Take your pick - The Board (would be my clear choice as DU was perpetually broke back then), Fr Nesti or John Murray, maybe best thing ever happened at DU except for bball where  Murray went over Colleary's head to hire Bobby Mo's Danny Nee rather than Colleary's choice, UMass' Bruiser Flint.  Laughable now but DU was in such straits that AD Colleary was once given paltry sum of $60,000 with which to go out and find a qualified D-1 DU head coach and when he could find no takers promoted an age 20 something DU asst, without phone! 









 

The gang of six-plus, depending on how many people have sat on the board.

The Board, Fr. Nesti, Dr. Murray, Brian Colleary, Greg Amodio, Dr. Dougherty.

The bad decisions go back to hiring Eileen Livingston to be AD. Nice lady, good volleyball coach, but not someone to run an A10 program. Of course Satalin had full run of men's hoops, but there was some screwup involving the swimming team I think that impacted basketball one year.

We've also had our share of bad luck. The alleged rape case (charges dismissed), the shootings, recruits who never panned out, from Mo Drinks to Simplice Njoya to Stuart Baldonado. The incident with Sean Rooney (theft). The bank robbers (Simon Ogunlesi and his partner).

Playing in the Civic Arena, lack of vision in making Palumbo something better.

Student apathy, alumni apathy, being little brother to Pitt (red headed stepchild little brother), so the city doesn't give a hoot.

Lack of vision, lack of a strategic plan, going back to the early 1970s.

No home grown "I am all about Duquesne" superstar who rocked the NBA. No Cinderella seasons to put us on the map.

TJ's transfer (the after-effects), Darryl Sheppard's transfer, Clifton Jones' transfer.

Lack of good local players for many years, inability to recruit in fertile areas.

Sucky bench coaches, coaches who don't have their teams prepared.

Lack of a hostile home environment.

Awesome wins (Florida State, St. Louis) that become meaningless in losing seasons.

Lack of a visible face for the program.

Not getting "must have" recruits (Bob Sura, Danny Fortson, BB's cousin who went to ND).

Other than that, I have no complaints.

Think how much stuff I didn't include, too.

duq81 wrote:

ElDuque wrote:

The gang of six-plus, depending on how many people have sat on the board.

The Board, Fr. Nesti, Dr. Murray, Brian Colleary, Greg Amodio, Dr. Dougherty.

The bad decisions go back to hiring Eileen Livingston to be AD. Nice lady, good volleyball coach, but not someone to run an A10 program. Of course Satalin had full run of men's hoops, but there was some screwup involving the swimming team I think that impacted basketball one year.

We've also had our share of bad luck. The alleged rape case (charges dismissed), the shootings, recruits who never panned out, from Mo Drinks to Simplice Njoya to Stuart Baldonado. The incident with Sean Rooney (theft). The bank robbers (Simon Ogunlesi and his partner).

Playing in the Civic Arena, lack of vision in making Palumbo something better.

Student apathy, alumni apathy, being little brother to Pitt (red headed stepchild little brother), so the city doesn't give a hoot.

Lack of vision, lack of a strategic plan, going back to the early 1970s.

No home grown "I am all about Duquesne" superstar who rocked the NBA. No Cinderella seasons to put us on the map.

TJ's transfer (the after-effects), Darryl Sheppard's transfer, Clifton Jones' transfer.

Lack of good local players for many years, inability to recruit in fertile areas.

Sucky bench coaches, coaches who don't have their teams prepared.

Lack of a hostile home environment.

Awesome wins (Florida State, St. Louis) that become meaningless in losing seasons.

Lack of a visible face for the program.

Not getting "must have" recruits (Bob Sura, Danny Fortson, BB's cousin who went to ND).

Other than that, I have no complaints.

LOL!!! You nailed it ED!
I'll add Red Manning as AD.
Also, the Holy Ghost Fathers who were embarrassed by our success back in the 50s, and were influenced by certain alums who didn't like the fact that Dudey Moore had so many black guys on the team. Myron Cope wrote an eye opening article for SI that illustrated how difficult things were for Red Manning back in the early 60s. The Dukes were in a position to permanently establish themselves as a mega power back in the mid 50s, and they walked away from that. Must be a Pittsburgh thing, as Pitt did the same thing twice with their football program.
 

I agree, it goes back to the 50s with Dudey Moore. Duquesne could have been a well known name in major D-1 BB to this day  if he had stayed.    

NapaDuke wrote:

duq81 wrote:

ElDuque wrote:

The gang of six-plus, depending on how many people have sat on the board.

The Board, Fr. Nesti, Dr. Murray, Brian Colleary, Greg Amodio, Dr. Dougherty.

The bad decisions go back to hiring Eileen Livingston to be AD. Nice lady, good volleyball coach, but not someone to run an A10 program. Of course Satalin had full run of men's hoops, but there was some screwup involving the swimming team I think that impacted basketball one year.

