Chapter 1: What is the main topic discussed in this episode?
Thank you. Hey there, Duke fans. Welcome to episode number 132 of DBR Bites with Duke Basketball Roundup. It is Thursday, January 8th, and we are about to preview an upcoming big game in Cameron on Saturday afternoon. I guess Saturday afternoon, early evening against the SMU Mustangs. I am Donald Wine. I'm your host for this episode, Jason.
does not send anything but pictures of where he is somewhere in the savannah of Africa. He has made it over there. He is no longer in a lavatory. Sounds like he's having a good time. But I have Scott Rich with me as well. Scott, how are you doing, man?
I'm not sure how many people would have thought when the ACC reorganized that our yearly matchup against SMU would be one of the biggest ones in the ACC calendar. But here we are. It's a testament to probably why a lot of us were kind of like WTF at SMU being included in the ACC, but why the ACC would go after SMU because SMU has said –
We're going to bring a lot of money, and we're going to put a lot of money into these programs. And so far on both the football and basketball side of things, it shows. They've been in the thick of things in the first, again, year and a half that they've been in the conference.
But as you mentioned, this game, as we get into kind of the record and what they have, they're a very strong team this year.
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Chapter 2: What are the current standings and performance metrics for the SMU Mustangs?
12-3 so far in the season, 1-1 in the ACC. They started out 8-0, and they have top 100 wins against Murray State, Butler, Mississippi State, Texas A&M, and UNC. Their first game in the conference earlier, or I guess late last weekend, they beat... UNC 97 to 83 and Boopie Miller took a bunch of people's souls, including Caleb Miller's in that game.
They do have a couple of losses, three losses, Vanderbilt and LSU, which again, no slouches of teams. They both are very, very strong Vanderbilt, especially. And then just last night, as again, we record on Thursday on Wednesday night, they went to little John Coliseum, which as we know is a difficult place to play. And they eventually lost 74 to 72 Clemson.
Right now, they're 24th in the AP, 25th in the coaches poll. That will obviously change come Monday, no matter what happens in this game. 31st in Kempom, but 27th in the net, which means this is still a quad one game on Cameron Indoor Stadium flooring. So as we get into the metrics, Scott, this is normally Jason's avenue, but it's now your avenue.
Take us away on what you see on both offense and defense for the Mustangs. Our loyal DBR listeners are stuck with the substitute teacher for a few weeks. So Scott will do his best Jason Evans impression. So the thing that sticks out to me most when you look at SMU, you know, beyond the fact they are a solid team across the board, across the metrics, they are good shooting from three.
They are good at shooting from two. They're good at getting to the line. They are good, not great defensively. All of those things profile as they are a legitimate top 30 team. This is not a flash in the pan. The thing that sticks out to them is they are very, very reliant on not only Boopie Miller, but on their starting lineup.
Their bench plays just 21.2% of available minutes, which is 357th out of 365 D1 teams in the country. They play their bench... among the 10 least teams in the country. So they have talent, but it is concentrated talent.
It's not just Boopie Miller, and we'll talk about that more when we go into the players, but this is a team that plays a five that they really like, and they attack with that five, and they ride with that group. One of the new stats that's getting the new darling of the analytics community is this two-point distance statistic. How far away from the basket are a team's two-point shots?
Interestingly, despite the fact that this is a team that does shoot very well from two, They have one of the worst metrics in this measurement. They take, on average, their two-point shots are about six feet away from the rim. So that means that this is a team that does take mid-range shots. They are going back to the retro style.
They have not taken the mid-range out of their game like a lot of new coaches like Duke and John Shire try to preach. Boopie Miller is one of those guys, when you watch this team, they are very comfortable taking those curl shots, the whole Rip Hamilton thing. you know, that Donald, you and I love going back to it. We got to make a Pistons reference since we're the only ones on the pod today.
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Chapter 3: Who is Boopie Miller and why is he a key player for SMU?
And they go after runners, right? Those ones where Boopie Middle kind of dribbles into the lane and he does like a floater, or as you said, pulls up right at the free throw line. They have a lot of that. And it's funny, when you look at a team that goes fast in this day and age, it's usually to get dunks or three-pointers. And the fact that they shoot so well from two...
and take a lot of twos this is like the opposite of the last two games that we've seen where we just faced a florida state and a louisville team that shoot basically nothing but threes and we're pretty you know pretty good at shooting threes against us except for louisville in the second half of that game so it's funny because you know boopy miller's their engine but it seems like all their guys are
are very, very content with taking 10 to 12 to 15 footers, maybe even top of the key. I used to do this in high school. Pump fake at the three-point line, take a step right inside the line, and bury a long two, a Kyle Singler two.
That's something that's kind of been excommunicated from the game on all levels, but it's still a very effective shot, and SMU is kind of digging into their nostalgia bag to have that kind of game on a whole team level.
The last thing you note from the advanced stats is that even though there are some secondary big players on this lineup, there are two solid freshman bigs who we'll talk about on SMU's bench. They rarely, if ever, feel comfortable putting them, either of those bigs, alongside their star big, Itagulu. I looked it up, I practiced the pronunciation, and I still decided to butcher it.
They play two bigs on the floor over their last five games, only about 15% of the total available minutes. That means that the nominal four, the nominal power forward, the guy who you think is going to be guarding Cam Boozer, is at best going to be 6'6". He's going to be a big, you know, experienced 6'6", when we talk about these guys. But very much like the matchup against Louisville,
either Cam or Pat will in all likelihood be guarded by someone who does not have the size on paper to match up with them. There are mismatches to be had against this SMU team based upon the lineups they are putting on the floor recently. And I think the last thing before we take a quick break is, as you mentioned, they don't shoot a lot of threes, but they are decent at making them.
