Please take what I’m saying as constructive. KD has been forced to live with the hand that he has been dealt this year but next year is a different story. Lewis needs to learn how to play both ends of the court. His defensive lapse right before the half cost us a 3 and in the final minutes when the Dukes forced missed shots we gave up offensive rebounds one was directly on him.

In order to take the next step the Dukes need to TOTALLY buy in to what KD is selling. Giving up 15 offensive rebounds to a smaller team is inexcusable, being 14th in the A-10 in FT % has probably cost us a couple of games and we still have anemic assist to turnover ratio in league. Ferry's warts are hard to get rid of.

Coach Dambrot has the Dukes playing better basketball and that is the  positive big picture and I am primarily focused on the A10 game results. The A10 competition is much better than our OOC so we are seeing the areas where they can improve particularly better defense against  opposing  guards and the perimeter generally, and better passing.I am extremely excited overall for the program and Go Dukes!

duq81 wrote:

The Dome wrote:

Please take what I’m saying as constructive. KD has been forced to live with the hand that he has been dealt this year but next year is a different story. Lewis needs to learn how to play both ends of the court. His defensive lapse right before the half cost us a 3 and in the final minutes when the Dukes forced missed shots we gave up offensive rebounds one was directly on him.

In order to take the next step the Dukes need to TOTALLY buy in to what KD is selling. Giving up 15 offensive rebounds to a smaller team is inexcusable, being 14th in the A-10 in FT % has probably cost us a couple of games and we still have anemic assist to turnover ratio in league. Ferry's warts are hard to get rid of.

We don't have a true point guard. That plays a role in the lack of assists. We also have no options inside, which is how teams get assists.

Both of which KD addressed in his first full recruiting class (and transfers).

81 I’ll buy most of your premise on the point guard but yet all 3 guards seeing action have played the point at one time or another. Williams had 4 consecutive assists on Saturday 2 of which I believe lead to dunks.  Robinson has shown the ability to score they just can’t get the ball inside. The passing of our guards has been bad throughout their time here.

So I am one of those that would prefer not to speak something into existence, but it is a little late for that.

I assume the source of the EW anxiety is that assumption that he only accepted the scholarship to Duquesne by default, and that given the opportunity to jump to a larger P5 team, he'd jump. While I think he could play there, I don't agree with that assumption.
First - as stated above, he wouldn't want to sit out a year. He hates to sit out a play - so sitting a year would be torture.
Secondly, moving up to a P5 program would not alleviate any concern about competing for playing time, if anything, most P5 teams, Pitt excepted, will have more talent than Duquesne does.  
Third - EW is confident in his game - I don't think he transfers away from more competition for PT. I think he feels, he will compete, and he will win.
Lastly - I think we can't discount that he would have loyalty to Dambrot and Duquesne. They believed in him, they offered him a scholarship, and when he played better in practice as a freshman than a senior - they started him and play him 38 minutes. I don't think that is nothing to him - I think that matters. 

Lets take a look at the recent past here to see when the best player/second best player on the team transferred out -

Robert Mitchell and Everhart didn't get along, despite the production. Mitchell had kidnappings to get to, anyways.
Melquan Bolding - Hated the 10/40. Thought he was getting short changed by it. Was injured and I think grew away from the team. 
McConnell - I don't think he wanted to be the guy to have to do all of the scoring for the team, and the incoming recruiting class so so poor, he saw no future in staying.  

I don't think any of those situations apply here. Anything can happen, of course, but it is rare for a player on the rise in a good situation to burn a year on the transfer.
 

Boy, for a bunch of yinzers what don't know you're talking about, you guys make a lot of sense.

I think our new friend is trying to impress us with insight and analysis, but as many have suggested, he is barking up the wrong tree. The notion that an athlete is going to bail out because she or he is afraid of competition doesn't even have face value. You don't even get to this level if you don't have both talent and confidence in your abilities. Period. That's thing 1.

Coach Dambrot made an effort to keep Lewis and recruit Williams. When he got here, he made it clear that he was going to build this program the right way, and that he was going to do it once. Lewis and Williams are part of that rebuilding process. That's thing 2.

Both players have relative strengths and weaknesses. That's a given, or they'd be one-and-done-Kentuckians. Or whatever. They're here because they recognize they have a coach who can get every drop out of their abilities and then some. Case in point: Lewis only plays offense at the end of games. I've yet to see a pout on his face when he comes out of the game. I've seen Williams pulled after a couple lapses. He comes back in later having been coached and re-focused. That's thing 3.

