http://www.ncaa.com/stats/basketball-men/d1/current/team/146/p7

Interesting the Dukes rank 324 in scoring defense, and LIU ranks 333.  Penn State is 219.  Looking forward to seeing if we go under or over our 81 point average points for opponents against PSU. 





 

Last edited by CLK (12/09/2013 6:06 pm)

Dukes open up as 6 point underdogs.  Pomeroy has this pegged as an 86-81 loss; giving the Dukes a 33% chance of a win. I'm looking forward to the debut of Watkins and hopefully a Dukes win. I just don't know if we can defend their guards well enough to pull this one out.

Dukes’ unsettled defense draws guard duty tonight
December 10, 2013
By Stephen J. Nesbitt / Pittsburgh Post-Gazette

Read more: http://www.post-gazette.com/sports/duquesne/2013/12/11/Dukes-unsettled-defense-draws-guard-duty-tonight/stories/201312110038#ixzz2nAMwk6gu
 

From the PSU Blog "Black Shoe Diaries":
http://www.blackshoediaries.com/2013/12/11/5198912/penn-state-basketball-duquesne-dukes-preview-tim-frazier-dj-newbill-derrick-colter

Welp.  I feel dumb.

Decent defense tonight, but no offense. Jack is a legit 6'9". I thought he would be a guy who would score some, but be weak in other areas, but he looks to be the opposite. Watkins will help if his knee holds up. Free throw shooting is going to kill us though. Disappointing night, though I like how the team kept playing hard to the end. The competition get easier for a while. This next stretch will determine what type of season we have.

Last edited by duq81 (12/11/2013 9:04 pm)

Ferry won't get 6 years to make headway. If it's gonna take that long, he'll be gone by then, & possibly Amodio, too.

Officer Dribble wrote:

Ferry won't get 6 years to make headway. If it's gonna take that long, he'll be gone by then, & possibly Amodio, too.

Agreed. Soko will be a big loss, but everyone else of note returns next year, and the A10 is going to be hit hard by graduation this year. If the Dukes aren't middle of the pack next year, Ferry, and Amodio's seats will begin to get hot. It would be easier to get a read on things if the team was playing with a full deck. The guys who have been sitting out are not scrubs, but very important pieces going forward, and it's hard to predict where we're going until we can see what they bring to the table.

Our guards had a horrible game - White/Colter/Ridenour scored a total of 9 points - were a combined 3 for 24 from the field; 0 for 10 from 3 point; 3 for 7 from the FT line; 7 assists and 3 turnovers in 68 minutes.  You are not going to win with a stat line like that from your guards.  And I don't even want to mention the number of times White/Colter drove into the lane and got their shot blocked or had to throw up a wild ass shot and then did it again and again and again.  We certainly missed Micah Mason tonight in a game of this type.

Soko had a nice game, but sometimes let's his emotions get the best of him as evidenced on his 5th foul. He also had some words with Ferry after he was pulled out of the game at one point.

I liked what I saw from Watkins; very hard nosed and tougher than I thought.  It's going to be fun watching him shake the rust off and develop; just hope he stays healthy.  I didn't see a brace on his knee - did I miss that?

Why did LG Gill play 19 minutes tonight?  Pretty much goes invisible out there.  No rebounds.  We got to see the bad Jerry tonight; or the ghost of Jerry because he was pretty much invisible.  I was surprised that we did not see Darius Lewis tonight, especially when PSU were playing Ross (43) and Jack (5) at the same time.

If someone told me that we would hold Penn State to 68 points, hold Frazier/Newbill to only 24 points, outrebound them, and only have 7 turnovers, I would have figured a 10 point Dukes win.

They need to shake this off, since a loss to Robert Morris is totally unacceptable - Ferry can't allow that to happen under any circumstance.
 

PhoenixRising2 wrote:

1) Soko had a nice game, but sometimes let's his emotions get the best of him as evidenced on his 5th foul. He also had some words with Ferry after he was pulled out of the game at one point.

