The Hokies play #2 Duke at Cameron Indoor tonight at 9 PM. The game is on ESPN2. Duke is favored by 9.5; the O/U is 138.5. Again, I'm going to steal Shelton Moss's write up about Duke.
Preview: Duke
The Blue Devils are off to a roaring start in Mike Krzyzewski's final season as a head basketball coach, owners of a 10-1 record with marquee wins over Kentucky and Gonzaga. No bigger challenge will Virginia Tech face than the one in Cameron Indoor Stadium this evening.
Duke is no stranger to sensational freshmen, and the youngster leading the Blue Devils this year is forward Paolo Banchero (16.5 ppg). Banchero is a consensus lottery pick and widely projected to be taken first or second overall in the upcoming NBA draft. A quick look at his game reveals why: at 6'10, he can handle the ball like a guard and score in a multitude of ways: as a spot-up shooter, off the dribble, and certainly in transition. The one weak spot in his game is that he doesn't shoot threes, so you can sag off him if he gets the ball on the perimeter. The question is who will guard him? He's too tall for most guards and too athletic for most forwards. Tech might just have to take their lumps and hope to hold him under 20 points.
Perhaps the most pleasant surprise for Duke is the development of junior forward Wendell Moore (16.9 ppg), a former top 30 recruit who struggled the past two seasons but has turned into the team's most complete player. Moore is an incredibly efficient shooter (51st nationally in eFG%) and has by far the highest assist rate on the team (28.4%). He has played himself into a mid-first-round draft projection, in large part because he can now create his own shot.
At center is the formidable sophomore Mark Williams (9.2 ppg), who stands at 7'1 with a 7'7 wingspan. A native of Virginia Beach, Williams owns the fifth-best block rate in the country and is an elite offensive rebounder (you may see several back-taps on missed three-pointers). Oh, and he also shoots 70% on two-point field goals and is a projected first rounder. Coach K has an embarrassment of riches on his hands.
Last year, just about everything that could go wrong for Duke did go wrong. The Blue Devils went 13-11 and .500 in ACC play, failing to qualify for the NCAA Tournament for the first time since 1995. Though they suffered poor close-game luck (2-7 record in games decided by six points or less), this was by far Coach K's worst team in the KenPom era (36th). The freshman class wasn't as good as people thought they would be, and while COVID affected every team, it certainly hamstrung the Blue Devils, who were one of the youngest teams in the country.
Fast forward a year and almost everything has changed. This year's team, though not much older, is certainly deeper and far more talented. They have a talented freshman guard in Trevor Keels (12.6 ppg) as well as a key bench piece in Marquette transfer forward Theo John, who is probably the team's best on-ball defender. (John fouled out late in Duke's lone loss to Ohio State, which undoubtedly had an impact in their late-game collapse.) Sophomore Jeremy Roach (9.3 ppg) is the starting point guard, though unlike Duke point guards of years past, he plays a fairly passive role in the offense and isn't a great shooter. That lack of offensive production will probably hurt Duke later in March, but for now, this team is stacked with enough talent to cruise past their ACC competition.
What makes Duke so dangerous is that they have stud athletes at every spot who can guard multiple positions. Statistically, there is almost nothing this team doesn't do well — they can shoot inside and outside, they don't turn it over, they share the ball, and they can defend. A big contributing factor to their defensive improvement is their foul rate, which ranks third best in the country. Given Tech's inability to get to the line, I wouldn't be surprised to see a large discrepancy in foul shots.
Additionally, Aluma will have a harder time posting up Williams than he did Osunniyi, who is longer and more refined as a player. Presuming that will be the case, Duke will not have to send additional help in the post and can stay on shooters, where they can use their superior athleticism to prevent Tech's guards from getting open looks.
Duke is favored for a reason — they are a very good basketball team stocked with NBA talent. While the Hokies have ample opportunities throughout the course of the year, to prove themselves as an ACC contender, tonight's game will be a measuring stick against one of the nation's premiere programs.
DUKE ROSTER
Duke starts 2 players taller than our tallest starter. As Shelton said, I don't know how we are going to guard a 6'10" player who handles the ball like a guard and shoots 34% from beyond the arc.
