It woukd have been so easy for Coach Burt and the staff to lose the team after the 0-12 start.  But they kept their heads up.   That’s encouraging.

While true we have won 4 of last 5...these wins have come against the other bottom feeders in the conference. 

We are still not competitive in the A10.  Again, I will point to the fact that last year, we had the BEST player in the conference and still, we finished 9th and we lost 3 games by 20+ against the top tier of the conference.

The only thing these 4 wins out of 5 have done is prevent a 20 loss season. 

This is why I have stated WE NEED A CHANGE.  We are not competitive in the A10.  We play George Mason Saturday and if they win, they will tie for the top spot in the conference for the tournament.  Last year, GM won 86-63...

Last 6 years in A10 play
20-21 4-7 (covid year)
21-22 6-10
22-23 8-8
23-24 13-5
24-25 9-9
25-26 4-13
Total 44-52

I don't care about winning non-conference games against teams that are low caliber, I care about our ability to be competitive in the conference.  These are the teams we play on a yearly basis.  We lost twice to St. Bonaventure this year and they have been conference doormats for the last 5 years, but due to a coaching change, they have moved out of the cellar.

SBU has passed us up in year one with their new staff.  VCU has already fired their coach - who is very similar to Burt, all-time winningest coach and roughly same amount of time coaching - they will likely pass us next year as well.  If Fordham hires a new coach, they will likely pass us as well.

My point is clear, under Burt we are not competitive in the conference.  THAT should matter and instead, he has been allowed to hang around and drag us further away from being competitive.  The 23-24 season where we went 13-5 has been proven to be an outlier, and if you remove that from the overall record over that time, Burt's record is 31-47.  That is very telling as far as it points to a program that has fallen off the cliff.

Results matter and not being competitive in the conference should be the number one reason for us to move in another direction.  Burt has failed.  He has surrounded himself with coaches who lack college coaching experience.  He had a chance to bring in a new assistant coach this year and instead of hiring someone with a history of college coaching tenure, he hired a relatively inexperienced coach.  He needed to hire someone with at least 10 years of college coaching experience.  Instead, we have what amounts to a high school coaching staff.  And that is not to say that Rick Bell is not qualified, as far as I can tell, he is the best coach on the staff - period!

We are at a crossroads - this team has some talent, but as I have pointed out before, the players are not getting good coaching.  I've pointed to the mistakes that should have been corrected by now, the high number of travel calls is one example.  Player shot selection is another.  I will say Bordas has a bright future, but she really needs to learn the value of taking a good shot and when not to just jack up a 3 from 30 feet away with plenty of time on the shot clock.  I have watched her chuck shots and see them miss badly, with plenty of time on the shot clock.  She could easily pass the ball or better yet, do a pump fake to get a defender out of position and then put the ball on the floor for a better shot.  She has to be taught that she is not in high school anymore and that she has teammates that she can get involved.  She needs better coaching and a good head coach would sit her down after throwing up a 30 foot shot with 20 seconds left on the clock, which she has a tendency to do. 

And Blue, please don't throw out NIL as an excuse for Burt because that isn't even a factor in the conference.  Only the top-level women's programs are using NIL to secure and retain players.  And let's be honest, Erica Gribble is headed to Richmond next year, she is a senior at Greensburg Central Catholic.  Karis Thomas, from Shady Side Academy, who Burt offered when she was in grade school is going to Purdue-Fort Wayne.  When LaSalle beat us on our own floor a few weeks back, their leading scorer was from Mt. Lebanon, Ashleigh Connor.

We need to move in a new direction as Burt is not the answer.

Only question is if our AD will do anything.

blufftalk wrote:

Dan and his staff are awesome. Kept these young ladies together.

Coming from uptown, you are part of the staff or from the athletic department and if that is the case, pretty sad.

DU90 has provided yet another example of what is now accepted as appropriate in this forum and what is not. Complaints about the coaching and competitiveness are acceptable of course, this is a discussion forum after all! The personal remarks are where the line is crossed.

Accusing a user of being a part of the team staff because of the location “Uptown” doesn’t make much sense to me since this is a forum rooting for Duquesne… Which is located in Uptown. I can assure you the coaching staff is not arguing with you people here. I would hope they don’t pay this site any attention at all.

“I really do wonder what the color of the sky is in your world” is once again a sort of personal attack to another user — I know DU90 meant this in a way to insinuate the other user is delusional or out of touch with reality.

Once again. You all know right from wrong. If you can’t have a productive discussion without insults there will be repercussions. In this case, DU90 has been temporarily banned. (Two weeks) I hope the crackdown on personal attacks motivates users to participate in more fruitful discussion as time goes on. Please do not hesitate to reach out to me with any questions or reports.