Few more things:

Quick glance, Bona is in a “mid major” influenced tourney in the Virgin Islands. Their tourney year with Adams/Mobley they played in the 4 team tournament near Destin, FL and beat Maryland and lost to TCU. Despite 2 NCAAs and an NIT under Schmidt, they aren’t really getting in these tournaments either.

- the link I posted, I had not looked at in a long while and see that the MGM Event in Vegas has filled their two teams. That was one I was hoping for us as two spots stood vacant throughout the season. Colorado State and San Francisco filled the two spots.  Duquesne in place of USF or CSU would’ve been nice as a crack at one of our hopefully both Louisville and/or Arkansas would’ve been nice.

Phoenix, we can add the Cayman Islands to the list. Forgot about that one. I remember reading on Twitter (grain of salt)  it wasn’t well run the first year Richmond was in it, but it seems to be picking up in stature.

You would think being 7-8 years out from the 2013 Sweet 16 run and no other postseason of note that La Salle being in the A10 rotation of teams invited would’ve expired by now.

Unfortunately for us, we can’t cite postseason track record nor guarantee that we’ll bring a big contingent of fans. The teams for the next season’s field are usually announced as soon as the present tournament ends. Even if we dance in 2021, we’d be looking at fall of 2022 to get in one of those mentioned tournaments based on name brand/recent success.

Heck, I look at these almost like a college football fan might look at what bowl they want invited to and Maryland was one of the few P5 teams not slated for a tournament in 2020 which is why I think this event both schools are a part of came together.

With the uncertainty of the times we live in, who knows what we’ll become of these events. Wooden Legacy is now reduced to a 4 team event. Basketball is still a cheap TV production compared to other sports, so I think they’ll exist but never know.

Thank you all for the kind words. I'm glad you are enjoying the few games I have. I'm also glad that I got these on YouTube so that they can have a place for fans to watch and see some fun and exciting moments in Duquesne history before the VHS tape completely fades away over time.  The only other games I have in my possession on tape are losses from 2009, at Duke and the A10 Final. If/when I find the 2010 home win over Dayton, I will add that and post it here.

The last thing I have for now is another poor quality vid, this one of an iPhone filming an HD TV, is Micah and Jerry Jones leading the Dukes to the upset win over top 10 ranked SLU back in 2014.


 

luckymcd wrote:

Brian wrote:

I don't have a large library of games in my possession, but I do have a few. I had a good feeling about this game going in. Maybe it was the Steelers winning the Super Bowl a week earlier in dramatic fashion. Possibly it was remembering that in my time in school (Nee era), Duquesne gave Xavier some trouble despite the difference in the two programs.
 

All this time I thought I was the only board member from the Nee years. I'm curious about a couple games from our years if you might have them. Of course even the highlights in those years were mostly losses, but here you go:

2001 vs. George Washington - A rare sellout because the game was on TV (something I've never understood). SirValient "One Nut" Brown took the taunts personally and carried GW to victory. He nailed the game winner and then sprinted off the court flipping off the student section. I am told I also made my ESPN debut at this game.

2003 vs. Xavier - The game you mentioned when we should have beaten a damn good Xavier team with David West. We were all ready to rush the court at the end of regulation before they tied it up. We managed to keep it close even in overtime, but it was another could have should have would have for a team that was so much more talented than their record.

2004 vs. Pitt - The one and only time I ever saw scalpers selling tickets to the Palumbo Center. It was the last sellout there for a very long time. We kept it close for awhile against a good Pitt team, and even led at the half. It was a pretty good scene inside too until they pulled away in the second half.

Unfortunately I do not have those on tape nor any highlights. I do remember the game vs pitt being on FS Pittsburgh. Don't remember if the Xavier game was on TV. Back then (haha) the game might be broadcast by the A10 syndicated network or the other school's local network and it was, at best, a 50/50 chance it would actually air here in Pittsburgh on FS Pittsburgh, PCNC or th

@ phil
It was definitely the URI game. I listened to the game at work and when I got home I started watching the tape between 10:30 and 11 at night. Dukes/URI was a close but crisp game and was over in 2 hours. After watching it, I tuned into ESPN to see what I thought was SportsCenter and the Cuse-UConn game was still going on.
 

I remember listening to some of the NIT win over UNC-Charlotte as a kid. A two point postseason win in front of a big crowd at the AJP would have been fun to be a part of.
 

While disappointed Michael didn't make all defensive team, I'm happy for Marcus making All A10 second team.
Now if we can get a guy or two on the All Tournament team, I think we'll be pleased with how the weekend shaped up for our Dukes.

Took Dayton 30 minutes to shake GW, but they get the 18-0 season while GW falls to 11.

