The departure of SMS has led to additional criticism of GA.  I think he is being being misevaluated. I am not his biggest fan, but with respect to SMS, he made the right move in hiring her and offered her good money to stay. We know that we cannot compete with bigger schools financially. The Pitt job was unique for her in that she gets more money than she can make with us and not have to move her family. So the SMS era was one of GA's success stories. 
In the long run, we will not measure GA by the success of the women's basketball program or all the other sports. The issue is whether he can develop and maintain a successful men's basketball program. Everything else pales by comparison. We are in transition now and time will tell.

Not a surprise.

SMS would more than double her income if she took the Pitt job. The drive to work is the same. The conference is an upgrade. The A10 gets no respect from the NCAA for at large bids, so unless Duquesne wins the tournament or the league she doesn't get to go. Her visibility would be greater in the ACC. Some of her assistants have Pitt connections. Pitt will hire her if they think she will get the job done for them. Her PSU experience is long ago. I would be surprised if she wouldn't seriously consider the position. The fact that Pitt is close by would not stop them from interviewing her just as we had no hesitation in interviewing Danny Nee when he was at RMU.

I would like to see us stop at four recruits. We had four last year and with four in the upcoming year, that puts us in good shape for the years after that. With a class of five, we will pay down the road by not being able to fill in spots due to too few scholarships.

I watched him play once as a junior at home and once as a senior on the road at Valley HS in New Ken. His skills make him a two guard, although he had to handle the ball a lot. I think he's better at bringing up the ball than Sean Johnson was when he was put into that role this year. He is not a tenacious defender, nor is he super quick. He is both a shooter and a scorer. By that I mean that if he is off, he will continue to find ways to score, especially by getting to the line, where he is automatic. If he were on our team, I think his role would to be to come off the bench and shoot 3s, similar to the red haired kid from Xavier who fills that role for them. Given our scholarship situation, I don't see him getting an offer from us; we are looking at bigger, faster players. He has done a remarkable job of turning himself into a very good player, practicing shots for hours at a time. There should be no criticism of him coming back to this area, given his medical condition and the need for a special diet.

We knew intellectually coming into this year that we would be a poor team. We forgot how bad it feels to go through a season like this.

I agree that the freshmen are out of gas. That being said, I'm not sure how good they can be once they get to be juniors. Jim Ferry got into the job late and had little time to recruit, so this is not a criticism of him.

ESPN is reporting that the Catholic 7 will form their own league next year calling it the Big East. They will be joined by Xavier and Butler, which will be required to pay the Atlantic 10 two million each to leave with less than one year's notice.

Let me be the first to say that I am happy to have been wrong about the Temple game. I like my crow with brown sugar sprinkled on top!

I think Derrick Martin played the best of our four big men last night and deserved more playing time. Datt, Abele and Marhold simply can't get it done. If Martin can improve that would be good for the future.

I thought Abele was perfectly suited for this game because it was not fast paced like VCU and St. Louis was big. Other than the WVU game, this was his best effort. So I was surprised when he did not get back in for the last four minutes or so. When he was there, he altered some of their shots. When he was out, they had free access to the basket. That said, I'm not sure that's why we lost the game. We continue to shoot free throws poorly and we continue to make too many unforced turnovers. Coulter plays a lot of minutes and he is only a freshman; perhaps too much is on his shoulders. Finally I was surprised that St. Louis was not a better team. They shot poorly (other than free throws) and that kept us in the game.

I have been thinking that the Dukes no longer have any rivals. In the 50s we were neck and neck with Dayton for NIT titles. In the late 60s we filled the arena on Sundays when the Bonnies were in town. In the 70s Pitt started to improve and they were our rival. But now, I see no rivals, unless it's Robert Morris, and we would prefer not to have them in that position, and lately they have been winning more than we do. Typically conferences lead to the development of rivals, but our inconsistency has not let that happen. And the future does not look like it will develop rivalries for awhile due to our program and the upcoming changes in the A10. Rivalries develop fan interest, which we certainly could use. It's a shame.

Recipe for losing. A team that is very hot. 8 for 8 to start off the second half and 5 of those were long threes. A team that is  quicker than us. A team that commits 25 turnovers, resulting in 31 points for the opponent.

If we played them again I think they would win a close game just like it was in the first half. They have beaten us three in a row. On their radio show after the game they noted that they now have hold of the spot for second best team in Pittsburgh. On our show after the game, Coach Ferry said that he could beat them with his team from last year, but not with this team.

We all knew this was going to be a difficult year. Wait until we are on the road in the league.