On to Duke

So the Terps dispatched the NC State Wolfpack on Saturday to move to 6-3 in the lig. It wasn't as easy as it one might have liked - the Terps trailed by two at the half despite 18 points from senior James Gist. But the second half was a different story as the Terps rolled to a 14 point win behind Gist and Greivis Vasquez.

Strengths: Duke can score. They don't have much of a post offense at all so they're as reliant on the three ball as any team in the conference. The team's deep corps of long range shooters includes Taylor King, Greg Paulus, John Scheyer and Demarcus Nelson, all shooting over 40% from long range. Nelson, Gerald Henderson and Kyle Singler are the biggest threats to score inside the arc, either through driving to the basket or hitting the mid-range shot.

Duke's "spread" offense takes advantage of their personnel, making up for a lack of size and inside play with an offense that spreads the floor and allows players room to shoot or to exploit a defensive matchup and drive to the basket. Unsurprisingly, with a lineup that is filled with guards and wings, the Blue Devils take excellent care of the basketball. A team that doesn't cough up the rock and shoots well is, of course, very hard to defend.

And speaking of defending, Duke does that pretty well too, specifically outside of the arc. Their deep rotation of guards allows them to matchup and keep guys fresh leading to lots of forced turnovers and poor three point shooting by opponents.

And oh yeah, Duke has one more strength. Whenever an opposing player drives the lane, the Duke defender falls to the floor as if shot, regardless of the amount of actual content. This is called a "flop" in basketball parlance. Duke has also taken the next step of falling backwards onto the hardwood after being grazed during a jump shot. Indeed Coach K has instilled fundamentals in this group of pigmentationally-challenged Dukies.



Weaknesses: This team is number two for a reason. They don't have a plethora of weaknesses. For being an excellent shooting team, Duke is subpar at the line. That's because their two most frequent foul shooters, Demarcus Nelson and Gerald Henderson, both shoot poorly for a guard at just above 60% - worse than BOOM, the Terps' worst starting free throw shooter. Foul shooting crippled Duke early in their last game against Boston College as the Devils made just 2 of their first 10 shots from the charity stripe.

Maryland presents a bad matchup for the Blue Devils offensively with two strong post players in Boom Osby and James Gist. Duke simply has no answer for those two on its roster as was seen in the first matchup between the two teams, particularly in the first half. David McClure, Singler, and Lance Thomas are the post players on this team, and they have zero chance to guard either Maryland post player if Maryland's guards feed the post. Brian Zoubek saw his first action in months against BC, and at 7-1 he could help on the inside. But his extremely limited athleticism will negate the height advantage at least too some extent, even if he is able to play more than two minutes this game.

Verdict: It will be tough for the Terps to go down to Durham and win this one. Duke is 9-0 and has already survived a trip to College Park. Gary Williams is going to have to pull some magic out of that old silk hat to pull of the upset. Maryland needs bench production not just from Cliff Tucker and Adrian Bowie, but also SOMEONE on the inside to spell Gist and Osby. They also have to limit mistakes and continued their recent torrid shooting. I hate to bet against Gary, especially with the team on a roll.