Tuesday night, Duke took control early on the way to a 68-51 win against Georgia Tech in Atlanta, but head coach Mike Krzyzewski says that this weekend will be the true test for the Blue Devils.
"The last two games this week are really like a Final Four," Krzyzewski said. "You are playing two teams that might be in the Final Four.”
Coach K could be correct. Syracuse is the No. 1 team in the country and North Carolina has won seven games in a row to put themselves back not only in the ACC race, but also the NCAA Tournament picture. Going into each matchup, Duke will be ranked No. 5 in the AP Poll, but how does this team stack up against past Final Four caliber Blue Devil squads? Don't worry, Stat Chat is here to do the number crunching for you.
Before delving to far into the statistics, it's important to first distinguish the first five Final Fours Duke qualified for came before the 3-point line was introduced to college basketball. For this reason, I'll be focusing on the past 10 Final Four appearances for comparing and contrasting to the current Blue Devil team.
Let's start on the defensive end of the ball. Something that Duke thrives on is scoring in transition. However, in order to get more baskets in transition, the team needs to force more turnovers. Thus far this season, the Blue Devils have forced an average of 12.8 turnovers per game. Not a single Final Four team analyzed forced fewer than 14.2 turnovers per game, with an average of 18.0 turnovers per game overall.
Something that Duke has improved during ACC play has been its overall defense. Despite ranking 100th in points per game allowed (66.7 ppg), this team actually has allowed fewer points than the past 10 Final Four teams on average (69.2 ppg), ranking better than every team except the 2003-04 (65.0 ppg) and 2009-10 (61.0 ppg) squads. The difference comes down to opposing field goal percentages. Interestingly enough, the opposing 44.8 percent allowed by the 2013-14 Blue Devils' is worse than seven of those Final Four teams. However, the back-to-back championship teams in 1990-91 and 1991-92 allowed opponents to shoot 44.5 percent and 46.7 percent respectively.
Offensively, it may come as a shock that this Duke team hasn't lived up to its predecessors. The team ranks 15th in the country in points scored and is tops in the ACC, but Blue Devil Final Four teams average 85.2 ppg, with seven teams averaging more than this year's squad (81.2 ppg). This was particularly important for Duke's championship squads, which averaged 85.6 ppg, including a jaw-dropping 90.7 ppg from the 2000-01 champions.
However, in the grand scheme of things, the 2013-14 Blue Devils, shooting 46.9 percent from the floor, have one advantage: they drop 3-pointers like Duke drops classes for snow. This year's team is shooting 41.6 percent from deep, tied for second best in the country and by far the best in the ACC. How many Final Four team shot this high since the 3-point line was introduced? Zero. Throw in 11.5 offensive rebounds per game—Duke's Final Four teams average slightly more with 13.4 offensive rebounds per game—and you have the makings of a championship-quality offense.
Duke has a long way to go before thinking about the Final Four; however, by increasing their forced turnovers slightly, staying the course on defense and continuing to knock down 3-pointers at a high rate, a Final Four may not be such a farfetched dream.
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