5 Duke Blue Devils vs. 3 Notre Dame Fighting Irish
Barclays Center, Brooklyn, NY
9PM, ESPN
The Notre Dame Fighting Irish and Duke Blue Devils both beat the odds to advance to Saturday’s ACC Tournament final. KenPom gave them the 5th and 6th best odds, respectively, to make it to this point. Now they will meet for the right to become 2017 ACC Champions.
To get to this point, Duke has won two absolute thrillers, coming back from double-digits to stun both Louisville and North Carolina. The Duke of the second halves of both those games is the version of Duke that everyone had as preseason number one and clear title favorite. Make no mistake about it; this has been an impressive run to not only play the extra Wednesday game (easy win over Clemson) but to then beat two top ten teams in such dramatic fashion.
Duke has an outstanding tournament resume and have beaten more quality teams that most if not every team in the country. They have disappointed a bit based on their preseason hype, but they are easily one of the few favorites to win the national title, just like most predicted before the season tipped off.
Second Half Runs
Duke’s second half against UNC reminded me so much of Notre Dame’s run against the Tar Heels in the 2015 ACC Championship game. Then, the Irish went on a 24-2 run to win the title; on Friday night, Duke went on a 20-4 run that carried them to a dramatic turnaround victory. The Blue Devils overcame a 13-point deficit and many double-digit deficits throughout the first 25 minutes or so. They were excellent from behind the arc but felt like every possession was exactly the shot they wanted.
The Jayson Tatum-Luke Kennard-Grayson Allen trio is the best in the nation when Allen has his head on straight. Those three combined for 62 against UNC (and 67! against Louisville!), and Allen’s shooting in the first was the only reason they were even remotely in the game.
Interestingly, the Blue Devils have also seen some nice contributions from Harry Giles, who finally has started to show the massive potential and hype he entered with this season. Frank Jackson is also dangerous and Amile Jefferson does all sorts of big man glue-guy things.
This is a fascinating match-up, with both teams running similarly small with short benches and just tremendously efficient offenses. Here are a few important things to watch that might go a long way towards deciding the championship game.
Keys to the Game
Good Grayson? – Grayson Allen has been quite an enigma for Duke all season. When he’s good, he is one of the best players in the country. When he’s not, he’s liable to unravel in ways we’ve seldom seen from elite college basketball players. He was a trainwreck against Clemson on Wednesday and had to be sat down for most of it by Coach K. The preseason player of the year is coming off the bench now for Duke, although we’ll see if it remains that way for the final given his performance Friday night. If Allen can heat up early, it would not surprise to see Duke get to 90. If he doesn’t, then that heaps a whole lot of pressure on Kennard and Tatum to shoulder the load.
Who Guards Bonzie? – The answer might very well be the aforementioned Giles, although I think the praise for him Friday night went a little overboard. He had a nice game from a role player, not much more than that. But do you trust a freshman with not much to his resume to guard the junior all-ACC forward? And Duke’s frontline beyond Giles and Jefferson is very thin; can Bonzie get either or both in foul trouble and thin them out even more?
You have to imagine Bonzie will get his 20, but there is a very real chance he approaches his 31-point effort in Durham last year. If that happens, Duke is really going to have to shut down the rest of Notre Dame’s big 4. The battle on the boards is also going to be fascinating here, as neither team is great in this category but could carve out a nice advantage.
Fatigue Factor – Neither team goes very deep, and Duke had to play an extra game on Wednesday. Does their fourth game in four days (especially given how dramatic they’ve been) catch up to them? And the Irish have asked a lot of their big 4 the last two nights. Do they have the same defensive intensity that they’ve brought to Brooklyn thus far? Can Steve Vasturia run the offense like he did on Friday while still drawing the impossible defensive assignment of Allen, Kennard, or Tatum? You’d have to think this factor favors Notre Dame. But you really never know how guys will respond in the heat of the moment. It’s worth noting that no team has ever won the ACC Tournament without the double-bye, so Duke is going for a little bit of history there.
Final Take
Well, I really didn’t see this final coming. I thought Notre Dame might be able to get here, but largely as a function of the bracket working out in their favor. But Duke? No way. I can’t believe they beat Louisville and UNC, especially in the fashion that they did. Now they have another ranked team in front of them. If they make it through this gauntlet, I, along with the rest of the country, will be mighty tempted to just go ahead and pencil the Blue Devils into the national championship game in my bracket.