#0 Wendell Moore Jr. 6'5 F Jr. 30.9 MPG: 16.9 PPG: 5.6 RPG: 5.1 APG: 1.6 TOPG
#5 Paolo Banchero 6'10 F Fr. 28 MPG: 16.5 PPG: 7.3 RPG: 2.1 APG: 2 TOPG
#1 Trevor Keels 6'5 G Fr. 30.4 MPG: 12.6 PPG: 3.3 RPG: 3.2 APG: 1.3 TOPG
#3 Jeremy Roach 6'2 G So. 32 MPG: 9.3 PPG: 2.8 RPG: 3.2 APG: 1.5 TOPG
#15 Mark Williams 7'1 C So. 19.6 MPG: 9.2 PPG: 5.8 RPG: 1 APG: 0.5 TOPG
#13 Joey Baker 6'6 F Sr. 18 MPG: 7.7 PPG: 2.2 RPG: 0.8 APG: 0.6 TOPG
#21 AJ Griffin 6'6 F Fr. 13.2 MPG: 6.1 PPG: 2.4 RPG: 0.9 APG: 0.2 TOPG
#12 Theo John 6'9 F Gr. 14.7 MPG: 3.8 PPG: 2.9 RPG: 0.9 APG: 0.5 TOPG
SCHEDULE
Duke is 10-1 with wins against current #20 Kentucky and #4 Gonzaga and their only loss at current #14 Ohio State. An impressive resume.
STATISTICS
Season Averages:
Detailed Stats:
Duke shoots 49% overall and 37% from 3. They have held their opponents to 41% and 32%. The Hokies will see the best defense they will see this year. Duke is averaging 10 blocked shots per game! Open three's are going to be hard to find. They shoot over twice as many free throws as their opponents. Tech will be doing well to maintain that ratio, given the tendency of officials to give Duke the benefit of the doubt at Cameron Indoor.
It will be interesting to see if the Storm Murphy game against St. Bonnie was a one-off; or has he really turned a corner. Expect to see Duke press him tonight because he has not demonstrated the ability to handle that well. Alleyn has to find his shot if we are going to have a chance tonight and Cattoor needs to stay on his game. It would also help if Mutts could contribute a few points.
Keeping the final score close to the betting line will be a moral victory for the Hokies tonight.
LET'S GO HOKIES!
Comments
Just bought a ticket to the game tonight! Pumped to see VTs last game against K in Cameron!!!
Is Stelton a nickname or something I haven't seen on the boards? Bc I could've sworn his name was Shelton lol.
Just incompetence and old man memory. Fixed.
LETS GO!
HOKIES!
I'm on the east coast visiting family. How do people watch sports this late?
I've gotten so used to watching sports in Mountain Time zone for the past 4 years. Prior to that 2 years in Central Time zone. This 9pm start is just bananas!
But, with that said... I'm on vacation and already 2 G&Ts down. Go Hokies!
Yeah after being spoiled in mountain time zone and moving back east these late night games kill me
Amen. I don't envy PST whatsoever (spent enough time there to realize finishing a Nats game at 7pm aint for me), but MST or CST? Sounds great lol
I am excited to get back to CT, especially once I get a 9-5
Tenn and Arizona still has 3.5 minutes to go.
It's on ESPN news
Was surprised that Arizona made a game of it with how that started. Tenn was out to a 16-2 lead to start.
Itrepeter!! I've missed you man, I hope we see your write ups soon they were a thing of beauty.
Anyone know where we are tipping off?
I don't see it on ESPN+
ESPN news
ESPN news
Chug a lug
Good grief. Someone just tackle that kid.
Anyone else's not loading yet on espn app?just keeps saying it hasn't started yet
Same here. "Starts at 9:00 PM" when it's 9:10. This happens all the time with this useless ESPN app.
I got it now you have to go over to the espnnews channel on it where it says it's showing a reair of jalen and jacoby show
Aluma looks like he came to play.
I guess they only have one camera and its mounted in the rafters?
Sounds like the microphone is in the rafters or the crowd is under water.
At least we get to watch the 2nd half, I guess.
Alleyne ice cold stilllll
Lol, Bilas said Duke commits the fewest fouls in the ACC...nah bruh...they get called for the fewest fouls. Big difference
Yeah, I came into tonight expecting to be playing 5 on 8. K's last year. They're gettin all the
helploveDamn getting tackled down low and no foul.
Still here. Still awake.
G&T count = 4.
Love the fight in this team!
G&T? Gin and tonic?
Si señor.
I'm hoping it's gin and tonic which would be an impressive first half
I enjoy listening to Bilas call a game, especially compared to some of the other ones.
Agreed. For once a guy that has good insights on both teams
Love Bills. A guy with good insight, good attitude and impartial no matter who is playing. Always have enjoyed him. Remember when we played Duke at Cameron back in 2006 or 2007 on college game day and he was the only one to pick the upset against his alma mater. He was also the only one who was right.
Granted I didn't see the beginning of the game (no ESPNNews) and I generally agree with you, but listening to him call a Duke game is borderline intolerable for me.
Someone needs to find Allyenes switch.
