Summbitch just kicked sand in our face.

Don't know what's worse:
1. He's right.
2. Not going to change under Ferry.

Our facilities suck and we have a culture of losing.  

In other news the earth rotated on it's axis once in the last 24 hours and the sun rose in the east.

He's talking about the whole program. I'd hate to be competing for a kid against this guy. If he bashes us like this publicly imagine what he'd say in someone's home. PS it's unheard of that someone would say something like this about a conference opponent. Yeah, there's a lot of truth but it's like taking a rhymes with Pitt where you eat.

Phoenix here are some numbers that just blow you away, Dayton, VCU and St. Louis were in the top 100 in attendance last year:
Dayton.   220,012
VCU.       129,829
St. Louis.  121,633  Using a meager average ticket price of $20. Dayton is $4.4 million, VCU is $2.6 and St. Louis is $2.4. This is prior to seat licenses, donations, TV money, etc. A Dayton alum recently told me they take in another $4/5 million in just donations!

81 that's why I don't give Miller as much praise and people wonder why he stays. Dayton is 25 in the entire country in attendance.

ED you are on the money with Wade's comments. Anyone who doesn't believe the A-10 has had it isn't paying attention. He didn't take a shot at a fellow coach he threw the bomb directly at Old Main!!!

Last edited by The Dome (1/09/2017 8:00 am)

81 Amen!!!  I always believed Amodio over paid for Ferry out of desperation.

PhoenixRising2 wrote:

I'm glad Wade said this because it is the truth. Duquesne has NEVER invested the competitive resources into the program. You can lay the blame at the feet of Nesti, Murray, Dougherty and Hogan - along with the various boards over the years.

The lack of resource in Duquesne basketball goes all the way back to the glory years through the early 70's under Gallagher and McAnulty, but it was a different game and landscape back then (no TV money, one NCAA bid per conference, great local/regional basketball talent, etc.). The resource wasn't required.

I do believe that both Gormley and Harper understand that you need to significantly invest to create a foundation for success in athletics. This belief gives me hope for the longer term.

Until that investment commitment/plan is in place, it is going to be nearly impossible to attract a quality coach to Duquesne.

A little while back I thought someone posted that AD Dave Harper said during a radio interview that an athletic facilities plan had been or was being developed for Duquesne.  If this is the case, I would think that a major fund raising effort would follow to raise the necessary capital to cover the cost of the improvements or new facilities.  When conducting a major fund raising effort, I was once told that such an endeavor is usually undertaken without any public fanfare to raise quietly a significant portion of the needed funds to assure that the fund-raising will likely be successful before there is eventually a public announcement of the fund raising-drive and a description of a detailed plan for the the uses of funds.  Who knows?  Perhaps that effort is already underway. 

Last edited by godukes1970 (1/09/2017 5:49 pm)

I am so happy he said that. It's one thing when a bunch of us grumps post about it on here, it's a whole other animal when the hottest young coach of the one of the conference's flagship programs calls out the program in such a huge way.

Everything we do is half ass. We "renovated" the palumbo a couple years back by painting the stands and replacing what was a horribly outdated looking court. Wooo! We've had these conversations on the board before, this is actually something most of us agree on. The facilities are poor. At some point we're going to have to step up or step out.

This is a legit division 1 basketball conference with multiple bids every year which is why I follow the team. Can't say I would if we were in the NEC or MAAC like football, never watched one football game. We need to step up and have the same commitment level as our competition or what the hell are we doing here.

There is systemic complacency in regards to this program. Marketing, game day experience, media coverage, and even apparel and branding comes off as just totally amateur. It's psychotic to me that we can all see this and they can't, especially when you consider the fact that that's what those people are paid to do. Shocking that attendance numbers are dropping like a lead ballon.

Unless we stop bringing knives to a gunfight nothing will change. Just checked, endowment currently sits at about a quarter of a ba ba billion dollars. Your telling me even with minimal additional fundraising to start you couldn't find a way to finance a project like building a real gym that would make players, students, and fans proud and actually want to attend games? Life is all about image. What image does the palumbo give to fans, recruits, and potential coaching candidates? That we really don't give a damn.

I mean why do you think we can't get a guy from a better conference than NEC or similar? Because this job would be a step down for just about anyone. Period. That's a reflection of the commitment of the athletic department in my opinion.

Im happy people are optimistic about change but Harper hasn't been here for a couple months anymore. I am closer than most to the program in terms of proximity and attendance at games (7 minute drive from Palumbo) and I can honestly say I have not seen ONE THING CHANGE since he has arrived. Time to step up guy. Wasn't he working in a sports related fund raising capacity at Dayton? With the above post and fan passion for that program you could probably give that job to a monkey and get the same results, people are going to support that program one way or another. Why? Perceived value and an obvious commitment to the success of the program.

You think Dayton fans can see how their financial contributions are being utilized by the athletic department? What are Duquesne fans getting for their money??????????? Dave??????

Here's the problem:

1.  Most alumni at Duquesne don't care about sports.  We are the few crazy fans who are passionate.  Between us, I am assuming that we aren't capable of funding the development of a new arena.  I am a school teacher and am still paying off my loans.  Giving extra funds is laughable to me at this point.  I know there are some wealthy donors who are hardcore fans, and I give them credit.  That said, we don't have a Pegula who is going to build us a state of the art arena.  You can't just dip into the endowment fund to build a 70 million dollar arena.  Alumni would flip out.

