Will Duke hang on to the One Seed?
- Thread starter Sevro
- Start date
Part of K's genius, imho, is that he is aggressive. He heavily leans on his best players and uses a shallow rotation, his man to man defense is (was? seems like it's changed since about 2010) very handsy/aggressive (floor-slapping notwithstanding), he calls timeouts early to stop runs, and his teams often play from a lead. It's a great strategy 95% of the time. Sometimes it backfires - weak benches, foul trouble, and no timeouts to stem a tide (i.e. 1998 NCAA Tournament).
I'd have 5 or 6 teams in front of Gonzaga on my list of contenders.
Duke
Kentucky
Viriginia
Michigan
Michigan State
Tennessee
I've seen some takes wanting to give Duke a break cause they didn't have Zion, but VA Tech was missing Robinson, their best player and one of the best PG's in the nation. I'd call that a near wash on the injury front, except VATech doesn't have the #2 NBA prospect in the country to fall back on.
Yup. He could probably have had 8 or 9 titles if he developed his bench or he could have only 1 or 2.
Zion JUST got injured; Va Tech has had several weeks to play without Robinson. Again, we lost THE best player in college basketball during one of THE toughest stretches in college basketball. Just the wrong time to lose a player of his magnitude. But, it’s whatever!
I do agree that Coach K is not a good enough coach to adapt to a key injury that happened 3 games ago. Good point. If only he had a 5th McDonalds All American to plug in there for Zion.
You failed at comparing Zion to Justin Robinson. Good thing K doesn’t take advice from you.
Zion is our best rim protector, rebounder and post scorer. We just can't replace that.
The Zags would bitchslap the Michigan teams. They wouldn't be able to score enough to keep up.
I don't think so. I haven't heard/read anything about them for years.
Then you're not paying attention to the news. Just last year we were in the headlines for unsuccessfully attempting to pay several highly rated recruits $200,000 each to play for us. The one guy even took a $100,000 hair cut to go play for Louisville instead!
That said, DePaul is better this year than Austin Peay and probably whatever school @Quavarius went to as well.
I feel like the Allen fiasco provides more in game distraction than this year. All he has had are injuries, like every team, this year.
Not having Zion should absolutely be considered by the committee. However, UNC beating UVA until two players went down should at least be considered as well to remain consistent.
I mean, VT without Robinson isn’t all that good. They weren’t all that with him. It won’t matter when he comes back but it is reasonable to opine they should look a little better considering their coach is an all time great.
Without a doubt. My point was simply if one is then all must be. Not to the same degree but they must at least be considered.
That would require the committee to actually watch the games. Good luck!
UNC couldn't stop Kyle Guy at all at the end of that game. UVA came back to cover the original spread too after being down like 8-10 so I don't think Cam Johnson would've saved you in that game.
UVA is just a bad matchup for the Heels.
Did not think there'd be a time where we won 4 in a row against UNC and 7 of the last 10. They have had more success against us in the ACC tournament than the regular season though. Not all wins are created equal.
Yeah, they are. I think it is reasonable if Cam wouldn’t have gotten hurt UNC would have had a much better chance though. Especially considering what was happening when he went down. Just like if Zion wouldn’t have been hurt Duke would have had a chance against UNC. Both probably still
lose but the chance of winning increases greatly.
Fair enough. The only team I'm confident is better than UK at this point is a healthy Duke team. I like our chances better than Gonzaga's or UNC's. I definitely should have added UNC to my list, though. I'd replace Tennessee with them.
Why did UK almost lose to Arky then at home? That performance doesn't inspire confidence.
No offense but Arkansas is awful and their coach is terrible.
Nish, no team is immune to a let down or trap game. Between having Auburn at home and going to Tennessee the following Saturday, I think this was a fair bet to be one of those games for us. Surely you don't believe that every team should play every game perfectly, right?
I didn't say that but to play that poorly vs a bad team at home is concerning. I think it really affected my opinion of UK since it shows that if a team gets physical with UK and can take PJ out of his element, Kentucky can really struggle.
We both know that guards win in March and Hagans' inconsistency is concerning and his loose ballhandling is a concern in the tournament when he"ll be matched up against some of the best guards in the country.
Its not, though. Its not hard to believe that 18 and 19 year olds overlooked a bad team coming to our gym before the biggest game left on our schedule. When they had to turn it on and win, they did. You have to temper your expectations if you think kids don't take plays/games off at points during the season. It happens to literally every team multiple times.
Not to mention we didn't even have our starting center and only senior on the sideline. Luckily, bignish's rankings have no effect on seeding
Duke played terrible against Syracuse and I know you didn't have your PG. Fast forward to last night you had no business losing to Va Tech. Let downs are going to happen and sometimes a lost may occur but UK won, it was ugly but it's a win.
We were down a starter as well. I expected a close game last night, and we got one.
It would take duke losing two more games to not be a number 1 seed. That would include North Carolina, and losing in the acc tournament. Even if that happens, they couls still be the 4th 1 seed. The committee will also consider they have been playing without their best player. I think Zion will go one for sure, but I think Barrett will be the better pro. The guy puts duke on his back when Zion isn’t playing, don’t get me wrong, reddish does as well, but Barrett is on a different level than reddish.
**** no. Keep us the hell away from each other in the tournament. While the payoff for a win would be glorious, a loss would be tough to take.
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