I am in substantial agreement with the above posts. This board hasn't been more negative relative to team record. Win and we'll be more positive. Furthermore, we may not be a big NIL spender, but we're probably spending more than we ever have. The more money a player gets, the more is expected. I'm not referring to abuse, but rather criticism when performance is clearly poor.

Sounds like there's a suspicion of point-shaving on this thread. I doubt that. The way that usually works, a leading scorer on a clear favorite is bribed by a bettor who places a bet on the underdog. The player misses shots on purpose, his team still wins, and the bettor wins because the favorite didn't win by enough. First, we haven't been a clear favorite. Second, no one is scoring enough points to shave. Third, with NIL money around, who needs bribes?

WashPaRick wrote:

They have us with 0 commits.

It looks like if a player is not 3, 4, or 5-star in their ratings, then he is not considered a commitment at all and therefore gets a score of zero. Star ratings have not been that accurate historically anyway..
 

What you may have seen, DuqBlue, is that we didn't get into this new NCAA tournament with a similar name. I wasn't expecting to because the NCAA is so preoccupied with NET rankings and ours is 125. 
WNIT is still a good tournament. I noticed that they reduced the number of teams from 64 to 48 and the automatic qualifiers are all mid-majors, but there are 6 P-6 teams in the field.

BluffHunter, it's logical we should have right of first refusal for a home game. It's the least we can do to reward this team.
 

So happy for the players and coaches, all fans and alumni living and deceased, and most especially for the venerable Mr. Ray Goss.

I fundamentally agree with luckymcd. When the NET rankings first came out it seemed like the NIT committee just took the at-large teams with the next-highest NET rankings. If they are still picking teams that way our position is still precarious even though 3 websites pick us for the NIT. I would feel a lot better if we won today.

I would feel even better if we proved Joe Lunardi and Jerry Palm wrong. They are picking VCU to win the league tournament.

luckymcd wrote:

CLK wrote:

https://triblive.com/sports/city-game-in-the-nit-could-happen-if-pitt-duquesne-dont-make-ncaa-tournament/

I applaud Dambrot for his availability and willingness to comment on the topic. For the life of me I can’t figure out why he’s so complementary of Capel though. I’m not saying he should be ripping him apart publicly or anything, but there’s no need to be that complimentary of a rival who pretty much single-handedly cancelled the rivalry. The bottom line is Pitt wouldn’t even be on the bubble if they were willing to play anybody decent (including the Dukes this year) in the non-conference.

I suspect he's just trying to avoid "bulletin board material" which would rile up Pitt. There are at least 2 "NIT Bracketology" websites that say we will be playing Pitt in the NIT. He may be entirely sincere but I see advantage to avoiding criticism.

SkepticAl wrote:

Perhaps DU should de-emphasize major college athletics -  be more like Carnegie Mellon (They DO have a basketball team)  The school would continue to offer the Duquesne Education to any athlete who desires one going forward recruit STUDENT-ATHLETES as opposed to ATHLETE-STUDENTS.   Spare me the "Gonzaga Argument" where there is the talk about how admissions etc increase due to the quality of the basketball team -   I will counter with the "Indiana Argument"   when Bob Knight was terminated -  contributions/donations to the athletic department declined -  it was MORE THAN OFFSET by increases to the University as a whole.   Perhaps more attention should be given to Andy the Accountant and Paula the Pharmacist as opposed to Joann the Jump Shooter and Raymond the Rebounder.

Now there's a thought. Hartford (about 6000 students) went from D-1 to D-3 and St. Francis (NY) (about 2500 students) dropped intercollegiate athletics altogether. They're still in business. Besides, how many current students came to Duquesne becsuse of successful sports teams?
 

BluffHunter wrote:

PhoenixRising2 wrote:

The A-10 is the 2nd strongest basketball only conference, trailing the Big East. The A-10 is in seven of the top 30 media markets, including New York (1), Chicago (2), Philadelphia (4), Washington (9), Charlotte (22), St. Louis (23) and Pittsburgh (26). Every single conference game is available to view via national broadcast (79) games, regional and streaming.  The conference tournament from the 2nd round on is broadcast on national TV.

Note: women's basketball also benefits strongly from the A10 conference affiliation.  Every single conference game is available to view via national broadcast games, regional and streaming.

Lower level conferences do not have this luxury.  For example, take the Colonial Athletic Association (Charleston, Hofstra, UNCW, Drexel, etc.) - their major streaming partner is FloHoops (with some schools picking up the production costs for some regional and ESPN+ streaming games).  Including their conference championship, they only have 27 men's games nationally televised on CBSSN. 

The A10 is where the Dukes belong; there really is no better alternative.  That being said, there are a couple of disturbing trends in process that the A10 must correct quickly.
1) Not getting multiple NCAA bids
2) Inability to schedule Power 6 / Top 50 teams as part of the non-conference schedules.
These somewhat go hand in hand.  It has been very tough for most A10 teams to schedule top 50 games.  This year, the A10 has played 25 top 50 teams, compiling a 5-20 record.  Dayton alone had 5 games, finishing 3-2.  The rest of the conference was 2-18 versus top 50 competition.  It's just not a Duquesne problem, but a league wide issue (excepting Dayton) to both schedule and then win a big game.  The NET has Dayton at 20; then the Bonnies at 71, with the next eight (8!) teams bunched between 72 and 108.  Those numbers would have skewed significantly downward if there were 4 or 5 more non conference wins ag

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