Jason Evans

Pomeroy projects that this is a game that Duke wins by 19 points, 81 to 62.

Bart Torvik says Duke wins by 18 points, 81 to 63.

You know, I don't know if the margin is going to be quite that large because I think Syracuse is very capable.

Unlike Duke's recent opponents, Clemson and Pittsburgh, Syracuse is not going to play really slow.

That's just not their MO.

I doubt we see nearly as many of those shots coming at the very end of the shot clock the way we have in the past couple games.

On offense for Clemson, the first thing that jumps out is that this is a poor shooting team.

They hit just 33% of their threes, which isn't terrible, but it's not great.

But they are, like you said, really awful at the free throw line.

They're hitting less than 64% of their free throws.

They're one of the five poorest free throw shooting teams in all of college basketball.

They don't take a lot of threes.

They are mostly a sort of one-on-one creation kind of a team, not a big passing team.

They have one of the bottom 70 assist rates in college basketball.

And even though they have guys who are very, very capable of getting in the lane and attacking the basket, they still take too many mid-range jumpers for my taste.

I hate the mid-range jumper unless you're really wide open, and Clemson's willing to take those shots.

On defense, there are two things that are really significant to note about them, you know, in terms of the metrics and the way they play.

First of all, this will be one of the rare games where Duke sees a good bit of zone.

Now, they are not like they were in the Jimmy Boeheim days, where they were playing zone 100% of the time.

But this is a Syracuse team that will bust out a 2-3 zone with some degree of regularity.