Quotes & Notes - March 6
at North Carolina
After every game I do three things: watch the press conference, read the quotes, and study the box score. Quotes & Notes is my wrap-up of the most recent games of the Duke season, including postgame quotes, stats, and other thoughts.
Quotes
“…I’m proud of them man. I’m just proud of them for what they’ve been through, any noise, anything else, they’ve just hung tough. And, in this game, you know we talked about before the game just staying the course. You know, we know what the game plan is, we know what we have to do. We’re not going to be perfect, and so how do you respond when that happens?”
- Coach Scheyer on his team after the win at North Carolina
Here’s more from Coach Scheyer on being tough and together:
Stats
Saturday night in Chapel Hill was a physical game that obviously could have gone either way. Points were difficult to come by and the rebounding battle was dead even at 39-39, including each team grabbing 10 offensive rebounds. Fortunately, Duke was able to convert a few more second chances, gaining a 14-7 advantage over Carolina in second chance points. Three statistics also keyed the Blue Devils in the second half. After the Tar Heels got 9 fast break points in the first half, Duke was able to hold them to 0 points in transition after halftime. Also in the second half, Duke outscored North Carolina in the paint 20-6 and UNC got no points off of turnovers.
Regular Season Stats - ACC Games
The difference above in conference wins and losses illustrates how thin the margins are in college basketball. The only category showing significant variance is opponents’ points off turnovers. In four of Duke’s six conference losses, opponents scored at least 20 points off turnovers. In games Duke won, only four opponents reached double figures in that category. Duke finished at the top of the conference with a +6.1 rebounding margin in ACC play. Here are the full statistics for Duke’s regular season.
Notes
I love the ACC Tournament, especially coming back to Greensboro. It has been cool to see the conference go to some different venues over the last several years (I really enjoy Brooklyn), but I’ll always love Greensboro the most. I plan to have a post on the ACC Tournament coming in the next couple of days but, in the meantime, here’s the 2023 bracket. As Coach K would say, everyone is now 0-0.
Thanks for reading, Go Duke!
Sources