By Steve DiMiceli
It's always interesting to see how a
young team responds to three games in three days against comparably
talented teams in an equally challenging situation. I think most of us
would have come away happy from the Legend's Classic Pod with 2-1 record. They were able to win one close game against James Madison and to hold off but
never quite put away Youngstown St. They lost a game against North
Dakota State by 14 that probably wasn't as close as the scoreline
would indicate. A few things stood out to me during the classic,
mostly good but some room for growth as well.
One big difference between this year's
team and last year's is how seemlessly they're able to recognize the
defense their opponents are giving them and to adjust their offense
on the fly. If they switch to a man, the Dukes run a double high
screen where one post players stays up to pick and the other rolls
into the post. They're also using a lot of low post isolation and
wing entry against man. Against the 2-3 zone, they seamlessly switch
to a high post wing entry with Quevyn Winters playing the role of
zone buster most of the time. His passing can get better, but he has
been dangerous with a turnaround jumper from the FT line as well as
dribbling and kicking to the perimeter. I also noticed he would try
to set a screen on the defenders trying to switch sides in the zone
during a cross court pass like North Dakota St did. He wasn't as
effective but I like that he learned by watching his opponents. With
Winters in the middle, teams will likely begin avoiding 2-3 against
the Dukes especially on days when he plays well
I've said it before, but I simply
cannot believe this is largely the same team on the glass as it was
last season. YSU is a comparably sized team and the Dukes out
rebounded them by 24. North Dakota St is a much bigger team and the Dukes only found themselves with 4
fewer rebounds at the end of the game. It's a full team effort to
clear the glass with the big men creating space for the guards to
duck in and pick up the loose change. Jerry Jones and Sean Johnson are
doing a fantastic job.
The Dukes were considerably deeper than the other teams in their pod. I think their depth played nicely in their favor against Youngstown St. and in overtime against James Madison. The Dukes saw fresh players like Kadeem Panthophlet, Martins Ablele and Jeremiah Jones play a bigger role against the Penguins a night after Youngstown played a few of their starters for 35 minutes or more. Meanwhile, the Dukes were able to limit the minutes of their top players against North Dakota St thanks to their bench.
This team will be up and down this
year, but I'm hoping the ride won't be as wild in February as it is
now. I can see the Dukes are learning and piece by piece they're
getting closer to running a complete system. Heading into the
exhibition season, the rebounding was in place. Then, they seemed to
work on improving the man defense while adding some new looks as the straight man wasn't ready. Prior to the Legend's Classic
pod, they clearly worked on the half court offense. Now the
transition game needs to be the focus. If Ferry's team can't shoot on
a given night, they need to be able to run like we've been told they
would do from the start. If they can't run or shoot, they're going to
get blown out of the gym like they did against North Dakota St. The
great thing about how the early season schedule shapes up is the
space between clusters of games where the team has a week of
practices to get better in certain areas. So far, the improvement is notable.
