A lot of good comments here.  I listen to coach on the post game show and he did not sound too disappointed.  He thought despite the poor shooting and poor shot selection we were in a position to win but did not execute down the stretch.  I think we just have to put this behind us and learn from it.  

I hope Mike Lewis breaks out of his funk. I don't know if his injury from last year is still bothering him, but at time he looks slow, and does not work hard enough to get open to get his shots. I hate to criticize these kids, but we need Mike to be a leader on this team and be the consistent player every night like we know he is capable of being.

There are troubling signs here, playing bad against UIC, sluggish vs. Radnor and really poor vs. ND. The last 7 minutes vs. ND were awful. Didn't Dambrot have these transfers practicing together all last year. Doesn't appear so. This looks like a .500 team.

rittersdiner wrote:

There are troubling signs here, playing bad against UIC,  (And overcoming that to win the damn game)  sluggish vs. Radnor (And again overcoming that to win the damn game)  and poor vs. ND. The last 7 minutes vs. ND were awful. Yes, they had a cold stretch at an importune moment in the game, it happens, but hey let's not give them any credit for coming back multiple times in the first half, when down by scores that would have had Jim Ferry warming up the bus!!!!)Didn't Dambrot have these transfers practicing together all last year. (Practices do not in any way represent actual game experience, this is still a young team)  Doesn't appear so. This looks like a .500 team.(Yeah, 3-1against much better competition than they have faced in years past, all teams in the 100s in RPI, not five out of the bottom ten like we faced last year, but hey, yeah make a prediction based on this limited sample, please)

Tomorrow starts Ritters' favorite time of the year, when he stands outside shopping malls and tells kids there is no Santa Claus.
 

Nothing like a little optimism to bring out a whole bunch of pessimism

I don't want to bash any of our kids (especially the freshmen), but Sin Carry has been two different players games 1-2 and 3-4. The only way for the freshmen to get better is PT. Both Wade and Carry are going to be big stars here. Williams and Lewis have to be more consistent, and Weathers and Frankie Hughes have to shed the rust. It feels like Coach Dambrot is trying to get a feel for what works best. 3-1 could easily have been 1-3, or 0-4, so we're doing well. Lowell, who we last saw on Wings, should be a good bounce back game for us. Not thinking about Pitt or Penn State until we play them.

Tejas_Duke wrote:

rittersdiner wrote:

There are troubling signs here, playing bad against UIC,  (And overcoming that to win the damn game)  sluggish vs. Radnor (And again overcoming that to win the damn game)  and poor vs. ND. The last 7 minutes vs. ND were awful. Yes, they had a cold stretch at an importune moment in the game, it happens, but hey let's not give them any credit for coming back multiple times in the first half, when down by scores that would have had Jim Ferry warming up the bus!!!!)Didn't Dambrot have these transfers practicing together all last year. (Practices do not in any way represent actual game experience, this is still a young team)  Doesn't appear so. This looks like a .500 team.(Yeah, 3-1against much better competition than they have faced in years past, all teams in the 100s in RPI, not five out of the bottom ten like we faced last year, but hey, yeah make a prediction based on this limited sample, please)

Tomorrow starts Ritters' favorite time of the year, when he stands outside shopping malls and tells kids there is no Santa Claus.
 

You're making excuses. Excuses don't win games. Stop comparing this team with Ferry. We're paying Dambrot a heck of a lot more money to be better than that. Raise your expectations.

And what do you mean there is no Santa Claus?
 

WEB wrote:

Rosceaux - I'm as excited as anyone.  Ask my wife...she can't take me talking about the program any longer!

That woman is a saint and/or deaf.

Wildwood13 wrote:

Not impressed at all with Coach Dambrot in game coaching, use of time outs and substitution patterns. Set plays are very weak, uses timeouts at the end of the game instead of during the game ending run of ND.Don't understand why and when he substituted. Another good mark of a coach is that players and teams improve as the season moves along or from year to year. Really have not seen much improvement from Lewis and Williams from last year to this year. As the season got older last season we got worse. Beside big Hughes not sure if transfers have gotten better. I know we are young, but we have to start to see improvements in individual players and team play.

I agree with your comments on lack of timeouts, especially on the road and with a young team, I felt that going into this game, Dambrot had to have a quick timeout trigger to stop long runs by ND.  I felt that even two straight ND baskets at that critical point in the second half should have triggered a timeout.  You cannot allow them to put together a big run at that time.  Saving timeouts is useless when the game is decided.  I have watched Bob Huggins often in tough road games use this strategy to stop the home teams momentum.  Two straight hoops and boom, you stop it with a TO if you feel the momentum building.  I haven't seen the "in-game" coaching that I expected from a respected veteran coach like Dambrot.  If you want to swim with these big fish, you are also going to face top coaches.  We must have great coaching to be able to win this type of game. You have to have that approach figured out pre-game, i.e."I will NOT wait too long to stop an impending run by the home team" !  I hope he figures this out before the PItt game. 

