The Duke disaster
FROZEN TUNDRA OF ARCHDALE, N.C. — Oliver Purnell is right when he points out that in No. 21 Clemson’s wins, you can usually count 7-8 players at game’s end who have played well. That’s how his system works.
When you have 7-8 players who play pretty poorly – mainly on the offensive end – you have Sunday night’s 74-53 reality check at No. 7 Duke.
It’s awfully dangerous and perhaps premature to extrapolate too much from one outcome, whether a big win or big loss. There aren’t many places where the game is as affected by the environment as Cameron Indoor (you can take that anyway you’d like and probably get my various drifts).
The Blue Devils are probably not long for the NCAA tourney again this year, but they do look like the surest bet to win the ACC. They’re defending better than they have in a few years, and junior guard Nolan Smith has really developed to give them a legit perimeter defender and third cog on offense.
But the one red flag was that Clemson’s abysmal offensive performance validated my skepticism for whether the Tigers would be better off without Terrence Oglesby. To that end, they miss K.C. Rivers, too.
It should be pointed out that Purnell’s offenses have been renowned for extended offensive droughts through his tenure.
But in amassing a paltry 12 first-half points, Clemson had a stretch of 10 scoreless possessions (six without Trevor Booker) and nine scoreless possessions.
Unable to get the ball to Booker in the post (for a myriad reasons in which blame can dually be spread among players, including Booker, and coaches), the Tigers basically caught a pass, looked, took a few stationary dribbles, then looked for a panic pass elsewhere. Repeat process.
When Clemson is forced to play a halfcourt game, its fleet of complementary players lacks a second (beyond Booker) option who can either bail the Tigers out by creating a desirable shot against a defender with major conference-caliber athleticism.
With Oglesby and Rivers, there were multiple options for pulling Clemson out of a funk.
Right now, if point Demontez Stitt isn’t able to penetrate and finish, you get a lot of long, desperation jumpers with the shot clock expiring.
Guys have rough shooting nights, but this shortcoming was seemingly exposed when Tanner Smith goes 1-for-8, David Potter goes 1-for-3 and Andre Young suffers blog praise kiss of death in going 0-for-a really ugly 2 when he drifted into the relative land of sequoias.
Noel Johnson’s lack of a shooting conscience and defensive awareness might drive me crazy as a coach, but his offensive potential might be enough to influence me to give him at least 25 minutes a game to expedite his learning curve.
Not going to bust Milton Jennings too harshly because he’s clearly trying to fit in and do the right things, which is always refreshing from a high-pub recruit. But I’d implement a rule that each time he makes a mistake, he is not allowed to look at the bench, or he WILL be coming back there. If Jennings cuts it loose instead of trying to process everything and then reacting, he’ll be a lot better off, I think.
Certainly didn’t think I’d say this, but thought Clemson’s best player Sunday night was junior center Jerai Grant. He supplied a physical defensive presence inside, scored 11 points doing what he can do – cleaning the glass and finishing at the basket when attacks the rim – plus he had three steals and two blocks in 24 minutes and probably would have had more if not for two or three iffy whistles.
I would bet we’ll see a different level of energy when Clemson plays host to Boston College on Saturday afternoon.
Of course, it’s much easier to levy damage with a full-court press if you actually make shots to allow you to get into it – a problem that compounded the Tigers’ offensive miseries against the Dookies.
9 Comments to “The Duke disaster”
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Clemson Beat writer Paul Strelow blogs about Clemson University athletics.
What in the world is going on with Clemson’s half court offense? They seem to be running some sort of flex wing type thing, except without the picks and penetrating drives or passes. They move guys around wings and pass it around about 30 feet from the basket until there’s 5 seconds left on the shot clock.
Seriously, they need better play from players without the ball. I was always taught that the best player played hard when he didn’t have the ball, focusing on getting other players open. And if the whole team did that then you had a great team. But I watch the Tigers set up in their half-court offense and am perplexed. WTH are they doing? Nobody on the high or low posts gets position. Nobody on the posts sets a good pick. If the ball goes to the right wing, then the guy on the left looks confused instead of rotating up top to set a pick or running underneath. They just kinda exist… doing nothing but taking up low-rent real estate.
Then look at Duke (or really any other team on the planet) and you’ll see effort from all 5 guys on offense… setting picks, moving quickly through defenders, getting position, driving the lane. Has Clemson focused so much on defense and turnovers that they’ve forgotten the importance of scoring points?
I love seeing Clemson forcing turnovers and scoring on a break. But if they want to be better than a one-and-done NCAA/ACC tournament team then they’ve got to start showing some effort on offense.
I agree with both of you, no flow on offense at all. And, as Paul points out, this isn’t the first time we’ve seen this from Purnell’s clubs at Clemson. At this point, Booker and Stitt are the only reliable options on offense, and by reliable I mean that they can create their own shot.