Getting whistle happy at the end of the half...this generally does not end up benefitting the away team on Coach K Court
Rat yelling through Catoor at the ref. Catoor buries a 3 in his face. Perfect.
Theo John is a f*ckin prick
I agree. He was reckless and had numerous uncalled hacks on Aluma and Mutts
I love the "we ain't fuckin scared of you" attitude this team picked up after being down 13-4. Great fight being shown. This could be a dangerous team if they play with that mindset more often
This is the team I thought we were at the beginning of the season. Keep it up in the second half.
My thoughts exactly. Maybe we are starting to gel.
Continued where left off against Bonaventure. Only 2 turnovers and outrebounded Duke. Playing our game in their house. I don't know if they could have played a better half. Let's do it again in half 2.
Great first half! Glad to see fouls even out near the end of the half.
No idea why Duke isn't doubling Aluma
Kinda hope they do. It will leave Cattoor wide open for a gazillion threes.
Fun first half! That Mutts steal and breakaway dunk was all I needed for XMAS!
Murphy handling the backcourt pressure a lot better too. Thats a big factor in a good first half.
Let's bring this thing home!!
A win over dook and rat face would make a nice birthday present
Bilas saying all pre game how bad we are cutting or moving off ball and now we are a Great team cutting the lane...SMDH
Good thing K is retiring, he's getting senile...not even close to a flop
Won't miss the ESPN love of showing him bitching at the officials over and over.
Is there a stat column for charges drawn we have to lead the league in that.
Stopped running our offense and started just chucking up threes... Duke goes on a run and the stadium is going wild. Not good guys.
Yeah really need to set our offense back up and slow this game back down.
Yikes - Mutts got mugged and no call. Guess they got paid at the half.
When things fall apart, things fall apart ...
Getting sloppy. Gotta tighten up and get a spark. Bring in maddux and pedulla.
So funny to hear the crowd react when a call goes against Duke. Its like they have never seen that before. Oh wait, they probably havent.
Yeah, Moore damn near cuts the guys legs out from his landing and they act like that's supposed to be ok.
Hokies done. Should have called a timeout about 1/2 through that 13-0 run earlier. Guys look winded and bench is not ready to step up.
I too thought we waited a bit too long
What value is Alleyne providing right now? He looks uncomfortable and lost
Getting ugly, folks
Here come all the whistles for duke.
Damn this is over I fear. Out of rhythm, Duke back to not getting called for mauling our shots.
Second half is 5 on 8. Started once we built the lead. Coincidence? I think not
Lol stop we got worked for a long stretch with nothing to do with the officials in so tired of this narrative
Mutts got mugged under the basket. The tie up was a makeup for the foul they didn't call under the basket. When you feel like you aren't getting calls you press to make plays. Padulla got hit - no whistle. It's a theme.
Duke ramped up their defense and we started playing sloppy. It's also a theme for us to play fast and panic when we get pressured. Duke gets calls, that's not why we went down double digits.
Idk how many other Duke games you've watched this year, but the few I've seen, they tend to have a favorable coin flip more often than not. Yeah, they're good. They're freakin Duke basketball. But the man isn't totally off here
I can't stand Duke. I'll be so glad when Coach K is done. Maybe then it won't always be 5-on-8
Don't count on it, especially at K-ameron Arena
Wow - went with the small lineup.
I didn't always hate Rat Face. But I do now.
At least Mike Young might finally be realizing this half that Alleyne is almost unplayable vs good teams. I would try him off the bench
I thought Maddox contributed some good minutes. Better than Alleyne.
The fact that this game is even close despite the massive talent disparity is actually impressive
Storm just looks so undersized and burdened setting everything up up top.
All 13 games have done nothing but show that he was well suited at the level of play he saw at Wofford.
Some good signs. Hoping we can upset unc. 0-3 in acc would be rough
The HOKIES looked like a team that can beat any team in the ACC except Duke. Still optimistic about this team.
Well yeah we're supposed to beat everyone else. Analytically, we're the 2nd best team in this garbage conference. Only 3 games on schedule left vs kenpom top 50... no room for mistakes, gotta win vast majority of remaining games
When we play like we did tonight, I also feel good about this team. If we'd played like this all season, we'd have 2-3 more wins.
Murphy makes me miss Bede. As much crap as we gave him for his offensive deficiencies, Bede was better at facilitating the offense and defensive play than Murphy and it's not even close.
