Duke's Full-court Man-to-Man Press

Caught most of the Duke/Wisconsin game tonight. The Blue Devils have a much different look this year than in year's past, must more uptempo and fast breaking, and it has been reflected in their overall scoring. One of the main reasons why Duke has become such a high-tempo team starts with their press. They don't press all the time, but they do so on occasion and when they do, they are very aggressive with it. Mike Krzyzewski is mostly a M2M coach, and so it is natural that his press is a full-court M2M deny. In this sequence, you'll see how Duke surprises Wisconsin on a made basket and the result is a 3-pointer. Watch the video and read my thoughts below,



Nothing really to discuss, it's just an all-out M2M full-court denial. I think the key to the press is Kyle Singler, he uses his 7-foot wingspan to obscure the inbounder and force him to make a bad pass.

Now, in hindsight, it would be easy to say, just throw over the top since the defense is in a face guard denial. But hindsight is 20/20, and when you throw in the element of surprise, it's easy to think that looking back.

I watched the game, and with the exception of a few plays like this, Duke ran a 3/4 M2M which is of course a lot safer but still puts a lot of pressure on the ball. No doubt, Coach Krzyzewski makes a bench call during free-throws to signal the full-court denial. Again, the surprise element is really the key to the play.

I'm not so sure I would've been thrilled with the choice of the 3-pointer at the end, but obviously Scheyer can consistently hit that shot so I guess if I had him on my team, it would be OK.

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