Chapter 1: What is the main topic discussed in this episode?
Hi there, Duke fans. Episode 803 of the Duke Basketball Roundup. Ho-hum. Another absolute beatdown of an ACC opponent. Jason Evans and Donald Wine here for you. It is Sunday morning. Donald, did you have a nice time watching the Blue Devils manhandle Virginia yesterday?
Yeah, so I was at a first birthday party for one of my close friends' daughter, and that was during the game, so obviously I was present in the moment with that. I was following on my phone, and it was great to kind of look at my phone every now and then and say, oh, this game is now up. We're up by 15. We're up by 20. We're up by 30. Oh, we only won by 26.
So it was great to rewatch it later on in full and really get to feel how this game blew open. Again... Duke taking out a top 12 team in the country by 26 points and only allowing 51 in the process. This was a manhandling in many levels. And Jason, I think we were going to talk about this. This team is doing stuff that we haven't seen before.
Even last year's team, if you look at Ken Palm, as great a vaunted team as that was in the Ken Palm ratings, this team is now higher this morning than that, which is simply remarkable.
Chapter 2: What did Duke do to dominate Virginia in their recent game?
Ridiculous. It's ridiculous. I've said this many times on this podcast. comparing Ken Palm numbers across different years isn't an exact science. All that Ken Palm is telling you is where you are relative to the average team in the country in a given year. So...
There's actually ā so like the top teams the past couple of years have been putting up historic kind of Ken Palm numbers and there may be an argument that the average team, which is probably a mid-major ā
a good but not great mid-major team, you know, ranked in the 160s, 170s, 180s kind of range, that maybe in the NIL era, that team is further, just inherently further away from the top teams than they were in the past.
which is, I think, a really interesting ā so it's possible that these Ken Palm numbers are just, again, for the top teams, are just going to trend up over time as NIL makes it more and more difficult for smaller schools ā for mid-major schools to really compete to have the same kind of depth of roster that a power conference team has. But, yeah, I mean, yeah, go ahead.
You know what's funny, Jason? If you look at the numbers, right, and you kind of get to where the zero mark would be, that mid-major team you're talking about is Georgia Tech. So take that how you will. But, yeah, Georgia Tech and Cornell are like the midpoint here in the Kempop ratings. And, yeah, I think all of it is valid, but ā
Whatever you think about them, we're watching a historic team here, and it's very fun to watch.
Yeah, speaking of historic, and we're not going to get into the recap yet because we're doing some general kind of stuff here at the very top. We haven't done the headlines yet or anything. So Duke has now won. their past three ACC games by a combined total of 107 points. Do the math. That's a 35.7 margin of victory over the past three games.
That three-game margin of 107 points is the biggest three-game victory margin in ACC history. This conference goes back a long, long time. No team has won three games in a row by 107 points before. I mean, it's just kind of wow stuff. Duke is now winning their ACC games this year by an average of 19.5 points per game. And look, last year was better than that.
Like last year won their games by like, it was like 23 or 24 points per game. But the ACC is very, this year, last year, the ACC was like, are we going to get three teams? You know, maybe three, maybe four. Like the ACC was just not good last year. This year, the ACC is looking at eight teams in the tournament. There may not be, look, there's,
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Chapter 3: How has Duke's defense changed under Jon Scheyer?
We're number one virtually every year again now. But yeah, one of the great runs, and here we are doing the same thing that we did back then. Comments on the ACC title?
I think, one, a tremendous accomplishment to do it with only, to this point, just a couple of losses is remarkable. And more importantly, Jason, we get the number one seed in the ACC tournament. So one thing to note about that is... Traditionally, Jason, the number one seed plays that first game on Thursday and you get the 12 noon slot.
So everyone's like trying to figure out how to get out of work. Not this year. ESPN has basically said after all the games are done, they're going to reorder and reschedule everything. So look for Duke to have a primetime game most likely on that Thursday slot, whether it be seven or nine. But again, I think it's just a tremendous accomplishment to get the double bye and then secure the one seed.
But as Cam or Boozer said after the game, we don't like to share. So let's go for ā we're going to recap this game. We'll talk about NC State, which is in less than 36 hours. And then we're going to try and hopefully go for the outright regular season title.
Yeah. By the way, one last quick note that I have on just ā Duke and college basketball in general. Donald, I've reached the point. There are four teams. If you give me these four, you can have the rest of the field. So on Friday night, of course, Michigan blew out a really good Illinois club, an Illinois team that's like number five in Ken Palm or something like that.
And Michigan, the final score was only 84 to 70, but it wasn't that close of a game. And a lot of people were like, oh... Maybe, you know, even though Duke beat them last week, maybe Michigan really still is the number one team. And then Duke, of course, goes out and beats a top 10 Virginia team by 26 points, and you're like, oh, never mind.
