I don't know what this team is going to be next year, but I think it's safe to say it will win a couple conference games.

In fairness to Danny Nee, let's remember that he lost his best player, Kieron Achara, for the season that year. He was still a bum who deserved to get fired, but that's probably a 7-8 win team if he's healthy. Achara and Jackson were 2 very nice pieces to build around, and RE did a great job of filling in around them. If Baldonado had played, we'd likely be talking about the 20+ games RE won in his second year. Unfortunately, the best player at the end of RE's tenure stabbed him in the back, costing him his job, and leaving the new coach with not much to work with. Sorry if that bothers you TJ lovers, but that's how I feel about the bum.

The ESPN writer is way off base and clueless if he thinks Derrick Colter is the key to this team this year.  How do you say Ovie Soko?  I wanna see Watkins and McKoy and I wanna see if Mason is eligible.  And.... I wanna see if there is a late August or early September surprise enrolled in school in another big body or as a pure three point shooter.  Then and only then can legitimate forecasts/predictions be made.  Right now I see the Dukes as a five hundred team just based on the old and new talent level I saw this summer.  What Ferry has brought in is superior to what Ron brought in in his first wave of athletes and that includes Baldanado, Mensah, James, etc. etc. and to know where I am coming from, I took a year off from season tickets because of my personal feelings on how Ron was let  go, not that he was let go.  The sun is shining on the Bluff again!  A pox on ESPN!!!!!! See ya in a week or so-going to the PGA for FREE all week with my son who lives two miles from Oak Hill Country Club and is operations manager for a member of Oak Hill.  Don't ya just love kids. Bye, now.

Last edited by grammudder (8/07/2013 8:54 am)

CLK wrote:

steve19981 wrote:

CLK wrote:

RE inherited a 3 win team and won 17 games his second year.  Anything less than a winning season this year will be a major dissapointment to me.

I'd love a winning season and I hope it happens, but this team will need to come together pretty quickly to get there. The Dukes are going to need to pile the wins OOC because I really think the best they'll do in league is 5 or 6 wins. This is going to be a deeper A-10 than the one Ron joined even if they just lost a lot of schools. I don't see a doormat and there could be as many as 8 top 100 schools.

Steve this is not a shot at you, but I am not interested in apologies just results.  I do not think the bar is too high at a winning season.

Who's apologizing? Just looking at the entire picture and being realistic. This is a much more talented team but much more talented league than it was 7 or 8 years ago. There won't be any easy wins, home or away. Maybe my estimation is a little conservative, but I'm not interested in setting myself up to be disappointed either. I still like the direction the program is headed and I think this last class is deeper and more talented than the one that brought in BJ, Evans and Bolding. Ferry's rebuild just gets more difficult when the rest of the league is also adding but not losing much talent.

Last edited by steve19981 (8/07/2013 9:46 am)

ElDuque wrote:

In fairness to Duquesne fans, duq81, Danny Nee could've had LeBron and Kobe and still sucked the air out of the joint his last year. I was at the season opener that year at Palumbo. It was obvious that team was not prepared to play, and it went through the motions the way Nee went through the motions. Achara wasn't making a difference unless he was taking that team on its back and carrying it. He was a good player, but he wasn't great, at least in that sense.

Steve, I think the A-10 is a good league and top to bottom is very competitive. Last year might have been the apex for the conference, with Butler, Xavier, Temple, St. Louis, VCU, and a strong LaSalle. G. Mason and Davidson are certainly better than Charlotte, but not as good as the other schools that are leaving. And I don't think it's as good as it was in Ron's first two years without those schools. That's my humble opinion, of course, and this discussion is as hard to have as picking the top 10 players of all time.

CLK, I think it's fair to expect a winning season. What Ron accomplished and what the guy at Towson did in two years doesn't take rocket science, it takes having the players you want. No knock on Ferry, but he really doesn't have an excuse in terms of talent. I think the team needs some time to create chemistry. I'm still not sure what it's capable of, so I'm anxious to see it in action.