2) I liked what I saw from Watkins; very hard nosed and tougher than I thought.  It's going to be fun watching him shake the rust off and develop; just hope he stays healthy.  I didn't see a brace on his knee - did I miss that?

3) Why did LG Gill play 19 minutes tonight?  Pretty much goes invisible out there.  No rebounds.  We got to see the bad Jerry tonight; or the ghost of Jerry because he was pretty much invisible.  I was surprised that we did not see Darius Lewis tonight, especially when PSU were playing Ross (43) and Jack (5) at the same time.

4) If someone told me that we would hold Penn State to 68 points, hold Frazier/Newbill to only 24 points, outrebound them, and only have 7 turnovers, I would have figured a 10 point Dukes win.

5) They need to shake this off, since a loss to Robert Morris is totally unacceptable - Ferry can't allow that to happen under any circumstance.
 

1) Ovie rebounded at the line but I thought he was ok all around. His last two fouls were bad and still went 3-9. Thought he took over the game early, but was ok after that.

2) Watkins looked tough as nails. Hard to believe this was his first college game.

3) Thought he played really good defense on the wing and the Dukes needed to go bigger to match Penn St size. I thought the Dukes best lineup tonight was he, Ridenour, McKoy, Soko, and Jerry Jones.

4) Amen

5) If nothing else but for morale, they need this win. People are quiting on this team and season. It's a little too early for that.

ElDuque wrote:

We missed 13 FTs. It's at least a closer game if we could shoot FTs. I know Ferry has been dismissive of the poor FT shooting, but I'll bet there are a hundred YouTube videos that can teach you how to shoot FTs. There's going to be a bitter 1-point loss somewhere where we have a dozen or more missed FTs, you can pretty much bet a mortgage payment on it.  

Did Lewis play? If not, I'd be curious why Ferry wouldn't try a taller kid against Jack. I wish we had Robinson tonight because he looks like a solid widebody who could give a beanpole a little trouble, or at least scuff him up a bit. I wish our compliance guy would be harrassing the NC@@$holes demanding an answer.

Wish Watkins would have been healthy all season. Agree with 81 that a taller frontcourt with Ridenour and Mason will eventually be a help. For now, they could start Ridenour or Colter with Jeremiah Jones.

I'm dreading the Robert Morris game. I fear we will get our doors blown off. Just once, I would like to see some of the toughness that Ferry thinks this team has.

 

Bobby Mo is not quite as good as they've been. I'm not giving up on him, but Gill's minutes will shrink now that Watkins is ready. Soko, and McKoy are good up front, but we need that third guy. Robinson would make for a strong 4 man rotation up front. White will be effective against certain teams, but as a player who needs to get to the rim, he will struggle against teams with length. I doubt that there is much we can do about the free throw shooting. I've just seen too many programs where it's a struggle year after year.

Well CLK, you can go on wondering about that, but its now  getting old, to hear the RE refrain every time we hit a bump in the road.  Can we just let it go? 
I liked the progress that the team made on defense compared to previous games.  There were still a few breakdwns in the half-court defense, as Travis got loose for two easy layups with no defense nearby.  I was hoping we would unleash the press a bit sooner, possibly when PSU started to pull away. We really needed to use the press to speed up play.  Hopefully we will see more of the pressure defense in the future, now that it has been pretty successful in the last two games. In general some real significant steps forward made on defense. 
I think their strength and length bothered us on the offensive end in failing to finish many many shots close to the rim.  The zone also slowed us down and we sometimes struggled to split the zone and set up easy shots.  They fouled a LOT and could have gotten called for several more on many of our drives to the basket. Hidden in the loss was a great effort by Dominique, and I liked what I saw of Isaiah in his first game.  Ovie always gives a great effort and should be commended for making 10-12 from the line.  Jeremiah has been much more consistent this year, and is using his strength to get to the rim.  In general I think the younger guys need to work on consistency from game to game.

Last edited by levon1975 (12/13/2013 9:22 am)