interesting...in his press conference he mentioned an out of bounds play that they drew up and didnt run after a time out that lead to a TO also..discipline? with fouls to give and be aggressive, maybe Goldwire would have been a good sub for at least a few mins. We didnt speed them up or disrupt at all...just retreated and played the same defence the entire game
 

Liftee

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Mar 6, 2011
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Jones took one foul in the last few minutes. I'm sure RJ and Zion are reluctant to give fouls because they can't risk foul trouble. Goldwire would have been a possibility but with a team with several good bigs who were draped all over Zion,taking away another offensive option would have been tough.

I'm surprised no one is mentioning Winston's constant pushing off on every offensive possession. Coach K complained at least once but it was never called on Winston. Take that away with a couple calls and maybe Winston doesn't get such separation. But the refs decided to give that to him.

I was hoping Cam would get the last shot but Mich. State anticipated him coming around the curl on the inbounds play like he did vs. Syracuse and he was covered.

I'm sure that the main reason RJ has the ball at the end is because he is always guaranteed to get a shot off. Zion sometimes is bottled up or loses the ball. If RJ makes both foul shots, we wouldn't be having this discussion.
 
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Mpm277

All-Conference
Nov 23, 2010
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Zion touched the ball those last possessions, but he always deferred to RJ. We also made some really bad entry passes the last six minutes.

My only gripe on coaching was not extending ball pressure the last few minutes and being aggressive. We had fouls to give....I thought we should have sought that out more.
That last possession he deferred to RJ, yeah. But he also had the ball out on the wing with two or three MSU players on him, didn't he? Why not run something to get him open (or even reasonably open) inside. Even if Zion misses it, he has great odds of getting his own rebound for a put back.
 

RanDEVILman

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Jan 13, 2014
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But if we had gambled for steals and got beat on an easy layup everyone would be on here saying our defense is overly aggressive sometimes. Face it, a lot of you just want Duke to make the perfect play for every second of the game in every possible situation, and no matter how bad you want it, thats not basketball. I think Coack K and his players understand that better than most of us do.

Also, Zion wasn't exactly making all of his FTs either. And, I havent seen this mentioned yet, Zion got beat on the game winning shot for MSU. He and Jones (I think) got caught in a miscommunication and gave up the big 3. Yet no one is blaming Zion. I'm not saying we should either, because he was awesome all year and you get beat sometimes. Just saying that no one is flawless, except for all the Monday Morning QBs on this board.
 

K-oach Q

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Nov 18, 2009
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But if we had gambled for steals and got beat on an easy layup everyone would be on here saying our defense is overly aggressive sometimes. Face it, a lot of you just want Duke to make the perfect play for every second of the game in every possible situation, and no matter how bad you want it, thats not basketball. I think Coack K and his players understand that better than most of us do.
Eh...you can point to a lot of things...a lot that K is doing that make absolutely zero sense...

I can start with an easy one...why is AOC in on the last defensive possession against VT and Goldwire is on the bench?

I can do an even easier one...last out of bounds last night I told my wife they where in the same lineup they ran out of bounds against Florida State...told her what Cam would do and what would happen....they ran the exact same out of bounds play...if I know it you know damn well Izzo does...
 
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germantondevil

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Mar 12, 2006
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Cam Reddish has been pretty good when called upon at the end. I was hoping they would spring him for one more dagger.
 

RanDEVILman

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Jan 13, 2014
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Eh...you can point to a lot of things...a lot that K is doing that make absolutely zero sense...

I can start with an easy one...why is AOC in on the last defensive possession against VT and Goldwire is on the bench?

I can do an even easier one...last out of bounds last night I told my wife they where in the same lineup they ran out of bounds against Florida State...told her what Cam would do and what would happen....they ran the exact same out of bounds play...if I know it you know damn well Izzo does...

I don't know about AOC vs Goldwire. I assume its because he thought AOC matched up better, or was better prepared. But maybe a highly paid highly qualified D-1 coaching staff just threw a guy in there for no good reason...its possible.
As for the BLOB play, I had the same thought. I have two thoughts:
1) Run something that you know has worked. Yeah, they may have it scouted, but its an effective action. A lot of teams run the same play every year and it keeps working. Coach K's pro-style leanings might have something to do with that. Talent over sets etc.
2) I like running the play that everyone is expecting with the hopes of hitting the second action or the counter. Maybe thats what K was thinking. But the MSU guys stuck to their principles and played good defense.

