What's our chances vs. Duke?

I posted this on another thread, but since it applies here:

I am absolutely certain this team could beat any team in the tourney.....on the flip side I am also absolutely certain this team could lose to any team in the tourney.

Sometimes both teams show up to the same game. Let's see who shows up next.

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Duke scares the hell out of me. I was at the games tonight and got to see them live. Player to player we might have an advantage. We do on the inside for sure in terms of size. The problem is that Duke is one of the best fundamental teams I have ever seen. They block out, take charges, make ALL their free throws, play good defense and they don't take many bad shots. I am worried that we don't have someone who can create off the dribble and that they will stick one of their bigger guards on AJ. We can win this game, but I think we break down and do stupid stuff in important situations and that plays right into Duke's hands.
 
I was at the games tonight too and had a few thoughts...
- We came out really sloppy in the first 10 minutes, can't do that against Duke because they are so fundamentally sound
- Binghamton was just happy to be there. They were out of control most of the first half and had 7 fouls halfway through the first. They never really challenged Duke in any way.
- Duke passes the ball REALLY well. The key to beating them will be our Ds ability to step in the lanes to disrupt ball movement. If the good shooting Horns show up we can beat them.
- The crowd either loved or hated Duke. The Carolina fans that stuck around booed Duke lustily and cheered when Binghamton did well. Most left by halftime when it was sure to be a blowout. We should expect the same on Sat. If we can hang in, you'll see alot of light blue shirts rooting for the Burnt Orange
 
I've watched at least 8 to 10 Texas games this year. That's by far the best game I've seen them play in quite a while.

Play like that again and I give them a chance to pull the upset Saturday night.
 
Thanks for the scouting reports, Chihorn and RCMercado. Good info.

My concern with Duke is its perimeter shooting. You saw what A.J. did today--Duke has about three or four guys who potentially could go off like that, with Scheyer being the most likely.

Of course, the Dookies could always have a bad day, just like K-State did against us in the Big 12 tourney. Sometimes, it's better to be lucky than good.
 
I like them alot if we can get Dexter going on the inside. Duke doesn't have anyone along the size of pittman. Abrams going off wouldn't hurt either.
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can't disappear for 4-5 minutes like we did halfway thru 2nd half in 1st round. Have to play more consistent entire game. I really liked what Ward was doing out there. Put him in more. Nobody was even guarding Balbay and that was ridiculous. Can't win with a non shooter on the court.
 
Here's my limited understanding opinion: this will rest heavily on the shoulders of Dexter Pittman. Duke appears to be strong outside, great passing, coaching, fundamentals. But not so great inside. If and only if big Dex can cause havoc and stay out of foul trouble (which a team like Duke can cause in a hurry), UT can stay with the Blue Devils.
If Dex gets two fouls in the first five minutes, sits out the rest of the first half, gets another foul or two right after halftime, forget it, this will be tough to watch for Horn fans.
 
Our usual five minutes of disappearing offensively will kill us against Duke. Now some of you might say that we gave Minnesota 5-7 minutes in the first half and then 2-4 minutes in the second half.(early second half, we're on the verge of blowing them out and we do stuff like double dribble, throwing the ball away, etc.) I lean toward saying it added up to about 7-8 minutes, but then again I'm not even counting the relaxed non-offensive passing we did after Abrams finished his domination, so you might even add a couple of more minutes in there.

so that would be closer to 10 minutes. Out of forty?

So, what would happen if we didn't have our five minutes at all? 40 minutes of intense, focused, no stupid mistakes no dumb pressing, just solid defense?

I say if all of that happened we would beat Duke by 10 points pretty easily.

And that's playing four against five offensively most of the time.

In reality, we give Duke our five minutes, they smell blood, turn it on, and win by 8-12 points.
 
I believe we will have to have several players(not named Abrams) to step up strongly to have a chance. Duke will play smart defense, which is smother AJ and sag around Pittman and the lane. Meanwhile they always have some good outside shooters so they will score points over our zone. They also are usually very effective passers so they will be able to score on our man defense too.

Given we can't shut Duke down and that we may not expect Abrams and Pittman to carry us (focus of Duke defense), the other guys are going to have to have a terrific (and out of character) offensive game for us to win.

Damion James needs to have a draft elevating performance, and we need some bonus buckets from Mason, Balbay, Conner, Ward, etc.

Abrams and Pittman are also going to have to make some tough shots under heavy defensive pressure. It is going to be extremely tough, but not impossible.
 
FWIW we're a 7 point underdog.

IMO if we feed Pittman the ball about 25 times, we've got a chance to beat anybody. Get the big boy the ball & good things will happen.
 
I think you can pretty much expect Pittman to bend Duke over inside. Coach K hates zone about as much as Balbay hates shooting, and Zoubek is one of the worst players I've seen in recent college basketball history. He's the only Duke player with half the size needed to guard Dex. Thomas will try and get destroyed, then Rat Face will switch to Zoubek who will give Sexy at least a couple of And Ones.

I also like how bad Singler and Scheyer are defensively against smaller players. Henderson's no gift to defense either. Elliot Williams will hold AJ, but he could easily get lost being a freshman. Damion will make Singler look stupid a few times, he needs to come to play. It comes down to the fact that Mason and Balbay have to realize they can easily go by their defenders, they just have to do it tomorrow. When Duke puts Smith and Paulus in, we should have such a size advantage that it won't even be funny--we just have to use it!

Duke is an excellent team, but they couldn't match up much worse with anybody than they do with us.

Keys to the game:

-Abuse them all night with Pittman
-Mason and Doge MUST penetrate and create
-AJ has to shoot reasonably well, and can't disappear
-When Duke makes their usual run during one of our typical lackadaisical periods, we need to call TO, settle down, and go right back to our gameplan
-Defend the three point arc!!!

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Agree with GoHornsGo. If Duke plays tight man to man at the perimeter, as is their style, it should open up the middle for us to drive, dish, & wreak havoc. Hopefully they don't have any video of our conf games...

If Duke plays us smart, they'll sag inside, and chase AJ around. That's a recipe for a double digit Horns loss. Our best hope in that case is to drain some threes early and make them respect us outside. I'm not holding my breath for that, it would be about the first time all season. Kudo's to Doge for letting loose the three Thurs night, we'll need more of that.
 
I think you guys match up well with those *** hats.

Feed Dex the ball, get Damion going to the rim and that will open up some space for AJ. Balbay needs to take care of the ball and make smart decisions, but Duke isn't overly impressive with their dribble penetration.

Zebras will play a major factor in this contest, which is never good against Duke.

I think you match up better in this contest than you did on Thursday.

Good luck.
 
There is always a chance that all of the Duke starters will get injured in the first quarter or maybe they will fall getting off the bus.
Then the game might be close. Sad to say.
 
Duke does not have the size the Horns have but Texas does not have shooters Duke has. Texas plays great they can give Duke a game, if Duke shoots well it could get ugly.
 
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