PhoenixRising2 wrote:

phil95 wrote:

I know plenty of people just listened to KD jump all over Ray Goss. I couldn't care less that KD went out of his way to smooth it over. That was classless.

KD, if you have a staffer reading this, if you want your players to be accountable for their actions, show a little self-control & act like you've been here before.

Ray, of course, handled it like the prince & pro he is.

KD was wound tighter than a $2 watch almost the entire game; seemed like he was ready to erupt. Sounds like he did spew on Ray. I didn’t hear it. Can you provide any additional details?

Ray said that he thought the Dukes needed to play better in the second half.  KD corrected him (maybe with a little more emotion than usual)  saying that they needed to play like they did in the first half (ie they played good in the first half).  He immediately apologized.   See my post above.  No big deal in my opinion. 

Ray made the point that after a lackluster first half he & Jared expected the Dukes to play better in the second half. KD jumped on him LOUDLY saying, "What do you mean?" 2  or 3 times. He then went on to say that that was the game they wanted to play. He regained his composure in about 10 seconds before saying it was unfair of him to attack "an 80 year old guy". He kind of apologized, called himself a sore loser, & said conciliatory words a few more times throughout the interview.  By then the horse was already out of the barn.

If it was on video at a press conference & anyone cared about DU hoops, it would have gone viral & Dambrot would have been a punchline for a few days. I suspect an enterprising reporter or two would link this outburst to the racially charged one that derailed his career for a number of years. Modern media regularly makes big deals out of little deals if there are extra clicks to be gained.

All that aside, it demonstrated a real lack of self-control for a man pushing 60 & making million dollars a year to change the culture of a perpetually bumbling college basketball program. 

All that aside, it just wasn't a nice thing to do to a man that has devoted 5 decades & change of his life to being the biggest possible supporter of the program under very trying circumstances.

 To this point, KD has been fantastic. For the first time this season his team struggled to be his team & he couldn't take it. That was the biggest disappointment of the evening.

PistolPete wrote:

Well Fordham becomes critical; worst performance I've seen all year and most of you guys already noted the comedy of errors and lack of execution - offensively and defensively.  For a while there I thought I was watching the LHTM defense patented by Jim Ferry!  Offensively, I really think it is simply impossible to win playing 3 on 5 especially when your purported best player (Lewis) disappears for large parts of games.  That being said, I don't think our guards try to feed JRob enough when he is in there.  He at least has some offensive touch around the basket.  Some of our TO's were just mind boggling as well.  My question is with the lack of credible offense from the 4 or 5 - excluding JRob once in a while - where will the offense come from next year at those positions.  Is the 6'9" from Akron really that good.........??????  I know you would have to be below average to not exceed what we are getting now, especially from Chas who has patented the 6" miss, but I'm wondering how much production we think we are going to get?  The other bigs are all freshman and Swingle will need to get in much better shape from some of the tape I've seen.  I am hopeful, but are we being realistic about getting immediate help next year to play KD's inside out game?  Can Tydus improve that much to have meaningful offensive contributions? I know some will say we have the kid from Miami of Ohio, but he is only 6'5" I believe.  Thankfully on paper we should have much more outside scoring punch and depth next year as only having 3 serviceable guards this year has hurt us.  This game was hard to watch and hell even the announcers, who I thought were pretty good, had to point out many times how sloppy and out of sort both teams looked.  If KD said we needed to play like we did in the first half to Ray Goss then I am scratching my head.  Hell, I think we had 9 TO's and with any decent effort we could have been up by 8 points or so - Dayton looked equally bad in first half.  Oh well, hopefully we can win what we must on Saturday and take it from there, but I am with whoever said the Richmond game was a killer.    

These are fair questions. I think there has been a bit too much hype about Swingle, and the other freshman bigs. I expect these guys will eventually become key players, but none of them are the kind of studs who are going to come in, and make a huge impact from day one. I'd be happy if just one of them can be somewhat "up and down", as our current bigs have no "up" games at all. Mike Hughes will really need to give us some scoring inside for us to take a significant step forward. He didn't play much last year, so it's hard to get any kind of read on him. I hope the summer league is back so we can at least see him, even in an unstructured setting. We'll be deep and talented on the perimeter, but you have to have some kind of threat inside to be successful.

By the way, I first met Ray Goss when he was doubling as the IUP basketball broadcaster in a game between Grove City College and Indiana (Pa.) during the 1969-1970 season.  Both teams were really good that year.  I think Grove City went 19-5. 

It was a couple of days after the Dukes had trounced Marshall by a score of 120-75, with lightning-fast 5'9" guard Willie Hines stealing the ball on three consecutive plays and converting those steals into easy layups in a span of only twenty seconds!

Ray recounted those three quick possessions, descriptively describing Willie's three steals and breakaway layups in his conversation with me.