2.  Palumbo is not going anywhere.  We might as well accept that.  They have poured too much money into the facility recently for it to be ripped down and rebuilt.  They redid the arena to have all chair back seating (besides the top rows by the baskets), they added all new locker rooms for 1.3 million dollars that are relatively nice, and they did all the office space for about 2 million prior to that.  Obviously the arena still needs a lot.  We need suites and a better entrance, and new concessions.  As far as viewing a game, I love Palumbo.  I hate watching games at Consol because at Palumbo the action is far more intense.  That said, perhaps we should go full-time at the Consol Energy Center if we are complaining too much about facilities.  If this happens, I would like to see some branding in the arena, which I think would be a hard sell for the Pens.  


3.  I agree that nothing seems to change in the dept.  I am hoping that Harper is sort of letting this year be similar to Amodio's first year when Nee was still the coach.  Things did change the next year for Everhart when Amodio at least added half time entertainment and the new coach was brought in. Perhaps Harper is waiting to make a splash?  

4.  In an ideal world, we would have a new arena, but to give you some insight, I think the perfect arena for us would be the new one that Towson just built.  It seats 5200 (a number we should aspire for each game) and it is extremely nice and modern.  It cost 85 million dollars.  85.  

http://www.towson.edu/campus/landmarks/securarena/

5.  Finally, I don't buy into the facilities argument completely.  While I understand that having nice facilities is a huge plus, our conference is really a mismash of haves and have nots.  La Salle, Saint Joes, St. Bonny, Fordham, GW, and even Davidson to an extent have similar facilities to us.  Every one of those teams (sans Fordham) has been to the NCAA's since I started following Duquesne hoops in 2003.  We just need the right coach and a little bit of luck.  Ron had us one game away, and I truly believe that if we can get to the tournament, our luck will really change.  

Dukes2012 wrote:

Simms, right on the money with your post. We would all love a shiny new arena, but the fact is that ours is no worse than the other schools that you named. I just don't know where the money would come from until we have had some sustained success. Also, while wade's comments have some merit, I am shocked that he even bothered to go there. I've never seen any coach in the A10 go in on another institution like he did. Kind of classless.

Martelli went off on us during Nee's last year. It's funny, Palumbo held around 6.500 when it was built, but that was mainly bleachers. Fans just don't want to do bleachers anymore. If we ever get rolling, we'll be playing half our games at the Arena. If we ever got into the Big East, they would make us play all of our league games there.
 

Dukes2012 wrote:

Simms, right on the money with your post. We would all love a shiny new arena, but the fact is that ours is no worse than the other schools that you named. I just don't know where the money would come from until we have had some sustained success. Also, while wade's comments have some merit, I am shocked that he even bothered to go there. I've never seen any coach in the A10 go in on another institution like he did. Kind of classless.

Pay the man. Regardless of how much of it is true, it's low-rent to be quoted saying something like this about another program in your conference. Bad coaching/bad media training maybe.

But now that it's out there on YouTube, I'm wondering why none of the reporters covering DU have reached out to either Wade or Duquesne -- or the A10 -- for comment.

One way or the other, I think Duquesne needs to address it.

PS, Fordham plays in a million year old gym, LaSalle plays in a funky HS gym. VCU, Dayton and a few others have palaces, but in some of those places, there is zero else going on so you have a captive audience.

Plus we play some games at the Paint Can, which isn't too shabby. There's a reason why the Tournament is coming to Pittsburgh, and not VCU.

So <bleep> you, Will Wheaton.
 

duq81 wrote:

The Dome wrote:

81 Amen!!! I always believed Amodio over paid for Ferry out of desperation.

Amodio made the mistake of thinking that because we had become semi decent under Ron, more coaches would see this as a decent job. That turned out not to be the case. Ferry was pretty much the only youngish head coach who had been winning lately that really showed interest. The way the thing with Ron was handled didn't help. This is why I always felt it was dumb to think we would fire Ferry before he reached the point where he only had a year left on his deal. Regardless of what we think of him, other coaches see this as a tough job, and if we're seen as not being willing to give a new coach basically the length of his contract, they're not going to want to come here.
We've consistently hired people who are already head coaches. Only once did we go outside of the program for an assistant coach. It may be time to go that route again. We won't be getting a guy from any blue blood program, but I'd look at a guy who was under a very successful coach, at a second tier program. I'd especially look at programs where the teams have a reputation for being well prepared, and getting the most out of their talent.
 

While I agree that Amodio overestimated how many coaches would be excited to come to Duquesne, he also hindered his choices by refusing to even consider assistant coaches.  Not one was interviewed as Amodio was obsessed with hiring a coach with head coaching experience.  The bottom line is that we might need to hire a young assistant from a top program who is chomping at the bit to mold his own program.  I would prefer a coach with HC experience, but I am more than willing to get excited about an assistant coach.

Although the VCU coach is right about our facilities and our program, he should have kept it to himself so that he can keep having "breather" games like ours. I think we all know that money doesn't guarantee success but it helps.  This is especially so in college sports. After all, a kid would like to know that the school he is going to is making a commitment. I'm not necessarily a JF fan, but it's a historical fact that changing our coach every few years hasn't led to success. We need more.

I also have been wondering when or even if there is a plan to get serious about athletic fundraising. I don't have any evidence to back it up but I am wondering if we are not seeing anything from Mr. Harper yet because administration wants to control how alumni donations are spent. I do know that Duquesne has known how to find me for the last 44 years and has asked me for money every single year, but has never asked me to donate specifically to the Duquesne Athletic Fund. Maybe a new basketball arena is unrealistic, but a darn fine practice facility should be realistic. I know some college programs that have done just that and have gotten better recruits.