Time to Believe the Hype

A solid win. I know it’s only the second day in December and I know I’m not suppose to care until March, but this wasn’t just a road win against a top-10 team, this was an ass-kicking against a top-10 team.

Now don’t get me wrong, was this Purdue’s best effort? Nope. They struggled with their shots tonight, missing a handful of open shots. You have to believe they were a little fatigued mentally coming off a tough loss against Oklahoma at MSG. However, even a hater has to give the Blue Devil’s some credit. Come on kids, give us some love.

Overall, Duke’s D was suffocating for most of the night, keeping Purdue out of sync. Purdue looked panicked tonight, hurrying through their traditionally smooth motion offense, often rushing bad shots. To say it politely, they looked intimidated.

QUICK HITS:

– Is Singler better than Hansborough? We’ve asked this question once already this season and we laughed it off. We’re asking again after the Purdue game and we’re not laughing anymore. Instead of addressing it here, we’ll do a full post later in the week. At least for tonight though, he was a stud. He finished with 20 points and 12 boards, half of which were offensive. The offensive rebounds were the most impressive because often he seemed to fly out of nowhere to steal it from three perfectly positioned Boilermakers. Now does that remind you of a certain someone who likes to wear Baby Blue?

– Favorite Stat of the game; Duke out rebounded Purdue 44-26. Granted, Purdue isn’t known for their boards, but Duke grabbed an impressive 18 more. When was the last time a Devil team was that dominating on the board? Most impressively was the 14 offensive rebounds. If you miss 33 shots and then get 14 redoes, you’re not going to lose too many games.

– Like we said, defense was the name of the game. Besides holding Purdue to 37% shooting and holding Moore (their leading scorer) to only ten points (all in the second half), they held a good three-point shooting team to 2-13 from behind the arc. As a team, Duke knocked away a decent five blocks, but it was Gerald Henderson’s two amazing blocks that set the tone defensively. On one, Purdue, down by double digits, had a 4-2 fast break and the G-man swiped it away from out of nowhere trailing the play.The rally was killed before it even got started.

– The Big’s. We’re always monitoring the bigs. Thomas and Zoubek had a quiet, but producive night; nine points, 13 boards. Zoubek did get into foul trouble, but overall he played well. The only foul that bothered me was the offensive hooking call he got. It was a good call, no problem there. My problem is the 7-footer who likes to turn himself into a six-footer. On the play he had great position, just begging for a hook shot – a little five-foot hook with the left. Instead, he tried to drive it under the basket. Brian is a solid center when he remembers to play like a seven-footer.

– As for Lance Thomas, what more can I really say? He’s been great this season? Coming off his career game, his numbers from tonight won’t stack up, but if you watched the game, he played a solid game yet again. He’s not only stronger, but smarter, often being in the right place at the right time. If he’s not careful, I’m going to start expecting this from him every game.

– Free throws remained a positive tonight. The team came in shooting around 74% (great teams need to hit 75% for the season). The Boilermakers actually took more free throws up until the end when they started fouling on purpose, but Duke hit ’em when they got ’em, hitting 20-26 tonight.

– Nice to see the tent city at Purdue. It’s true dedication to sit in that kind of weather. Any student who has sat in K-Ville can appreciate this. However, no props for the Univeristy who can’t show any love for the students. Seriously, the fans sit in the cold for 48 hours so they can be shoved behind one of the baskets? Student sections belong up front, on TV. When will all schools learn this?

– Having said all that, the Purdue student section chanting, “Paulus sucks” with 1:05 to play…really? That’s the best you can come up with?

– Duke played ten players tonight, but in reality we went 8-deep (Plumlee and Williams played sparingly). However, with Zoubek and Smith sitting with four fouls with 17 minutes to go, Thomas and Paulus came up big. It’s got to be nice to have two starters from last year coming off the bench this year.

– The refs need to relax on the jump ball calls. It’s bad enough there is no actual jump for the ball afterwards, but twice a Duke player had posession, a Purdue player got his hand on the ball for a split second and the ref called a jump ball.

– While it’s hard to find anything wrong with a 16-point blowout on the road, you know I’ll find something. The Devils did a terrible job with the switch offs. Too often a smaller guard got left alone under the basket with a big man, each time resulting in points and/or fouls. Defensingly, they need to do a better job rotating out of those situations.

– So is it time to believe the hype? Sure, why not. If I was doing a ranking, which I don’t believe in this early into a season, I’d put Duke at number three. I still believe it’s North Carolina and then everyone else. Conneticut is a clear number two. After that, I think the next ten teams (Duke, Pittsburgh, Gonzaga, Oklahoma, Notre Dame, Louisville, Texas, UCLA, Michigan State and Xavier) are all interchangable. If you put any of those ten in the number three spot, I’d be hard pressed to argue with you. Having said all that, after this win, I’m putting Duke in the third spot.

– Next up is Michigan again and this game is certainly a trap game. The Wolverines aren’t afraid of Duke and they’ll have a solid crowd at home with a fan base just dying to cheer for anything after this past football season. Then one week later is anothe big one against a top-10 team in Xavier. Should be fun.