Quotes & Notes - November 29

vs. Oregon State; vs. Xavier; vs. Purdue

Nov 29, 2022

Quotes and Notes is my wrap-up of the most recent games of the Duke season, including postgame quotes, stats, and other thoughts.

Quotes

“...I thought they were really prepared and came out very confidently. So credit them. And also with us, we have to come out with that same edge. We didn’t have that same edge that Oregon State had today. And that’s my responsibility. And we have to do better with that. But credit them, you know they have, Jordan Pope is a really good player. He’s going to be a really good guard in the Pac-12, and as a freshman to do what he did, I thought our guards made things pretty difficult for him and he still found gaps and space to get a shot off.”

- Coach Scheyer on Oregon State

“I thought we showed some great poise. Because I think we were up 13? Yeah, 13 was the lead that we got. And Xavier, they’re not a team that, you’re not going to run away with it. They’re tough minded. And just the poise, I thought in key moments, Jeremy put us on his back and said ‘alright’. Whether it’s for him or for somebody else, he got some really good looks, really good quality looks. And then you of course have to follow it up with a stop, and we did that enough times to get some separation and never let them really get the lead, which was a big deal.”

- Coach Scheyer on closing out the game against Xavier

“…We’ll learn a lot from this. It doesn’t get any easier - we have to go back home and get ready to move forward. I thought it was a great week. We played four games in seven days. We obviously have a lot of things we need to do better, but proud of the fight we showed in the second half. We need to learn to do that for 40 minutes. Hats off to them [Purdue]. They’re as good as anybody in the country. They have a really good team and I give all the credit to them.”

- Coach Scheyer on the loss to Purdue

Stats

Assists/Made Field Goals (FGM):

vs. Oregon State - Duke assisted on 9 of 16 FGM (56.3%), Oregon State assisted on 5 of 17 FGM (29.4%).
vs. Xavier - Duke assisted on 9 of 27 FGM (33.3%), Xavier assisted on 9 of 20 FGM (45%).
vs. Purdue - Duke assisted on 8 of 21 FGM (38.1%), Purdue assisted on 17of 26 FGM (65.4%).

Points Off Turnovers:

vs. Oregon State - Duke had 10 points off turnovers compared to 4 for Oregon State (+6).
vs. Xavier - Duke had 12 points off turnovers compared to 18 for Xavier (-6).
vs. Purdue - Duke had 18 points off turnovers compared to 19 for Purdue (-1).

Line Points:

vs. Oregon State - Duke had 32 points from the lines compared to 29 for Oregon State (+3).
vs. Xavier - Duke had 27 points from the lines compared to 38 for Xavier (-11).
vs. Purdue - Duke had 18 points from the lines compared to 37 for Purdue (-19).

Points Per Shot (PPS):

vs. Oregon State - Duke scored 0.52 PPS on 3’s and 0.81 PPS on free throws. Oregon State scored 0.86 PPS on 3’s and 0.79 PPS on free throws.
vs. Xavier - Duke scored 1.36 PPS on 3’s and 0.63 PPS on free throws. Xavier scored 1.24 PPS on 3’s and 0.89 PPS on free throws.
vs. Purdue - Duke scored 0.32 PPS on 3’s and 0.71 PPS on free throws. Purdue scored 1.17 PPS on 3’s and 0.84 PPS on free throws.

Season Averages per Game*

Notes

Duke won the first two games in the Phil Knight Legacy using stout defense and rebounding when they needed it most - holding Oregon State without a made field goal for the final 5:03 only to better that number against Xavier, holding the Musketeers without a made field goal for the final 5:51. In all three games, Duke had a difficult time finding any consistency on offense and unfortunately against Purdue, the Boilermakers won the glass and executed their offense well most of the afternoon. In the second half, Duke’s 2-2-1 press back to 2-3 zone did slow Purdue down for a stretch and helped hold them to just 29 points for the final 20 minutes. Duke cut the Purdue lead to 55-62 with just over 9 minutes remaining but only converted 1 free throw for the remainder of the game, which obviously won’t get the job done. In fact, Duke had 12 points at the first media timeout, meaning they only managed 44 points for the remaining 36 minutes of the game. I love that Duke battled back from being down 18 late in the first half, despite the struggles on offense. Coach Scheyer said it as well but I have to credit Purdue, I thought they were excellent - sharing the ball, guarding hard, and relentlessly pursuing rebounds and loose balls. Purdue will be a tough game for anyone in the country when they play that way, they were super impressive.

Continuing with the theme, I love the ACC/Big Ten Challenge that started last night (2-0 ACC). It gives Duke another quality opponent and is the first road game of the season whenever Duke travels in this event, but I’m excited to be back in Cameron tomorrow night having been on the west coast all weekend. More big game experience, home or away, and more learning opportunities for a young team. Unlike most, I do not think of the Challenge as a metric to determine which conference is stronger - it’s too early in the season for that and the matchups don’t always pit the strongest teams against one another. But it is super fun to see these non-conference games and, for me, it is often my first chance to get a look at teams throughout the ACC.

While this is obviously a Duke Basketball blog, I want to point out that I am a fan of all Duke sports. Congratulations to Coach Elko and Duke Football on a great season, finishing the regular season 8-4 and I felt they had a chance to win every game - their 3 conference losses were by a combined 8 points. I’m looking forward to the bowl game and couldn’t agree more with this tweet from @DukeFOOTBALL.