It'll be tough to beat last year's game in Chapel Hill. But a struggling UNC team vs a Duke team struggling to keep a rhythm without Ryan Kelly... should be interesting. Both teams will be crazy desperate for a win after last week.

Keys:

1. Offensive rebounding. UNC loves second chances. With their superior height, can we keep them honest on the offensive glass?

2. Curry's health. Do we get hot Curry or cool Curry tonight? Cuz when Duke has hot Curry, they're basically unstoppable.

3. Defending McAdoo. Duke has struggled to defend guys of McAdoo's size without Kelly. McAdoo is lighter than Leslie, so maybe Jefferson won't be as bullied... but we lack the height to truly interfere with those little mid-range jumpers he hits. The formula is simple: if McAdoo scores under 18, Duke has a better chance of winning. If we let him score more, UNC has a fighting chance.

4. Perimeter defense. Both Duke and UNC want to run the floor and score a lot of points... but both teams really live and die by the 3. Both squads struggled to stop Miami from 3, but generally Duke has had more success with perimeter defense (especially with Kelly, but Jefferson plays with a high IQ for a true freshman and rotates well). Can either team stop the other from 3? If one team heats up while the other clanks... this game might be decided relatively early.

I think Duke should win, and rather handily, especially after the embarrassment of the last game. But I'm not naive enough to think that UNC doesn't have the talent, especially down low, to hurt us. If they play smart ball, they absolutely can win... but smart ball hasn't been their forte this season.

I won't be around tonight, so I wanted to say, just once...

Go to Hell Carolina.

Roy's stubbornness will probably eliminate any small chance of victory we would have had today.

That makes me happy-- our depth of size is fairly nonexistent, so disrupting your depth somewhat is helpful for our odds.

James doesn't do much except foul. We still have 4 bigs, so I'm not really worried about foul trouble.

Who knows, maybe we'll get a couple of 3s from Alex Murphy.

Dear lord, at least not let it be Duke from the second NC State game.

... it made far more sense why they struggled the way they did. It's already a trap game, coming off a big win, looking forward to the UNC game, playing a mediocre opponent. Then to show up late too? I'm glad we escaped.

Cook kinda sucked against BC. I don't see him sucking against Paige tonight.

Our guys are just too inconsistent and inexperienced to win at Duke. Hope they prove me wrong though.

i just wanna get a W and move on. all i want is a national title this year. a unc sweep ain't gonna suffice. the itch has returned.

With the up and down field this year it seems like anybody's game come tournament time.

I can see where you are worried. No one is really expecting UNC to win so that can add pressure.

But let me assure you, if Roy brings out Hubert and Dex in the starting line up (which he will), then you will only have to guard 2, maybe 3 of our players for the beginning of the game.

I'd love for him to be back by the Miami game March 1st, to give him a few games to get back to speed and get his shot back on point.

I want that title too, but I also know the easiest way to do that will be the 1 seed in the east... and the only teams that are legit contenders for it with only one ranked team left on the schedule are us and Miami. And really, our schedule is tougher, with games at Virginia, at Maryland, and at UNC left.

It's gonna be tough to get that overall 1 without the Kraken. I'm hoping we can get out of the season only dropping 1 or 2 more (doesn't matter which, though preferably road games), beating Miami, winning the ACC Tourney, and getting some sort of 1 seed. That's the schedule of events I want.

>It'll be tough to beat last year's game in Cameron.

You meant the Chapel Hill game, right? The game at Cameron was a bloodbath.

I'm watching "Marshall Faulk: Rush to Canton" on the NFL Network.

McAdoo's gotten off to horrid starts in ACC play. He's something like 4-18 with 7 turnovers before the first media timeout. Obviously, another performance like that would spell doom for us.

He's been taking the ball to the rim more the last couple games, but getting nothing out of it.

After seeing the way we've played against good teams this year, I know better than to expect much tonight, but hopefully the effort's there.

How the fuck during that horrendous 1995 season did we hang in there with that UNC team full of NBA talent? That's this rivalry for you.

half. They will continue to leave ya'll open in the second half like D1 players can't make open shots. Plumlee will have some sort of dunk that people will go crazy about even though it really aint that good but this is a rivalry dammit and every dunk matters. Roy gonna squat at mid court take off his glasses and rub his temples bc well thats what Roy does.

But anyway fuck Dook

1) Start the game with high energy and super hyped crowd.
2) Get a 9-15 pt lead.
3) Game over.


LOL it's really that simple. I've seen butler, texas, NC state and Miami all do it to us and that's like half of our losses.

This team is young and still developing 'gumption'. They fought back against Miami a little but it was too late when dealing with a team that good (and old/mature).

I fully expect a double digit loss in this game and a loss in the second game but more contested (less than 10pts).

But I hope they prove me wrong and we treat them like we did UNLV.

*fingers crossed*

gonna miss the game...so I will get the highlights on SC after the shift...

About time, Roy.

Duke's apparently countering by starting a Hairston of their own.

.

We'll see how long Roy decides to sit him

Not second half shooting or free throws. The refs conspired a win.

You cumguzzler. eat a dick

Paying off early

Your best players on the court

Hairston needs to get a bit more aggressive offensively. Been struggling offensively for a bit.

.

to defend the three-point line

Lol, so much for that

.

.

.

.

.

Pretty much. McAdoo's got no feel at the stripe.

Lol, been a rough, rough half

.

.

.

.

Can't take any in conference game for granted. Hopefully Plumlee's worst game of the season. We miss you Ryan!