I had been wondering about what was “wrong” with Jennings and why he wasn’t making more of a positive impact on the game. And that’s it, he’s scared to make a mistake, he’s overthinking, and you could tell it after his second turnover when he got whiplash looking back at the bench.
Let’s hope that this is Jerai Grant’s launching pad, because he got to the rim with authority (off the dribble from the high post, no less!) and wasn’t just a garbage man. And this happened against guys that had at least 3 inches on him. He looked a foot shorter than Zoubek.
I think Stitt is going to be one of those guys that Clemson fans say, “man, I wish he was going to be here a couple more years,” because of his development. He’s got to look for his own shot more at this point, there’s no other way to look at it, because he was getting by Scheyer and Smith with regularity even with the extremely physical body play from Duke.
One question: are any of the wings on the roster going to help at all this year in scoring? Right now it just doesn’t look too good.
1997. That was the last time that Clemson even made the sweet 16. Of course, that appearance was later wiped away by the NCAA but we”ll give you credit for it anyway. In that same amount of time, Duke has advanced to the sweet 16 or beyond 10 times. Duke may not be long for this year’s tourney but by Clemson standards, they’ll be there forever.
You can take this any way you want and I think my one drift is pretty easy to get; Clemson has simply never turned the corner from sometimes competitive to consistently good. They’re an early season wonder against inferior opponents but middle of the road during ACC play. They’re on the bubble nearly every year and from the looks of things last night, they’ll be lucky to be mentioned in the bubble talk this year.
Yeah I mean this team really misses Terrance like I knew they would when they play these type of games. The only fearless player we seem to have is Grant and Stitt and I guess Booker, but he has mental lapses during games. Potter will be a disappointment because he has stagefright and Tanner is a decent roll player. Stitt is our best player right now and I’m happy to see him playing well after last season – he brings it every game he just can’t make shots consistently. He can get the cup anytime he wants, but often misses the lay up. The rest of the team has stagefright and you can see it – I saw it a lot last year, but Terrance was the type of player that could mask it because he was absolutelt FEARLESS. I love players like that he’s wasn’t only unafraid of Duke he salivated at a chance to take it to them. This team seems like they get tense as if they have super high expectations. OP has got to get these players comfortable enough to play without stagefright and disciplined enough to play sound all game. Similar to the football team under Bowden – deer in the headlights syndrome (eyes glazed over).
As a long time Dookie and a former Duke player, let me set the record straight. Clemson has a great Coach, I have known him for many years – he will have the Tigers ready for the NCAA’s. This team is lacking a consistent 3-point threat and a big banger. If the big guy on the bench could improve his game and be the banger, they could make a lot of waves this season. I wish Oliver well except against my Dookies, lol
As with all ACC teams, you all just love to whine and make insinuations (really subtle!) about the “physical body play” of Duke and the officiating at Cameron Indoor, but the bottom line is that Duke is a consistent winner. We are talking about the college team that won the most games of any NCAA Div 1 Program throughout the last decade. Not UNC, UCONN, UCLA, Kansas, or Kentucky, all of which are public universities with much larger enrollments and much softer academic standards for athletes than Duke. Your team has some talent but as usual, very little discipline or ability to focus on the task at hand. I understand your frustration and jealousy, but whining is for babies. We may not have won a National Championship in 9 years, but we won the ACC Championship almost every year of the decade, and we are always in the mix and all over ESPN. There must be reasons for that, right?
Let me clarify one thing, just in case I errantly didn’t make it clear enough.
Duke didn’t win that game because of officiating. Duke would have won it by 10-plus regardless. And I’ve waxed poetic here before about my respect for how Krzyzewski is the best college coach at manipulating halfcourt Xs and Os to get the most out of an offense, not to mention eliciting a defensive effort that is rare for blue-chippers.
But I don’t think it’s a stretch to suggest that Duke benefits from the effect the frenzied Cameron environment and its own tradition has on officiating. Don’t necessarily even believe its a consipiracy or conscious thing; but some of those charges they draw are not called the same when you go to other buildings.
Does any other team play so few true road games each and every preseason?
Not a slap at their program. But I think it’s a valid scrutiny.
I have to agree with the comments related to lack of half court structure to the offense that would yield good shots off picks etc. It seems the offense totally loses their focus and whatever motion once a sub comes in. I’m sorry mr Dooky, I missed the whining comments, but I will leave that to the Dookies and the Powder Blue boys. Nobody can whine like you guys.
I have total respect for Duke, especially K. He’s a master strategist and motivator, which is evidenced by how well his teams at Duke do, which are skill-heavy and average athletically. Hell, the guy got Anthony, Bryant and James to buy in for Team USA, serious respect. The wins and titles speak for themselves.
That said, Duke gets different calls at home. You can’t argue that. I point you to this website which shows the fouls against differential and FT attempted differential. http://www.packsmack.com/InfamousACCIndexCard/
Not many surprises there.