Project Defensive Scoresheet: Duke vs Georgia Tech

Coming off a difficult, though far from embarrassing loss in Philadelphia to Temple, Duke sought to get off on the right foot in conference in its ACC opener in Atlanta against Georgia Tech.  The Blue Devils, many felt, had not been able to handle the physicality of the Owls, particularly in the backcourt.  That did not figure to be a major concern against Georgia Tech, perhaps enabling Mike Krzyzewski to feel comfortable in giving freshman Quinn Cook his first start at the point and bringing Tyler Thornton off the bench.

The Ramblin’ Wreck’s best players have been 6’2″ Mfon Udofia and 6’5″ swingman Glen Rice, Jr., who are the only two averaging in double figures.  The Jackets came into the game at 7-7, with a win at Georgia being their only victory over a major conference team.  The losses included duds against Tulane, Mercer, Fordham, and a 25 point blowout at home against Alabama only four days prior to the Blue Devils’ arrival.

Hope is alive in Atlanta, though, thanks to the hiring of first year coach Brian Gregory.  Gregory had been a big success at Dayton, where he led the Flyers to five 20 win campaigns in his eight seasons, including two NCAA berths and an NIT championship in 2010 where in the finals they bested, ahem, North Carolina.  Gregory has reputations as an excellent recruiter, talent developer, and game coach.  That’s two more than prior head man Paul Hewitt could plausibly claim.

The Blue Devils jumped out to a 27-11 lead at the ten minute mark of the first half, as Cook, Miles Plumlee, and Ryan Kelly all had their way early, while Tech struggled to get anything to fall. But Duke went scoreless for a 3 minute stretch later in the half, and a 10-0 run by Tech pulled them to within eight.  By halftime, it was five, and Duke — much to the chagrin of its coach and its fans — had a ballgame on its hands.

The lead see-sawed for much of the second half, between three and nine points, but then Tech cut it to two at around the four minute mark.  Duke pumped the lead back up again, only to see Tech cut it to two again in the final minute.  The Wreck could never tie it up though, or take the lead, and Duke held on for the seven point win, thanks in no small part to Ryan Kelly’s going 14 for 14 from the line, including 8 of 8 in the final 35 seconds.  Needless to say, there were many white knuckles amongst the Blue Devils’ faithful as this second-division ACC squad took the Devils down to the last minute in a game we once led by 18.  Glen Rice, Jr. was brilliant, scoring 18 of his 28 points in the final nine minutes.

So how did we fare defensively?  Here’s the chart. For an explanation of the column headers and the calculations it took to get these numbers, click here.

First of all it has to be noted that Georgia Tech hit a lot of tough shots in this game, most of them hand-in-the-face over the top of Rivers, Curry, or Cook.  Against Temple, in addition to the trouble we had containing their physically mature and big guards, we also had a large number of live-ball turnovers and other quick shots that led to runouts, so the defensive “fault” was attributed to “team” rather than any one or two individuals. Not so much for the Georgia Tech game.

I continue to believe, and the numbers I’ve compiled in other charting that I’ve done back me up, that Austin Rivers is an underrated individual perimeter on-ball defender. He again excelled at keeping his man in front of him and in this game he was very good off the ball too — he worked hard at ball denial, and it showed. He gave up a lot of buckets, but like I said at the top, a lot of those were well defended. Tech just hit some tough ones, so you take your hat off to them on those and that’s all. He got lost a couple of times too, don’t get me wrong, including on a couple of three pointers, but still I think his overall body of work is pretty good.

While Quinn Cook is an upgrade in a lot of areas offensively as compared to Tyler Thornton — and Quinn was real good offensively against Tech — try 10 points, 5 assists, and one turnover in 27 minutes — he still is struggling to keep his man in front of him defensively, and that’s hurting us. Ty was clearly superior in that department in this game.

I noticed that Dawkins, while not getting beaten so much on some of the measurables, still seems to get lost out there more than he should at this stage of his career; gets beaten around screens and other issues that relate more to attention and effort.  That will not cut it for long.

As for the bigs, Miles and Mason were far superior to Ryan Kelly in this game.  Both Plums had stop percentages of over 80%, meaning we got stops on 80% of the plays in which they were involved.  Ryan, only 42%.  Both Plumlees enjoyed overall DRatings far below the team average — Miles’ was the best of the bigs, while Kelly’s was slightly above the team average.  In all honesty though, some of this has to be attributed to Tech’s dearth of quality big men who could take advantage of any defensive mistakes we made down low.

As for the perimeter guys, Tyler Thornton again clearly had the best numbers. By a mile.  DRating of 101.7, while the team as a whole was at 115.  Quinn Cook was at 119.9, Rivers at 122 and Dawkins an embarrassing 126.3.  With numbers like these, it’s hard to argue that any of them other than Thornton played well defensively, and Ty only got 13 minutes.  That’s just not enough minutes for me to give Ty Defensive Player of the Game. It goes to Mason Plumlee for his top stop%, second best DRating, and the fact that he was a force on the boards and logged significantly more minutes than did his brother.

This game presents another odd-shaped piece for Mike Krzyzewski to try to fit into this year’s puzzle.  We got off to a big early lead, but couldn’t hold it.  Quinn Cook was excellent offensively, but got burned on defense.  Thornton was very good defensively, but didn’t get many minutes.  Dawkins was terrible defensively, and made only one hoop all day.  Ryan Kelly was our offensive leader, clutch down the stretch, but our weakest big man defensively.  We again struggled to force any turnovers against this modestly talented squad.

Best thing is the Devils got a road win to start the ACC season.  It’s never going to be pretty with this team, so maybe we should forget about pretty and just take the W, identify the areas in which we think we can improve, work in those areas, and move on.