Micah was in there on offense for the last big shot - he had to shoot quickly - he missed.

It would be nice if some of the great basketball minds who contribute to this board would at least go to the games, or watch them online before condemning the coach for actually making the correct substitution.  It was pretty clear that inserting Jerry, a longer player with better defensive skills was the right move at the time.  St. Louis had the ball with 0.57 to go and they were down by 2.  Unfortunately, they made a good play, and used a cross-court pass to find an open man for a three. Too much help off the three point shooter was the culprit here, not the subsitution.  This is a simple and correctable mistake, that I'm sure will be dealt with in practice. 

Once the guys get over the disappointment of not closing out an opportunity for a big upset, I think they have a lot of positives to take away from this game.  I hope they continue to work hard, because the last two games have shown great progress and improvement as a team.  The Dukes made a slew of great plays during the game, but the one I appreciated most was late in the game on an open court situation, when Jeremiah got the ball in the corner and took a dribble and faked and jump shot drawing the defense, then layed it off the Micah for a big three that brought the crowd to its feet.  That is the kind of play that we would not have seen earlier in the season.  Keep looking for each other and we will see a breakthrough!

Last edited by levon1975 (1/23/2014 3:45 pm)

Well, I never called it a moral victory, those are your words; but getting Ovie back playing his best, sharing the bastketball, scoring pretty well on one of the top defensive teams in the country (Dukes were the first team all season to score over 70 on STL)  are all positives that even the doomsayers on this board cannot deny.  

Many of their points down the stretch were scored on drives down the lane, and floaters by Jett.  For the most part the Dukes did a good job on their shooters with the exception of a few instances.  The last three by McBroom being one of them; but it was not on Jerry's side of the court; so it proves nothing in regard to the substitution.  If Dez had a little more experience; I would have considered subbing for DC as well with Dez to get the extra length on the perimeter on that big STL posession with 0.57 left.  But if you do stop them with Dez on D, you have a freshman handling the ball in the last 30-40 seconds.  The only other guy I saw getting open looks from the perimeter was Loe on the inbounds play, where we left him open on the wing for an easy three.  That was a mistakes; but every player on every team makes mistakes.  We seem to focus soley on the mistakes made by our players.  St. Louis started something like five seniors, and made plenty of mistakes througout the game.
In my opinion the game turned in the last 2-3 minutes of the first half when we squandered our lead, with poor offensive efficiency and several highly questionable shots.  St Louis couldn't score in their half court at all; but we gave them a few easy baskets on runouts, due to poor shot selection.  I think our team wanted badly to get the half with a nice lead, and started to hurry things a bit in those last two minutes.