In making my final prediction, I have been wrestling with the question of:  are the Dukes as bad defensively as they played against Mansfield?  I was really hoping that when Ferry said that they were concentrating on defense we would see something different than last season.  Granted I did not see the Mansfield game, but from the comments it sounded like it was predominately the same old "one size fits all" ineffective zone. As someone pointed out with the increase in depth and length there was still no full court pressure, and even when they switched to half court man it just resulted in our guys grabbing and fouling.  We rebounded poorly (especially offensive rebounding), and did not we could not handle their fast break.   Sadly, at this point, I have reach the conclusion that what we have seen for the past 4 years is probably going to be what we are going to see this year.  I still believe there is still a lot of talent on this team, and offensively the team will get better during the year.  If Ferry is comitted to playing exclusive zone, if it were me I would start M-Lewis, Blackman or Smith, I-Mike as a SF, and Sanders and D-Lewis. I-Mike would dominate as a SF.

Therefore, I do not see how we can win more that four league games with that kind of defense, and 8 non conference games.  So I am switching my projection to 12 wins, and hoping that this team will prove me wrong.

Sticking with 17 wins but  have no good reason for doing so, just optimism. I truly believe that this is the year that major decisions will be made regarding the program. Can't imagine that changes won't be made if this team doesn't win 16 or 17! You know what. Change my prediction to 15.

Final Projection:

CLK 12
Phildog 17
Mulder 13
Dukes2012 19
ElDuque 14
President 15
yak-rbc 15
heelsdukesfan 17
FAM 16
scduke 19
duq81 19
currentstudent 16
Econ69 14
KenOTR73 18
VBC 25
Phil95 21
WashPaRick 15
applecorps 20
Duques102 24
PhoenixRising2 16
Simms 19
bummer3341 19
PistolPete 17
grammudder 19
HookShot 19
apluski 19
MikeR 23
lilpav 20
fjhryn 16
wharfrat 17
godukes1970 13

Average = 17 wins
 

late to the party, been a lot going on and I thought the season started this week, so Tejas Duke like last year 17 wins, not counting any tourneys

And CLK, you led the way as the chief Pessimistic Prognosticator.  Congratulations!  And you might not have been pessimistic enough; tells all of us everything we need to know about Year 5 of Jim Ferry.

And perhaps this will provide the board members with the reason why Pessimism Rules:
https://vimeo.com/143595622

 

Apple sorry incorrect question, may I please rephrase, how did the Freshman do so well with so little hope and or help.