Dancing with the Devil(s) in the Pale Moonlight: MSU-Duke Preview

Duck Fuke

I have to miss the first half hour of the game tonight. I hope we are still in it when get home. There have been moments this year where our spacing and ball movement have been terrific, and every time we do that, something positive happens. I’d love to see some consistency in that regard tonight. If we can keep it close, we can ride a wave of confidence. If things begin unraveling, I hope that Izzo makes judicious use of his timeouts, rather than holding onto them until the end when they would be worthless if the game gets away.

Agree 110% that Green needs to be starting. I just don’t see the benefit of having Thornton in for the first 2-3 minutes, getting replaced by Green, and then sitting on the bench for about the next 12 minutes. I think we need to accept and embrace the fact that our Big 3 this year is Lucas, Summers, and Green. Those guys need to start, they need to play the most minutes, and they will determine how far this team goes. Figure out the rest of the rotation around those guys – who you want in there as bigs, whether you want to go small with them, how you sub them in and out, etc.

Also, it will be nice for us to finally play an ACC/Big10 Challenge game at Breslin again, since this is now the 3rd year in a row we’ve played somewhere else (Ford Field, @UNC, @Duke).

Going toward the basket on offense will be key. Duke is vulnerable to back door cuts and such because their emphasis is on pressuring the perimeter. I hope Izzo has some sets that are initiated by Lucas (and maybe Appling or Summers) driving early in the set. Anything that involves multiple passes around the perimeter to set up the offense is a recipe for disaster. We need to attack early with the dribble and look for backdoor cutters for alley oops.

The trick is to be careful not to get caught charging – Duke coaches taking charges/flopping. It is IMO a rather underhanded way of playing defense, although I guess it is within the rules. Sliding to take charges is the only thing that allows them to pressure on the perimeter like they do and not get killed by guards who can take defenders off the dribble to score and/or distribute to backdoor cutters.

They will get those calls at home if the defender is even close to having position, so we need to be careful not to go bulling toward the basket. Lucas is good at sliding sideways at the end of drives to pull the defender out of position and avoid the charge. Summers has many fine qualities, but does have a propensity to telegraph his drives and get called for charging as a result. He’ll need to pull up rather than go for the monster jam when the defender has position, or he’ll wind up in foul trouble in short order. One problem is his leaping ability – in theory if the defender establishes position after he leaves his feet, a charge should not be called, but the refs rarely call it that way. They also still call charging when the defender is under the basket.

Getting Sherman going and Roe playing like he did against South Carolina would make things a lot easier for us. We’re not going to match their 3 point shooting (although we are good this year) so our bigs will have to contribute on the offensive end.

Defensively, as you note, priority number one is closing out on their shooters. They don’t have any really scary scorers in the paint – Roe/Green/Sherman should be OK there, so the other guys will have to focus on staying out on their shooters. Also, forcing them to one shot and done possessions will be key so this would be a good game for us to reassert our normal dominance on the boards.

This should be an interesting game. One minor note off of your preview is that Seth Curry and Andre Dawkins both come off the bench, with Dawkins getting seemingly slightly more time than Curry. Regardless, since MSU doesn’t play zone, I expect the big lineup a little more here.

Should be a fun game. I think Duke will win, due to my own bias, how well we’re playing, and the fact that MSU seems recently to take a longer time to get really into a roll. But you guys always get it together by the most important time, so that last bit really isn’t that important. Still, Duke has shown vulnerabilities this season, though the media would pretend we’re invincible. Last game vs Oregon (yes we won by 28) was mired by about 30 minutes of really sloppy basketball, as was the Marquettte game in the preseason tournament. This is a team that at times is just confused by how fast a tempo we play and thus results in bad passes, sloppy turnovers, and bad shots (We’re in the top 25 of tempo this year, whereas last year we were #243 in tempo. BIG DIFFERENCE). If MSU capitalizes on those spurts of sloppiness, Duke will be in trouble.

Good luck to y’all, I always like MSU. Izzo does everything right in coaching, unlike some other coaches these days and his teams play great basketball. I truly hope after this game that you win every game up till the tournament.

I plan to listen to Will and Matt online with the TV on mute but I’m afraid mute might not be enough to contain that annoying bald guy on ESPN that loves him some Duke.
Is there a more extreme measure that can somehow quiet all of that insane yelling?

Also, that was very nice of garik16 from the Dukeside. One day Sparty will blister teams in Nov and Dec and one of us can sympathy post on a nonconference rival site.

The only team to beat Duke shooting jump shots last year was Wisconsin, and they had to combine that with committing only 4 turnovers in the game and getting 33% of their own misses back. In the Kohl Center. This is not a formula MSU is going to be able to emulate. Especially the Kohl Center part.

The teams that beat Duke did it, for the most part, by getting 40% or more of their field goal attempts on dunks or layups and getting to the free-throw line. Georgetown was the model for this formula when they blew out the Devils in January by shooting 72% from the field, thanks to getting layups and dunks on 63% of their shots. Of course, once again, it won’t be possible to replicate having the U.S. President in attendance as part of a raucous home crowd.

If MSU can take a majority of high percentage shots, get to the line, maybe get Singler in foul trouble and hold Duke to a merely-mortal three-point percentage of 35% or less, I think there’s a chance. Unfortunately that hasn’t really been the Spartans’ approach this year: they’ve mostly relied on jump-shooting to stay in games, which is a dangerous formula in general, but especially so against Duke.

So far, excluding the Chaminade game (no shot chart data), MSU has taken jump shots on 65% of their attempts, hitting 40% of them (data from CBS shot charts). Since they are shooting 39% on threes, that means they’re not doing much better on their long-to-midrange twos. So if they’re not driving the lane looking for layups and fouls, and Duke is taking away the three, it’s going to be very hard to stay even getting 40-ish percent on jumpers, even if Duke is only shooting that manageable 35% from three.

It would probably be a good night to finally get the Garrick Sherman coming-out party we’ve seen hints of in the last couple of games.

in honor of 1,000,000+ unique TOC visits? The stars have aligned!

recd

I’d like to see him get some burn as the off-guard tonight instead of KL when they are both on the court. I think he can be a little more effective from there and allow KL to find Summers and Roe on backdoor cuts.

give or take 10 minutes. Time always seems to sprint when you want it to walk and crawl when you want it to sprint.

stUNC or is it fUNC has to be ranked again at some point right? I mean they do have the second coming of Oscar Robertson heading their freshman class and all.