Who Wins the Point at Duke?
The most critical matchup in Wake’s game tomorrow at Duke probably won’t be a matchup at all. I doubt the two point guards, Ish Smith of the Deacons and Jon Scheyer will spend much time guarding each other. Nolan Smith will probably start out on Smith and if I had to bet, I’d say L.D. Williams will be shadowing Scheyer. But the Deacons will almost certainly need a good, if not great game from Smith to have a real crack at their first victory at Cameron since Tim Duncan’s senior season of 1996-97, and if I had to pick a Player of the Year in the ACC at this premature point in time, it would be Scheyer.
There was a reason Jim Valvano, while coaching N.C. State, was 14-9 against Duke. He knew the way to attack the Blue Devils’ over-play man-to-man was to beat the initial ball pressure and head to the basket, and he usually had the guards who could do it. It’s the same reason Skip Prosser started his quickest guard, Shamaine Dukes, at Duke during the 2006-07 season. The move didn’t work because Dukes couldn’t handle Duke, but that was Prosser’s thinking.
Mike Krzyzewski has tweaked his defense to where it’s not as reliant on ball pressure and taking away the passing lanes, but because the Blue Devils remain so adept at help defense, a good quick guard who knows what he’s doing is probably still their great nemesis. If Smith can beat his man and make good decisions, then Wake has a shot at the upset.
Any team that shoots as well as Duke is tough to beat, especially when it has a point guard playing as well as Scheyer. Going into today’s play, he was second in the ACC with 19.6 points a game, and was just a tick behind leader Larry Drew II with 6.1 assists a game. But the most mind-boggling stat I’ve seen this year is his assist/turnover ratio of 4.6. To put it in context, Eric Hayes of Maryland ranks second in the ACC at 2.4.
Like most people, I expected Scheyer’s scoring average to dip once he was moved to the point last season—given the responsibilities of that position to get everyone else in the offense involved. Instead, his points per game soared. I remember writing a story on Scheyer at last season’s ACC Tournament, where I asked Krzyzewski why the move had that particular effect.
His answer surprised me. Krzyzewski said that as a shooting guard, Scheyer felt compelled to do what he was on the court to do—shoot—and he rarely touched the basketball until he was coming off a screen or finding an open spot on the court.
“Before he would touch it at the moment he had to shoot it, and he had to score,’’ Krzyzewski said. “Now he’s touching it, and for four exchanges he’s not even looking to score. And all of a sudden, on that fifth or sixth exchange when we call something for him, he’s familiar with the ball.
“I think that’s a big part of it.’‘
Honestly, I would have never thought of that. But then again, I’m not in the Basketball Hall of Fame.