Also agreed. Strange how the first game in league play is a must win.

This will not be an easy game for us. We play poorly on the road, and Fordham by now has scouted us and know if it can take Coulter out of his game it can have its way with us. I can see a double-digit loss for Ferry's "homecoming" (the Bronx is as close as we'll get to LI).

A must win but not an easy one. It should be a nail biter. In fact, if it isn't, we are probably in big trouble! The road is very unforgiving and certainly has been for our Dukes. Looking forward to an extremely close win.

Duquesne begins Atlantic 10 play after long hiatus
January 8, 2013 10:16 pm
By Paul Zeise / Pittsburgh Post-Gazette

Read more: http://www.post-gazette.com/stories/sports/duquesne/duquesne-begins-atlantic-10-play-after-long-hiatus-669553/#ixzz2HTiXuSBl

"Duquesne will get a little help under the basket tonight, as 6-foot-9 sophomore forward Mamadou Datt, who sat out the first semester to focus on academics, will be on the bench for the first time. He appeared in 31 games last season and averaged 2.1 points and 2.2 rebounds per game."

Fordham on Yes, makes me think about the Dukes on Root Sports.  With the NHL being settled and a new schedule with them playing alot of games, I hope our Root Sports scheduled games are not bumped.   There is no NHL schedule as of yet, so it is hard to know.

As Penn State and Louisiana Lafayette have proven, you don't need good guards to beat Duquesne. You only need to rattle Coulter. Ferry's had a couple weeks to figure it out, so I hope Derrick can be effective for us.

He is the key. A good game by Coulter and we win. A bad game and we're under .500.

47-41 at half, dukes getting beat on boards, Rams have size and bulk inside, need a great come back to pull this out,

We don't have the horses. I doubt we'll win another road game this year. Ferry will need to ease a few guys out the door this spring.

duq81 wrote:

We don't have the horses. I doubt we'll win another road game this year. Ferry will need to ease a few guys out the door this spring.

Isn't easing guys out the door one of the biggest reasons GA cited for firing RE??

Westender wrote:

duq81 wrote:

We don't have the horses. I doubt we'll win another road game this year. Ferry will need to ease a few guys out the door this spring.

Isn't easing guys out the door one of the biggest reasons GA cited for firing RE??

When a new coach comes in, he can ease out some of the holdover players without it being used against him. RE cleaned house when he got here, and rightfully so. When you start running off your own guys, that's when it can become a problem, and the negative recruiters begin to use it against you.

NapaDuke wrote:

But Ron won and with a shooting and with a very short bench in his first year.  Ferry has a 7 foot center on the bench and is loosing inside but BIG TIME!!!!!  At this point,  don't compare Ferry to Ron.  At this point Ferry is no Ron.  Ron knew how to play small and win.  Ferry, at this point, doesn't look, at this point, as the heigher level??? In fact he is looking more like Danny than Ron.  Be careful what you wish for 81.

Let's not get carried away. Ron won 9 games his first year. He caught teams off guard for a few games with 10/40. He didn't have much to work with, but I'll take Achara, and Ajax by themselves over what Ferry inherited. Next year will tell us more about Ferry. He has to get more talent in here. Watkins is a good start, but more help is needed.

FAM wrote:

Thanks for the data DUQ81.  I also forgot that only 9 games were one by RE in Year 1.

Because of the circumstances, 9 wins felt good. Also, the fact that the spurt of good play occurred later in the season, left a good taste in our mouths. When the team faded at the very end, we attributed it to fatigue. This team had it's spurt very early, which caused expectations to rise among some. This team was projected to be the worst in the A10 by nearly all of the so called experts for a reason. The team lacks both size and talent. It's small ball again, and for the same reason. It's not because Ferry, or RE last year, thought that small lineups were the answer. It's because we don't have any bigs that can play. We have to get some size who can play. Soko, and Watkins will help, but we need more like them.