Temple vs. Duke – A Sweet 16(-ish) Warm Up

Housekeeping-

Duke beat Georgia Tech Sunday night.  I didn’t write a post game update due to the fact I was bored by the game.  Honestly Georgia Tech is a pitiful squad and the only interesting thing that I could have talked about is yet another slow start for Duke.  Will they ever learn?  They’d better Wednesday or that newly awarded #1 spot in the polls will be short lived.

Temple @ Duke – Wednesday, 6 pm CST (TV: ESPN2)



It's OK Hooter (actual name) your Owl wisdom had to let you know we had no chance in Cameron!



Why this game in the long run may mean more than the UNC game at the end of the year.

It looks like possibly the end of the year match up in Chapel Hill on March 5 will decide whether Duke is the ACC champ all alone or if they split it again this year.  UNC looks as if it can handle the rest of its schedule and Duke outside of a trip to Virginia Tech which could be tough, should handle the rest of its ACC schedule.   Duke has the 1 game lead in the ACC standings right now and Chapel Hill will be rocking looking for revenge of the game they were in control of in Durham. 

Also as previously discussed here before, the UNC-Duke match ups are the best regular season match ups in NCAA every year.  Round 1 of the match up lived up to the hype with a huge comeback by Duke and Round 2 will have the ACC title on the line in the final game of each team’s regular season.  It will be a huge game, there is no doubt.

So, after all of that why am I saying the Temple game Wednesday will say more to me about what Duke’s fate will be in March than the UNC game?  Multiple reasons actually:

-          Temple currently in ESPN’s Bracketology is a 7 seed.  Duke is a 1 seed.  Go ahead and take a look at the link there and you will see that if Duke falls to a 2 seed or Temple works its way up to a 5 seed that a 2-7 seed or a 1-5 seed would run into each other in the second round or sweet 16 respectively.  These are the games that for a 1 or 2 seed really ramp up the momentum for a championship run.  Duke beating a tough Purdue (4 seed) team in the sweet 16 last year or Cal (8 seed) in the second round were games that built Duke’s confidence to then go ahead and beat a Baylor and West Virginia.  Does Duke have what last year’s team had? Or is this year’s Duke team more like the Duke teams of the 3-4 years prior where they have a great regular season but can’t beat a sticky quality team from a lower conference in the early rounds of the tournament?  

-          To me, the tournament is more important than the regular season ACC title.  Teams that take great pride in conference titles are teams that do not expect to be in the championship game every year.  Duke does expect to not only be in competition for the championship every year but they expect to win it.  That is why beating a Temple team convincingly at home is a must to prove Duke is ready for a tournament run.  The Cameron Crazies travel, but the mystique of Cameron does not in the tournament.  So if Duke can’t beat a 6-8 seed-ish team at home, why couldn’t they be tripped up by a team like Vanderbilt when playing on a neutral court?

-          Why is it a bigger deal to beat a 7 seed type team than a 4 seed team like UNC?  I believe for this Duke team it means more because of the 2 losses Duke has this year.  FSU currently a 9 seed and St Johns is currently a 6 seed.  We all know Duke has elite talent and CAN beat any team in the country, but its more handling games against teams they do not know well (like St Johns) and that play lock down defense (like FSU).  Temple fits both of those molds, Duke doesn’t know them well, and they play lock down defense– Temple has allowed over 70 pts only 4 times this year.

-          As stated here before UNC-Duke games take on lives of their own.  The record’s of either team don’t matter, the rankings don’t matter and how each team is playing coming into the game doesn’t matter.  You never know what’s going to happen (unless you’re reading this blog) and can’t usually take what happens and plan on it happening again for Duke or UNC moving forward.  Hence this game meaning more and being the game you can learn more about Duke from in the long run.

Players on Temple you probably don’t know-

-Ramone Moore – G  6’4 (15 ppg. 3 apg. 4 rpg)

-Scootie Randall – F 6’6 (12 ppg 5 rpg. 1 spg) – is day to day with a foot injury missed their last game against St Joseph

-Juan Fernandez – G 6’4 (10 ppg 4 apg)

Both Moore and Randall can shoot the three (around 38%) and both can go for 25 plus against good competition (Moore 30 pts against Georgetown and Randall 27 against Xavier).  Look for Smith to guard Moore and Singler on Randall.  Foul trouble for any of these four will be an issue for their respective teams.  Fernandez shoots under 30% from three and isn’t an explosive scorer but has stepped up with Randall going down against Richmond and missing the St Joe’s game (17 ppg in the two games).

-Lavoy Allen – F/C 6’9 (11 pts 7 rbs 1.7 blks.)

Temple lost their other big man Micheal (its how he spells it) Eric (6’11) for the season two games ago and now are a bit of an undersized team.  There are only three players over 6’6 (Craig Williams and Dutch Gaitley with Allen) and neither has played over 5 minutes in a game this year.  With Duke starting two 6’10 players it will be vital for Lavoy Allen to play huge on the boards and not get into foul trouble.

What to expect and look for-

Temple will be jacked up.  As if rolling in playing good basketball and taking on Duke at Cameron Indoor Stadium wasn’t enough to get Temple going, Duke was named the #1 team in the country on Monday.  Temple is going to give all it has to end Duke’s home winning streak and put their name’s on everyone’s map come tournament time. 

A key will be Duke being able to run its offense and score against a tough Temple defense.   Temple held Maryland to 61 pts and #10 Georgetown to 65 – they also won both of these games.  Nobody has been able to hold down Nolan Smith this year; I do not expect Temple to either.  St. Johns held Smith to 32 pts…but they won and that’s all that matters and its safe to say that Duke’s offense was horrible that day at Madison Square Garden.  Kyle Singler started looking a little better Sunday against Georgia Tech and should be a match up problem for Temple.  Singler needs to step back into his All American status as he did at the end of last year, no better time to start that than Wednesday night.  Seth Curry needs to take smart shot and know when to turn up his aggressiveness and when to tone it down and let Smith and Singler control the offense.  Andre Dawkins has been quiet since the UNC game, Wednesday maybe the time he decides, and the time Duke needs him to, knock down big threes and change momentum at times during this game.

Can Temple get over the Cameron Crazies?  Temple’s players probably think they have seen crazy opposing fans before.  I am sure the Surly Spiders (not official name) in Richmond are crazy and all but this is Cameron Indoor.  This is a 34 game home winning streak.  This is the best 6^th man in the country. They knows your sister’s name.  They know that she beat you up when you were 12 because you stole her Barbie Corvette.  So you won’t hear the normal “You suck!” as you shoot that free throw.  You’ll hear “Don’t steal Julie’s Corrrrr-veeette!”  Will this throw Temple off?  Or will they be able to block out the Crazies and play their best unlike the past 34 foes? (Here are some examples of Crazies chants)

PREDICTION:

Duke finally…FINALLY…does not get off to a slow start.  Duke gets off to a hot start this game led by Singler and Seth Curry’s shooting.  Duke will break out to a 10-15 pt lead in the first 5-8 minutes and then hold on the rest of the game.  Allowing an occasional 6-9 point run to Temple to get it under a 10 point lead but never getting too close.  In the second half the runs from Temple will continue but Duke will put them away around the 10-12 minute mark.  Get up by 20+ and then go into “clock melt” mode after Duke’s superior size inside turns offensive rebounds into open threes.  In the end Duke comes out victorious and proves that it will take a 1 or 2 seed to beat them and end their season in March/April not a 5 through 8 seed like Temple.

Duke 78 – Temple 62