Duke Blue Devils vs. West Virginia Mountaineers: Keys to the Game

The interesting thing about how these two teams advanced to Indianapolis is the way they went against their own DNA to survive and advance.

West Virginia, a historically mediocre shooting team, didn’t score a two-point field goal until the second half of their contest against Kentucky, yet still led the Wildcats at intermission.

Duke, on the other hand, shot under 30 percent from inside the arc against Baylor, yet outrebounded a Baylor squad that was clearly more athletic than the Blue Devils.

Duke’s 20-plus offensive rebounds gave them the margin of error they needed to survive a poor shooting night, when normally a poor shooting performance would have doomed Mike Krzyzewski's club.

So what can we expect from these two teams in this game? Good shooting? Yes. Physicality? Sure. But from whom? Perhaps both squads.

Keys for West Virginia

Shooting

West Virginia is a club, even before point guard Darryl Bryant’s injury, that has to compensate for its lack of creators off the dribble with a motion game that tries to free shooters and cutters screening away from the ball.

In the first half against Kentucky, their torrid shooting from deep made Kentucky honor the Mountaineer jump shooters, which loosened up WVU’s motion game, leading to layups off of a variety of back cuts and flex cuts.

When you don’t have to defend the arc against WVU, their offense stagnates even more so than clubs with dribble penetration threats that can manufacture offense.

Frankly, Duke is going to make WVU make some jumpers before they start trailing cutters and selling out to chase Mountaineers off their jump shots.

Rebounding

Because Duke runs a motion game and has three dynamic scorers, I suspect WVU is going to play some of the same 1-3-1 zone they played against Kentucky. WVU’s zone limits Duke’s ability to screen in and run their motion game, while also keeping the Mountaineers in position to contest deep shooters.

So WVU is going to zone some in this game.

But it’s tough to rebound out of the zone because there are positional problems, especially in a 1-3-1, as well as block-out responsibility issues that are prevalent in every type of zone. For an example, look no further than Duke’s game vs. Baylor.

When WVU is playing their zone, they’ll have to play physical and rebound as a team, especially the guards, because Duke killed Baylor tracking down long rebounds that caromed beyond the paint.

Multiple defenses

WVU is not going to fool Duke’s senior leadership varying defenses like they did against the young Kentucky backcourt. But unlike the battle with the Wildcats, in addition to playing zone, the Mountaineers can run some of their patented switching man to man to combat Duke’s screening and cutting game.

DeMarcus Cousins’ presence alone prevented WVU from the man and switch style with its bevy of similarly sized defenders.

Duke, on the other hand, has a style and personnel that is a veritable sweet spot for a switching-style man to man.

Duke doesn’t have that back to the basket threat you’re worried about—a player that’s going pin a hapless Da’Sean Butler on the block after a switch. The Devils don’t have a true blow-by guy who’s going to expose Kevin Jones caught on a screen switch either.

In fact, most every switching matchup, in most cases, should be manageable from a defensive standpoint for the Mountaineers—so much so that West Virginia can minimize the effect of the Devils’ pass and pick away game by switching most screens and still be in a position to defend shooters without worrying about huge mismatches.

Duke Keys

Pressure

The fact that Coach K tweaked his pressure scheme is well chronicled. Their wings now play a little softer, and penetration is prevented at all cost, which keeps the Duke bigs clean to rebound and stay out of foul trouble.

In this game, don’t be surprised to see Coach K dust off that old Duke perimeter pressure against a WVU team with a dearth of ball-handlers and penetrators. In fact, I am absolutely shocked that John Calipari didn’t press and trap more before his game with a guardless Mountaineer team was decided. Poor coaching and hubris on Coach Calipari’s part.

The Blue Devils absolutely have the perimeter players to turn over Joe Mazzulla and West Virginia’s wings posing as guards, so don’t be surprised if you see some ball pressure and that tenacious wing denial we’ve seen from the Blue Devils over the years.

You know Coach K still has it in his bag of tricks; he dialed up the pressure against Virginia when Sylven Landesberg, the talented Wahoo guard, was out with an injury.

Brian Zoubek

As long as he’s on the floor, Duke won’t allow WVU and their collection of frontcourt bangers to bludgeon the Blue Devils on the glass. For that reason alone, Zoubek must stay on the floor in this ball game and out of early foul trouble.

If Zoubek gets in foul trouble, the Mountaineers will steal some possessions on the backboards, which might give them the margin for error they need to overcome a poor shooting night.

Whistles

If this game is called as tightly as the Baylor game, then the Blue Devils will win. The Blue Devils are simply the more skilled basketball team, and the more tightly the game is officiated, the more magnified the skill advantage becomes.

If the officials swallow their whistles and allow the Mountaineers to hand-check on the perimeter and be physical underneath, it’s advantage WVU.

Both coaches know how important officiating will be in this game.

For this reason, you almost wish there was a “Coach Cam” covering Bob Huggins and Coach Krzyzewski like C-SPAN covering Congress.

Only the lobbying and debating from Coach K and Huggins is going to be much better television.

Prediction

I think Duke is the better basketball team, but keep in mind Kentucky was supposed to be as well.

Going into that game I predicted a West Virginia victory because I thought they could confuse the young backcourt of John Wall and Eric Bledsoe.

But Duke won’t be confused by anything WVU does, especially after getting a pretty good zone primer from Baylor.

On the other hand, West Virginia won’t let Duke out-physical them. They aren’t Baylor. They should be able to win the battle on the glass, especially if they play the switching man to man as expected.

All that typed, it boils down to how the game is officiated. If it’s a tightly called game, there’s no way WVU wins. If it’s a “let ‘em play” contest, then WVU will win as long as they don’t turn the ball over, as sometimes they’re prone to do—see the Washington game.

I think Duke advances mainly because too many things have to go right for the Mountaineers to win. Whistles, shooting, and valuing the basketball all have to go WVU’s way. It’s too much to ask for a team that’s been a pleasure to follow all season because of their toughness and passion for the game .

Regardless of who wins, it should be an exciting game.