Those were the days.

In any case, I went to all of the Grove City home games in the three years my family lived in that sleepy, northwest Pennsylvania town, usually by myself.  Nobody there followed college basketball.

IUP was a national power during that period, but Grove City was far from a pushover, having defeated highly-ranked Ashland on the road, a team that went to the NCAA Division II semifinals in March of that year before falling to Southwest Missouri State.

Needless to say, it was a pretty heady experience for a young teenager.  I was only 14 at the time and my late dad was an ROTC instructor at the college.  He also taught math at neighboring Slippery Rock University.  Ray, recognizing that I followed the Wolverines pretty closely, tapped me on the shoulder and invited me up to his makeshift booth at the college gymnasium to learn more about the squad from Grove City. 

It remains one of my life's most cherished memories.

I don't know about the rest of you, but Ray Goss almost single-handedly kept those of us out-of-state fans informed about Duquesne basketball during the many, many lean years that followed our post-1950s glory years of the early seventies — long before there was an Internet — and, for that, I'll be forever grateful.

More importantly, he never lost faith in Duquesne's basketball program.

Thank you, Ray!  As Shakespeare might say, thanks, thanks and forever thanks.

LET'S GO DUQUESNE! 

Last edited by IronDukes12 (2/08/2018 8:02 am)

We'll beat Davidson and give the Bonnies all they can handle in Olean.

Keep the faith, WashPaRick!

Let's Go Duquesne! 

townsonkid wrote:

Ooooooo, he raised his voice.  

Sorry, but Dambrot's comment was derogatory.  You can try to spin it any way you want, but it was a regrettable comment.

Ray Goss, who certainly didn't mean any harm, deserved some respect — something Duquesne's new coach didn't have the decency or patience to display.
 

Last edited by IronDukes12 (2/08/2018 8:35 am)

It's bad form to attack an Icon such as Goss, especially when the Icon is right. KD feeling the pressure of a tiring team.

Play them a little less hard in practice and they might actually have some energy in A-10 games.

Dukes2012 wrote:

Wow this Board is overreaction central today. It wasn't that big of deal. KD was frustrated about losing 4 or 5 and snapped at a question, and then apologized. That's it. Calm down, move on.

You're right, Dukes12, but I guess a few of us will always equate Duquesne basketball with Ray.  Coach Dambrot's comment about his age was beyond — way beyond — the pale.

Sorry if you don't like that.

 

Last edited by IronDukes12 (2/08/2018 8:46 am)

Back to this game and this season, Lewis and Williams opening threes went deep into the cylinder and popped out. This seemed to set the tone for rushed shots and too far out side the circle threes that missed badly or were air balls in Williams case. 

Rene seemed to sense this and he went inside as did Smith with a few threes that were unforced. Match ups again a problem with 4 guards  too quick for our bigs although TV did score a little and had 4 boards.

Smith played with 2-3 fouls then 4 and it effected his defense,
Williams seems to stay outside a lot and his rebound totals have slipped in conference games since he isn’t driving as much or is getting stripped on this drives.

Expect KD to right this ship and finish strong.

Tejas_Duke wrote:

phil95 wrote:

Ray made the point that after a lackluster first half he & Jared expected the Dukes to play better in the second half. KD jumped on him LOUDLY saying, "What do you mean?" 2  or 3 times. He then went on to say that that was the game they wanted to play. He regained his composure in about 10 seconds before saying it was unfair of him to attack "an 80 year old guy". He kind of apologized, called himself a sore loser, & said conciliatory words a few more times throughout the interview.  By then the horse was already out of the barn.

If it was on video at a press conference & anyone cared about DU hoops, it would have gone viral & Dambrot would have been a punchline for a few days. I suspect an enterprising reporter or two would link this outburst to the racially charged one that derailed his career for a number of years. Modern media regularly makes big deals out of little deals if there are extra clicks to be gained.

All that aside, it demonstrated a real lack of self-control for a man pushing 60 & making million dollars a year to change the culture of a perpetually bumbling college basketball program. 

All that aside, it just wasn't a nice thing to do to a man that has devoted 5 decades & change of his life to being the biggest possible supporter of the program under very trying circumstances.

 To this point, KD has been fantastic. For the first time this season his team struggled to be his team & he couldn't take it. That was the biggest disappointment of the evening.

'
Yeah nothing like complaining about today's traditional and social media blowing things out of proportion and beating dead horses by doing that exact same thing in a long post!

As my Father always said, Be brief in apology and acceptance of apologies and then Move On!

Maybe we should set up safe zones.    
 

Only at Duquesne could the slightest modicum of success lead to grand expectations and then resultant despair.

I still like the trend that the program is taking. 

IronDukes12 wrote:

Play them a little less hard in practice and they might actually have some energy in A-10 games.

How long do they practice for since you add this comment?