That Curry 3 changed the momentum. Awesome.

Eat shit Carolina.

.

We'll see you in a month.

a) How do UNC fans feel about Roy Williams? He obviously
isn't going anywhere, and 2 chips are 2 chips. But his
teams really seem to explosively underachieve. I was just
thinking about last years- team: why didn't they go
undefeated?


b) What is the hierarchy of the Duke assistants, and who
is expected to take K's job in 5 or so years, when he stops?
Collins is currently the top assistant, right? Dawkins
before that. What's the word on this?

----------------------------



O_E: "Acts like an asshole and posts with imperial disdain"




"I ORBITs the solar system, listenin..."

(C)Keith Murray, "

answer: NO ONE has any idea. 10 years ago it was indisputably dawkins. then, things changed. K's health, once on the downturn, greatly improved. he had hip replacement surgery and it fixed his hip, knee and back. johnny dipped. he and K had a convo...K ain't want him to leave, but johnny wasn't gonna wait another decade or more.

the unofficial word i've heard from duke insiders is another 7-10 years.

at least 5, 'cause he prolly gonna coach the USA team again

He's so competitive that he wants his win record to be as hard to beat as possible. So he'll stay til he literally CAN'T.

I wouldn't count out Wojo for that top spot right now. He may not have the Collins name pedigree, but NO ONE hates him. He's defensive oriented and guard oriented, which is K's whole philosophy. He's well-liked enough to probably keep some of those supporting staff and recruiters during the transition.

But Ba is right. It really is a mystery. In a decade, anything could change.
And if Dawk starts putting together a winning program at Stanford, he'd bounce back with the quickness.

No disrespect to Jim B, but my dude K deserves to be the winningest coach.

If anything, K will stay coaching as long as Boeheim is. I'll start to worry about K retiring once Boeheim does.

I'll answer the first one.

Roy's coaching has been absolute shit this year. Poor rotations, not using players correctly, etc. It looks like 09/10 all over again.

Conversely, he coached his ass of this game. If he coaches like this for the rest of the season I will be thrilled. Roy also does not get enough credit for his great coaching in the 05/06 season. I know we had Tyler Hansbrough, but we started a walk on at SG and had a great season. He should completed get blasted for 09/10 though.

Roy's downfall is that he is too stubborn. He loves huge rotations, but all of our best teams have mostly gone just 8 deep. Having a freshman PG this year is also tough though in his defense.

There's too many games vs. big teams that looks like night/day from one half to the other, and this is one of those games that not only should we have won, but won solidly.

Plumlee played like shit for most of the game, and Duke didn't light the world on fire from the arc. Add that to missing six free throws in a row down the stretch and not executing for most of the 2nd half. If we're going to make the tournament we need to finish games like these. We need at least one or two W's between Miami, State, and Duke along with a strong effort in the 2nd half of the regular season.
_________________________
http://expertise.blogdrive.com
http://twitter.com/KMBReferee
http://www.formspring.me/KMBReferee

Roy coached his ass off. That was nice to finally see this year.

me and my boy got into a big ass argument on the 'cast cause i said roy sucks at motivating his players. they be having some shitty losses a lot.

We had some great 1 on 1 D with Plumlee and didn't even allow you guys to shoot the 3.

Unfortunately, you guys are a much better team and toughed it out in the end (actually made free throws, executed on offense, etc.).

I'm still skeptical about the game at UNC. I don't see Duke coming out that lazy in the second game.

... yeah.

then put them back in seems to be the worst show of authority to me and it's very hit or miss in it's effectiveness.

so I'm not really mad at this loss (though any loss, especially to Duke, sucks).

If they keep this up and win 2-3 more big games this season (NC State & Duke at home, maybe a shot at NC State/Miami/Duke in the ACC tourney) they might sneak into the tourney.

But I DO not like JMM's game, like at all. He plays like he's 15. You can see 'flashes' but he has waaaaaaaaay too many cringe worthy events during games (especially in the losses/big games where we NEED him to play well).

Plumlee struggles most when bodies get physical with him or he's doubled. In the first half, they did a good job of closing in on him and using the double team... but in the second half, McAdoo mostly played one-on-one in the post with him. And Plumlee will eat up a beanpole like McAdoo all day in the post.

Combine that with McAdoo's ugly lack of a post game and his horrendous free throw form down the stretch. Yeah.

Why did Leslie McDonald play 20 minutes... and Johnson/Hubert played a combined 5? We struggle against bigger teams on both ends of the court. It forces us to keep Jefferson and Plumlee in the game, and while I love Jefferson, he doesn't have a developed offensive game yet.

Play 4 guards against us, and we'll throw Thornton in there, play 4 guards against you, spread out around the arc, and go to town. Jefferson didn't play for the majority of the second half as a result.

Bullock and Hairston played well against the smaller defenders. I believe in Bullock's shot more than Hairston's. Hairston showed good intelligence taking it into the paint as often as he did-- Curry is simply too small and Sulaimon is too young to figure out what to do on D against a guy that big.

Cook totally and unsurprisingly housed Paige.

Tyler Thornton showed why I get angry at people who say he never contributes. He finds ways to contribute when you need him, making some key defensive plays and a few huge 3s (he shoots nearly better from 3 than he does from the floor!).

If Roy learns that Dex/McDonald aren't the answer, and Johnson/James/Hubert might be, then Chapel Hill might be a good game. I don't think UNC can beat us with a 4-guard lineup.

And if Ryan Kelly comes back?... yeah.