Duke Win More Than Just Kansas Turnovers

ESPN had an oversimplified breakdown of Duke's season-opening win over Kansas. We look past the turnovers to see what went down.

ESPN's announcers, most notably former Blue Devil Jay Bilas, noted that Kansas committed 28 turnovers in the season-opening loss to Duke.

Then Bilas noted it again. And again. And some more.

Bilas has a keen basketball mind and is a very entertaining commentator who is also a credit to the sport and an asset to many members of the media. However, he might have been oversimplifying things just a bit by giving one number on one team's stat line all the credit for the outcome.

Sure, 28 turnovers is a large number. But just as important as the turnovers is what the opposing team does with the ball after the turnover.

Duke scored 29 points off of turnovers in the game. That's a points-per-possession of 1.036 on the 28 Duke possessions that resulted from turnovers.

By comparison, Duke's points per possession for the game (per KenPom) was 1.115.

In other words, Duke's offense was about 7 percent worse when it got the ball off of a Kansas turnover than it was throughout the rest of the game. Since turnovers often trigger fast breaks and easy points, that's the opposite of what we'd expect to see.

In fact, Duke was outscored by Kansas on the fast break, 17-15, partly because the Blue Devils committed 16 turnovers of their own. They only have more than 16 turnovers five times last season and lost two of those games.

Kansas scored 1.125 points per possession off of Duke turnovers, by the way, 2.6 percent higher than it's 1.099 points per possession for the game. 

So, Duke wasn't able to turn most of Kansas' turnovers into points, one reason that the game was so close, despite the turnovers, a fact that ESPN marveled at throughout.

Also keeping the game close were Duke's rebounding and shooting. The Blue Devils were outrebounded by 10. Their biggest loss on the boards last year was a five-rebound deficit, in a game they lost to North Carolina.

Duke also shot just over 35 percent from the field. The Blue Devils had one game last year where they shot as poorly, and they lost.

The turnovers were a factor, but they weren't the sole factor. In fact, they were probably the reason Duke was able to keep it close and win despite doing a number of things wrong.

Things that were barely mentioned during the broadcast.