Chapter 1: What insights does Jordan Brenner share about Duke's recent games?
We'll be right back.
All right, Duke fans, are you ready for it? Episode 797 of the Duke Basketball Roundup. Jason and Donald here for you.
It is, in the interest of fairness, just so everyone knows where things fall on the calendar and when news happens and things like that, we are recording this in the afternoon, the day after the Pittsburgh game, even though you're probably going to hear it a couple days after the Pittsburgh game.
uh donald uh how you doing are you ready to chat with a special guest i'm always ready to chat with this guest it's uh it's always fun to have him on and it's been a while so we have a lot to talk about a lot to catch up on there you go we are joined as we have been several times this year we're trying to bring him on about monthly i think we i think we missed january that was probably my fault because i was in africa um hanging out with gorillas uh we're joined by jordan brenner
of the underdogs podcast uh a a guy who's written for more sports magazines newsletters newspapers and all that other kind of stuff that i can possibly name in this moment jordan how you doing my friend good i'd just like to be referred to as little league president jordan renner from now on that's really my current claim to fame it's it's truly doing god's work with uh with young baseball players
Come on, tell me. I want to hear about your little league. Oh, is this a new gig? Wait, is this a new gig for you?
No, I've been doing this for a couple of years. It's draft season now. So I'm spending every waking moment that I'm not doing actual work creating formulas to rank 10-year-old baseball and softball players.
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Chapter 2: How does Jordan view Duke's loss to North Carolina?
It's really, yeah, I need an intervention.
Dude, I did this for years and years. In fact, I was the director of scheduling. I scheduled all the games for both of my kids, both my son's leagues, as well as a couple other leagues. You want to talk thankless jobs.
Oh, my God. Scheduling is the worst job on our board. Nobody wants it. I have to talk people into doing it every year. It's painful.
Yes.
But this is a nice break. This is a great break. I get to talk Duke basketball with you guys.
Exactly.
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Chapter 3: What factors contribute to Duke's performance in close games?
Hey, dude, I'm going to start with this. Hey, the Blue Devils went out and they lost to North Carolina.
They did?
That happened? You may not have heard about that. On a scale from 1 to 10, 10 being most concerned, how much did that loss concern you? Yeah, just hit it. Give me the number and then give me the explanation.
On like a concern level, like a 3, because I feel like much like Texas Tech, you know they controlled almost the entire game arm couple things didn't go well down the stretch obviously but if you're thinking about where this team is, and if you're really focusing on tournament... Well, two things.
If you're focusing on tournament success, then you should be feeling pretty good because this team has shown that they will be in every game. They've either won every game or lost on a final possession. So you can't ask for much more than that. And if you're not focusing on tournament success and you're trying to enjoy the full ride the way we've talked about early in the season, then...
It's frustrating to lose to your rival, but they're 22 and two. So low level of concern. I could totally understand as a fan being incredibly frustrated to lose to Carolina that way. But a lot went wrong that game and they still should have won.
Jordan, I completely agree. This is something we should not be super concerned about. The team is, you know, two losses on the year at this point. I said this on the pod the other day. It's just a super, super impressive record. It's just that one of them is to our really hated rival.
And in both of them, as you pointed out, I know there are a lot of Duke fans who are like, oh no, this team's, I'm never going to feel comfortable with this team. They've blown two leads.
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Chapter 4: How has Duke adapted their playing style this season?
I can't believe how many people have, sort of brought up to me questions about, oh, are you worried about John Shire? Does he not know how to execute down the stretch? Personally, I think this is, yeah, you're rolling, people can't see, you're rolling your eyes. I'm rolling my eyes too. I think this is absolutely ludicrous. It's like folks don't remember the game against Florida.
People don't know basketball, and they pretend to, and it's very annoying. Well, actually, I take it back. There's lots of walks of life now where people act like they know a lot more than they do. But go talk to any other coach, not just in college basketball, but in the National Basketball Association or GM.
