They're afraid of us. Deep down, they know we're their matchup nightmare. Welcome to the board. And screw anything SLU or Travis Ford.

I don't much care for St Louis but there is little doubt that Ford has been a significantly more successful coach than KD. He has won conference tournaments in 2 different conferences & a regular-season A-10 championship to boot. He has taken 3 schools to the tournament & been to the NIT final with another while beating one of KD's best Akron teams along the way. Without COVID, it is reasonably likely that he would have earned his 8th trip to March Madness in 19 years. He rebuilt two A-10 programs that had fallen on hard times back into a league champion & league tournament champion respectively. He also had a very respectable run in the highly competitive Big 12 producing several legitimate NBA players including a top 10 pick & another first-rounder while registering multiple wins against Top 10 competition & was victorious against at least one #1 ranked team. He has won an NCAA tournament game. He is also more than a decade younger than KD with presumably more remaining opportunities to add to his resume.

KD had a very nice run in the MAC but never got them over the hump to be considered a true mid-major power. Having not scored an upset in the Big Dance & never made any noise in the NIT, CBI, or CIT, (three post-season tournaments that he has made it quite clear he thinks he is too good for), certainly calls the value of his MAC success into question when compared to a coach that has won in both the Big 12 & A-10. 

Is Travis Ford a better or significantly better coach than KD, I am not sure. Will the history books of college basketball treat Ford as such? Absolutely and it won't be close.

If KD were truly viewed as a great coach by those whose opinions matter, he would have been plucked from the MAC long ago by a "good striving to be great" program to lead that leap in an A-10 level conference while being paid very handsomely. The fact that that didn't happen after his first decade at Akron speaks volumes about the degree to which he is considered a good, very good, or great Division I head coach.

My apologies to you, A-10 is underrated. I am not slamming your commentary. You are entitled to your opinion and it is not without merit. Welcome to the board as a poster. I promise not to be such a blowhard again for a minimum of 5 days.

 I have just grown a little weary, after 4 years, of the outsized credit KD gets for his success at Akron as well as his less than humble self-opinion on his infallible sense of what is or is not, "Championship Basketball". I understand the need to make public the program's championship expectations as part of developing a winning culture. I would also like to see it done with a touch more humility/class by someone that has actually won something the majority of the college basketball world considers truly significant.

Then again, if that had occurred, KD wouldn't be at Duquesne & the program would almost certainly be worse off because of it.

BEAT THE CRAP OUT OF ST. JOE'S!!!! 

duq81 wrote:

If you think St Louis dislikes us, don't ever go to the Bonnies Bandwagon, or A10 board The Bona fans hate KD with a passion, and Mike Hughes even more.

Probably be adding Baker to the list sometime soon.

El Presidente wrote:

I really consider KD to be an outstanding coach who, given the opportunity, could take a power 5 program to the Dance. He has never been afforded that opportunity, rightly or wrongly, but that doesn't make him any less of a coach. There are many such coaches who never land a big time job, I do not believe that anyone could take Akron any further than KD did and as for Duquesne, well I still expect the Dukes to be in the NCAA tournament sooner than later under him. This could be the group that gets us there. I am accused of wearing rose colored glasses at times but it gets me through the day! GO DUKES!

I second this motion! Every word of it.

duq81 wrote:

If you think St Louis dislikes us, don't ever go to the Bonnies Bandwagon, or A10 board The Bona fans hate KD with a passion, and Mike Hughes even more.

Woah, woah woah, Duq81! Us Bona fans do not hate the Dukes at all. I think most would say both you and Saint Joe's are the two A10 teams we root for when SBU is not involved.

Do we dislike Keith Dambrot? I'd say yes, but that's where our distain for our longtime rival ends. We always have great games and both programs have been A10 members for so long, so I believe their is a lot of respect amongst the old timers on each side for the history of our two programs.

Regardless, best of luck with opening your new arena! Looks great and look forward to seeing the Bonnies down there in the future!

PeacefulBonnie wrote:

duq81 wrote:

If you think St Louis dislikes us, don't ever go to the Bonnies Bandwagon, or A10 board The Bona fans hate KD with a passion, and Mike Hughes even more.

Woah, woah woah, Duq81! Us Bona fans do not hate the Dukes at all. I think most would say both you and Saint Joe's are the two A10 teams we root for when SBU is not involved.

Do we dislike Keith Dambrot? I'd say yes, but that's where our distain for our longtime rival ends. We always have great games and both programs have been A10 members for so long, so I believe their is a lot of respect amongst the old timers on each side for the history of our two programs.

Regardless, best of luck with opening your new arena! Looks great and look forward to seeing the Bonnies down there in the future!

Great post.  I'm the same way - I root for all the small Catholic schools when they're not playing Duquesne - St. Bonnie, LaSalle, St. Francis, St. Joe's - anybody with St. in front of the name.

St. Bonaventure has a Pittsburgh connection, too, in that the Steelers held training camp there in the 1950s.  Art Rooney's brother was a priest who was the AD there.