Duke vs. Alabama Elite Eight Showdown: Game Analysis

SportsGrid

Watch Duke vs. Alabama Elite Eight Showdown: Game Analysis - SportsGrid on Dailymotion

Transcript

00:00Over in the east here, Tom, you have Duke against Alabama, one seed obviously in the Blue Devils,

00:05Bama two seed. This is a game, I just can't believe we're getting this game in the Elite

00:09Eight. There are people out there that would be perfectly, you know, content, even excited if this

00:14were your national championship matchup, obviously. And the numbers are insanely close. Each team is

00:19scoring about 94 points per game. Duke shoots marginally better, 57% versus 54 overall, 47%

00:28from three versus 43 overall. But in saying that, what Alabama just did against BYU, I mean,

00:35holy mackerel, 25 made three-pointers in that game. That is an NCAA tournament record,

00:42obviously, in the Sweet 16. They scored 117 points, the most points we've seen the tourney

00:49game in 17 years, also scoring at about a 60% rate from two-point range here, which is third

00:57in the nation just in general. So it comes down to, in many ways, you know, do you think Duke's

01:02the better team? Wouldn't blame you for feeling that way. I do. But the question is, defensively,

01:08how do you contain Bama? That's a good question. Bama plays super fast. They're hitting, you know,

01:14like I said, a million threes at a certain point. I think they're shooting too much in terms of

01:20effectiveness. In that game versus BYU, 53% from the field, like you said, 25-51 from deep. So

01:26I expect the scoring to be there, relatively speaking, when it comes to these offenses.

01:31I don't expect them to be pushing over 100 points, neither of them. I don't expect either

01:35of them to be pushing towards 90 points. I actually do like the under in this game,

01:39as crazy as that sounds. Bama plays super fast. Duke actually plays slow. They were 266 in Ken

01:45Palm adjusted pace, and Bama was number one. So like, these are two completely different teams

01:50of what we should be expecting. Duke has an awesome defense, and frankly, Bama's defense

01:55is actually a lot better than people realize. So I like the under, and I don't think Alabama wants

02:00to turn this into a track meet. As much as that's what their style is, I think they know the level

02:07of offense that Duke can bring. And do you want to increase the variance and turn this into like

02:11a punch-for-punch game? No. Like, you want to decrease the variance and have fewer possessions

02:15for such an amazing offense. For Duke, that was number one per Ken Palm. So the only way to take

02:21away Duke's strength is actually to decrease the amount of possessions that they have and keep the

02:25ball away from them. Here's what I think should concern Alabama about Duke when it comes to Duke's

02:34elite offense, but also Alabama in terms of any defensive holes. It feels like the thing that

02:39we're not talking about coming out of this game, Alabama against BYU. It's Bama, Bama, Bama, and

02:44all the celebration of what they did offensively. On the other side, BYU still put up 88 points.

02:50That's a big number. We saw teams struggle to score 60 yesterday, elite offenses or capable

02:56offenses. BYU put up 88 points and was only six of 30 from three-point range, made one three-pointer

03:03in the opening half. How did they do it? BYU was 20 of 26 on close shots, had 13 offensive rebounds.

03:10This Duke offense, and you just hit on it with some of the metrics, is far better than BYU. So

03:16Alabama should be concerned about the inside. They should, and again, like, how do you prevent

03:22that from happening? Like, you don't, you don't, if they would have, if this game would end with

03:28190 points, 180 points, that means there's way too many possessions back and forth and there's

03:32just too many chances for Duke to flex what they're best at, and that's scoring. And that's

03:36not just scoring, that's scoring and beating you by 10, 15, 20 points as we've seen them do

03:41all season long. So again, as, as fast as Alabama likes to play, I think they have to try and slow

03:47things down. They have to try and change their style at least a little bit. This is not to say

03:51that they shouldn't be shooting threes. They shouldn't be looking to at least keep up with

03:54scoring with Duke, but you do not want to turn this into a game that ends with 185 total points.

03:59At least that's how I'm viewing it from an Alabama perspective. I do think Alabama can cover,

04:03again, a six and a half number is something that I like. I lean towards Alabama and I am on the under.

Category

Transcript

Recommended