Watching some of Pitt SLU today, and SLU looks awful; hopefully they play better in the 2nd half.  They look very slow and guards are not impressive.  Their defense is awful.  Pitt has some athletes that will take the ball to the basket and try to draw fouls.  I hope we are ready for that strategy and make the shoot from the perimeter.  SLU's zone is a joke so far!  By the same token Pitt looks vulnerable to hard drives to the basket. 

Wildwood13 wrote:

Not impressed at all with Coach Dambrot in game coaching, use of time outs and substitution patterns. Set plays are very weak, uses timeouts at the end of the game instead of during the game ending run of ND.Don't understand why and when he substituted. Another good mark of a coach is that players and teams improve as the season moves along or from year to year. Really have not seen much improvement from Lewis and Williams from last year to this year. As the season got older last season we got worse. Beside big Hughes not sure if transfers have gotten better. I know we are young, but we have to start to see improvements in individual players and team play.

Coach may have brought in too many players that play the same position. He's going to have to soon decide who is going to play, and who isn't. You can't build any chemistry using a 12 man rotation. There was a lot of hype on the board over the bigs, but these are all projects, as most non elite bigs are. There will be some attrition at the end of this season, which anyone who is not living in a dream world realized as soon as this roster was built. There will be many happy nights this season, but some frustrating ones too. It should overall be a satisfying season, but the truth is that this team is built for the next two years, not this season, although they may be dangerous late if they start to click. Coach should have his rotation figured out by the final third of this season, and that's going to be who he's likely going to ride with next year. Those who aren't in the rotation will be headed elsewhere.

duq81 wrote:

Wildwood13 wrote:

Not impressed at all with Coach Dambrot in game coaching, use of time outs and substitution patterns. Set plays are very weak, uses timeouts at the end of the game instead of during the game ending run of ND.Don't understand why and when he substituted. Another good mark of a coach is that players and teams improve as the season moves along or from year to year. Really have not seen much improvement from Lewis and Williams from last year to this year. As the season got older last season we got worse. Beside big Hughes not sure if transfers have gotten better. I know we are young, but we have to start to see improvements in individual players and team play.

Coach may have brought in too many players that play the same position. He's going to have to soon decide who is going to play, and who isn't. You can't build any chemistry using a 12 man rotation. There was a lot of hype on the board over the bigs, but these are all projects, as most non elite bigs are. There will be some attrition at the end of this season, which anyone who is not living in a dream world realized as soon as this roster was built. There will be many happy nights this season, but some frustrating ones too. It should overall be a satisfying season, but the truth is that this team is built for the next two years, not this season, although they may be dangerous late if they start to click. Coach should have his rotation figured out by the final third of this season, and that's going to be who he's likely going to ride with next year. Those who aren't in the rotation will be headed elsewhere.

I agree, it's early and this team is just forming.  I like the 11 or 12 players now in non-conf. play.  Can't get chemistry until Coach gets a look at everyone in real game situations.  This team has some real up potential. 
 

re-watching the game....there are 100 reasons why we lost, and some of them are very valid, and no one could've expected to go into South Bend and won, but the Dukes had a chance. but a very key 2 minutes late in the 2nd half sealed it.

Dukes are up 52-51 with 7 minutes left. Duquesne just made 2 points on their first possession out of the timeout on a Rotroff putback. 

Notre Dame misses a 3 but the Irish are able to get a long offensive rebound and reset. Notre Dame gets a contested layup--misses--they kinda get an offensive board but its a free-for-all and nearly all 10 players on the floor get a touch before the ball pinballs back to Notre Dame's Gibbs for an easy layup. Big momentum swing. 

Notre Dame had a few "big plays" before that couldve changed the complexion of the game but the Dukes were able to immediately respond offensively to mitigate the effect. Did not happen here. For the 1st time, the ND crowd was into it and Rotroff was called for a charge. I think a more experienced Rotroff would be able to get the layup without the charge.

Next possession Notre Dame misses a contested floater. Ok still only down 1...

Next Duq possession, the play doesn't work and Lewis dribbles the shot clock down very low and forces a pass to Rotroff. It's low and slow and Rotroff's defender is easily able to block it. shot clock violation. If Lewis was able to get a real pass off, Rotroff had a good chance for a 18 footer on the baseline despite the low shot clock.

Notre Dame misses the long 2, a good look it just didn't fall, but got an easy putback layup.

Dukes ball down 3 with 4 1/2 to play, Frankie Hughes has an okay look at 3, misses, and Michael Hughes fouls out trying to get an offensive board. I think that was his 4th foul in the previous 5 minutes of gametime. Notre Dame makes 2 from the line

At that point, it had just about all unraveled. That set of possessions was the difference as the Dukes could have had a lot of momentum with the ball up 1 with 7 minutes left, but Notre Dame came up with that loose ball on that weird 50/50 ball and nothing went right for the Dukes after that