We've also had our share of bad luck. The alleged rape case (charges dismissed), the shootings, recruits who never panned out, from Mo Drinks to Simplice Njoya to Stuart Baldonado. The incident with Sean Rooney (theft). The bank robbers (Simon Ogunlesi and his partner).

Playing in the Civic Arena, lack of vision in making Palumbo something better.

Student apathy, alumni apathy, being little brother to Pitt (red headed stepchild little brother), so the city doesn't give a hoot.

Lack of vision, lack of a strategic plan, going back to the early 1970s.

No home grown "I am all about Duquesne" superstar who rocked the NBA. No Cinderella seasons to put us on the map.

TJ's transfer (the after-effects), Darryl Sheppard's transfer, Clifton Jones' transfer.

Lack of good local players for many years, inability to recruit in fertile areas.

Sucky bench coaches, coaches who don't have their teams prepared.

Lack of a hostile home environment.

Awesome wins (Florida State, St. Louis) that become meaningless in losing seasons.

Lack of a visible face for the program.

Not getting "must have" recruits (Bob Sura, Danny Fortson, BB's cousin who went to ND).

Other than that, I have no complaints.

LOL!!! You nailed it ED!
I'll add Red Manning as AD.
Also, the Holy Ghost Fathers who were embarrassed by our success back in the 50s, and were influenced by certain alums who didn't like the fact that Dudey Moore had so many black guys on the team. Myron Cope wrote an eye opening article for SI that illustrated how difficult things were for Red Manning back in the early 60s. The Dukes were in a position to permanently establish themselves as a mega power back in the mid 50s, and they walked away from that. Must be a Pittsburgh thing, as Pitt did the same thing twice with their football program.
 

I agree, it goes back to the 50s with Dudey Moore. Duquesne could have been a well known name in major D-1 BB to this day  if he had stayed.    

Goes back further than that. Chick Davies was probably an even better coach than Moore, but he was making so little money, that he was willing to take a high school job, instead of remaining head coach at one of the premier basketball powers in the country. Think about that! Moore left for the same reason, plus they had placed restrictions on his ability to recruit. With most of the NYC schools de-emphasizing hoops in the mid 50s after the point shaving scandal, Duquesne, due to it's success, especially with Brooklyn's Si Green as the star, was in a position where they could have basically pulled 4 and 5 star talent out of NYC at will. It's a shame that we didn't have an on campus arena then, as the program likely would have paid for itself. Instead, Pitt had to bail us out by letting us use the Field House, and they didn't have to do that.
 

Charley Daugherty remains the President until June.  Gormley will take office at that point.  So why ask what he has done?

Last edited by levon1975 (4/09/2016 8:13 pm)

duq81, greatly appreciate if you would be able to dredge from their archives the referred to SI article by Myron Cope for us. 

ElDuque wrote:

Starts here:
 http://www.si.com/vault/issue/42732/20/2

When you read that, you realize what a miracle it was that we were able to remain a strong program for as long as we did. Can you imagine if someone had had the foresight to make Mossie a grad assistant, and then develop him as a coach?
 

JPG-DU81 wrote:

There was an article in Sport Magazine in February 1956 that really talked about Duquesne de-emphasizing basketball. Si Green was on the cover and the article is titled: Is Si Green the last of the Great Dukes. There is no byline to the article so it's possible that Myron wrote that one too.

A year earlier, February 1955 was the month  Jim Tucker set the still-standing record for fastest triple-double that was challenged but not bested last night by Russell Westbrook.

 
Pat Livingston, who once dedicated a whole column to his new-fangled typesetting machine for the Pittsburgh a Press, wrote the story.

JPG-DU81 wrote:

There was an article in Sport Magazine in February 1956 that really talked about Duquesne de-emphasizing basketball. Si Green was on the cover and the article is titled: Is Si Green the last of the Great Dukes. There is no byline to the article so it's possible that Myron wrote that one too.

A year earlier, February 1955 was the month Jim Tucker set the still-standing record for fastest triple-double that was challenged but not bested last night by Russell Westbrook.

People don't realize what a great run the Dukes had from the mid 30s, to the mid 50s. They were a full level above what the Manning teams were, and those were still good teams.
 

Don't know if this thread is the place for this but how can Villanova afford to pay Jay Wright a reported 2.7 million per year and have the success they have had as a smaller catholic university which is about our size, I believe? What am I missing here?

president wrote:

Don't know if this thread is the place for this but how can Villanova afford to pay Jay Wright a reported 2.7 million per year and have the success they have had as a smaller catholic university which is about our size, I believe? What am I missing here?

They get over 4 million a year from the Big East. In addition to that, they draw like we haven't in 40 years. Also, since they make the NCAAs regularly, they get the extra money you get from that. Bottom line; we have to subsidize our program, they don't. If we had gotten into the BE when it formed, we might not be Villanova, but we likely would have had plenty of good seasons in the last 36 years. Out of all the old line Catholics, they have done the best job of never letting their program fall off for any appreciable amount of time. Compare them to the dumpster fires that are DePaul, and St. John's.