Chapter 1: What game is previewed in DBR Bites episode 143?
Hey there, Duke fans. Welcome to episode 143 of DBR Bytes. We are here to preview the big game this weekend against the Clemson Tigers, the Duke Blue Devils, and the Clemson Tigers battling in Cameron for first place in the ACC. We're going to talk about it and we're going to talk about some things that have happened around the ACC in the last 24 hours that are of note. I am Donald Wine.
I am your host. for this episode. I have Jason Evans with me. Jason, you were headed down to Durham this weekend for the two games. I'm first of all jealous. I was trying to make this work. It's Valentine's Day on Saturday. It's not that I have anyone that I need to be hanging out with on Valentine's Day other than Duke basketball, but... everything else is just kind of tied me up.
So I met 0% for that.
Chapter 2: What makes the Clemson Tigers a strong team this season?
I met Jason 5% for Monday. So there's still a chance as the, as they say, but it's probably going to be you and, and the dog. Hopefully you get to hang out with him.
Yeah. Kenny, the dog Denard tells me he's going to be in town for the weekend. Yeah. Just happenstance that the two of us are going to be able to, to work it out, to hang out a little bit. I'll probably be, you know, hanging out at the Washington Duke a lot. That's where I always sort of make my home base to some extent.
A wonderful, wonderful listener to this podcast who has provided me with tickets in the past has provided me with tickets again. So I won't be sitting on press row. That said, I will be going back into the locker room after the game to talk to players, to sit in on John Shire's press conference. So I'll try and bring all of you a little bit of of sound and flavor from that.
Chapter 3: How does Clemson's coaching impact their performance?
And I'll try, I'm going to see it's possible. I'll figure out, you know, someplace to meet up maybe on Sunday or maybe on probably more likely Monday, perhaps before the game. And I'll, I'll let folks know and we'll see what we can do. Frankly, my flight doesn't give me a lot. My flight on Saturday does not give me a lot of time. to meet up with anybody before the game on Saturday.
So, uh, yeah, but just really excited. It's always fun to be back in Durham. I'd planned to do this a few weeks ago and there was forecasts of a terrible, horrible snowstorm. Um, yeah, yeah, yeah. So you wouldn't, it didn't really happen to Atlanta that much. Like I thought it was gonna be bad down here too, but it hit, it hit the triangle hard enough that I'm glad I wasn't there.
Yeah, absolutely. And that was the game that eventually got moved to noon, which is what this game will be on Saturday against the Clemson Tigers. A noon p.m.
Chapter 4: What key statistics define Clemson's defensive strategy?
tip-off on ESPN. Jason, let's get into the Clemson Tigers, who are currently ranked 20th in the AP, 18th in the coaches' poll. We'll talk about why that might change in just a second. They're 20-5 on the year, 10-2 in the ACC, and... You know, their top 100 wins. Some really quality teams in there. West Virginia, Georgia, South Carolina, Cincinnati, Syracuse, SMU, Notre Dame, Miami, and Jason.
They just recently became just the third ACC team to go 2-0 on the West Coast trip, beating Stanford and Cal on the road. So... They had a nice little high there. Their losses, again, some pretty decent teams. Georgetown by five, Alabama by six, BYU by three, and in conference, NC State by four in overtime.
The one caveat, Jason, of celebrating the high of going all the way to the West Coast and coming back 2-0. They lost midweek at home by 10 to Virginia Tech. So it's very weird how that sometimes happens.
Chapter 5: Who are the standout players to watch on the Clemson team?
We got the week break after, if you recall, after we went out West, they get a few days and probably looked all the better rust for it. 6-2 on road games for them, 4-3 against quad one teams. I mentioned the fact that they are in the top 20 in the human polls, the AP and the coaches. But as you're about to talk about some of the reasons why, the computers have them ranked a little bit lower.
32 in Ken Palm, 36 in Evan Mia. 25 in Torvik, and then the net has them ranked 33rd, which means this is barely, just barely, a quad two game, but a very, very strong opponent. And as I mentioned, still for the top of the ACC this battle, even though Clemson picked up the midweek loss.
Yeah, you know, you mentioned they're 6-2 on the road. That is a super impressive road record. Donald, in the ACC, they have won 14 consecutive ACC road games. Wow. That is really, really ā it is never easy to win on the road in the ACC, and somehow Clemson has managed to win 14 straight. And I'm going to go ahead and tip my cap off the top to Brad Brownell.
