As we have referenced before, trying to outshoot teams instead of putting in real work down low is going to be the recipe for disaster for Duke. While losing to a ranked team isn’t a disaster, this is a game that Duke should have won. Against Clemson Duke took good shots and was able to run their stuff and mix in the bigs, against Georgia Tech and their press, Duke did not only get rattled by the pressure but turned the ball over. I’m not saying 11 turnovers is horrible in fact it’s not but turnovers do not tell the full story of the Gtech press. They completely took Duke out of their game in the second half. Duke was never able to get in the flow of their offense and that was their undoing. Rebounding also played a pretty significant part in this loss, Duke was outrebounded by 8 but it was the kind of rebounds that Gtech was able to get, when the rebound really counted, Dukes bigs were no where to be found, Duke did not box out well at all in this game.
Duke did show some signs for the future with Mason and Miles Plumlee being more aggressive on both sides of the floor. Duke got virtually nothing from its senior forwards. Lance Thomas and Brian Zoubek combined for 6 rebounds,4 points, 3 turnovers and 9 fouls. Not the numbers Coach K needed from his senior frontcout.
Clearly the switch to the perimeter for Kyle Singler is not working out in his favor so far this year, his shooting is down and in this game it was horrible. Working from inside to out is probably more suited for Singler, his ballhandling has not been the best, and his shot selection is questionable as of late. It could also be the minutes he’s been forced to play, one solution may be to give Andre Dawkins more time at guard and have Singler play more small forward with the Plumlees splitting time. This move may get both Singler and Dawkins out of their slumps. It would allow Dawkins to really get into the flow of the game, and take some of the ball handling duties off of Singler.
