Date 2/21 || Time 6:30 || Venue Capital One Arena || Video ESPN
So given what we know about the team that Dusty May has put together, how do you stop Michigan?
Well, you either slow them down or speed them up. Ideally, both at the same time.
That’s a bit of a paradox, but we’ll explain.
Look, Michigan moves fast. They score 90.6 ppg, which is fourth in the nation behind Miami (of Ohio), High Point (surprise) and Alabama.
They’ve got a huge frontcourt, all three of whom, by the way, have and can play center,
and a solid backcourt.
But in the games they’ve struggled in, they’ve had some issues, notably turnovers and three-point shooting, particularly in the second half.
Elliot Cadeau is a much better player than he was for Hubert Davis, but he is still smallish at 6-1, good but not wildly athletic, and prone to mistakes, particularly when he’s pressured and reportedly more so when things get dicey. Michigan has overcome that in all but one situation, but still, it’s a potential weakness.
Nimari Burnett is a very reliable 6-5 senior who can be explosive, but who is not necessarily going to find his own shots. Duke has multiple options who can get in his grill and force him to create a shot or get rid of the ball.
We see this from time to time, of course, but despite Burnett starting, 6-4 freshman Trey McKinney and 6-5 senior Roddy Gale get more minutes off the bench. McKinney’s getting 10.0 ppg and is a deadly free throw shooter at 90.5%. He’s also one of Michigan’s best three-point shooters. May says he’s unusually mature, as much so, both physically and mentally, as anyone he’s coached.
Gale is not a particularly efficient offensive player. His three-point shooting declined for three straight seasons from 42.9% down to 28.4% and last year, all the way down to 23.2%. It’s up this year, but only to 29.5%. His overall percentage has ranged between 44% and 46.2% this season, presumably because he’s on such a strong team that he has a lot more easy opportunities. He’s long though, and given his offensive numbers, we expect a lot of his value is on defense and with intangibles.
LJ Cason, a 6-2 sophomore, also gets healthy minutes at 18.4 per game. His shooting has improved tremendously since last season. Overall he went from 36.8% to 49.6% and his three-point shooting moved from 24.6% to 37.5%.
Not for free throws, though: that fell from 81.6% to 72.5%. He’s already doubled his assists from last season, however.
The last rotational guy is 6-8 senior Will Tschetter, who we’re quite sure has an unfortunate nickname, guys being guys and all. His stats aren’t gaudy, but he knows the ropes.
Duke may have matchup problems in the frontcourt, as discussed previously, but the Blue Devils could either slow Michigan down with a defense that is as sturdy as any in the country, or speed them up in one of two ways.
First, it could turn them over and get out in transition. Just for a minute, imagine a prime Rick Pitino team going up against this Michigan team. Remember what #16 Fairleigh Dickinson did to #1 Purdue in 2023? A Rick Pitino team would try to follow that template. And would be wise to do so, because Michigan has been susceptible to turnovers, particularly against Wake Forest and Nebraska.
That also challenges the frontcourt because those big guys have to spend a lot of time sprinting to defend layups. Particularly for 7-3 Aday Mara, who has faced questions about his motor, that’d be a positive for Duke. He’s a good defender, but if he’s tired and reaching, Michigan has a problem.
Second, Duke’s defense has been a real challenge for other teams. Duke forces you to work long into the shot clock and, somewhat like Tony Bennett’s pack-line defense used to do, this gets into your legs. And since Michigan tends to shoot threes more poorly in the second half, that could be a great positive for the Blue Devils.
In mid-December, Duke’s defense started to let up somewhat for a time and we saw Lipscomb score 73, Texas Tech score 81 (and win), Georgia Tech score 79, Florida State score 87, Louisville 73 and SMU 75.
Since then though, Wake managed 69 and UNC of course scored 71. Otherwise, no one has scored more than 64, and that was Syracuse.
And against Syracuse, we counted four shot clock violations and a fifth was barely avoided when the Orange called a timeout with a player teetering on the half-court line with a single second left on the clock.
