I think this has the potential to be Duquesne's best recruiting class since Atkins/Arnold/Scott. CLK and 81, I'm curious what you guys think.

PS, I reached out to the dean of NJ HS sportswriters for a scouting report on Davis and Okani.

ElDuque wrote:

I think this has the potential to be Duquesne's best recruiting class since Atkins/Arnold/Scott. CLK and 81, I'm curious what you guys think.

PS, I reached out to the dean of NJ HS sportswriters for a scouting report on Davis and Okani.

I try to not get overly excited by recruits. We've seen it from both sides. Guys with no hype like Aaron Jackson, Mike James, and Derrick Alston became studs. We've also seen supposed 3 star players who did nothing. That said, it appears to be a nice mix of guys who might contribute immediately, and then take over after our studs graduate, some guys who might be nice role players (nothing wrong with having a TDM, or Jason Duty), and a couple of developmental guys who potentially have high ceilings. I like it because we would have been depending on too many "wish and hope" type players after Mike and Marcus were done. Some of those "wish and hopes" might come true, but it's nice to have options. I guess we'll learn soon enough who'll be leaving. Hope it's no "shockers".

ElDuque wrote:

I reached out to the dean of NJ HS sportswriters for a scouting report on Davis and Okani.

I'm curious who that is ElDuque. I can understand if you don't want to share, but I covered high school sports in north Jersey for a few years, so I am curious.

I am a tad bit disappointed, but what else is new. You might have picked up a core 4-6 (minus Sincere’s eventual replacement) and there’s zero enthusiasm. OK, go back to speculating on who’s leaving, if that makes you happier. I’ll go talk to similarly optimistic folks who are happy with Keith Dambrot and what he’s doing.

Reuben was from Bayamon, PR.

grammudder wrote:

Reuben was from Bayamon, PR.

Mickey Davila was also Puerto Rican.
 

WEB wrote:

duq81 wrote:

The Dukes will be an upperclassmen dominated team next year, but didn't have enough good players in the pipeline to replace these guys over the next two years. That is no longer the case. These guys will get their feet wet next year, and then be ready to assume major roles over the following two years. This prevents the team from dropping like a rock after the upperclassmen graduate. Good job Keith!!

I dont necessarily agree with this. There are some great players in this. I see 2 with high ceilings. The rest are wild cards. I believe the class to replace Hughes, weathers and tdm is far more important. You can offer guys immediate playing time whereas you cant do that with this class. We should be shooting for the moon for the next wave of recruits and not the wild card type guys.
Dont forget also that we are 2 over the limit and will be losing likely at least one guy who we were planning on playing more than token minutes this year. We obviously wont have that guy next year either.

Next year is a bigger deal.

Great observation, WEB. Couldn't agree more. This train is picking up steam with the hope that each year is better than the last. This current crop of incoming players is loaded with wild cards, much like some of the past classes. Let's hope these guys all can stick.

WEB wrote:

duq81 wrote:

The Dukes will be an upperclassmen dominated team next year, but didn't have enough good players in the pipeline to replace these guys over the next two years. That is no longer the case. These guys will get their feet wet next year, and then be ready to assume major roles over the following two years. This prevents the team from dropping like a rock after the upperclassmen graduate. Good job Keith!!

I dont necessarily agree with this. There are some great players in this. I see 2 with high ceilings. The rest are wild cards. I believe the class to replace Hughes, weathers and tdm is far more important. You can offer guys immediate playing time whereas you cant do that with this class. We should be shooting for the moon for the next wave of recruits and not the wild card type guys.

Dont forget also that we are 2 over the limit and will be losing likely at least one guy who we were planning on playing more than token minutes this year. We obviously wont have that guy next year either.

Next year is a bigger deal.

I don't agree with this. Two starters will be graduating next year. Most likely Harris will take over for Mike. Harris is a 3 star who had offers from two Big East schools, and he'll have a year under his belt. Who, that we could get, is likely to walk in and send him to the bench? A 4 or 5 star guy could do it, and those are not coming to Duquesne, at least not yet. As for Marcus' spot, yeah, it could be more likely, but still they'll have 2 guys with a year under their belt to compete with, and possibly Kelly as well. We're past the point where KD is going to offer recruits playing time. They'll have to earn it, and the competition will be stiff.

