NCAA:  Others receiving votes: Iowa 88, Stanford 77, Arkansas 65, Indiana 50, Virginia 41, Penn State 36, LSU 30, Arizona 20, Wisconsin 19, Liberty 11, Northern Iowa 10, Purdue 10, Duquesne 9, Washington 9, TCU 8, Rutgers 8, Virginia Tech 5, Oregon State 4, Houston 4, BYU 3, East Tennessee State 2, Saint Mary's 1, Harvard 1, Akron 1, USC 1

This does mean a lot in the grand scheme of things! I know there are posters so used to years of sucking that they want to knock back the importance/legitimacy of things like votes/bracket projections, but the reality is this is the beginning of being on the map nationally and getting much more attention than we have in decades!!!

Keith got his guys in, improved the record over two years, and now we are here, with a revamped home court to play in next year. Some want to say this means nothing, but the reality is we are now actually taking initial steps to be the next Wichita State, or VCU, or any other program that seemed to come up from nowhere.

We are past the walking stage in crawl walk run. Idk exactly where we are but if we keep winning over the next few weeks we should be ranked.

“We only got one vote from a guy who roots for the underdog” “were only in the bracket because we are 1st in conference by record (as if that is some gimmick!)”

We now have 9 votes. We will STILL be in the bracket because we are STILL 1st in the A10 by record, and are now 1 of only 3 unbeaten in conference with VCU and Richmond going down this weekend!

This is everything we wanted and hoped for! If we continue to win, the recognition will continue and this team CAN make the tourney THIS YEAR. They can hang with every team in the A10 this year, including Dayton.

We are in the middle of the Duquesne basketball renaissance we have been agonizing for for years. It is ok to believe and accept that! Sorry for venting, just tired of the naysayers and those wanting to knock back the legitimacy of all this positive national attention!

When was the last time any of this was happening excluding Ron’s one great start to the A10 season that ended up collapsing?! This is all great and necessary to getting where we want to go!!!

stew wrote:

Will the students ,alumni and basketball fans react by showing up at the rest of the home games 
and support this team?The Dukes deserve some love and fan interest is a key ingredient that
is woefully missing to really get the Duquesne basketball program rolling.

By my estimation, this is the only thing seriously lacking. Have to think continued winning will bridge the gap and bring continued interest.

The sad thing with students these days as it relates to game attendance is that unless you are a name brand and perennially ranked, they will not show. Look at Pitt football and basketball, and a number of other P5 schools in the lower ends of their conference. Most students probably don’t even think we are d1. Rankings, big name opponents, and continued success will change that.

When was the last time we got 9 votes in the AP?

The biggest advantage to being ranked is that your highlights get shown on Sport Center. That's what puts a program on the map. High school kids don't care who was good a decade ago, they care about who's good now. String a couple of strong years together, and now you're one of the big dogs in their eyes.

Send the Dukes out on the road with a good crowd at the Fordham game.Dukes need and deserve
bigger crowds and tomorrow would be a good start .

In 2011 Dukes got as high as 15 votes in the January 31st edition and then 1 vote the following week.

In terms of crowd size - yes the attendance numbers cited by A83 were seemingly an accurate count of actual bodies in seats.

I expect really good student turnout. With the hype Duquesne is starting to generate coupled with the limited amount of times to actually see them in Pittsburgh, there will be a higher concentration of students at this game. Additionally, I believe the students set single-game student attendance records at football and volleyball in the fall, so I'm thinking marketing has been fairly successful.

Also, it's not like they're coming from nowhere. Relatively speaking there were *a lot* of students in late season games against Rhody, SLU, VCU, etc. The base of last season is there

duq81 wrote:

The biggest advantage to being ranked is that your highlights get shown on Sport Center. That's what puts a program on the map. High school kids don't care who was good a decade ago, they care about who's good now. String a couple of strong years together, and now you're one of the big dogs in their eyes.

And your conference games get shown on ESPN, CBSSports or NBCSports in the first place as opposed to streaming on ESPN+. Dukes make a whopping four appearances on the main sports cable networks this season vs. 15 for VCU and 13 apiece for Davidson and Dayton, not counting non-conference games. That ties us with GW for second-lowest total in the A10, ahead of only Fordham (3). I suspect that sort of thing makes a difference to recruits too. 

yak-rbc wrote:

VBC wrote:

Here's the breakdown on who voted for the Dukes.
https://collegepolltracker.com/basketball/team/duquesne-dukes/2019

 

Was looking for this to update.

2 votes at 23rd (including Feinstein)
1 vote at 24th
1 vote at 25th

I thought we got 9 votes this week though??

Duques102 wrote:

yak-rbc wrote:

VBC wrote:

Here's the breakdown on who voted for the Dukes.
https://collegepolltracker.com/basketball/team/duquesne-dukes/2019

 

Was looking for this to update.

2 votes at 23rd (including Feinstein)
1 vote at 24th
1 vote at 25th

I thought we got 9 votes this week though??

There is a weighting to the votes.   23rd worth more that 25th

25th - 1 point
24th - 2 points
23rd - 3 points x 2 = 6.   For the total of 9.