And then literally within hours of Duke winning that game, Arizona beat Kansas by 23. Like, Arizona was just like, yeah, hey, wait, don't forget about us. And then last night, Florida, did you see what Florida did to Arkansas? I mean, Arkansas is a pretty good team. 111 to 77, then Florida... Donald, there are four teams. There's Duke, there's Michigan, there's Arizona, there's Florida.
And like I said, you can have the other 362 teams in college basketball. I will take those four. They are all four of them playing really, really great basketball right now.
Yeah, and it's funny. You still got UConn out there. You still got Houston out there. I know Iowa State lost, but they're still a good team.
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Chapter 4: What strategies did Duke use to win the battle of the boards?
It's where Duke really started implementing this new look defense. Since then, you know. Duke has the number one defensive efficiency in the nation. I mean, Duke has the number one defensive efficiency in the nation anyway. But since then, since that January 3rd game, it's ridiculous.
Like, our difference, the difference between us and the number two team in defensive efficiency, the number two team, by the way, since January 3rd is Florida. I was talking about Florida. Great defense. The difference between us and Florida in terms of overall defensive efficiency is greater than the difference between Florida and the number seven team in defensive efficiency.
Duke has lapped the field to some extent in defensive efficiency since that Florida State game. And by the way, talking about it on the season, if you look in Ken Palm, The number one, two, three, and four teams in the country in Ken Palm are the number one, two, three, and four teams in defensive efficiency. Duke, Michigan, Arizona, and Florida. I mentioned those four teams earlier.
They are four really, really damn good defensive teams. Duke on the season, since that Florida State game, is allowing 55.8 points per game. I'm going to repeat it, and then I'm going to let Donald talk. Since the Florida State game,
Chapter 5: What historical significance does Duke's recent performance hold?
on January 3rd. Sorry, I'm getting my dates confused. Two months, Donald. Duke is allowing an average of 55.8 points per game. Donald, we don't play slow. It's not like Duke's out there holding the ball and not letting teams have possessions. This is not a Tony Bennett special. This is Duke just strangling teams. 55.8 points per game? You can't get to 60 against Duke.
What are we even talking about here?
I mean, Jason, it's not like we're ā again, like you said, we have a lot of fast possessions, and we're giving all of these teams 30 seconds to shoot the basketball every single possession. Like, we're not sitting there like, no, no, shoot. Like, shoot very quickly. We're saying, go ahead. Find your shot. Take your time. We'll be over here when you need us.
And when you're ready to shoot, we're going to be right there to stop it. Jason, last night ā or yesterday ā Derrida had 16 points. He was the only Wahoo in double figures. Chance Mallory had nine points. Everyone else had five or fewer. And they played 14 guys, if you include the five that came in in garbage time at the end.
The fact that you have basically two guys that are one guy in double figures, one that's close, and everyone else relatively rendered obsolete from this game, that is incredible. That was an incredible defense, as you mentioned. There was a lot of late shot clock shots. And because of that, they weren't getting a lot of shots inside.
And we mentioned the fact that they had two guys that not necessarily on offense were polished, but on defense were there. Great shot blockers. Great shot blockers. And to hold them to four block shots when they average between the two of them, they average five and a half per game. is, again, a testament to how we were working. And I feel like UVA just didn't have an answer
for DeRitter getting shots. And even, I mean, a couple people even emailed us, DeRitter just looked like he was just not having fun. He looked like he was in a team meeting and was getting yelled at because every single time he touched the ball, there was five guys around to tell him about it. Anytime he got past his man, there was another guy waiting for him.
He couldn't get his passes off to other guys. Guys weren't making shots because, again, late in the shot clock, They weren't taking a lot of shots. Even DeRitter himself had a little mini air ball there that haunted him because for the next five minutes, he couldn't get another good look at the basket.
And so I really liked how our defense was just making sure that, A, okay, DeRitter, you're going to get your 10 points? Cool. But everybody else, good luck. You're not going to beat us. And we've talked about in other games where we've had ā you know, the head of the snake. And we kind of focus on that. And then some other guy comes in and has a good game.
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Chapter 6: How did Cameron Boozer and other players contribute to the victory?