That went better than expected and despite the loss, I actually feel more confident about the team's chances heading into ACC play than I did a week ago. Maddox got a little more burn tonight which was good to see, but I'd still like to see more minutes out of Pedulla. Like a few games this year, you can tell his instincts appear to be pretty good even if the end result isn't always perfect. But the ball movement and pace was pretty solid tonight for most of the game before Duke's overwhelming talent finally overtook us. Play like that, with a locked in Aluma like he was tonight, and things can be more sunny for us in the coming weeks.
Going through the remaining schedule after 1/1... With reasonably high level play we could go 14-3, 15-2
If we play a full game like the first half sure, but if it's more like the second half we will be lucky to finish with a .500 record.
Too often this season this team has been more like second half. ( Wake, Xavier, Dayton ) Won't include the football game on hardwood that was the Memphis game, as that game was completely out of hand physically with very little whistles.
Yes, played well for a half and Coach K told Banchero at halftime to start trying in the second half- done. When 3 lottery picks decide they want to give effort its going to be tough for a team like VT to beat them.
The interior D, giving up back door cuts was disappointing in the second half, and we missed some open 3 looks, but the game came down to a few turnovers, and Duke making several pro level plays finishing through tight D. We were not really outclassed beyond that. Duke just has dudes who can score vs anyone and when they went 4 out, one in with Griffin (benching WIlliams and going with Banchero) they were able to make more plays.
There were some good take-aways in that we D'd up some pro level players pretty well, and got downhill to the hoop more than several other game, and got to the FT line. All in all, for a game I had chalked up as a loss, there was some good stuff here to build on.
Hold on stay with me here, have we traded basketball for football? Buzz Williams was at tech 2014 to 2019 his first two years were pedestrian, then we hired Fuente in 2016 and buzz's teams got better, then we hired Mike young and he started out hot and Fuente's teams got bad. Then in November we fired fuente and Mike's teams have kinda fallen off a cliff. Our basketball success is tied to our football failures and you can't tell me differently.
I gonna try. More like our Bball expectations climbed a mountain since Young was hired. From hoping he can field a competitive team with the pieces Brent left to expecting a top 4 finish in the ACC and a top 25 team. We beat expectations every year and keep setting them higher. We may have over set them this year, or we may still reach them, but we set our expectations at or above the the highest level our talent can play at. We'll need to add few more top 50 players to sustain or take a step up. Hopefully Jones can help with that step, but he has been here less than year, which is not a lot of time in the recruiting picture.
There is zero doubt anywhere by anyone that Mike Young can coach basketball. His issue is going to be having enough horses and experience to compete with the Duke's, UNC's UVA's and snag some games here and there which will mean we are in the dance. I have no doubt he will beat Wake, GT, BC, Clemson, NC State, ND more often than not... It's getting enough dudes to beat L ville, Cuse more often and steal a few against the top 10type teams. the man can coach. Can he get enough players to BBurg to be in the dance most years. The perfect scenario is he builds a Creghton, VCU- in the dance 90% of the time...
High hopes,
we've got,
High hopes,
we've got
High apple pie,
in the sky
Hopes.
That said, Mike Young is the perfect coach for us. He's got the program headed in the right direction, but we have some lofty goals.
Seriously, Alleyne has been a big disappointment to me. I thought he'd be a big part of our offense after the FL game last year. Sadly mistaken, he looks lost and cannot shoot.
Hard to be consistent with that wonky stroke.
I'm all for starting Maddox in his spot. Think he has way more upside.
Alleyne was about the only guy who showed up against FL last season and Memphis and X this season. Don't know what has happened to him lately tho, he was invisible out there for much of the Duke game.
Alleyne definitely needs to work on his interior shooting. Too often he tries to get the sidestep floater and with his body moving laterally instead of towards the basket it definitely effects his shot. On the perimeter, he takes more natural shots and it shows. On the season he is shooting 31% Inside and 34% outside. 34% isn't great but it's enough for college.
Maddox is tough to evaluate. On paper his numbers look phenomenal until you realize you are talking about 5 pts per game. If his numbers stayed consistent over 30 minutes, his output would essentially be equivalent to Alleynes 10 pts per game.
The biggest edge is Maddox plays better on man defense than Alleyne. Alleyne is a better passer though, especially getting it inside to Aluma, although Maddox again is such a small sample size.
Honestly though, I would really like to see more rotations where Aluma, Mutts and either Ojiako or N'Guessan are on the floor together as we get into ACC play. Too many of our opponents are going to have an advantage inside when we have Murphy, Cattoor and Alleyne on the court together. It was really obvious in the Memphis, Dayton and Wake games.
At one point (second half after Duke built a lead) the lineup was Cattor, Murphy, Pedulla, Maddox and Aluma. IT was only for about a minute, but seemed like it matched up against Duke's speed well. I'm not sure what it says that Alleyne wasn't in at that time.