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Message: [QUOTE="Cuse House, post: 1625398, member: 3361"] Hear me out on this everyone, I know we haven't beat the top of the ACC but I have seen some things between the two teams lately which I believe points in our favor. 1) Jefferson is out. He is the type of guy who typically carves out a spot in the middle of our zone and makes noise. Honestly, him not playing is a MAJOR bonus to us. Don't want anyone to be hurt of course but if he is going to miss games, might as well miss ours ;). 2) Duke is weak defensively. Yes, this seems to be typical of Duke lately, they usually win by outscoring their opponents. Only UNC scores more PPG than Duke. Defensively however, they are severely lacking. I think our team has been showing signs of emerging offense and when we play a team who doesn't guard that well it could bode well for us. Ala Atlantis. 3) They are the only team who plays less guys than us. They only play 6 without Jefferson and this makes them susceptible to foul problems and having to play less aggressively on defense. They also had a tough game today against Notre Dame while we had a walk in the park. Our team should be rested considering they don't have to travel far. Plus I expect Howard to spill the guards more since he has proven to be a more than viable option. That puts us at 7 man rotation and Chino can eat a few minutes if necessary. 4) The emergence of Roberson and Coleman is HUGE. Roberson has probably had the best three game stretch of his career. And Coleman is finally starting to play much better. Duke only has one big man in Plumlee. He is a solid player but I think we can attack him down low and get after the boards. Ingram has a long wingspan but is not physically overpowering. We can win the boards and I expect Roberson to continue to have good games against Duke like he has the past two seasons. 5) They get the majority of their production from three guys. Allen, Ingram, and Kennard typically score around 2/3 of their points. Two of them have never seen the zone and Allen didn't play much last year. We don't need to shut them all down, but if we can even force 1 of the 3 to have a bad game then we can really slow their offense. Those three are all very good players but they are not as balanced as we are on offense. Ultimately, fouls could play a huge part in this game. Which ever team attacks the inside better will likely win. With how we have been playing down low of late, I like our teams mentality going into Monday night. Oh yea, G usually plays well against Duke as well! We win this game, and the season is completely turned around. I am very confident right now. [/QUOTE]

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