I don't know how to describe it other than that. It's just super difficult to get into open space
against this duke team and like if you look at our defensive statistics it's not like we turn teams over a lot we're top 75 in turnover percentage but like you know oh number one defense in the country it's just top 75 in turnover percentage um we're just barely we're not even in the top 100 in block percentage you know we're not a team that's gonna we're good room protectors but we're we're not blocking a you know we're not virginia blocking as many shots as they block this duke team
Does not foul. Does not foul. We have the second best... you know, sort of defensive foul rate, free throw rate, so to speak, in the country. This Duke team does not foul. And we just stay between you and the basket and say, okay, if you're not going to get in the lane, if you're not going to get to the spot you want to, good luck finding something that works for you. Because it just doesn't.
And Donald, the last thing I had on the defense is this. I thought there was a really, really interesting key possession that There's a huge moment at the end of the first half. Cameron Boozer hits a free throw with 12 seconds left. And at that point, you kind of know, you're like, all right, this is the last. State's about to get the ball on a dead ball. This is the last possession of the half.
So Duke took Cameron Boozer out. Now, Cameron Boozer is an outstanding defender with no reason to risk him picking up a foul. And frankly, you want Malik Brown in the game. Duke is putting their best defense on the floor. Cam checks out, and Malik checks in.
And actually, only moments before that, like on Cam's first free throw, because he took two free throws, on his first free throw, we saw Caden Boozer check out so Caleb could check in. Obviously. You want Malik, Dame, and Caleb Seafoss on the floor. Those are the three best defenders on this team. Right. I've said it before.
There aren't three better teammate defenders in the country than those three guys. We also wanted Big Pat out there. He's our best rim protector. Makes perfect sense. So who are you picking as your fifth best defender, as the fifth guy who's going to go out there? And I was actually, I was like looking at this.
When it happened in the game, I was like, oh, who's John going to, who's going to be that guy? And he picked Slim. A year ago, Donald, that never would have happened. Isaiah Evans was not a good defender a year ago. And this year, you know, John looked down the bench because he had time to decide. This was not a spur of the moment.
They knew, all right, who are, if we got to get one stop, who are our five best defenders? And Slim was one of them. And do you remember what happened on the play, Donald? That was the play where Slim got switched on to Chance Mallory, who is a lightning quick little point guard dude. Like his job is let me get a bigger guy on me and then break that guy down. And you know what happened?
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Chapter 7: What are the implications of Duke's three-point shooting in the game?
It was a, hey, I'm in my bag. We're confident here. Everyone's going nuts in the crazy side. And on the other side of the court, as he's running back on defense, John Shire gets up out of his seat and starts motioning to the rest of the crowd to get up on their feet. Oh, yeah. Everybody up. Everybody up. Let's go. Everyone's going nuts. We get a steal off of that possession.
And in that transition, as we've mentioned before, Dame Sarr fakes like he's going to the hole. He gets the ball passed to him and just hits a calm transition three. That whole possession caused Larry Odom, I'm sorry, Ryan Odom, not Larry, Ryan Odom to call a timeout to reassess his life plans. I think that was at the point and we'd already had the slim three set of three threes.
So we knew that it was over, but I think at that point, Virginia understood that this game was, was done and that they needed to figure out how to readjust very, very quickly. And I just liked the fact that it was a, again, a guy that we haven't seen contribute as much lately, but over the course of the season, but lately has come on. He hits a three and, The crowd got into it. It caused a steal.
And then Damesar punctuates it on the other end. That sequence I thought was beautiful. It encapsulated everybody on the floor doing their job and having their role. And that was one of those momentum waves that Virginia knew they just could not overcome. And I think that was great.
I love it. All right. Player of the week. I'll let you go first. We're picking the same guy, I'm sure. Go ahead, man.
Cam Boozer had 42 points, 22 rebounds, 6 assists, 4 steals, and 1 block on just 8 of 17 from the floor. He hit 3 out of 6 of his 3-pointers, and he was 23 of 26 from the free throw line. Cameron Boozer is my player of the week.
Yeah, I was good. When I saw ā when I put the numbers together, I was like, he hit 23 out of 26 free throws on the week? That's a month. That's a really great month for most players in college basketball. Most teams. Some teams. That is just ā it's just crazy to have that in a week. I did, by the way ā I agree. He's my player of the week. But I wanted to shout out Darren Harris.
Darren Harris had 22 points in 29 minutes this week. Darren, have yourself a week. Patrick Gungba had 23 points on 9 of 14 shooting on the week. Isaiah Evans had seven three-pointers this week. A lot of candidates, but yeah, come on. What are we talking about? Cameron Boozer, player of the year, player of the week, every week.
Jason, Jason, as we wrap up, I did want to shift to the Duke women for a second, because first of all, there was a couple of bits of news. First of all, they won last week. And with that win, they clinched the regular season title for the ACC. Again, a fantastic year that they've had. They've just had the one loss to Clemson. I guess it was earlier last week that they had that loss to Clemson.
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