They'll give you a read on whether John can coach and can coach down the stretch of games. Not everything can be controlled or planned. There are lots of reasons why things go wrong. And I'll say this. Concerned about the result? No. Both of Duke's losses revealed concerning things about the team, win or loss. The first one against Texas Tech was largely addressed, which was...
All the switching on defense, they were in a real defensive rut for about three or four games there. Yeah, oh, for sure. Texas Tech absolutely match-up hunted Duke down the stretch and then got the match-ups they wanted and went one-on-one. So what did Duke's staff do? They changed the way they played defense.
Chapter 5: What are the implications of Duke's depth issues in the lineup?
They reacted to weakness, okay? And there's been a lot written and talked about now how they are not switching on as many screens, how they're using different coverages. To me, that's a great sign of a coaching staff when you're willing to adapt.
And John has said a number of times, and if you listen, it's very clear, and I think it takes great humility and maturity to say and do these things, which is this. I think John has a vision in his mind of how he would want to play basketball, of how it should be played.
In a perfect world, they're playing fast, they're switching everything, they're shooting a lot of threes, they're winning the battle in the paint, etc., etc. But that's for a generic team. Because of all the motion and player personnel in college basketball, you can't build your ideal team every year. So you do have to be able to adapt to what your team does best.
So if this team needs to play a little more bully ball, this team needs to slow the pace a little more than John would like or anticipates because it helps this team's chances of winning, then it's what you've got to do. And I think we all know there are a lot of coaches around the country throughout history, who don't make those adjustments.
So to me, one of the great signs about this program is a willingness to shift midstream when you self-assess and view things that aren't working well. The Carolina game, just to finish the thought, it's been in the back of my mind that there's a potential issue with foul trouble or injury among the bigs. Because there's only three of them, right?
Last year, there were four and guys who could play minutes, you know, Cooper Flagg could play the four, etc., etc., right? This year, it's Gungba Boozer and Malik Brown. And now we've seen in the past two games, one where they're all in foul trouble, and then two where Gungba doesn't play.
So not having sort of that emergency guy who maybe doesn't play most games, but you can throw a big body out there in those cases, it's a high-class problem to have in college basketball. But it is something that worried me, and we've seen it
know if you've followed duke long enough it's manifested in previous teams so it's a little it's a little triggering jason but again high class problem you know something you mentioned a moment ago i want to go back to the notion of playing bully ball and duke going inside because duke you know starting around i want to say around like the the stanford game certainly when we got into like wake and louisville and virginia tech
Duke was really pounding the ball inside, you know, getting 40 plus points in the paint in a lot of these different games. And the other side of that was not taking as many three-pointers. Look, against Stanford, we take 10 threes. Against BC and North Carolina, 18 and 19. Against Pittsburgh just yesterday, even though the three-pointers were falling more than they usually do, we only took 23.
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Chapter 6: How does Duke's three-point shooting impact their overall game strategy?
It's just what they're running and what it's generating, the first option is trying to get something at the rim, I think. Now, it's bully ball with a twist, right? Because they're still... four or five out. They're still using their centers largely as passers and facilitators from the high post. And they really do a beautiful job of constantly cutting, screening, moving off the ball.
The number of backdoor cuts they get per game is like... Oh, yeah.
It's gorgeous. Yeah.
Like, it's... Like, they get more in a game sometimes than I feel like we saw, like, out of some Coach K teams an entire year, right? Like, it's a very different... It's a very different style.
I think, and you kind of heard, I forget which interview this was that Shire did, but when he was talking a little bit, and they talked about this during the game against Pittsburgh, about Isaiah Evans' shot selection, right? I think they want guys taking the right threes. And I do think they're willing to live with a lot of misses from three if it's the right three.
I think it's got to be frustrating to coach Isaiah Evans a little bit because... He seems to have trouble distinguishing between the right and the wrong three. And it sounds, reading between the lines, like they probably showed him the numbers when they're talking about him being in the 20s when he's contested versus shooting it the way he did last year when he's open and his feet are set.
But, yeah, no, I think the three-point shooting is a concern, both in terms of who's taking him at what volume. And, you know, I know you and Donald, when we talked before the season, you thought this team was going to set some sort of record of ā of three-point shooting. I didn't see that.
