I think three questions have to be answered:

1. Will Mike Lewis be the best player on the court most nights, or does he struggle either with a sophomore slump or in adjusting to Dambrot's system? If it's the former, put us down for 10 wins. If it's the later, put us down for 7 wins.

Start with 7-10 wins.

2. Will we really see a strong defensive effort from the Dukes, as well as improved fundamentals (passing, shot selection, rebounding, FT shooting)? If the answer is yes, add 3 wins to the total. If the answer is no, subtract 1 win from the total.

Now we're at 8-13 wins.

3. Will we see good game coaching from Dambrot: creating desired matchups, adjusting defenses, enforcing discipline and teamwork, learning from losses, etc., or will we see a stubborn man insist on a philosophy that obviously isn't working. If he's coaching well, add 4 wins; if we see the same stuff we've seen the past five years, subtract 4 wins.

Leaves me with a range of 4-17 wins. Four if everything seems to go south, 17 if we get the best outcome we can truly expect.

Robinson has never proven to be a sustainable solution in the post. The other big men are more raw than a plate of gehactes. So my expectations for the frontcourt are minute at best. But if the guys who get PT box out and rebound and fill in with some scoring, then they won't be a noticeable deficiency. Guys like Smith, Castro and James have to fill in with defense, scoring, competent ballhandling, and leadership. But Mike Lewis is the key.

As is Dambrot.

Expecting to see a well coached, well disciplined team. Play for good shots and not out of control. Looking to go inside first. Believe we will see every player getting some time as well. Limited by lack of depth and inexperience. Guards will have to carry the load. I think 14 to 15 wins is realistic. A-10 schedule will be tough. Not expecting more than 5 wins there. A year to gain experience and learn KD's system. GO DUKES!!

fjhryn wrote:

ElDuque wrote:

I think three questions have to be answered:

1. Will Mike Lewis be the best player on the court most nights, or does he struggle either with a sophomore slump or in adjusting to Dambrot's system? If it's the former, put us down for 10 wins. If it's the later, put us down for 7 wins.

Start with 7-10 wins.

2. Will we really see a strong defensive effort from the Dukes, as well as improved fundamentals (passing, shot selection, rebounding, FT shooting)? If the answer is yes, add 3 wins to the total. If the answer is no, subtract 1 win from the total.

Now we're at 8-13 wins.

3. Will we see good game coaching from Dambrot: creating desired matchups, adjusting defenses, enforcing discipline and teamwork, learning from losses, etc., or will we see a stubborn man insist on a philosophy that obviously isn't working. If he's coaching well, add 4 wins; if we see the same stuff we've seen the past five years, subtract 4 wins.

Leaves me with a range of 4-17 wins. Four if everything seems to go south, 17 if we get the best outcome we can truly expect.

Robinson has never proven to be a sustainable solution in the post. The other big men are more raw than a plate of gehactes. So my expectations for the frontcourt are minute at best. But if the guys who get PT box out and rebound and fill in with some scoring, then they won't be a noticeable deficiency. Guys like Smith, Castro and James have to fill in with defense, scoring, competent ballhandling, and leadership. But Mike Lewis is the key.

As is Dambrot.

 After last year's less than spectacular results from all of us prognosticators on this board (although being in the minority, I predicted just 15 wins last year, which sadly turned out to be "wishful thinking"), I hesitate to even project what a "successful" win/loss record might be for this 1st year under KD. But listening to Mike's & Renee's interview on another thread, my early opinion is that we are finally heading in the right direction for this Program. So I can live with ED's range of 4-17 for this coming season. Will I be satisfied with the lower expectation level, of course not. But I really believe that KD is the future of Duke's BB success, & I hope that my beliefs in a resurgence of the Program under KD & DH, as well as Dr. Gormley, are well placed. Regardless, I will continue to support the Program & DU.

If we only win 4 games, I'd be beyond done. With all of the bad coaches we've had, only once have we had a season like that. No coach will get a pass for that. We're not loaded, but we're hardly bereft of talent. Again, if a sad sack coach like Ferry could get 8 wins out of the collection of stiffs we had during his first year, there is no way an accomplished coach like KD will win less than 10 games, unless we get hit with injuries. This is especially true with our ooc schedule.

