Hahaha I thought the same thing.  How crazy is that first time ever he's gotten 24 and I called him out on it hours before??  I was right on

IronDukes12 wrote:

lilpav30 wrote:

I'm still waiting on that game this year that he takes over and has like 24 points and 6-8 for 3s. Any chance that happens tonight or ever?

Congratulations to each of the Dukes for a fine performance last night.  Let this be just the beginning of bigger and better things to come.

That was a great pre-game post, lilpav.  A prophetic comment, it made my night.  Deadly accurate, my friend, and thank you so much for posting it.  I've been as critical of our coach as anybody — I've refrained from making my comments public — but Jim Ferry should let Micah fire away down the stretch.  Shoot, Micah, shoot.  Fire away every chance you get.  We really don't have anything to lose...and, who knows, he just might be on fire, ablaze from 3-point land in the final month of the season.  After all, he's the best three-point shooter in the country — bar none.

It's our only chance.  I'm probably alone, but I'm hoping for an unexpectedly strong finish and a miracle in Brooklyn.  As one who watched the entire Eastern Eight tourney at the Philadelphia Spectrum in March of '77 — the year of Duquesne's last NCAA appearance — I always do. 

That incredible tournament — Norm Nixon, who played with a really bad flu — made lifelong fans of two of my younger brothers.  As sick as he was before the opening round game against Penn State, he signed one of my younger brother's tournament programs in the Spectrum parking lot a couple of hours before the game.  That kind gesture made lifelong fans of my younger brothers, one of whom had just turned 13 at the time and other who was about a year and a half younger.   They have been diehard Duquesne fans ever since, but, sadly, neither of them are following the Dukes this year after the team's particulary slow and anemic start. 

I suppose I really can't blame them.

Then again, hope springs eternal.  If any long-suffering fans in the country deserve some divine intervention, it's those of us who have followed the Dukes since the 1960s.

Does anybody here, incidentally, remember the Duquesne student band playing the song "When the Saints Go Marching In" — substituting, of course, the word "Saints" for Dukes?  It was a long, long time ago, but Micah Mason could be our angel from beyond the 3-point arc.  

This guy didn't perform it as well as the old Duquesne student band, circa 1968-1971, but here's some other guy's version of the song I'm referring to:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wyLjbMBpGDA

To the old-timers on this board, including several who have left, including El Duque, one of my favorites, and my younger brother Ray, who used to post regularly on this site as well as on the old Voy.com site, I say, come back all ye faithful.  You're Duquesne's greatest fans.  We might have an improbable late-season run.  Stranger things have happened.

The longtime fans on this board, needless to say, are the heart and soul of Duquesne basketball and they deserve something special, something really special. 

Come on, Dukes, make it happen!

It'll be one of the greatest sports stories in history, a seemingly mediocre team rising from oblivion to enter the Big Dance after almost all of its diehard fans had completely given up on them.

Faith.  It lasts forever. 

We've suffered a lot, but I can still hear a distant voice...a now barely audible, faint voice cheering quietly from the clouds and clamoring for a miraculous breakthrough in Brooklyn.

From the skies, I can hear old Mossie, standing up and gesturing, giving one last rousing cheer.  "Shoo-Shoo, Rah-Rah...Let's Go Duquesne!"

One last full-throated cheer for the long disapppointed and broken-hearted.

Faith.  It lasts forever.

Younger fans probably don't remember him, but old Mossie Murphy was one of a kind.  He had spirit and spunk — the very ingredients the Duquesne basketball program so desperately needs today.  I had the pleasure of speaking with him a couple of times when the Dukes visited the Philadelphia Palestra to take on one of the city's "Big Five" teams back in the mid and late 1970s.  We usually bumped into each other at the concession stand and he was always more than willing to engage in a conversation about Duquesne basketball.  Whenever the Iron Dukes — that's what we called them back then — played in the City of Brotherly Love, Mossie was sure to be there.  You could count on it.  God Bless his soul.     

Granted, I'll be the first to admit that this has been one of our most disappointing seasons ever, but let's have a little faith down the stretch.  Belief can do wonders and something tells me that Jim Ferry's team could surprise us yet.  I'll give him the benefit of the doubt until the final buzzer in Brooklyn.

How about a little magic from Micah?

Come on, Dukes.  You can do it.

Faith.  It lasts forever.

Maul the Minutemen!.  Let's Go Iron Dukes!!!   



 

Last edited by IronDukes12 (2/12/2015 9:40 am)