Maryland Basketball: Blues Travelers

#16/16 Duke Blue Devils (18-6, 5-5 ACC) at
Maryland Terrapins (17-7, 3-6 ACC)
Comcast Center - College Park, MD

Sorry for the lateness of the post. Due to the stomach virus from hell, I spent most of Saturday in the bathroom watching my small intestines leave my body through my mouth. That's the reason I've scraped the usual weekend ACC picks. I’m still very much under the weather, so excuse me if there are major spelling and grammatical errors, I just don’t have the energy to check. Hopefully I’ll be back in full force by Wednesday. However, I doubt that I'll be doing my weekly rankings tomorrow.

I’ve bashed the Terps enough the last two weeks. I can’t keep doing it. I’m getting tired of it. I need to talk about something else. Right on cue, here come the Dookies for their yearly visit.

As usual, at the beginning of the season, the name on the front of Duke’s jerseys blinded everyone in media from the realization that the names on the back of the jerseys were a bunch of nobodies. Greg Paulus this, Josh McRoberts that, Ratface this… That’s all we heard through the beginning of the season. Never mind the fact that Paulus almost single-handedly cost Dook their season last year. Never mind that offensively, McRoberts is one of the softest 6’10” forwards the ACC has ever seen. Never mind that Ratface has no idea how to use a bench and no idea how to condition players (I’ll get to that more in a moment). No, here came the Dookies…again. Top 10 team, top ACC school, top seed in the tournament come March.

Then something funny happened. On the way to another undefeated season (sense the sarcasm, baby!), Dook lost six games by the beginning of February, including five conference games. They are now on their first three-game losing streak since 1995-96 when Ratface faked a back injury so he wouldn’t have to coach an undermanned team and have a bunch of losses on his record.

Now Dook supporters will argue that some of the losses have been close. If the ball bounces differently in games against Virginia Tech, Virginia and Florida State, then Dook could be looking at a 21-3, 8-2 record right now. That’s nice and all for Dook fans and members of the sports media who slurp Dook whenever they can. But they conveniently leave out the fact that if the ball bounces differently in their home game against Indiana, and the clock runs properly in their travesty victory over Clemson, then Duke would be at 16-8, 4-6. Not as pretty. The facts are that Dook is 5-5 in conference play. The Blow Devils, according to their record and recent play, are an average ACC team right now. Nothing more, nothing less. You can bend the record however you want to, but it isn’t going to change the truth that Dook is, at best, the fifth or sixth best team in the ACC this season.

Not that it stops them from getting calls. For the last few years, the refs have been forced to stop calling the ridiculous “Duke Flop” that Scrotum-head Shane was known so well for. So they’ve been making it up to Ratface and his minions in other ways. Take a look at this video from their game against Kent State earlier in the season, which was sent to me by several different people. Let’s see if we can count the steps. I count five at least, but you could probably go as high as seven. Not surprisingly, no traveling was called on the play (On a side note...how great is Youtube? It is, by far, the best website out there. I spend way too much time on there). The sad thing is, and the embarrassing thing for ACC refs is, McRoberts has become very, very good at traveling almost every time he tries to attack the hoop from 10 feet out because he knows he won't be called for it. He has terrible footwork inside, and if it was ever called consistently, his scoring numbers would be cut in half. He does this little shuffle at least four or five times a game. This missed call was just an example of some of the terrible officiating that continues to help Dook. Apparently using a pivot foot is something Ratface doesn’t coach. With help of the ACC officials, he’ll never have to. And just in case he needs more help, they’re always mysterious clock officials that will try to convince you that it only takes .6 seconds for an opposing player to steal the ball and hit a three. Which I’m sure is pretty much physically impossible.

Another thing that Ratface doesn’t know how to do is use his bench. Last year, while everyone went all Dennis Green and crowned Duke before March began, I said time and time again that Duke’s downfall would be their freshman point guard and lack of depth. To be honest, I was kind of wrong. Dook doesn’t have a lack of depth. They have good players on their bench. Ratface just refuses to use them. Marty Pocius is supposed to be a pretty good guard. I’m not even sure he’s still with the team. I can't remember the last time I saw him. Are you sure that Jon Scheyer doesn't have Eurotrash locked in his trunk? Lance Thomas will play well for 5 to 10 minutes, and then we’ll never seem him after the start of the second half. Ratface, as usual, is back to playing seven guys when his team could easily go nine deep. The only bench players we see with some regularity are David McClure and Requisite Duke White Stiff Brian Zoubek, who I’m sure is really a space captain from Star Trek.

This is why Dook lost last season. When you play Backne and company for 35 minutes a game, all season long, and you expect him in March to shoot as well as he did in the middle of the ACC season, then you’re crazy. That’s why Backne’s three point percentage took a significant dip in March. That’s why Dook continues to lose games in the second half. Take a look at the recent UNC game for minute. Dook dominated that game for the first 30 minutes. Then they couldn’t hit a shot because they were all dead tired while Roy Williams kept bringing fresh bodies off his bench. The same thing happened in losses to Virginia Tech and Virginia. Dook built double-digit first half leads, but couldn’t put the game away because all their jump shooters had dead legs by the second half’s midway point. And we all know Dook has never been a good enough inside team (at least without Scrotum-head and his flops) to compensate for their lack of outside shooting.

The lack of conditioning is also something that continues to plague Dook. I had trouble proving this until this year. For whatever reason, Ratface was asked to coach the USA basketball team this past offseason (obviously this decision was not made by popular vote). Along with the embarrassing choke job that Ratface performed, he wore all those NBA players out too. LeBron James has seen his numbers drop and he’s been bothered by various leg injuries. Chris Paul missed a good chunk of the season to ankle injuries. Antawn Jamison was bothered by a sprained knee all season, and it finally sidelined him last month. Kirk Hinrich has virtually disappeared from the Bulls scoring sheet as all his numbers, and playing time, have decreased. Dwyane Wade has missed several games this season and habitually, for the first time in his career, is complaining about fatigue. Brad Miller has missed several weeks due to lower body problems and all his numbers, like Hinrich’s, are much lower than last season’s. Even Dwight Howard, who appeared to be headed to a break out season, has seen his numbers drop since New Year’s because of fatigue factors. So coupled with curious selections the roster (Scrotum-head over Gilbert Arenas…are you on crack?), Ratface has managed to sink the prospects for several NBA teams this year by not keeping his players in shape. Maybe it was a good thing for the Wizards that Arenas wasn’t selected to the team.

Back to the unpaid ranks and to the game at hand. Dook can be a good team at times. Their defense is arguably the best in the conference. However, their offense is very inconsistent, and at times, downright dreadful. They’ll keep their opponents from scoring a lot of points and they’ll always be in the game. On the other hand, they just don’t seem to be able to score enough points at the end to win games. Hence, all the close losses, which has become a trend and not a fluke (as Dook supporters would have you believe). Maryland always gets up for the Devils. But seeing as Dook is on a three game losing streak, and a four gamer seems very unlikely, the Terps may want to ask the Wizards to borrow Gilbert and his 84 or 85 points. Otherwise, with the way their offense has been running lately, and their penchant for turnovers, they don’t stand a chance.

75 points is usually the magic number for Duke. If they can reach that number, they’re going to win. But me picking Duke? There’s a better chance of an astronaut driving across country in a diaper than that happening. Wait…what did you say????

Maryland 75
Duke 74