RE: Yeah we all know the score.  The respect you covet will come from a whole season, not one game against an NEC team.  I personally favor playing them but I understand the low conference argument.  Not knocking RMU - knocking the conference.  Duquesne can make their best statement by A10 success.  I hope we work out something with the Colonials going forward

The A-10 is much closer to the ACC (Pitt) than it is to the NEC (RMU). Much closer! An A-10 team should never, ever play a NEC school on their home court. I don't care if RMU beats Duquesne 1,000 times in a row. An A-10 team should never play a NEC school on their home court. Everyone knows RMU has played above the level of the NEC in a majority of years. But in general, if a NEC school wants to play an A-10 school, it's on the A-10 court only. You think PItt would play a NEC school on their home court? They played St. Francis years back in Loretto, but those days are gone. I can guarantee you Jeff Capel or any of his recent predecessors would not agree to a game there, and probably not in Moon Township either.

RE: So you think paying nearly $100 a year for that crap is better than the free coverage you get from newspapers? Hope you're not a business major.

Newspapers are slowly moving to paywalls online. Right now they appear to be free, but they're not. You're paying a hefty wage for the internet, aren't you? Nothing is free, so to speak. View from ritter once again skewed.

 

Went to the press guide about this series. First game I found was in 1980. From 1980 to 1986: 4 home, 1 away (1985), and 1 neutral site (Syracuse). From 1990 to 1995: 4 home, 2 away. From 2003: alternating home and away every year.
I imagine it was a "plum" for RMU to schedule us in the 80's, especially to get a home game.
I would still like to play them, and when we start beating them regularly get more favorable scheduling terms like we used to have.

 

rittersdiner wrote:

ElDuque wrote:

rittersdiner wrote:

I'm sure if the P-G and Trib go out of business, there will be dozens of ways to get information and features on the team, right? Right?

DK Pittsburgh Sports, DYST, The Athletic, Twitter, the Internet (pretty much all games live) … 

Your point was what again?

So you think paying nearly $100 a year for that crap is better than the free coverage you get from newspapers? Hope you're not a business major.
 

New alert: Newspapers are for-profit too.
 

I don't like this idea that a team can be "beneath" playing certain teams on the road on those other teams home courts. I understand the way it is but I hate it when other schools do it so I can bash it when we do it too.

The sport of college basketball would be so much better for the fans involved if bigger schools were willing to play on the road out of conference. It should be a much more equitable share of teams willing to go play other teams in home-and-home series. Something like Duquesne and Robert Morris I think really grows both programs when they play home and home. 

A couple years back Tom Crean of Indiana was fired after a terrible season including losing to IPFW (Now Fort Wayne), He got a lot of flak for that but I think it took guts and the ability to appreciate how much IPFW fans would enjoy playing the big, mighty IU on a "home" court.

I know Im in the minority here and its partially because committees won't look highly on scheduling lower teams on the road like I do, but I'd be hypocritical if I didn't call Duquesne out on it when I would do the same to other schools.

ElDuque wrote:

rittersdiner wrote:

ElDuque wrote:

DK Pittsburgh Sports, DYST, The Athletic, Twitter, the Internet (pretty much all games live) … 

Your point was what again?

So you think paying nearly $100 a year for that crap is better than the free coverage you get from newspapers? Hope you're not a business major.
 

New alert: Newspapers are for-profit too.
 

I'm quite familiar with how newspapers make money. If you think the Athletic or DK Sports is going to be around for a few more years without a big increase in subscription fees, then you don't know how they work. Those options are not dependable. 
 

I understand why teams do this. These games are nothing to gain, whole lot to lose propositions. Still, you ought to make an exception for a local team. As much as we bash Pitt on this board, I respect them for never really trying to screw us in our series. Bobby Mo didn't get that kind of consideration. Pitt never went to the Chuck, and the series ended because Pitt decided they didn't want to pay RMU the typical "cupcake fee". To me, that was a chump move on Pitt's part, and this is a chump move on Duquesne's part. We never should have given them the 1 for 1 deal, but we did, and to their credit, they've had their foot up our arse for a decade. We're acting like Suzie wanting to not play our women because of the annual butt kicking. Well, Bobby Mo owns us just as much as we own the Pitt women, and as has been pointed out, it's worse because while the A10 is certainly a full level below the powerful ACC, the NEC is probably 3 levels below the A10.

