Hopefully n maybe some rust

townsonkid wrote:

I hope they come out looking to destroy teams.   No lazy mistakes and wasteful possessions like in the past.   Team is old now, at least with the starters for the most part.   Losing to lower ranked teams should no longer be tolerated.   Set the tone today!!!

Well this post didn't age well.  Sloppy mistakes on defense and wasted possessions galore.
 

No transition game, zero,  noticeably, not in shape. Very sloppy passing, and just could not handle the press. Our bigs show little or no development from last year.  In short, this team isn't ready for this season.  They could get there but this game and coaching was not there. Guess you got to start somewhere.
 

Also no penetration and terrible rebounding display. Settled for way too many jumpers. Still don’t understand the decision to have.m a revolving door off the bench in the first half.

Dribble penetration ALL day. Defense wins championships. Coach Dambrot WTF go back to basics . Drill defense rebounding forget offense. Embarrassing performance. Please stop dribble penetration. Defense defense defense. 

NapaDuke wrote:

Duques102 wrote:

Also no penetration and terrible rebounding display. Settled for way too many jumpers. Still don’t understand the decision to have.m a revolving door off the bench in the first half.

  The Dukes were smaller than their opponent. You don't stand flat footed with bigger players. You beat them with movement, penetration, and transition.  As flat footed as our game plan was on offense, it just made Arkansas look better than they are. 
 

The other aspect is their two big guys played with 3 and 4 fouls for a long time. What Dambrots teams have always done well since he’s been here in my opinion is not make mistakes and force the opponents to do so. We won so many games on the line drawing fouls over the last couple years and grinding out wins, where was that today? Who was going to the rack strong consistently besides Carry?

With those fouls we should have had Hughes and Weathers going straight into their chests and get them out of the game. Just didn’t happen today.

ALR may have had the size advantage down low but Carry showing the ability to get to the rim and score goes to show other guys could have too. I agree we look OUT OF SHAPE as a team as well.

Last edited by Duques102 (11/30/2020 6:43 pm)

levon1975 wrote:

Disappointing start to the campaign; not showing any improvement; still can’t rebound and lack a true scoring threat; could be a rough season.

This team has a lot of streaky shooters. We have been ok in the past because we have been physical and able to get to the rim as well when the shots weren’t falling. Didn’t happen today.

I fear we will find out this season that Bayley Steele was a bigger leader and made more of an impact with his toughness than we previously realized.

Sure in hell didn't look ready to play. Hope this embarrassment gets them fired up for the season. They won't win too many A10 games if this is all they got.

First games are always tough especially due to the virus preventing more practice time and no exhibition games. But Little Rock is not a bad team and they have some talented players so they deserve some credit for being there.

We shot 37.9% overall vs their 55.8%. We shot 24% from 3 point vs their 30%. We grabbed 32 rebounds vs their 39. And this tells it all, they had twice the number of assists--18 to 9. But this was Little Rock's third game.

I strongly believe we will see a different Dukes team next game. Tonight's game will be a wake-up call but gee, there goes our undefeated season. Bummer.

I felt like the team needed to improve quickness after last season; especially at the guard and small forward positions;,the team is slow compared to other D-1 teams.  I just think that a speedy little guard breaks down defenses and sets up teammates by causing “help” situations.  I’m not sure why we don’t recruit more speed.  Even if a guy doesn’t check all of the boxes for size, shooting, etc.  take a chance on speed!

Duques102 wrote:

levon1975 wrote:

Disappointing start to the campaign; not showing any improvement; still can’t rebound and lack a true scoring threat; could be a rough season.

This team has a lot of streaky shooters. We have been ok in the past because we have been physical and able to get to the rim as well when the shots weren’t falling. Didn’t happen today.

I fear we will find out this season that Bayley Steele was a bigger leader and made more of an impact with his toughness than we previously realized.

I felt that coach didn't leave Austin in there enough to make a difference.  This looked like more of his game style but was used to little for him to make an impact.

 

Econ69 wrote:

Per Dunlap tweet this morning
Effort being made to have Notre Dame 
come to Pgh to play DU.

Dambrot wasn't aware of this post-game... could be a bad rumor
https://twitter.com/JDiPaola_Trib/status/1333561252933738498

I was very intrigued to see how the freshman played, and while nobody played particularly well I'm not too shaken. Acuff and Baker impressed me the most, while Harris and Okani seem to have what it takes but need to calm the nerves down a bit. I don't think the 3s we took were usually bad shots they just wouldn't drop. We need to execute on offense, run it through the bigs, and play with a lot more spark on defense. This was not the start of the season any of us wanted. These guys are a team that have been playing together for a couple of years now and they did not seem like that at all tonight.