Mark Cuban personally funded Mendoza’s NIL deal at Indiana last year. With basketball, one player on a five man team has a huge impact.  Unless LeBron helps out his buddy with someone it’s going to be a long year.

On the bright side, there are still 60-70 PFs & Cs left in the portal that are not stars but are likely good pieces in areas of need. There are even a fair number of them with multiple years of eligibility. Yes, the prices for such players are believed to be coming down because it is getting as late for them as it is for the teams.

I don't think that the plan is for Chaim to play a central role on this year's team. However, if the Dukes don't bring in a starter level 4 & Jellum is no better than an average first-year player, this could change.

The truly bad news, as I see it, is threefold. First, there is no one on the current roster with experience as a full-time starting lead guard at the D-1 level.  Second, there are fewer than 5 experienced PGs available who would be likely A-10 starters & at least 2 of them come with some PR baggage. Finally, there are 80ish schools that are viable destinations for & have interest in the available bigs mentioned above, & dozens of them have more cash than we have been led to believe that Duquesne is willing to spend.   

Don't know why but my gut tells me that the roster, as it currently stands, would be hard pressed to win 12 games. In other words, I believe Dru absolutely has to bring in at least a couple of splash recruits, maybe a power forward and a PG. Otherwise, I see a potential catastrophe on the horizon. I know that there is time enough to do this but I'm getting just a bit antsy. 

In my opinion last year’s team was talented enough to perform better than the results.  I base this on the team’s performance in the A-10 Tournament.  They gave eventual A-10 Champion VCU all it could handle.  Once Alex Williams was established as a prime scoring threat the team was very dangerous.  The problem as I saw it was that it took far too long in the season to properly utilize Alex.  He was a real weapon that was only occasionally utilized. 
This brings me to the topic of next season’s roster as it stands.  As I stated in earlier posts, it does not appear to be close to the potential of last year’s roster which was a 9-9 team in the A-10.  Barring some significant additions, I doubt this roster can finish anywhere close to last seasons record.

Please disregard my previous post. It IS time to panic.

phil95 wrote:

Please disregard my previous post. It IS time to panic.

Did something recently happen to change your opinion?

I'll answer for phil95....Yes! What happened recently is the same thing that has been happening, ABSOLUTELY NOTHING!

Every single day another one of what is left of the total slim pickings of portal players signs elsewhere. Even last year when I didn't love the recruting class by any means, at least they were signing players and building out a roster. Plus, they had multiple returnees. 

We currently have 6 players with DI Basketball experience. SIX! And half of them probably are not legitimate starters in the A-10. Meanwhile the rest of the league has been signing guys left and right. Here is a breakdown of the incoming classes throughout the league.

St. Louis - Transfers from Colorado, South Carolina and Marquette + 2 Top 250 Ranked Freshmen.
VCU - Transfers from Creighton, Middle Tenn. and Sacred Heart + 2 Top 125 Ranked Freshmen
GW - Transfers from Oklahoma St., Georgia, NC St, Pitt, Colorado and Notre Dame! How is GW doing this btw??
Dayton - Transfers from Cincinnati, Ole Miss, Marquette, Quinnipiac + 2 Top 100 Ranked Freshmen.
Loyola-Chi - Transfers from Kansas St, Stanford, Boston College, TCU, an All League Player from Cleveland St. + #5 and #25 JUCO Players. 
George Mason - Transfers from Butler, N. Illinois (avg. 13pts and 5 rebs) + All League Players from Loyola-MD, Mercer, and UTEP
St. Bonaventure - Transfers from Boston College, Penn St, All League Player from NJIT + #16 JUCO Player.

Duquesne - Transfers from Oregon, Virginia Tech, West Georgia and an All League Player from Queens. 

And even that is misleading, because we did get two guys from Power 5 conferences, but they both barely played. When you look at the actual players from all the Power 5 conferences that I mentioned above, most of them were starters or at least main rotation pieces. Yes, the Duquesne class is better than 5-6 teams in the league, but I am so sick of competing with Fordham and La Salle and URI. In fact, we are getting out recruited by most teams in the MAC or MVC. What are we doing here? I would be SHOCKED if without a couple major additions that this team wins more than 10-12 games. As people have pointed out over the past two years, this feels more and more like such an epic failure to seize on the momentum from the 2024 seaona and NCAA victory over BYU and it's just so incredibly frustrating. 




 

Look at George Washington's Roster For Next Season! I would almost trade anyone on our team for anyone on theirs. 
Chris Caputo (5th)                      YR  HT   RK   GP   GS   MIN   PPG   RPG   APG
Andrija Vukovic (Oklahoma St.)  Jr.  6-11          27     3     15.3    5.3     3.4      0.6
Dylan James (Georgia)               Sr.  6-9  76     32     2     15.0    4.5     3.8      0.5
Terrance Arceneaux (NC St.)      Sr.  6-6  41     29     0     16.1    3.9     2.7      0.5
Omari Witherspoon (Pitt)            So.  6-4 107   33    25     27.8    7.5     3.0      2.5
Jean Aranguren                          Sr.   6-3          35    22     24.2    8.2     4.2      3.4
Felix Kossaras (Colorado)         Jr.    6-5  148  27    17     16.3    4.2     1.4      0.4
Ryder Frost (Notre Dame)         So   6-6  85    26     0       6.2     2.7     0.8       0.2
Malachi Arrington (NJIT)           Jr.    6-11         29    15     14.2    3.9     3.7      0.0
Andrew Phillips (Lafayette)       Sr.    6-4          32    32      33.3  13.9    4.6      1.3

Last edited by kidd082000 (5/28/2026 11:48 am)

Maybe take shots on HS players then?   but those are picked over too.  But maybe with the potential for a rule change about years and number of transfers a player can have, HS players become more important for program building.
 

Last edited by townsonkid (5/28/2026 12:26 pm)

DuqBlue wrote:

They posted on Instagram today that season tix are on sale now. Perhaps get a full roster before posting that. Just sayin.

And it looks like they raised the prices. That's gonna be a hard pass from me at the moment. 
 

DuqBlue wrote:

They posted on Instagram today that season tix are on sale now. Perhaps get a full roster before posting that. Just sayin.

Yes, I got my renewal today as well and saw the price went up 3%.

I know costs go up every year, but after the past season and so far this off season kind of interesting timing.  

I am on the same page as everyone and would like to see more positivity/recruits in the offseason.  Have a hard time re-upping again with this current roster.
 

Recruiting issues in this  era come down to money and belief in a coach.  I doubt the education or Institutional reputation are a big factor.  Winning certainly helps, and we have been OK since the NCAA team in 2024, but seemingly failed to gain any significant momentum.  Bottom line you just need some people with deep pockets who are willing to throw some cash our way.  You know who you are guys, so let’s get the ball rolling! Either that or prepare to be a bottom-feeder in the A-10!