They have a couple of guys who will take threes and knock them down. And the one thing that I think is crucial is they have a couple of guys who we'll talk about who can get to the line and they make their free throws. A 77.4% free throw percentage. Jason and I talk about this all the time. 75% is great. You would love to have a team shoot 75% from the line.
If they're shooting 77% to 80%, that's excellent. So this is a team that you don't want to foul because they will make you pay at the free throw line. So the idea is to guard them without fouling. Now, who are these players we're talking about? We've got to save something for the other side, ladies and gentlemen.
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Chapter 4: What offensive strategies does SMU employ in their gameplay?
over the course of ACC play yeah and I think just from the you know you've mentioned all the metrics which is fine and dandy but as you know I'm a fan of the eye test and This man is going to, as we said at NFL and college football, if someone's going to play in the NFL, they're playing on Sundays. This man should be playing on Sundays. He should not be playing for SMU right now.
He is a really, really good player. And the fact that he is able to do all that while commanding so much attention, like he is the number one guy on everyone's scouting report when SMU comes to town, and he's still able to put up 20 points and seven assists along with four rebounds and two steals and shoot great from three and shoot great from the line.
I think the one thing that what that means is because the ball is in his hands a lot, he does turn the ball over a lot. And I think SMU is willing to live with the fact that he'll average seven assists a game, but also average close to three turnovers a game. They're cool with that as long as it doesn't exacerbate itself to the rest of the squad.
But there is a reason why Boopie Miller isn't in the NBA right now. It's because he's six foot. He's six foot. He's not Allen Iverson. And we know that anyone at that stature faces an uphill battle to make it to the league. And that does feed into some of the ways that Duke might try to contain him.
If we put Caleb Foster on him, we're putting someone with five inches and a lot of wingspan who's not the athlete. to Boopie Miller is, but has a huge height advantage. If we try to replicate the Louisville defense and put Dame Sarr on him, that's again, that is something that Boopie Miller could struggle with.
I'm not sure there's been a game this year where the opposition has had the length and the athleticism to do that to him.
The other thing that's interesting about that because of Boopie Miller's stature and because there isn't a ton of height elsewhere on the lineup, and we'll talk about some of these guys more, is that that potentially opens things up for Caden Boozer to see more time, in my opinion. There isn't the...
to have Caden Boozer have to guard Boopie Miller because of the fact there isn't a mismatch if we cross-match and put Caden Boozer on one of these other wings who stand 6-3, 6-4 that are on the SMU lineup. That's been something that I think Duke fans might have been worried about. What's Boopie Miller going to do to Caden Boozer?
I don't think we're going to see Caden Boozer guarding Boopie Miller much, if at all, even if we roll out the same starting five that we have with Caden Boozer in it.
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Chapter 5: How does Duke plan to exploit SMU's weaknesses in the upcoming game?
Peter's. Yes, he was pretty darn good at Wichita State. But He hasn't quite held up to the rigors of playing an ACC level schedule as much as SMU probably hoped. So as we look at the things to watch, there's a few things that I had in mind. And the first thing is, it's very easy to say contain Boopie Miller. That's the easy thing to try and do. It's easier said than done.
We do that, we win, period. Yeah, I can say it. But it's easier said than done. But again, this is part of the mentality, right? You know, cut off the head of the snake, the body will wither. If you are somehow able to contain Boopie Miller, SNU rarely has a response for that. But I think the other thing is, I think one of the more important X factors is B.J.
Edwards, and you can't let him go off either. The fact that those two guys are able to play well off each other, even if Boopie Miller does have a bad game and you let B.J. Edwards get close to a triple-double, that means he's contributing in a lot of ways, and you want to be able to limit what he's able to do.
You mentioned the mismatches down low and the fact that we could easily have a situation where there is a mismatch with either Cam Boozer on offense or Pat Goggin on offense. exploit it. Those guys are there for a reason. If you see the big guy and there's no big guy next to him, give it to the big guy that has no big guy next to him.
Make them have to rotate and make them have to figure out, oh, how do I get the ball out of both of these guys' hands? I think that's also going to open up the floor. as well for three-pointers, open looks at the basket, or even guys crashing and going towards the lane. The final thing that I have is a very simple one. Again, easier said than done, but I'm going to say it anyway.
Scott, you and I talked about the second half of that Louisville game and the tenacity that that team showed, that we saw in the first three to four weeks of the season. And... We need that to continue. This is the trend that needs to start, is for that tenacity to be present. It's going to be, obviously, helpful that we have the Cameron Crazies back, that we're back in Cameron.
It feels like a while since we've been in Cameron, and it's the only game that we have in Cameron for another couple weeks because we go on a long road trip to the other Atlantic Ocean coast next week for two games. But I want this team to understand that this is what's needed, that tenacity, that mentality, that intensity.
And SMU is going to, you know, they're recovering from a loss and they don't want to have another one before they go back to Texas. They want to bring it against Duke. And they are not going to be afraid, right, because they just played UNC and made them look silly at times in beating them by 14 and scoring almost 100 points. We need to make this game.
If this is a game that we can limit them, limit SMU offensively, when we're on offense and we can make our shots, this can be a game that we can win. And I think this is a prime opportunity to go through a very tough week. 2-0. But to do that, we've got to play our game, and we've got to play with that tenacity that we had against Louisville. Again, that game, 2 p.m. Eastern time on ESPN.
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