ElDuque wrote:

rittersdiner wrote:

ElDuque wrote:

New alert: Newspapers are for-profit too.
 

I'm quite familiar with how newspapers make money. If you think the Athletic or DK Sports is going to be around for a few more years without a big increase in subscription fees, then you don't know how they work. Those options are not dependable. 
 

Are you sleeping under a rock? Or with one as a pillow?

Here's what you're missing Alley Oop. Brick & mortar is failing, big time. Paper & print are going by the wayside. Why? Because we live in an inbound marketing world. Content is king. Sites like DK and the Athletic and DYST (Zac) and Pittsburgh Sports Now are booming and the old newspapers are laying off people left and right. The content sites aren't trying to operate like traditional newspapers, except when it comes to stealing talent. And they are winning that battle big time.

Big time.

Heck, it's that way in every industry. Go try to buy something at Toys R Us. Oh wait. You can't. It went down in flames. Amazon, on the other hand …

It's the same for newspapers. They're scaling way, way back. Most of them are running nothing but wire service stories. Time is winding down on them. Tick, tick, tick.

Even if all of this were not true (it is), look at the "quality of coverage" we get from the P-G and T-R. Russ Franke might have been the last print guy to go to a road game with the Dukes. Most of the coverage is done over the phone. Our women's team is pretty much ignored. So THAT is what we should support?

Go drop your buck-fifty or whatever obscene coinage they charge and continue to support a media that:
1. Doesn't care about Duquesne basketball.
2. Doesn't cover it all that well.
3. Will be extinct before I count down another decade.

PS, if you didn't get the Alley Oop reference (I'm old but I'm still hip), here you go: https://www.mycomicshop.com/search?TID=299271 

Craigslist has pretty much taken away all of the ad income that papers used to make as well. All of our house and apartment vacancies are listed on Craigslist, as well as Zillow, and their competitors. 20 years ago, we'd have been spending money on newspaper ads.

Traitor wrote:

duq81 wrote:

I understand why teams do this. These games are nothing to gain, whole lot to lose propositions. Still, you ought to make an exception for a local team. As much as we bash Pitt on this board, I respect them for never really trying to screw us in our series. Bobby Mo didn't get that kind of consideration. Pitt never went to the Chuck, and the series ended because Pitt decided they didn't want to pay RMU the typical "cupcake fee". To me, that was a chump move on Pitt's part, and this is a chump move on Duquesne's part. We never should have given them the 1 for 1 deal, but we did, and to their credit, they've had their foot up our arse for a decade. We're acting like Suzie wanting to not play our women because of the annual butt kicking. Well, Bobby Mo owns us just as much as we own the Pitt women, and as has been pointed out, it's worse because while the A10 is certainly a full level below the powerful ACC, the NEC is probably 3 levels below the A10.

 
I’ve heard two things about the Pitt/RMU series. RMU started asking for more and more money to play and Jamie Dixon didn’t want to lose against RMU.

RMU never came close to beating Pitt, so I don't buy that part. What I heard from some Pitt people is that Bobby Mo wanted a typical payout that a cupcake would get for traveling to Pitt. Pitt, knowing that there were basically none of the expenses that a road team usually has, wanted the payment to reflect that. Since these low majors depend on that cupcake money to fund their programs, RMU decided instead, to play a real road game that paid the usual amount.

rittersdiner wrote:

ElDuque wrote:

rittersdiner wrote:

I'm quite familiar with how newspapers make money. If you think the Athletic or DK Sports is going to be around for a few more years without a big increase in subscription fees, then you don't know how they work. Those options are not dependable. 
 

Are you sleeping under a rock? Or with one as a pillow?