Grammudder, I understand what you're saying, but the way the write explained it, I think he's right. Colter will need to step up his game. The Dukes will never win with him taking 17 shots a night (and missing 12). He needs to be handing out 6-7 assists every night, he needs to learn how to beat pressure (last year, when teams focused on him, he folded like a seen-on-tv gadget), he needs to defend better, and he nees to hit FTs. If he's doing these things I think Soko, White, and Gill, among others, will score some points for us.

Most of this is true, except for the strength of the league. The league was awful Ron's first year. Only one team in the top 60, and 4 above 200 in the rpi.

Westender wrote:

81- how good was the conference in Ron's second year? That's the year in question - not his first year.

Better, but not great. Xavier was excellent, no one else was even close to that, with every other team posting double digit losses. Does that answer your question?

I think what Ron did his first three years was nothing short of extraordinary, but just because you don't get off to an extraordinary start doesn't mean that you can't be a next level coach. John Gianinni had an 18 win season mixed in with two 10 win seasons at Lasalle. Derek Kellogg finished under .500 his first two seasons and then an even .500 his third. Chris Mooney finished his second season with 8 wins before winning 16 the next year. Gregg Marshall of Witchita St went 17-17 his second year before breaking out in his third. Larry Eustachsy won a combined 21 games his first two years at Southern Miss.

My point is that if a coach does a lot his first three years great, but if they don't it's not a huge deal either. With the exception of Kellogg, each of the above is a bonafide next level coach. I think there is a good chance he'll join that company this year. Only Marshall and Eustachsy really took the next level jump by year 3, but neither had a winning record in year two. Unless there is something glaringly bad happening, I think a coach deserves 4 years before you start doubting he's the guy.

Last edited by steve19981 (8/07/2013 9:16 pm)

steve19981 wrote:

I think what Ron did his first three years was nothing short of extraordinary, but just because you don't get off to an extraordinary start doesn't mean that you can't be a next level coach. John Gianinni had an 18 win season mixed in with two 10 win seasons at Lasalle. Derek Kellogg finished under .500 his first two seasons and then an even .500 his third. Chris Mooney finished his second season with 8 wins before winning 16 the next year. Gregg Marshall of Witchita St went 17-17 his second year before breaking out in his third. Larry Eustachsy won a combined 21 games his first two years at Southern Miss.

My point is that if a coach does a lot his first three years great, but if they don't it's not a huge deal either. With the exception of Kellogg, each of the above is a bonafide next level coach. I think there is a good chance he'll join that company this year. Only Marshall and Eustachsy really took the next level jump by year 3, but neither had a winning record in year two. Unless there is something glaringly bad happening, I think a coach deserves 4 years before you start saying he's the guy or not.

 
Just so my point is not twisted, I did not say Ferry was not the guy.  What I said was:

"I am just not convinced just yet, however, that he is the highly touted next level coach.  A winning season this year and another solid recruiting class would go a long way in bolstering my belief that he can get us to the NCAA.  If we have a losing season and finish at or near the bottom with (as someone described) a potential all league player in Soko then my doubts will increase."

I will say it again, anything less than a winning season will be a dissapointment to me . Other can certainly have lowered expectations if they want. 


 

CLK wrote:

duq81 wrote:

Westender wrote:

81- how good was the conference in Ron's second year? That's the year in question - not his first year.

Better, but not great. Xavier was excellent, no one else was even close to that, with every other team posting double digit losses. Does that answer your question?

 .  Let's see how the League actually performs this year to better compare what Ron accomplished his second year.

This is it. I think the league might be pretty good, but it's got to play out. If last year's underachievers (UMass and St. Joe's) take care of business, it will likely be a stronger league than what RE faced his second year. If those teams don't step up, then the league will likely be very similar to what it was in 07-08.