I have to go with what Coach Dambrot has to say on this subject.  You know the guy who took a losing program for years and won, 16, 19 & 21 game the last three years.

“I’ll be surprised if some of don’t play a lot,” he said. “I’ll be honest with you. I don’t know which ones. But I’d be surprised if two, three, four of them don’t play a lot.“I feel like it’s it’s a high-level class for us. … You’re pretty much set up for the next four years if you go six for six.”

CLK wrote:

I have to go with what Coach Dambrot has to say on this subject.  You know the guy who took a losing program for years and won, 16, 19 & 21 game the last three years.
.”

FAM wrote:

I didn't want to start a new thread because I don't want to take any focus away from the wonderful recruiting class.  Nice Job DU Coaches!  So, we keep speculating (and I'm glad no-one has put up names) of who will leave.  I want to mention a why.  For sake of argument, here are 7 common reasons to leave are...
1.  You kind of know you aren't going to play much - so you of course want to leave and play somewhere.  If this is the case, then you either have more folks ahead of you who are better and you believe you are as good, or you and the coach may not get along in either his eyes or yours.
2.  You are so good (not said sarcastically) that you can transfer to a higher program.
3.  The academics may be too difficult
4.  You may have broken some type of law, etc.
5.  Personal issues in terms of family, health, etc.
6.  We still don't know enough information and one of those folks could be on an academic scholarship.
7.  We still can't count!

I have no idea who will  be leaving, but I will be interested to see which made-up category I just wrote that they will fall into!  Go Dukes



 

Of the guys who left, the only one I felt comfortable mentioning ahead of time was Frankie Hughes, and this was simply because his moving on was such a no brainer for him, and not a case of us just wanting to get rid of him. In a world with unlimited slots, sure it would have been nice to keep him, but in the situation he was in, I'd have made the same decision he did 99 times out 100. To me, it even made more sense than what Tarin Smith did, and I didn't find fault with his move either. The two freshman guards was a bit of a surprise, because we didn't know that KD had so many irons in the fire. Most of us thought maybe one of them at most would be moving on. That said, neither was a high level recruit, and I get the feeling that KD had two spots open, and doesn't believe in letting spots go unused, thus he took a flyer on those two. He's done that before. It gets hard now. I think there is one who wouldn't be a total shock, but anyone else is going to be a surprise.
 

As I mentioned about a week or so ago, we are definitely two over now that Harris has signed. I love the depth, versatility, and ceiling of this class. I think Harris and Acuff have a very solid chance of being All A-10 type guys. Okani looks like he has the potential to get there as well with some development. Baker and Roesing seem like the wild card “low floor high ceiling” type guys based on how their games develop. Bekelja to me is the biggest question mark in terms of on court production in his career here, but there are plenty of reasons for him to be here for the next two years that don’t involve his on-court production.

As I also mentioned, I have heard that one of the 2 names has basically been all but finalized. Some will be upset but I think most will understand. The other name is a total question mark and much scarier.

That said, I don’t see any of the “core” leaving at this point.

Something I think that has been under discussed for years on this board is the experience of this team. While we haven’t had many seniors in the past few years, guys like F Hughes, M Hughes, Weathers, TDM were technically all seniors last year based on when they started college. When they all first played here they were sophomores, but they were really juniors in terms of college basketball program experience. I also think this experience helped us win a lot of games down the stretch last year. We were able to grind out wins at the line and use savvy and depth to get opponents in foul trouble and outlast teams at the end. Should be even better at it next year.

The seniors have been through so much with KD and the Duquesne program. They went through last year and have seen the team progress every year since they arrived. They are coming off a 21 win “what could have been” season, and have a new state of the art arena opening this year (hopefully). It wouldn’t be much of a sell job to these guys to suggest we can compete for an A10 title next year. I think the guys that would have left from that group (F Hughes and Randall) have gone. We have seen and heard from these guys themselves how tight the remaining group is.

Additionally, I see Carry, Maceo, and now Bekelja as a type of untouchable triangle as well. Carry and Bekelja are brothers, and Maceo is like a brother to both of them as well. As long as the three are here, I don’t think any of those three go either.

The rest to me is a “read between the lines” type of situation with who is left on the roster.

Warning: everything stated about the second name is (educated) speculation.