He's just one of the best coaches in the country. I think ā
Chapter 6: What challenges does Duke face against Clemson's lineup?
I would say he's easily among the top three to five underrated because no one ever taught. And Jason, you and I are, you know, we talk about Clemson a lot more than we probably, you know, than most people do. But even still, we fail to kind of generate what it is that Clemson has been doing year in and year out under Brian.
Now it started out very slow for him, but in the past few years, Clemson has become one of the top dogs in the ACC. And it's because of him, you know, just being able to lead this team.
So the amazing thing about Clemson this year is they lost pretty much everything. They were really great last year. We know that. We saw firsthand. I was sitting there right behind the Duke bench when Cooper Flagg slipped and Duke lost that game to Clemson. That was a really, really great Clemson team a year ago. The only guy who saw minutes on last year's team who came back is Dylan Hunter.
The rest of the team is guys they brought in from the transfer portal, mostly like, and again, not like transfer portal studs. guys who, you know, mostly guys who were older, guys who were like seniors, who'd played on smaller college teams and such, not even like power five transfers.
Chapter 7: How does Duke plan to counter Clemson's slow pace?
Yeah, go ahead. You mentioned the guys that they lost, how they lost just about everybody. You failed to mention that one of the guys they lost was Ian Sheflin, and they lost him to football. He went over to the other side and played tight end for Clemson.
Right, exactly. You know, and believe me, if they could have Ian Sheflin back, I'm sure they would love it. I'm sure they would, yeah. So they brought in some transfers, and we'll get into naming some of them. They brought in a freshman class that was 44th in the country, the freshman class was. There's no one in it who's like a top 50 recruit. There are a couple guys.
So he takes a bunch of cast-off transfer portal guys. He takes a bunch of okay but not expected to be really great freshmen. He combines them with Dylan Hunter, who ā you know, played teens kind of minutes last year, not a big score.
Chapter 8: What recent news impacts the ACC landscape ahead of the game?
The guy gets like five points a game or so. And suddenly he's got that team back in the top 25. Suddenly he's got that team as one of the top teams in the ACC. Dude, Brad Brownell is an absolute wizard. I read a really interesting thing that when he recruits guys, both through the portal and as, you know, as high schoolers, he gives them like this, like a personality test or something like that.
He wants to understand sort of who they are, how they would fit, you know, what it is about them that that would work with the current guys he has. I've never heard of this kind of thing, but he has somehow Brad Brownell has used this to mold a ragtag group. into a team that's clearly going to make the NCAAs and is a real threat. It's super, super impressive.
And he's done it by stressing defense, defense, defense, defense. He has turned these guys, these guys, every single one of them will work their butt off to guard you and make your life miserable. This Clemson team is the number 16, according to Ken Pomeroy, the 16th best defensive team in the country. In the game, they just lost to Virginia Tech.
That was very, very significant that they picked up that loss. It was the first time all year that they had given up more than 70 points in regulation in an ACC game. Now, the defense that they play, it's not that they're great at forcing turnovers. It's not that they block a lot of shots. These are just guys who get down in their stance, They get in your face. They stay in front of you.
They say, you're not going to get in the lane on me. And they force you to take bad shots. And what they do is they let the shot clock. The shot clock goes tick, tick, tick. And you're like, I haven't gotten a good shot yet. Tick, tick, tick. Hey, it's getting kind of low here. I kind of need to look for a shot. Tick, tick, tick. Oh my God, I need to fire something up here.
And Clemson forces you to take a bad shot. Teams hit just 30.4% from three against them. Teams hit just 47.4 from two. As a result, Clemson has one of the top 25 effective field goal percentage defenses in the land. And here's the other thing, Donald. When you miss a shot against Clemson, good luck getting an offensive rebound. They gang rebound. This Clemson team, which has zero stars.
We'll talk about it later on. Like, I have no idea who to focus on on this team. They have zero stars. There's no one.
clemson could clemson could conceivably win the acc without a single all acc player that's that's bonkers that is crazy but that's what this team is and every single guy on this team goes and rebounds they have a top 10 defensive rebounding rate duke grabs offensive rebounds at better than a 37 percent rate like when we miss the ball
You know, like more than a third of the time we get the offensive rebound. Clemson's like, no, no, no. Clemson only allows offensive rebounds at about a 25% rate. They force you into bad shots and they rebound. That is what they do. And they have been so damn effective at it. As a result, in ACC play, they have the number one defense in the conference.
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