URI survives at UMass, winning by 1 after an iffy foul call on Tre Mitchell for UMass.
SLU hammers Bona.

Dukes are 6th, will play winner of GW-Fordham for last game of the night on Thursday. Winner will get 3 seed URI.
 

FAM wrote:

https://www.a10talk.com/duquesne-basketball-this-is-only-the-beginning/

https://richmond.forums.rivals.com/threads/duequesne.12222/
Enjoy!

Funny, last year they were a PIG participant and reading their board before and after the Dukes win down there, there was enough arrogance towards Duquesne to make a place like PantherLair blush. Now with their full allotment of players, a second seeded team for the A10s and much on the line for the dance regarding this game, they acknowledge this game certainly could be a challenge for them.

Lot of keys to the game: Richmond has a lot of firepower.  They can really shoot it, especially Francis, Gilyard and Sherrod. Golden doesn't really shoot threes anymore enhancing their offense by being a passer and low post scorer while being more efficient.
They never grab offensive rebounds, so keeping them off the glass if they miss is an absolute must as well as the foul line (best in the A10).

I think of Richmond's offense but they are the best defensive team by efficiency in the league as Phoenix's post illustrates. I tend to think that matchup zone is giving teams fits on the perimeter with Gilyard's ability to rack up steals and the sub 30% three point shooting against. 
With that said, looking at last year's box score, Sin was KenPom box score MVP and our front line was 55% (11-20) from two point range. Sincere's ability to penetrate, finish drives or find our front line players inside for finishes will be, I believe the way the Dukes can get this done on the offensive end.

Looking forward to it and I think this will be an exciting game with hopefully a Dukes W.

They’ve dropped in losses but all the B1G teams, outside of Northwestern and Nebraska are ranked highly so they’re not being penalized as harshly.**

Minnesota is 2-5 in their last seven but +10 in point differential over those seven games. They also have the hardest schedule per Kenpom factoring his ratings and where the games are played.

I’d say Purdue keeps their ranking afloat behind the large margin of victories they’ve enjoyed over Virginia, Michigan  St, Iowa , Wisconsin and Indiana. They’ve been ranked high all year so every loss or string of losses has been negated by these huge margin of victories they’ve enjoyed over highly ranked teams.

*Purdue lost to Nebraska and dropped from 6th to 10 which is where, in my opinion, I feel KenPom favors the Power Conference teams since they start the season ranked highly based off the preseason projections and a loss such as a double digit loss at Nebraska while ranked as a top 10 team drops you only a few spots. Teams around 100 that have lost to Nebraska and Northwestern this year have dropped 15-30 spots after losing to them.

TL/DR: the metrics seem to reward blowout wins , close losses to highly ranked teams and doesn’t favor teams that win a lot of close games as much and if you can get one of those lofty rankings (barring a total collapse) you’re not as likely to drop

townsonkid wrote:

I/m not sure the announcers yet know that VCU was playing Duquesne, not Dayton, and its Carry not Curry or Rotroff, not Rutroff.   They were homers for sure.   It made it even better when TDM, Lamar and Steele hit those 3s late.    

I was surprised VCU had that kind of a broadcast. They’re one of the league’s  favorites so they’re more likely to be on National tv than ESPN+. I just figured they’d have more of a TV feel than a stream feed feel, the way Dayton and SLU are on Fox Sports affiliates for their home games.

We’ve now had at least one game with every school’s home announcers on ESPN+ these last two seasons.

I’d say the best two have been UMass & George Mason. Play by play guys were fair and at the very least didn’t bungle names and the color commentary came from ex head coaches Craig Esherick for Mason and Frank Sullivan for UMass (I had to look his name up) that could talk strategy and had studied some of the film of the Dukes which meant they at least knew some tendencies and not stick to a narrative all game.

Least favorites were La Salle due to poor quality of feed (Their PBP guy gets crushed by the opposition’s fans with the “POW!!” calls on threes which wasn’t as annoying to me) and Bona’s felt like running commentary from two Bona fans talking trash all game. The win last week would be a tad bit sweeter if it was on ESPN+ instead of Stadium.

WHAT.A.WIN!!!

Best road win since...last Wednesday.

Even sweeter considering the plays and points left on the table + questionable calls on the Dukes

I think this clinches no lower than the 6th seed, but 4th seed is one step closer to happening. 

Now in a three way tie with Bona & SLU at 10-6 for the 4th seed.

Duq- @ VCU, vs. UR
Bona- vs. SJU, @ SLU
SLU - @Mason, vs. Bona

A three-way tie at the end of the year should go our way with a combined 3-1 vs Bona/SLU vs Bona being 2-1 at best.