Duke owned the boards
Duke is an elite offensive rebounding team, and actually, in spite of the numbers in the box score, they weren’t as good as they usually are in Saturday’s loss at Virginia.
The counting numbers show Duke had nine offensive rebounds, which considered in the context of Virginia snaring 19 defensive rebounds, works out to an offensive rebounding percentage for the Blue Devils of 32.1 percent.
For the season, Duke has a 37.7 percent offensive rebounding rate, which ranks fifth nationally, per KenPom.com.
Which means the 16-2 advantage in second-chance points in favor of the Dookies could have been a little worse.
(Note: I’m totally aware that Duke fans don’t like seeing it spelled Dookies. I don’t write for Duke fans, who as a group of people can suck it, for all I care.)
Overall, Duke had a 39-24 advantage in rebounds.
You’re not going to win a lot of games getting outrebounded 39-24.
Yeah, I know, news flash.
9-of-22?
You’re also not going to win a lot of games going 9-of-22 at the line.
Virginia, which would go the aforementioned 9-of-22 at the line on Saturday, had been a 72.3 percent team from the line coming in, and doing some quick math, the guys who shot (and missed a ton of) free throws today were a collective 74.6 percent from the line coming into Saturday, so, no excuse.
UVA made both ends of a two-shot foul exactly once – on the opening possession of the overtime, when Ben Vander Plas swished shot #1, then got shot #2 to bounce, bounce, bounce, bounce in.
That the game ended up going to overtime was very much a function of the Cavaliers going 3-of-12 from the stripe in regulation.
Breaking down the misses:
- Seven different times, Virginia went 1-of-2 at the line.
- Four misses came in and-one situations – the old-fashioned three-point play.
- Vander Plas missed both ends of a two-shot foul at the 17:33 mark of the second half.
22 turnovers is a lot
One way you win getting outrebounded 39-24 and going 9-of-22 at the line is by forcing 22 turnovers, and turning those turnovers into a 20-8 advantage in points off turnovers.
Referring back to KenPom, turnovers have been a season-long issue for first-year Duke coach Jon Scheyer’s team, with the Blue Devils inflicting themselves with a turnover rate at 19.4 percent, ranking 249th among the 363 teams in D1 this season.
Junior point guard Jeremy Roach, who fouled out with 16 points on 7-of-11 shooting in 31 minutes, had five turnovers, tying a season-high (he also had five in Monday’s 81-59 loss at Miami, and five in Duke’s 81-70 loss at Wake Forest on Dec. 20).
Kyle Filipowski, Duke’s leading scorer coming in (15.7 points a game), who put up a goose egg on Saturday – zero points, 0-of-6 shooting in 30 minutes – also had five turnovers.
It was also the third time this season that Filipowski had five turnovers.
The other thing: Virginia owned the paint
Duke had a guy named Shelden Williams that they used to call “The Landlord” because it was said that he owned the paint.
Virginia took over the lease.
The Cavaliers had a 42-24 advantage in points in the paint in Saturday’s win, fueled by 19 makes in 28 attempts at the rim.
Kihei Clark, who is supposedly now 5’10”, was 6-of-7 at the rim, which is otherworldly in and of itself, and then you consider that 7’1” Duke freshman Dereck Lively is the rim protector on the back end, and had come in 5.0 blocks per game in that role over his last four games, including an eye-popping eight in Duke’s 63-57 win over North Carolina last weekend.
Lively’s block total on Saturday: zero.
Duke’s block total on Saturday: two.
And it could have, and should have, been worse for Duke.
Reece Beekman threw down two nasty dunks, but missed all seven of his layup attempts, his misses accounting for seven of the nine misses at the rim on the day.
Beeks was 56.7 percent at the rim coming in. The numbers suggest he would get three of the layup misses to fall.
Nice bounceback games for Franklin, BVP
It tends to work out this way. I’ll write about how a guy going through a rough patch is getting pushed for minutes, and then they step up and have a big game, and I look like an idiot.
Enter Armaan Franklin (23 points, 9-of-13 shooting) and Ben Vander Plas (13 points, 4-of-7 shooting, and a bunch left at the foul line, where he was, gulp, 5-of-11).
Franklin had scored a total of eight points on 2-of-14 shooting from the floor in his last two games.
Franklin was sublime on Saturday, aside from going 2-of-5 at the line, connecting on 3-of-5 from three, including the dagger three to extend the lead to four with 40 seconds left in OT, and 5-of-6 at the rim.
Vander Plas had scored a total of 13 points on 6-of-18 shooting over his last four games.
On Saturday, BVP was 4-of-7 from the field.
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Chris Graham
