Duke Basketball

Hitting The Competitive Skids

... Tigers ran off nine straight victories. That was the program’s best run since opening with 16 consecutive wins in 2009, prior to Brownell’s tenure. Only Florida State (12) and Duke (10) surpassed that streak this season, and only Notre Dame has matched it. Then there’s the other kind of streak – the downward spiral, the slide, the fall, the skid, the stumble, when it feels like you can’t catch a break and the clouds will never part and all sorts of other clichés for finding yourself in a lousy fix. In short, when you keep losing one game after another. Clemson is now in that realm. Brownell’s club has lost six straight, most by an ACC team this season. Pittsburgh has dropped four in a row, pending Louisville’s visit tomorrow. Otherwise only NC State has lost as many as three consecutive contests all season, a tumble it arrested last week against Pitt. Florida State, Louisville and North Carolina are the only ACC squads that have avoided back-to-back defeats so far. The immediate schedule holds promise for Clemson to ...

Duke Men's Basketball Eager To Show Defensive Consistency Against N.c. State After Short Turnaround

... But with its leader back on the court, Duke showed it is capable of playing suffocating defense Saturday night. By Jeremy Chen / The Chronicle. Freshman Frank Jackson had been steady as a point guard at home in league play, but will likely have to help contain N. C. State star Dennis Smith Jr. Monday night. Now the Blue Devils hope to show they can do it consistently. After storming past Miami thanks to a frenetic defensive effort that sparked a 20-0 second-half surge, No. 18 Duke will look to move back above.500 in league play as it hosts N. C. State at 7 p.m. Monday at Cameron Indoor Stadium. With Jefferson’s return against the Hurricanes, the Blue Devils will have their full complement of players once again when they face off against a Wolfpack team that sits near the bottom of the ACC standings and has struggled to defend. N. C. State is allowing 84.7 points per contest through seven conference games and surrendered 107 points in a 51-point loss at North Carolina two weeks ago. However, up against Wolfpack freshman Dennis Smith Jr.—the ACC’s fifth-leading scorer at 18.9 points per ...

Brodhead And Basketball

... frequent transfers between schools are that programs woo prized talents extremely early in the recruiting process and high school seniors often wait until late April or May to announce their college decisions. Last year, Duke recruited the top high school freshman in the country, R. J. Barrett, and after the Cleveland Cavaliers won the NBA championship, ESPN reported that 11-year old Le Bron James Jr. already had standing scholarship offers from the Blue Devils and Kentucky. Even though many players have the chance to make a college decision very early in the recruiting process, it is increasingly common for top talents to wait to see how unexpected departures might affect their preferred teams. In 2015, Derryck  Thornton and Brandon Ingram waited until late April to  commit to Duke, and Marques Bolden did not announce his  decision until late May. Such circumstances with varying offer and decision dates are not unique to men’s basketball, and the result is that the University has to be more flexible when evaluating prospective student-athletes. “We’re always in concert with what the University wants academically. During the ever-changing landscape ...

You Don’t Have To Look Hard To See What Duke’s Issues Are

... team, that’s never been a problem for Duke under Coach K, who embraces and indeed relishes the expectations. What’s happening this season is the bizarre rash of injuries has made it impossible for Duke to build any sort of continuity. That and the fact that this team has six freshmen (and of those the four bigs have all either been injured or, in the case of Harry Giles, recuperating from a high school injury). And of course Coach K has been out, which also hurts. He’s pretty brilliant at making adjustments. Defense overall is lacking but the perimeter D is better than interior defense and indeed the perimeter in general is very solid. Then again, the only interior defender with meaningful experience is Amile Jefferson who is - you guessed it - injured. After him it’s Chase Jeter, who has a lot of potential and who is certainly ...

West Virginia, Gonzaga, Duke

... Rupp Arena, which shattered a streak John Calipari's squad had defended for more than two years. Should you believe it? No. There's an old saying among Maryland fans: "How dare you criticize our squad? That's our job." OK, we just invented this phrase, but it's true. Maryland fans spend every season defending their program against the blunt opinions of outsiders while privately wondering when their favorite team will fail them. Maryland has offered few reasons for pessimism in 2016-17. The Terps own a 5-1 Big Ten record, good for a first-place tie with Wisconsin in the league standings. But. hold on, folks. Yes, this is a top-35 defense led by Melo Trimble and Anthony Cowan. This is also, however, a high-turnover offense (20.2 percent turnover rate) that will see Minnesota (twice), Purdue, Wisconsin (road) and Northwestern (road) all by Feb. 22. This is an impressive start. Far too early to buy the hype, though. Let's see how the Terps handle the month ahead. Should you believe it? Yes. Matt Painter found an elite formula with this season's Purdue squad. It starts with Caleb Swanigan , who leads the nation in double-doubles. The 6-foot-9 big man is a ...