CLK wrote:

My expectation is to relax and enjoy this season, knowing the Program is in good hands and the future is extremely bright. Go Dukes!

Ding ding ding!

What CLK said exactly AND...
1.  To be competitive
2.  To not make excuses 

FAM wrote:

What CLK said exactly AND...
1.  To be competitive
2.  To not make excuses 

Ditto FAM and CLK. I'm going with 13-15 wins which would make me extremely satisfied. The no excuses is essential as well.
 

My expectation is to the see the team improve in the obvious areas that would be affected by good fundamental coaching. I don't see a way to quantify that in terms of win numbers due to the roster turnover. We are building, and I want to see us build.

Go Dukes, that's really it!

Duques102 wrote:

My expectation is to the see the team improve in the obvious areas that would be affected by good fundamental coaching. I don't see a way to quantify that in terms of win numbers due to the roster turnover. We are building, and I want to see us build.

Go Dukes, that's really it!

I don't think you can pin down a number of wins, but obviously, no one expects this team to win 22-23 games. Conversely, with this schedule, winning 4-5 games would be a disaster. The roster is better than that. There will be a headscratcher or two along the way, but I also expect at least one shocker on the positive side. Ferry, with all of his warts, beat WVU with his first team, and that roster was far worse than this one, and we have a better coach now. 15 wins, and I'm sticking by it.
 

Year 3 will be the season where we will begin to have real expectations. That will be Mike Lewis' senior year. I'll be very disappointed if we don't at least make the NIT by then, and I suspect Dambrot would be as well. All of next years recruits, as well as the transfers, will have a year together under their belts. This should be the year that we make a big step forward. It's obvious that Dambrot expects that Lewis, and the players sitting out, will be the ones to move the program forward. If he didn't think the guys sitting out were good enough to do this, he would never have brought them all in, as the better course of action would have been to bring in large freshman classes the next two years. That he didn't do this tells you that he thinks the group of transfers he brought in will get the job done. If this is the case, we should see major results in year 3.

Duques102 wrote:

ElDuque wrote:

No one could accurately predict a season for any of Ferry's years, save for his first. Times we thought we were due for some success, we never saw it. Times we figured we had a long road ahead of us, the ride wasn't as bumpy as we thought. Part of it was Ferry's record, which except for two years was underwhelming. Here comes Keith Dambrot, and the guy wins 20 games a year. But we don't have many proven A10 players, there's certainly no one established in the frontcourt, and there's no way of knowing what this team will look like once it's on the floor. I apologize for throwing numbers out there. I was just trying to have a little preseason fun. The real fun will be to watch the development of this program.

Agree with 81 too. Year 3 should be the first big one in terms of serious postseason expectations. I look at this year as a try out for the young guys to see who will contribute with a team led by Lewis and the transfers in year 2. Year 2 should be fine tuning the roster and lineup and preparing some of the bigs coming in in 2018.

We don't know what the ooc schedule will look like next year, but I expect KD will set it up to assure 9-10 wins. There may a stumble or two early on, as the team builds chemistry, but I expect us to be dangerous by the time the A10 tournament rolls around. I could see something like what happened in 2009, where we make a surprise run. I'll be watching St. Louis this season, as they are taking a very similar approach, and are a year ahead of us, with their transfers eligible this year.
 

Fortunate enough to have attended private function with Mr. Harper, Coach D and the rest of his staff.
Everything that has been said about our AD and Coach are true. they know what it takes to win in the a10; they are putting the pieces in place; they are ultra competitive.

the one thing that stood out to me, that no one has really mentioned is the experience and level of assistant coaches we have now.
I honestly can't ever remember having this level of assistant coaches.
these guys are all top notch. they played d1 ball(including football), and one even played in the nba.
Coach D is surrounded by an amazing, hard working staff, that has the same mindset as him..

 

I'm going with 13 wins but hoping for more.