Duke, last week, won on the road at Notre Dame by holding the Irish to 43 points, then won in Chapel Hill by boatracing North Carolina with an 87-point outburst.
This Duke team is another neoclassic collection of Mike Krzyzewski one-and-doners. Seriously, he’s been doing this one-and-done thing so long that it’s hard to remember that he won back when guys would stay more than a semester and a half, but he did.
This year’s group is not the 2018-2019 group with Zion Williamson, RJ Barrett and Cam Reddish that beat Virginia twice in the regular season but saw its season end before the Final Four.
(You know ‘Hoo brought home that nattie.)
It might be K’s third-best OAD Era group, though, with 6’10” forward Paolo Banchero, 6’6” forward A.J. Griffin and beefy 6’4” guard Trevor Keels, all projected lottery picks.
And this group is unusually deep for recent vintage Duke basketball, going eight deep.
As adaptable as this year’s Blue Devils can be, they’ve also shown some vulnerabilities, losing on the road at Ohio State and Florida State, and at home to Miami.
None of those are exactly world-beaters, and none did anything particularly special in their upset wins.
Those upsets are par for the course for a talented young team.
The 2021-2022 Duke team has a high ceiling, but at its floor, it’s an average team that can be beaten on a given night.
Duke rotation
The thing I keep seeing about Banchero in the mock draft writeups on him is that he’s “polished,” but “lacks elite upside,” basically suggesting that the scouts think he’s already close to maximizing his talents, and that his ceiling isn’t as high as the others likely to be taken around him in the lottery.
In the here and now, Banchero (17.5 ppg, 8.4 rebs/g, 2.6 assists/g, 49.0% FG, 32.9% 3FG) can score in a number of ways – fairly effectively on spot-ups (69 usages, 43.1% FG, 56.0% AFG, 1.014 PPP), post-ups (71 usages, 45.5% FG/AFG, .972 PPP) and isos (70 usages, 41.8% FG/AFG, .843 PPP), elite on backdoor cuts (41 usages, 82.8% FG/AFG, 1.488 PPP) and the offensive boards (23 usages, 64.7% FG/AFG, 1.348 PPP).
The one knock: for a guy with a high usage rate (28.0 percent), he can be a bit turnover-prone (a team-high 2.4 turnovers per game).
6’5” junior Wendell Moore (14.2 ppg, 5.6 rebs/g, 4.5 assists/g, 53.2% FG, 40.3% 3FG) has been around for a while, relatively speaking.
Gotta keep tabs on Moore on spot-ups (70 usages, 46.3% FG, 61.2% AFG, 1.214 PPP) and backdoor cuts (23 usages, 80.0% FG/AFG, 1.565).
Keels (11.4 ppg, 3.5 rebs/g, 3.2 assists/g, 39.1% FG, 30.9% 3FG) is a volume guy (usage rate: 22.0%) who you primarily watch out for in transition (41 usages, 66.7% FG, 78.3% 3FG, 1.244 PPP) and in pick-and-rolls (42 usages, 44.4% FG, 47.2% AFG, 1.000 PPP).
Griffin (9.9 ppg, 3.5 rebs/g, 53.7% FG, 50.0% 3FG) only gets 20 minutes a game, and the only thing I can think of as to why is that he’s the weakest defender in the rotation (opponents: 35.8% FG, 42.5% AFG, .843 PPP).
7’0” sophomore Mark Williams (9.9 ppg, 7.0 rebs/g, 3.1 blocks/g, 69.9% FG) does a lot in his 22.1 minutes per night. He splits time at the five spot with 6’9” Marquette transfer Theo John (3.2 ppg, 2.9 rebs/g, 57.1% FG), who gets 12.0 minutes per game off the bench.
When Krzyzewski wants to go small, he’ll slide Banchero over to the five.
The other two rotation guys: 6’1” sophomore Jeremy Roach (7.7 ppg, 3.8 assists/g, 37.4% FG, 32.4% 3FG) and 6’6” senior Joey Baker (5.9 ppg, 42.9% FG, 38.7% 3FG).
How Virginia matches up
There’s not a lot of X’s and O’s to what Duke does. According to Synergy Sports data, spot-ups (27.9%), transition (16.4%) and pick-and-rolls (13.0%) account for the bulk of the offense.
K’s game plan is simple: my guys are better than your guys.
They space the floor, dribble-drive into the paint, score at the rim, pocket pass to cutting bigs, or kick it out to shooters on the wings.
Basic, but effective, if you have that kind of talent.
How Tony Bennett counters defensively is a good question. Only Keels is good at running the pick-and-roll on the perimeter, and it wouldn’t surprise me to see Krzyzewski minimize pick-and-rolls, outside of Keels, because Virginia is so good at defending them anyway.
He’s almost certainly going to dribble-drive Virginia’s guards to death as much as he can.
Bennett probably goes with 6’3” sophomore Reece Beekman (7.9 ppg, 5.1 assists/g, 2.2 steals/g, 44.1% FG, 34.9% 3FG) on Keels, who has been coming off the bench the past two games after missing three games with a calf injury.
I’m presuming Keels is back in the starting lineup on Big Monday.
6’4” guard Armaan Franklin (12.3 ppg, 41.7% FG, 27.0% 3FG) gets the matchup with Griffin, who had a season-high 27, on 11-of-17 shooting, in the 87-67 win over UNC on Saturday.
Maybe you flip-flop Franklin and Beekman on Keels and Griffin, depending on the situation.
That leaves 5’9” senior Kihei Clark (9.8 ppg, 4.0 assists/g, 41.1% FG, 39.2% 3FG) on Moore, giving up eight inches and 40 pounds.
Yikes.
You have to hope that maybe Krzyzewski decides that Keels isn’t quite ready to start and go 30+ minutes, and goes with Roach at point guard for 20-25 minutes for one more game.
Bennett has to go with 6’6” power forward Jayden Gardner (14.3 ppg, 6.8 rebs/g, 52.4% FG) on Banchero.
Not a good matchup on either end for the ‘Hoos there.
Virginia’s bigs, 7’1” junior Francisco Caffaro (4.7 ppg, 4.2 rebs/g, 54.3% FG) and 6’11” sophomore Kadin Shedrick (6.6 ppg, 5.1 rebs/g, 2.4 blocks/g, 60.2% FG) match up well with Duke at the five spot.
So, we have that going for us, which is nice.
Analysis
Gardner struggles against bigger fours in the post, and Banchero is pretty good defensively (opponents: 32.3% FG, 40.2% AFG, .747 PPP).
I think that’s where Banchero has his biggest impact in this one, on the defensive end.
Duke has a big size advantage in the backcourt, and presuming that Coach K will have them spreading the floor to take away help, it will be a lot of those guys being on an island almost in hand-to-hand combat trying to keep the Blue Devils guards out of the lane.
This one feels to me like the Duke-Notre Dame game on the most recent Big Monday, the only difference being, a half-dozen or so fewer possessions per team.
Basically, a rock fight, but Duke has bigger rocks, and their guys can throw them harder.
Story by Chris Graham
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