Has Toole found the Dukes Achille heel?

Toole said the Robert Morris game plan was to force Duquesne to work in the paint rather than shoot the three ball.

"That's what we talked to our guys about, if they couldn't get great three point looks and make them at a high percentage, than they don't score as much. If you're game planning you want to take away a team's strength," Toole said. "They're going to try and make those three's, that's what they do game in and game out. I thought we made it difficult for them to do that."

Just listened on Red Zone to Ferry's post game comments.  I love the way he tells it like it is.  Clearly the 25 turnovers were a killer, and RMU was shooting lights out.

Last edited by CLK (12/16/2012 1:04 pm)

Dan, I think you brought up the point a while back about the Dukes poor three point defense.  What was the deal last night.  Was it poor defense allowing wide open shots or just a team shooting lights out on contested shots?  It seems to me from watching other games that the Dukes are giving up open looks to be able to sag and rebound better.  The classic case for a small team of pick your poison.  Interesting that Robert Morris per the quote by Toole contested the three point shooting and gave up the inside game.

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.

As much as I hate to say it, I don't think there is any question about their bragging rights at this point.  They have a good team that took Xavier to the wire on the road and lost by 1 point.  One thing about Coach Ferry that I like is that he does not pull his punches.  The Dukes are  going to be up and down.  I was not expecting much going into the season and so far they have surprised me.  Hopefully they can bounce back against W. Michigan.  At the end of the season if we are still coughing up 25 turnovers then it will give me cause to concern.

I like ferry's in game coaching.  His assistants know what they are doing.  All are in sync.

PrinceOf Pilsner wrote:

Thud!  The sound of falling back to earth.  The Dukes were fired up at the beginning of the game, and both teams were running high up tempo (particularly Marhold).  Again, the game was decided by a short stretch of sloppy turnovers at the beginning of the second half.  Why there were so many ankle passes was beyond me, and Bobbie Mo was quicker to the low balls.  They began to to shoot unbelieveable lights out threes, panic & frustration set in, and the fouls began to roll.  The ref's allowed this to be an extremely physical game, and made some homer calls, but in reality, Bobbie Mo didn't need the help.  They were fast, physical, and quick.  They were constantly slapping at the ball.  But the real killer was, they just couldn't miss the threes, guarded or unguarded.  They would have beaten a lot of good teams last night.  We were just beaten by a better team that night.  Hats off to them, we are Number 3.  I find it hard to believe their record is as bad as it is from watching them play last night.  I think we just hit them when they were clicking, and once they got confidence in their 3's, it was over.  You could feel the panic rising in the Dukes as the confidence rose in the Colonials.  They beat us like a drum, but I don't think this type of game would happen very often.  One thing is for sure, Ferry absolutely can coach to beat Bobbie Mo once he gets his program set.  Duquesne just needs to eat a little more crow until that happens.  From what I have seen so far, I think Ferry is an excellent game & teaching coach, it's just going to take time.  I haven't seen such good 3 point shooting at critical times in a long time.  They were like knife stabs.

I generally agree with your review, but must disagree, the homer refs were critical to the outcome of this game.  You can't let one team constantly reach-in and slap the arms of the dribbler, and call fous on the other team for playing good, sound defense.  This game will motivate the Dukes; but make no mistake, the final score was not indicative of the ability of the two teams.   This one is a data point that can be thrown out as being off the curve.  The Dukes were also playing this game during finals week, especially with all the new players going through finals for the first time, this is a major distraction. In the future you don't play RMU or any decent teams during or immediately after finals.

I agree that the outcome of the RM game was not indicative of the relative strngths of the teams. Some non-calls on fouls helped to trigger some sturnovers, and the trunovers (all of them) set up the transition three-pointers that rained in. It was a peculiar game, and I would expect the Dukes to be able to stay closer to even upper tier Conference teams on the road under typical circumstances.

The Dukes used to greet the officials and other coaching staff last year.  Seems like good sportsmanship to me.  We don't do it now.