That said, it’s hard to imagine that a team of 6.5 guys doesn’t start to wear out Saturday night. 4 games in 4 days? Bouncing back after a dramatic win against your biggest rival? I mean, it’s not like Notre Dame has just been sitting around or anything, but that one extra game just seems monumental to me, and the Irish haven’t exactly have the emotional rollercoaster Duke has. Something about them though just doesn’t seem like it will be a problem for them, though. They look locked in and really motivated to come away with this title.
The Irish do, too. They are some missed free throws away from a pair of double-digit wins against ranked opponents to get to this point. Their path has been easier than Duke’s, to be sure. But it’s still incredibly impressive that one win was so comfortable and the other was comfortable-adjacent. Notre Dame looks good, and at the right time.
I really don’t know what to think of this one. My heart obviously goes to the Irish, and my head says no one has won this tournament without the double-bye for a reason. There’s also the cosmic fact that every game in this tournament has held to the same exact seed as the 2015 ACC Tournament. The 3 seed has to win this one, too, right? But the other part of me is saying, “oh crap, they’re finally that preseason number one team, aren’t they?”
This should be an incredible ACC Final. This would just vault the Notre Dame program to a whole new level, wouldn’t it? This team, that was supposed to be something like a bubble team, winning the ACC? For the 2nd time in 3 years? What an opportunity. I’m beside myself right now. I don’t even have a prediction. It’s just an unbelievable opportunity for this program and, as a basketball fan, a chance to see a lot of offensive fireworks. I can’t wait for this one. Go Irish. Beat Duke. I’m nervous as hell already.
Good thoughts. And the issue with no one winning without a double-bye has as much to do with what the normal quality of a team is without that double-bye as it does with rest I’m sure. Duke is a unique 5 seed because they have the potential to be the 1 seed (most 5 seeds clearly are not normally like that).
Against these elite teams, I often think we can beat them but probably won’t (just don’t quite have the “talent”) but then we end up doing it. Ahhh. Go Irish!
I hate that I feel this way, but I have bad mojo about this match-up. I would 300x prefer this to be Louisville (and about 2x UNC). Duke has that whole mystique thing going right now, and they feel like a bad match-up.
The 1-2-2 we found for FSU would have been good for UNC (or Louisville), but it absolutely won’t work tonight. If we do have to zone, it’ll likely be the 2-3 with special attention to Kennard and Allen. Much like us, Duke is so hard to zone because they can spread you out with 4 shooters. Matt Jones seems to play his 1 good game a year against us, so you can’t even leave him. I think we’re going to have to play them in a straight man. That’s going to cause some interesting match-up’s.
Assuming they keep their starters from last night, Farrell will have to stay in front of Jackson and Bonz draws Jefferson. I kinda think you end up giving V.J. Jones and use Rex and Onions to try and lock up Tatum and Kennard. Alternatively, you could give Steve Jones and challenge VJ with Tatum. My guess is that you’ll see a lot of perimeter switching, and that’s pretty nerve wracking too. They can run their weave or elbow handoff sets to get the matchups they want. As soon as Farrell switches on to Tatum or Kennard, they’ll go straight to the block. Things don’t get any simpler when they bring Allen in, especially for Jackson. Then you’re almost forced to play zone and hope they miss jumpers. When they bring Giles in, you can come with Geben or Torres defensively and get Bonz a rest, or you can leave Bonz in there to score on him. Bonzie might have to go 38 tonight.
I know this is why the coaching staff gets paid and gets to sit on a bench while I sit here and type in my home office, but I just can’t see through to a good solution for the Irish. Bonzie feels like the only guy in a favorable match-up, and that makes us reliant on scoring 90+ in a shootout.
I hate the “Duke is back” narrative as much as anyone here. It is hard to heap such an #adversity narrative on a team full of All-American’s, 1-and-done’s, and guys who “reclassify” to meet their roster management. The hypocrisy that drips from Durham scalds my soul, but I’m just having a hard time seeing how we pull this off.
Nevermind… I watched these guys helping each other up and making plays and I want to believe!!!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Lgj66PQlB_0
Hoping the extra game takes something out of Duke’s legs. If they’re hitting shots, they’re nearly impossible to defend. The big comebacks had to be exhausting, and while Clemson might not be very good, that was no easy win for Duke. Clemson was within 1 point with less than 3 minutes left. No Duke starters got any rest in that one either.
Of course, we’re no FSU, so our depth will be tested as well. I think this ends up being a Bonzie game, with him scoring about 20 in the paint, along with a few free throws. If we can shut down one of Allen/Kennard/Tatum, I think we can win. If all 3 have efficient games, they could run away with this one.