Besides the BLOB play still WORKED! We got fouled with a chance to tie the game. RJ could have shoveled the ball to Zion for a potentially better look at the tie. But, the play worked. So even though you and your wife knew the play, you still couldn't stop it, just like MSU.
 
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dukesince91

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Mar 16, 2012
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It's just amazing at how many great coaches we have on this board.
It's a helluva a lot easier to sit in your home or a bar and say what the coach should have done. During the game, the coach only has a small amount of time to make a decision and then make sure all 5 players are on the same page. Yes he called the same play vs FSU and many on here were raving how wonderful it was. All these experts on here need to get into coaching. There are a lot of openings for coaches at the high school and middle school levels. I wonder how many of our experts on here have coached or are coaching currently.
 

gottagonow

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Apr 14, 2010
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If we would have won yesterday everyone would be saying how great of a coach K really is and what a great play he called to let RJ take the shot instead of Zion who MSU thought would take it. When you are the leader you get praise when you win but catch hell when you lose.
 

chov1125

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Oct 15, 2008
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Cam Reddish has been pretty good when called upon at the end. I was hoping they would spring him for one more dagger.

We tried. We ran the same inbounds play that we ran against FSU. Cam wasn’t open. That would have been a fun shot to watch if it was there.
 

DukeDenver

All-American
Nov 21, 2010
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The OaD era makes each end of the season easier and easier actually, even though this team was different. It's still simply a mind numbingly frustrating time to be a college bball, and especially a Duke bball fan.

Combine that with having no earthly idea what a foul is anymore, and watching every single game officiated completely differently, and this is without a doubt the darkest era of the sport.
You must be a hoot on poker night. Sheesh man, I feel like I need a therapist after reading that.
 

Devianttwin

Junior
Feb 6, 2003
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This biggest play of the game was the non call against Winston when Tre stole the ball. That happened in front of the official. That was a clear lose ball foul and Duke keeps the ball up 1. You just can’t swallow your whistle like that.
As for the end of the game. I am sorry but you have to get the call to Zion. Highest percentage in college basketball. He finds ways to get to the rim and more times then not converts. I am sure that K thought that MSU would key on him but you need to take your Chance with the best player in all of college basketball.
 
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The biggest play of the game was RJ's terrible lob pass to Zion up 9. A descent pass and Zion catches, scores, we go up 11. Instead, its a turnover and zion goes back to try and get it picking up his 2nd foul and leaving game. MSU see's zion out, gains confidence and proceeds to go on a 13-0 run. Duke could have responded better, but i firmly believe, if RJ wasn't lazy passing there, duke goes on to a relatively easy 10+ point win. Duke was so much better than MSU, but duke kept pressing and turning it over with it being a close game. MSU had 13 more shots than Duke. Can't do that.

That's why i'm having stomach pain knowing how much better we are than MSU. Duke just wan't mentally ready to execute like you need to in a big game. Blame players, coaches, to me all of the above. MSU played hard and smart but they didn't have great athletes or players that were putting duke in tough situations, duke was putting themselves in tough situations by too much ISO. Tre needed to attack their D from the top, and he didn't do that at all. Our offense all game was to Rj on the wing with a high ball screen, we seriously ran that 50 times, and RJ isn't one to break down a defense, he doesn't get by his defender, he can score through his defender and contact.

Duke was much more talented than Kansas last year and that hurt, we were light years more talented than MSU this year. Bad bad trend, only constant is a few players that didn't have a huge impact in either game (other than Javin vs MSU) and K/coaches. I've said it a bunch now. Zion masked a lot. Without Zion this team would have been on the bubble, I firmly believe that. I also think without Zion the K retiring talks would have been going on big time all year. Think about this, Duke should have lost at home to Wake Forest. Again, at home vs wake forest. Cam Scored 6 points on 9 shots against that awful D at home. Almost went 1-4 without Zion.
 
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