But I do think that at some point, like... I think there's an opportunity for Darren Harris to earn more time. We saw it against Pittsburgh because they really do generate a lot of open corner threes that Dame Saar and Nick Hemania are just not hitting with any consistency. And if Darren Harris can...
be in that position a certain amount of time and hit those with greater regularity, I think he has to see the foursome.
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Chapter 7: What challenges does Duke face in the upcoming ACC tournament?
Darren Harris's minutes that he was playing, and I'm not even talking about games against teams that are clearly outclassed. I'm talking about games against power conference teams in November, December, compared to the minutes he's getting now in ACC games. There's no comparison. He was in double digits a lot.
and now he's basically getting like one three-minute run in the first half, and then he's done. Nick Kemenia was playing 20-ish minutes per game, and now he's in the low teens, and sometimes even less than that. Do you think we're seeing from John the sort of Coach K tendency of, oh, the games are starting to matter more and more, they're getting a little bit closer,
Time to shorten that bench, rely on the six, seven guys that I really trust more than everybody else?
Not necessarily. Not six, seven. Oh, God. I can't even. I have children of that age. I did not mean to do that. I apologize. And it's really played out, but it's still annoying. Yeah. So...
No, I think- By the way, by the way, for the record, neither you nor I made any hand gestures when we said six, seven. I want that noted.
I'm over it. So I just need to go away completely. So listening to John post-game UNC, he said something along the lines of he didn't actually intend to play Himania as few minutes as he did, and he actually said he should have gotten back in there. I think, first of all, Carolina is its own beast. That game just has its own nature.
I think Dame Saar was playing so well that game at both ends of the floor that I think it impacted... normal substitutions that would have been made over the course of that game. I just... I think it was just an unusual situation. So, no, I think this team will play minimum eight if all the guys are healthy all year.
But I just... The reason I brought up Darren Harris and it sounded like Duke was intending to play him a decent amount against Pittsburgh even if Gongbo was healthy is just because...
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Chapter 8: How does Jordan predict Duke's performance in the NCAA tournament?
They do need shooting. And if you look at their their perimeter guys, Caden Boozer is really not a perimeter shooting threat. I love that. I love his finishing around there. But that that jump shot needs work. Yeah. We talked about the inconsistency of of of our and Hermannia. You know, Caleb Foster is shooting almost 39% from three. I sort of don't know why they don't get him more looks.
And actually, we always have to talk about Caleb Foster when I'm on. So we'll get to that at some point, but I want to dive in there. But I just think... Look, if you can shoot, you can play. And this team does need someone else, has a need for someone else who can knock down an open shot, especially on a night where everybody else is cold.
So I'm not in the room with the coaches, but I certainly don't think they've given up on Darren Harris. And I think it would make sense to continue to...
find a way for him to potentially provide that shooting when it's needed um let's see but i i have a feeling that much in the way caleb foster fought his way back into the rotation late last year darren harris will be given the opportunity to fight his way in this year and the Pittsburgh game was a good start to that effect.
Sure. Sure. All right. You mentioned Caleb Foster. I actually had a question teed up that I wanted to ask about him. I'm going to move my order of questions around a little bit and get to it right now. I feel like CFOS to me is super frustrating because I see some of the things he does to succeed. You mentioned he's a really good outside shooter, right?
his ability to get downhill and finish in the lane, drawing contact and the such, is really impressive. Why doesn't he do it more often? That is the thing that I look sometimes and I'm like, oh, Seafoss had three shots in this game. Why? What would it take for him to... If Caleb Foster would take 10 plus shots per game, Caleb Foster would be the second leading scorer on this team.
I'm absolutely convinced of that.
If I could sit down with the staff right now and relax, staff, I'm not bothering you until the season's over at minimum. You guys have more important things to talk to me, but if I could sit down with them right now, that's sort of the one thing I'd love to sort of ask them about because there are times where he looks dynamic getting into the lane.
I mean, the Louisville game at Louisville was his... amazing as we've seen him play.
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