Villanova Reclaims No. 1 Spot; Duke Falls In New Ap Poll

... Elsewhere in the rankings, Notre Dame continues to rise, as it's now ranked 15 th in the nation. It can’t be overstated how good of a job Mike Brey has done in South Bend in recent years. The Fighting Irish have lost an absurd amount of talent in the past two offseasons, and they keep chugging along. The names: Jerian Grant. Pat Connaughton. Demetrius Jackson. Zach Auguste. Notre Dame has two losses on the season – they’ve come on neutral floors to Villanova and Purdue. Notre Dame is on the short list of programs which, regardless of personnel changes, you have to give the benefit of the doubt going into the season. Regardless of the roster. It's similar to how folks (rightly) viewed Wisconsin after it lost Frank Kaminsky and Sam Dekker. Anyone who expected Bonzie Colson to average 15.8 points and 10.9 rebounds per game in his junior year probably isn’t telling the truth, and Matt Farrell ...

Duke Men's Basketball Returns Home To Host Miami Hoping To End January Struggles

... play after falling below that mark through at least five games for the first time since 2007. “We’re coming off of two straight losses to two very good teams on the road in hostile environments against a very good Florida State team and a very good Louisville team,” Capel said. “I think we’ve done some things to get better. It hasn’t equated in wins but it’s part of the process of growing as a team. We have to do a lot more.”. This year’s Miami squad brings a balanced attack without flashy stars, as the team does not have a single player ranking in the top five of any major ACC statistic. But Miami head coach Jim Larrañaga—who picked up his 600 th career win last week—has been known for strategizing his way to upset victories despite being outmatched in talent. During Larrañaga’s last trip to Cameron two years ago, his team combined hot shooting with a solid ...

Acc Roundup

... 2017; Durham, NC, USA; North Carolina State Wolfpack guard Terry Henderson (3) blocks the shot of Duke Blue Devils guard Luke Kennard (5) in the first half at Cameron Indoor Stadium. Mark Dolejs-USA TODAY Sports. There’s not a whole lot of ACC news currently but we’ll do what we can. In Syracuse, rebounding issues have become a major factor and now offensive rebounds are a problem too. Notre Dame has made a huge impression since joining the ACC. The one nut they can't yet crack. The Irish get another chance Tuesday night. Kevin Stallings has had a rough transition at Pitt. So how do you deal with the erratic play. Shift blame of course: “Right now, my assessment is the only thing it feels like they’ve bought into 100 percent is freedom on offense. Well, anybody could buy into that. That’s not a hard thing to buy into. That’s just human nature. Of course I would like to have freedom on offense. I haven’t gotten them to buy into the way we have to play defensively. I haven’t gotten them to buy into the way we need to communicate, the way we need to support each other, the way we have to fight when adversity hits. I haven’t ...

A Primer On All Things Duke Basketball Heading Into The Grind Of The Acc Season

... bag of results. Tatum has been largely good, if not great, while Giles, again, is yet to look anything like the guy many hasd slotted as the likely No. 1 overall pick in this year's NBA Draft before his third knee surgery. The bottom line is, we don't know exactly what Duke is yet. We know they're loaded with talent, which hasn't played much together, and that creates a lot of unknowns moving forward. Will they be in the NCAA Tournament field? Of course. Will they factor into the ACC title chase? Probably. Are they the favorite, or even one of the favorites, to win a national title. At this point, that's a lot less certain than we thought it would be. As it stands, the Blue Devils are not in Jerry Palm's top 10 tourney resumes. The Grayson Allen files. Allen's conduct has been the biggest headline of Duke's season. The "hated Duke player" was a worn-out label applied liberally to Allen until he became a repeat offender of common decency on the basketball court. Before the tripping incidents there was always allegations of NBA -style flopping or traveling during his dramatic drives to the hoop. That kind of hate comes with being a high-scoring firecracker on one of the ...