The talk of kids being recruited away, well, there are rules against that. A coach would have to weigh potential sanctions to bring in a kid who has to sit out a year. Seems dumb. That's thing 4.

If you truly want to speculate, look at the influx of talent next year, understand that the guys who are likely to get the bulk of PT are currently in the system and thus farther along, and that the freshmen will push them but not have the experience, strength, or college level coaching. Could talent nudge them forward? Of course. That's what we should be rooting for. That's thing 5.

Thing 6 is a little different. Lots of posters here have 40+ years invested in rooting for the program. Some are major donors, who get invited to functions where they can talk with the coaches. Some ARE coaches at various levels. We even have a sports journalist or two, as well as some guys who have experience in that area. This isn't a fan base that's been spoiled by success. To say, without any knowledge, that there is any lack of knowledge in the discussions here is to simply be guilty of ignorance.

ED 👏🏻👏🏻👏🏻

Well said. I never got the feeling with the previous coaching staff that development and progress were being made on a individual or team bases. It was a one dimensional “let’s out score them.” KD will push each player for his best and IMHO it’s more than obvious. As a matter of fact little birdies are tweeting that the guy sitting on PSU’s bench can’t understand where these performances are coming from.

😂😂😂

Last edited by The Dome (2/06/2018 8:44 am)

If Lewis was going to leave, last year would have been the time, not after 2 years here, and witnessing first hand the rebuild that is taking place.  Williams, he could leave, spend a year sitting on the sidelines, lift weights and maybe be a nice player at a Syracuse or Michigan, where he can also get lost in the shuffle of a P5 team.

This rebuild has just begun, Lewis and EW are the 2 main pieces to that puzzle right now.  They could, before they leave DU, have any/all of conference or POY award, a conference championship, A10 tourney championship and the first NCAA bid in 40 years.  But yeah, lets go to Indiana and get lost in a stagnant program, or UConn and play 8 minutes a game.  That makes sense.
Can they leave, sure, anyone can.  Lets hope they dont.  They are needed here for 2-3 more years.

 

Last edited by townsonkid (2/06/2018 11:55 am)

PhoenixRising2 wrote:

grammudder wrote:

FWIW here is how I approach the Bonnies defensively tonight.  You gotta give one of their guards his points.  Concentrate on defending the best guard--IMO Jaylen Adams.  Mobley is streaky.  Make their 4 and 5 guys beat you.  Their 3 guy, whose name escapes me  scores pretty decently.  Almost what most teams do defensively to the Dukes!!!

Coach Gram, they should have listened to you.
 

Not being critical of KD, but our opponents always keep someone stuck on Lewis, to keep him from getting the ball. When Adams started shooting lights-out, it might have made a big difference if he had had a guard on his hip every time he got within 30 feet of the basket.

KD definitely has a bit of a stubborn streak when it comes to his defensive concepts & timeout usage. I think this will make more sense when his systems have been in place for 3 years or so. It is a simple matter of personnel & experience.

In recent games he has definitely used the timeouts in a more conventional manner to slow up the opposition or settle down the troops; that has been impressive. I would like to see him be a bit more flexible on the regular switching, hard hedges, & ball denial. Then again, Dukes defense has sucked for so long that I should probably shut-up & be content with the awesome progress that has been made on this front.

I have resisted the urge to take shots at the departed Ferry regime but, they have got to be feeling bad about themselves given the performances of Tarin, Rene, Kellon, & JRob.

Bona deserves some credit also. They ran a beautiful weave throughout the game and managed to get some open looks as a result. Our offense doesn't utilize passing in a similar way. KD agreed that we need to do better with that in the post-game interview. That could get Mike L open more, but it would change Rene's game. 
 

The Dome wrote:

It’s always easy to look at Adams big game and last shot but what lost the Duke’s the game was allowing the 15 offensive rebounds. To get missed shots after good defensive efforts and have to get back into the defensive mode is really difficult. To get out rebounded was horrible.
Cooker you make a great point I would like to follow up on. Lost in the poor rebounding effort was the concerted effort the Boonies made to keep Williams off the boards. Schmidt IMHO gets lost in the shuffle of good coaches in this conference.

Schmidt definitely has an eye for talent between Adams, Mobley, and Nicholson just to name a few from recent memory. Getting players like that to go to a place like Bonnie's out there in the woods is a huge task in itself.

As Dome mentioned he is also a great in game coach relative to the credit he tends to get.