Irish 78, Devils 75
Also, the ACC coach of the year lost his first round matchup to the 14 seed, and the ACC player of the year went 6-22 in his tournament loss.
I might be a little salty.
We have an opportunity to have the most ACC championships of any team in the last 7 years. That is absolutely crazy. It’s exciting to focus on the X’s and O’s of the game, but let’s all take a step back as well and realize that win or lose we are in one of the best eras of this programs history
It is so much fun to be an Irish hoops fan right now…
Joe and Chris hit this on the Rakes Report podcast (highly recommend, https://rakesreport.libsyn.com/), but we’re really living the good life as ND basketball fans right now. Our team is a TON of fun to watch, with free flowing, high ball movement, exciting, proficient offense and they’re starting to play enough D to be scary.
Every game we’ve played this year, even with losses (Nova, Purdue, @UNC, @FSU, @Lou) has been tense, exciting and as a general basketball fan, enjoyable to watch. Regardless of outcomes the next week+, enjoy this team and this era.
Ok, that’s enough of that. Let’s effing beat Dook and hang a banner.
So close. Didn’t shoot the three well – 24%. If we shoot just a little better, we get the win. Wonder too if Colson’s ankle injury affected him. He didn’t score much (if at all?) after the injury. Either way tough game, and we were right there. Another great Irish team. Hoping for another great run in tourney!
Status: Buzzed enough to sing Leonard Cohen to the dogs…the neighbors should pray I don’t start playing guitar.
Dammit. Missed a *ton* of open 3s. Bonzie is a beast, but just wasn’t quite enough.
A few frustrations:
– This is going to be a little harsh, but Farrell just is not yet a high-basketball IQ point guard. Drives out of control, picks up dumb fouls, does quasi-random heat-check type shots too often. Don’t get me wrong, he’s had a much, much better year than I would have anticipated, but if we’re going to clear this hurdle next year without VJ and Vasturia he’s going to have to step up even more.
– Speaking of heat check-y type shots, wtf was Pflueger doing out there? He took at least 3 terrible shots for him with plenty of time on the shot clock (on top of missing a number of ok shots, but everyone was doing that). Pflueger, man, stay in your lane. At least when Matt Ryan hoists up not-great deep shots they may still go down.
– Torres had a sneaky good game. Solid energy off the bench, only slowed down the offense when they had him and Pflueger on the court at the same time, held his own against guys much taller than he is. Usually if that happens, we win. Alas.
– Hard to win when the other team towers over you. That reminded me of the Kentucky game, especially for the first 16 minutes of the game.
– Darn.
OK, now that’s off my chest, will say some nice things:
– This team has been a blast to watch this year. Fun, fun basketball.
– Relatedly, this team is so much better than I could have possibly anticipated. If you had told me that Mooney would basically do nothing all year, Gibbs would only be a bit player by the end, and all we could hope for out of Geben realistically was 10-15 minutes where he was a body, I would have thought this would have been a below .500 team in the ACC. Instead, we just hung around in the ACC championship game with arguably the most talented team in the country, and probably would have won if we had an average shooting night from 3. Unreal. Brey for president.
– Wooie Bonzie got *screwed* in the ACC POY voting. This was kind of obvious last week, but now is super obvious.
– In this game specifically, ND was playing so hard. It seemed like they got almost all the 50/50 balls. VJ, who often seems to have the Clint Dempsey-esque not-really-trying-too-hard vibe at times, was really going for it tonight. Loved that.
– I hope we get matched up with somebody who can’t handle Bonzie in the tournament. I’d love to see him drop 30 in a tourny game.
I missed the chunk of the game from about 9 minutes left to ~20 seconds left, but the hustle plays really stood out to me. I don’t know how much of that had to do with Duke’s having played an extra game but it was great to see guys diving for the ball and keeping things moving.
I would’ve loved the win, but I’ll take an appearance in the ACC championship and going 2-1 against Duke, FSU, and Virginia to lead up to the tournament. Lunardi has those 3 teams at 2, 3, and 5 seeds (he’s got us at 4). Most preseason predictions I saw had us on the bubble, and Brey’s got us to a place where it looks like we can hang with almost every team in the country. Hell, even our defense can be fun to watch for brief stretches.
This team is just fun to watch. For me, any noise we make in the tournament will be icing on the cake, but let’s make some damn noise.