Westender wrote:

Good thing they were playing Fordham. They need a lot of work at beating pressure closing out tight games.

Should have put that game away with six point lead and less than one minute. Missed free throw and then a five second penalty, trying to inbound, after Fordham hit a three, instead of calling time out.

Hey, as I have said, this is about the fifth game like this that would have been a loss under Ferry
 

Austin was sick.

Imitation is the sincerest form of flattery

Nice win Dukes & Coach Dambrot. BUT....At crunch time when Fordham was fouling to get the Dukes on the line for the front end of a 1 on 1 WHY was TDM taking the ball out with no ability to run the sideline. Huge mistake by the coaching staff. Secondly, why Lamar taking ball in under hoop instead of Weathers? Coach Dambrot 400 wins & counting. Very good coach. But the great coaches don’t make these mistakes. The all time great coaches in all sports are chess players 3 to 4 moves ahead of their counterparts who are for the most part below to average IQ. COACH DAMBROT is at 2 moves ahead of the game. Get to the third level  & get to 500 career  wins. Go Dukes.

Ironduke81 wrote:

Nice win Dukes & Coach Dambrot. BUT....At crunch time when Fordham was fouling to get the Dukes on the line for the front end of a 1 on 1 WHY was TDM taking the ball out with no ability to run the sideline. Huge mistake by the coaching staff. Secondly, why Lamar taking ball in under hoop instead of Weathers? Coach Dambrot 400 wins & counting. Very good coach. But the great coaches don’t make these mistakes. The all time great coaches in all sports are chess players 3 to 4 moves ahead of their counterparts who are for the most part below to average IQ. COACH DAMBROT is at 2 moves ahead of the game. Get to the third level  & get to 500 career  wins. Go Dukes.

I liked this gritty road win because despite shooting poorly, missing Maceo, committing too many turnovers, & having the post game mostly taken away, I felt that the Dukes looked energized & confident for the last 35 minutes of the game.

The defense, last 30 minutes of rebounding, & FT shooting were almost perfect to win a choppy game against a desperate opponent in their house.

Sin has been a strong lead guard over the last 3 games. Marcus got a bunch of good work done even though his scoring had been taken away. I just know that if Lamar works the system, he will string together 3-4 strong games & then blossom.

Mike Hughes gets homered out of multiple blocks virtually every road game. This one was really bad.

I wanted to go all positive with this post but I must second IronDuke81 on his 2 late game observances. Those are coaching blunders. The 5 second call is particularly grievous.

Finally, when then low post offense is stymied & the deep shots are not falling against a team that wants to play slow, I don't understand the reluctance push a bit more and/or get post-ups from the secondary break.

DennisC91 wrote:

Norman was indeed a curious choice for that inbounds play. A taller and/or more experienced player would have been a better fit. Not only that but Lamar's the second-best FT shooter on the team, 84.6% to TDM's 86.4. I would have thought he'd be the second option to receive the inbounds pass, not the guy trying to inbound the ball. Anyone have any insights to coach's thinking there?

I'd assume he was more worried about getting the ball inbounds safely than who would be taking the shots. Obviously there are priorities to who shoots, but better to have a good shooter safely pass in to a less accurate shooter than have a bigger or worse shooter pass into a great shooter and have it stolen.

phil95 wrote:

Mike Hughes gets homered out of multiple blocks virtually every road game. This one was really bad.

I have to agree with this one. I was shocked to get home and see Hughes' stat line. I even worked out a stat based on his block output (when he doesn't get them we aren't good). Then I watched the broadcast and saw at least two blocks that were clearly Hughes' that must have been credited to other guys. That kind of killed the stat, because the breaking point for team success based on Hughes' blocks is 2. If he gets 2 we are really tough to beat. 1 or 0 and we usually struggle.

The officials turn some of Hughes' clean blocks into fouls.  But the score keepers also miss lots of blocks by Mike and the other guys.  In fact, I saw Norman block a shot two games in a row, and neither found its way into the box score.

OK, thanks, luckymcd and Econ69 for weighing in on the choice of Norman to inbound. I watched it again on my DVR. Initially Hughes took the ball, then, perhaps on directions from the bench, he called Norman over to take it. I thought the other players on the court (Carry, TDM, Hughes and Weathers) were a little slow to get open and come back to the ball. But Weathers got inside position on his defender along the baseline and I'm pretty sure could have safely taken the inbounds pass and drawn a quick foul. Carry and TDM couldn't get separation at all. Hughes went long and was open but I doubt Norman could see him with Soriano's 6-11, 250 frame fronting him. Maybe Norman waited too long for TDM or Carry to get free or maybe he just panicked, hard to tell. But I think the result speaks for itself. Norman's pretty much a spot-up shooting guard, not really known for his passing or decision-making skills. If that was what Keith was going for then just let Carry--who was desperately trying to call timeout on the court--inbound it. Or just let your veterans (Hughes or Weathers) handle it, at least they'd know to call timeout if they couldn't find anyone open. Norman seemed a bit in over his head.

I hadn't even realized Hughes wasn't credited with any blocks in the game. His emphatic rejection of Colon's layup attempt with 20 seconds left was credited to Weathers according to the play-by-play sheet on ESPN.