Score One For Gerry

In conference play:

              FGA/40  %Shots  %Poss
Nelson         15.2    27.7    24.2
Henderson      13.2    24.0    21.9
Paulus         12.4    22.6    21.7
Scheyer        11.4    20.8    18.5
McRoberts      10.8    19.8    20.5
Hocus Pocius    8.5    15.5    16.4
McClure         5.6    10.3    11.4
Thomas          5.6    10.2    15.9
Zoubek          4.7     8.5    18.7

Also:

            Pts/40
Nelson       17.3
Scheyer      16.2
Henderson    15.7
Paulus       15.4
McRoberts    14.1
Pocius        9.4
Thomas        9.0
Zoubek        7.4
McClure       7.4

Gerald Henderson only got 20 minutes per game in conference play, but when he was on the court, he was more involved in Duke's offense than anyone save DeMarcus Nelson. And the third-most productive point scorer on a per-minute basis.

The man most likely to get extra minutes on Thursday is David McClure. McClure, in contrast to Henderson, was not someone the Blue Devils looked to for scoring during the season. His job is to do the other things: grab some rebounds, play tough defense, and generate some turnovers with steals and blocked shots. Maybe slap the court a few times. McClure logged 41 more minutes than did Henderson yet attempted 55 fewer shots. His 7.4 pts/40 is the lowest of anyone Duke is going to put on the court.

That's not meant as a criticism--McClure plays his role effectively. The problem, which you can see illustrated in the above tables, is that Duke is seeing a big drop off in scoring regardless of who they plug into that fifth spot. None of the bench guys in the rotation do much shooting or scoring, nor are they used to playing significant minutes. Thomas got 14 min/g during the season, while Pocius and Zoubek got about 5 min/g apiece.

With Henderson on the floor, the Blue Devils are a threat to score from five positions; without him, they aren't. That's a big difference. Josh, for real this time, how about you take some more shots? It's absurd that there are four guys on the team who shoot more often than you do.

I don't expect to see more of Zoubek or Lance Thomas than usual, but the more we do see of them, the better.

        TOs/40    TO%   Fouls/40
Zoubek   6.0     47.1     7.0
Thomas   4.3     39.6     7.0

Attacking them whenever they're on the court is a good idea. In the first meeting, Thomas had three fouls in 11 minutes; Zoubek had two in four. Nothing quite says "slow and uncoordinated" like averaging six turnovers and seven fouls for every forty minutes you play (in his defense, though, it's a small sample).