The defensive crackdown started on the West Coast swing against Cal and Stanford, and since then, here’s what teams have shot overall, from three-point range and from the foul line:
- Cal: 37/22/76
- Stanford: 35/24/60
- Wake Forest: 41/44/85
- Louisville: 30/32/69
- Virginia Tech: 42/27/83
- BC: 38/25/44
- UNC: 47/42/79
- Pitt: 39/27/38
- Clemson: 35/25/80
- Syracuse: 41/37/25
That’s a pretty imposing stretch, really.
To be clear, none of these teams are world-class, though UNC obviously beat Duke, and Louisville should be better than it is, and Clemson has certainly overachieved. However, that doesn’t change the fact that Duke has consistently strangled opponents defensively.
That said, none of these teams are remotely in Michigan’s class, though Wake Forest was briefly, for two beautiful hours in November.
So while Michigan is and should be favored, there is a path for the Blue Devils. We don’t know if Duke will switch endlessly against the Wolverines only because it might create a lot of mismatches. We’d love to see Dame Sarr on Cadeau, but that would create a mismatch with Johnson. And even if Sarr is on Morez Johnson, he’s giving up 1-2 inches and 60 lbs.
It’s imperative that the Devils avoid serious foul trouble, especially for the big guys. Patrick Ngongba will get the most work against Mara, and it’s not often that a 6-11 guy is four inches shorter than his opposite. He’s had a tendency at times to pick up foolish fouls. That’s a huge problem if it happens in this game. Look what happened at UNC: Ngongba fouled out in 16 minutes. At Louisville, he had four in 10 minutes. In the last four games, he’s had 5 (UNC) and 3 in the others.
Brown has had a tendency to pick them up as well. He had 4 at Cal, 5 at Stanford, 4 at UNC, and 5 against Pitt.
There have been a lot of games where these guys could get in foul trouble and it didn’t matter. It will matter in this one. Nik Khamenia, who seems to be playing with much more confidence lately, may get a bigger role than he has for a while. They’ll need his size and intensity, especially if frontcourt fouls become a problem.
Assuming that Duke can stay out of critical foul trouble, there are a couple of other points to keep in mind. First, the Blue Devils have periodically been deadly from three-point range. Isaiah Evans can get on a heater and kill people from out there, but Sarr can hit them, as can Cameron Boozer and Khamenia. And when the stars align, Duke can be absolutely torrid from behind the line.
One other thing to keep in mind is foul shooting. As Barry pointed out the other day, Duke is not always great from the line. Evans is deadly at 88%, and the Boozer brothers, Cameron and Cayden, are not far behind at 76.8% and 75.5% respectively. Khamenia clocks in at 70.6% while Ngongba is hitting 68.9% of his. Surprisingly, Darren Harris is hitting just 67.9% but if he got more opportunities, that’d go up.
The problems are with Brown (56.3%), Foster (55.3%) and Sarr (50%). Having three starters under 57% from the line is not good, but that’s just what it is.
People should really pay attention to Rick Barry on foul shooting. Yes, the underhanded shot is from another era and looks ridiculous. That’s exactly what Barry told his father when his old man urged him to try it. However, it is much easier to control the ball with two hands and for guys who struggle from the line, if it ups your percentage, why not try it? And as Barry’s father said, who can mock you if you’re better than they are?
Finally, one last point. We don’t want to give too much credit for this to the Boozers, but they are a huge part of this: this team just knows how to win, and a lot of that does come from those two.
We see it most with Cameron, but Cayden has increasingly been making big plays at key moments. Michigan is a serious challenge, to be sure, but you can’t really teach people a sense of how to win. Part of that is just innate, and the Boozers really seem to have it. Their high school careers were totally ridiculous and at Duke, they just seem to have that special extra something. Will it lead Duke to a win Saturday?
Maybe, maybe not, but it’s definitely there. This is not an easy team to beat.
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