Here's what you're missing Alley Oop. Brick & mortar is failing, big time. Paper & print are going by the wayside. Why? Because we live in an inbound marketing world. Content is king. Sites like DK and the Athletic and DYST (Zac) and Pittsburgh Sports Now are booming and the old newspapers are laying off people left and right. The content sites aren't trying to operate like traditional newspapers, except when it comes to stealing talent. And they are winning that battle big time.

Big time.

Heck, it's that way in every industry. Go try to buy something at Toys R Us. Oh wait. You can't. It went down in flames. Amazon, on the other hand …

It's the same for newspapers. They're scaling way, way back. Most of them are running nothing but wire service stories. Time is winding down on them. Tick, tick, tick.

Even if all of this were not true (it is), look at the "quality of coverage" we get from the P-G and T-R. Russ Franke might have been the last print guy to go to a road game with the Dukes. Most of the coverage is done over the phone. Our women's team is pretty much ignored. So THAT is what we should support?

Go drop your buck-fifty or whatever obscene coinage they charge and continue to support a media that:
1. Doesn't care about Duquesne basketball.
2. Doesn't cover it all that well.
3. Will be extinct before I count down another decade.

PS, if you didn't get the Alley Oop reference (I'm old but I'm still hip), here you go: https://www.mycomicshop.com/search?TID=299271 

"Sites like DK and the Athletic and DYST (Zac) and Pittsburgh Sports Now are booming. . ."

You're joking right? The Athletic is profitable in just one city, Toronto. Google DK Sports and read up on the interesting way they do their books and treat their workers. You might be right about newspapers failing but if you think these sites will last, you are the one living under a rock.

How about addressing the poor coverage we've received for decades from the decaying brick & mortar jobs? Better still, how about the yuk-fest that prevailed while they manufactured during the search that resulted in Keith Dambrot? That's a big reason why those dinosaurs will end up in someone's gas tank.

Because it's their job.

ElDuque wrote:

So, ritter, I'm having trouble reconciling these two statements:

"I'm sure if the P-G and Trib go out of business, there will be dozens of ways to get information and features on the team, right? Right?" and,

"The coverage matched the program. We've stunk for decades. The program has been a joke and still might be under Dambrot. Who knows? Over the last 40 years, we've probably had no more the 15 sellouts. Our own students didn't care. Our admin didn't care. Why would you expect the newspapers to care?"

Are you saying we should support two dying enterprises even though they don't need or want to cover us?

Please understand: I am not trying to be argumentative here. If you're a fan of old-school print newspapers, that's fine. Continue to support them. I'm a fan of Duquesne basketball. My hunger for information about the program has been fed, not by P-G morons who painted the University to look like a clown show when in fact it was doing the right thing, but by the Zacs and PSNs and the kid at DKPS who perform like REAL journalists.

Don't get me wrong. I still like to read Bouchette and Ray but otherwise don't have much need for the P-G. DKPS has Dale Lolley and the Athletic has Kaboly, so I get my money's worth right there.

I hope that at some point this upcoming season you can relax and enjoy this program a bit.

You won't read about it in the P-G or T-R, unless you want wire service reports. And playing/not playing Bobby Mo (although I always like local rivalries) won't mean a hill o' jack-diddley once the NCAA Tournament committee sits down together.

So happy summer!

The first quote is sarcasm. I've got to do a better job of it if people aren't getting it. 
While the paper product of newspapers is indeed dying out, newspapers are not. They are simply transitioning to Web-only services.

These other entities do a nice job of promoting their product, promising a lot and delivering a little at a price that will surely rise to cover their costs. Most of what I've read on these sites is no more insightful or informative than what I see on the PG and Trib sites. They don't get special access or preferential treatment from the schools. They probably write a few more features but hey there are only about 15 players on each roster and those dry up fast.

As for game coverage, wire service is all they deserved for all those losing years, especially on the road. You earn coverage by being successful. No one reads about you when you consistently lose like we have done. Have you noticed reader comments on the PG and Trib sites over the last 5 years. Crickets.

If Dambrot is successful, you will get increased coverage. I do hope that happens. If you want to pay for subscriptions sites, God Bless you. It's your money. 

Happy summer to you.