I liked that the Dukes led from wire-to-wire. Every time W. Michigan got close they regained control of the game. Have to admit, I wasn't too impressed with Western Michigan. They were big but slow and missed a lot of easy shots. I found myself checking their schedule to see just who they've beaten this year. Hard to believe they beat a Big East team in its own tournament. Kind of thought Duquesne let this team hang around and should've buried them. And then the missed FTs down the stretch. But I'll take the win and hope it's the start of a winning streak.

Also loved that the announcer said Colter was the real deal even though he wasn't that highly regarded coming out of HS because of his size. Nice game for DC, though despite having a career night, he, like the rest of the team, left a lot of points on the board. Always better to have things to work on after a win than after a loss.

NDSU is about 67 in RPI.

Albany is around 84.

No shame in losing to top 100 teams, espcially when you start 3 freshmen. It seems people forget circumstances very quickly. I think the team has played much better than I thought they would. I thought they would look completely out matched against some of the teams they have beaten.

Jim Ferry has a chance to get COY if he can keep this up. It wont be easy in the A10 however. There are teams that could fall due to Ferry's rebounding philosophy. Umass comes to mind..

Albany was a road game against a veteran team expected to contend for its conference championship. And it was the first real game this team played together, under a new coach with several key players playing their first ever college game. I don't think there was any shame whatsoever in losing that game. I thought they could have and should have been a lot more competitive with North Dakota State and Robert Morris than they were. These are all the kind of games that will need to be wins in future seasons. Not bad at all to be 7-5 at this point with two very winnable non-conference road games coming up and then the conference opener at Fordham. Call me crazy, but I don't think 7-9 or even 8-8 in the conference is out of the question this year. I just hope to see the team playing its best basketball of the season in February and March. That would be progress.

The men are up to 109 in Realtime RPI.   WIth one quality win (W. Michigan) and nothing listed as a bad RPI loss.   They were around 169 in the Sagarin ratings today.

rittersdiner wrote:

duq81 wrote:

DukesDan wrote:

No bad losses so far. That is saying something.

Yep! For all of the whining that occurred when we lost those games, Albany is 9-2, and ND St. is 9-3. Those are solid teams, and not horrible losses.

OK, time to take those red and blue glasses off. You are dropping the bar to the strength of an ALbany or North Dakota State. Is that what we are comparing this team to? The only way this program improves is when Albany and North Dakota State fans are saying that wasn't a bad loss to Duquesne. Sheesh.

Ritters, once again you have proven that you understand little about college basketball.  Not many teams would even consider opening the season on the road at Albany; compound that with the fact that we started three freshmen playing their first game in college.