Great find Cas. One thing about Ferry, he's never been a bs type. He basically told us we would suck his first year, and we did, so when he says he expects for us to take another step forward this year, I'm inclined to believe him. The folks who are picking us last aren't really paying attention.

ElDuque wrote:

"When you take over a rebuilding project the way guys like Danny [Hurley] and I have at our respective schools that were at rock-bottom -- it doesn’t just happen overnight."

Everhart's last season (16-15 and 7-9 in the conference) was not rock bottom. If he was referring to his first season, even that wasn't rock bottom. 3-24 and 1-15 -- THAT was rock-bottom.

That aside, lots of good stuff, and lots of reasons for optimism. How we have to get it done on the court. Go Dukes!

The league record was rock bottom though. 1-15. More than likely, he's referring to the state of the program after the traitor jumped ship. Made the program much worse than it would have been. That said, things appear to be looking up.
 

ElDuque wrote:

As I've said many times in the past, if you're a Duquesne basketball fan and you can't be optimistic this time of the year, what hope do you really have?

Maybe this year we can be optimistic at the end of February too.

I see your point, but get depressed because of the treadmill. Last spring we were all giddy with "Wow we got Trayvon White and Isaiah Watkins" and this year, they are both leaving! I'm tired of the treadmill. I don't even get my hopes up on recruits anymore. 
 

Not that it proves a point, but after watching Michael Young of Pitt last year in the summer I thought he was way overrated. Turns out I was mostly right.  He scored a fabulous 6 pts with 4 boards a game when the expectations form his hype were double to triple his actual output.  I thought White was good but he was overwhelmed by D-1 talent.  I projected him to be our leading scorer.  Turns out I was mostly or totally wrong.  Watkins never got better physically and he saw the writing on the wall with the level of competition facing him and went on to Furman.  Our posters, while singing the praises of the current Dukes, are doing no more than outsiders such as Panther Lair, Stephen Nesbitt, Craig Meyer  and Jon Rothstein in extolling the talent level of the Dukes.  Add to that a 4-star recruit coming seemingly out of nowhere (I suspect our coaches knew about the kid all along and were the first to leap on him when he decided UTEP wassn't for him) and I think it fair to say a reasoned conclusion is that we aren't on a treadmill.  I saw Jordan Robinson last year and thought wow we have a center/power forward.  After seeing him this year my thought process is wow we have a very good center who will be here for four years. The incoming players this year are one or two ticks above what came in last year in both size and talent.  And, last years players to a man got better.  Dear Tejas, rather than being on a treadmill, the Dukes are on a small locomotive with a lot of light that will shine coming from the old tunnel!! At the very least they will start 6'8", 6'8", 6'7", 6'2' and either 5'11' or 6'0". I am in accord with duq81.  The holes have been filled and as one observer noted Coach Ferry has a Noah's Ark team-two players of comparable talent levels for each position.  Yeah, its optimism, but its more of a majority opinion of those who have seen all twelve scholarship players this summer over the last 4 weeks.

And hence the name SkepticAl.  You have every right to raise those questions.  What I and my friends look at in summer league games are what kind of fundamentals per position does a player have, use and work on?  That is where and how I evaluate. Since you have not seen the summer league, let me assure you that Jordan Stevens will create as many shots as you can imagine. He will draw a ton of fouls, i/m/o. And he can  and will dish it off.  Ditto with Mason. He looks quicker on his release.  Plus, I was not aware that Mason had such a high assist to t/o ratio.  Perhaps that is why he played so much point guard this summer.  I saw a lot of quick passes from him and then back to him thereby creating his shot.  Gill is a completely different player.  He does a little of everything plus shooting.  As to defense, I liked what I saw in  a lot of the matchups against the Pitt and Robert Morris kids.   And yes, Colter and Jeremiah are not reluctant to jack it up!  So too as to Eric James.  They'd better get in as many shots as they can before Rene Castro is eligible!  Not trying to convince you of anything.  Just giving you what my eyes see and what my hoops knowledge tells me to say about what I see.

Last edited by grammudder (7/19/2014 4:41 pm)

ElDuque wrote:

More important than who-gets-how-many-shots, this team needs to win this year. We know they're ALL all too willing to hoist shots, but we have to finally get away from the garbage ball once and for all.

Amen, ED; Win This Year.  To me, this means a season over .500; at least 7 wins in A-10 and beating RMU.  If the Dukes accomplish all 3 of these objectives, then they are well positioned to make the big jump the following year.