From Tristan Freeman....
Duquesne Basketball: 3 keys to home matchup with last place Saint Louis Billikens (bustingbrackets.com)

Dambrot will not take St. Louis for granted. We need to have another good night of shooting 3's and come out to start both halves with tremendous energy.

Go Dukes and play Dixon a lot of minutes!

There is an excellent article in the Post Gazette today by Zeiss on college basketball in Pittsburgh.  Highlighted are the Duquesne Women and Pitt Men’s teams. Sadly the Dukes men’s have a (0) for getting to an NCAA tournament.

As was stated in another post title on the board…many folks’ opinion is that Dambrot has improved the program but has failed because he never got us to an NCAA OR NIT game. It’s time to give another coach a chance.  I like Schmidt, the coach from Ohio State got fired but I doubt he’d come here. Of course they will probably go with Dru Joyce who will probably coach like Dambrot. Good luck tonight Dukes!

If Drew Joyce is responsible for the current Fort Duquesne defensive scheme this year he may get the job on the cheap.My major concern is that the staff all played under Coach Dambrot. Not that this is horrible Coach Joyce could bring in some new assistants to open up recruiting territories and new offensive schemes. However, due to the current NCAA environment in regard to NIL & the portal the only thing that matters is “show me the money”. The AD has a big decision coming up after the season. Keep it rolling tonight Dukes👍

Whatever ever we did to get ready for this game, we should do every game. Blistering start!

Another fantastic performance. St. Louis averaged 91 points over the last 3 games. We held them to 66. Sincere Parker has scored over 30 points in each of the last 3 games. We held him to 4 points on 1-8 shooting. Grant and Clark were excellent. Clark with 19 points, 4 rebounds, 7 assists, 6 steals, and a block while completely taking Parker out of the game. Dimichele with a quiet but outstanding 11 point, 9 rebound game. Also, nice to see Williams find his feet a bit again. This team is coming together!

That was fun huh guys? Dae Dae finding his stroke from 3 is also something we need desperately down the stretch. Barre in street clothes is a bit of a bummer... I wonder if KD will address that in his presser? We have 5 left... we are favored in 3 of those remaining 5, and frankly we need/should beat those teams. If we can steal 1 between GM or VCU, I think we can still get 5th place, which would be a Day 1 bye AND play the winner of the 12/13 game. Then face whoever ends up being 4th. It's a path forward fellas, we're not done, keep the faith.

If these Dukes can play this aggressive on offense the rest of the way, then they are a different team. The defensive effort tonight was great, but the offense produced.  That late game press and trap, I think, can be beat by moving the ball quicker down the court. It seems the longer we pass it around  before mid-court, then the more we have trouble with it. This is a good starting line-up. I hope we stick with it. Dixon's drive to the hoop on the last seconds of the first half was great. He should do it more often.

After the team fumbled the opportunity for the upset at Dayton, I give them credit for taking care of business in the last two home games.  As mentioned above, they need to clean up the careless turnovers.  Jimmy is an amazing talent with a penchant for making game-changing plays; but as a point guard he tends to force things both on the dribble trying to split defenders and on some low percentage passes.  Against the better teams this will need to improve. 
The Dukes caught a break against St Joe’s with their big man Essandoko missing that game after scorching the Dukes for a double-double in the first matchup.  Then the struggling Billikens came to town and lived up to their record.  Hopefully the Dukes can finish the comeback in the last 5 games and get a workable position for the Tournament.
I suppose the next few game's will  determine whether the team has progressed, or just taken advantage of one team with a weakened lineup and another that is just a mess.  As usual Dukes fans we are hoping!

Last edited by levon1975 (2/21/2024 9:55 am)

Post game interviews

Duquesne Basketball Post Game After Saint Louis Win (pittsburghsportsnow.com)

BluffHunter wrote:

We were 0-5 in the league. This team has really turned it around and besides Davidson has been on a roll. As long as we don't have another performance like that Wednesday against Davidson I am very high on these guys. Dae Dae and Tre combined for 50... Boom.

Their success has been a function of the quality of the opponent; so beat a quality opponent and that narrative changes to being capable of beating anyone in the A-10!

Beating Bonnies at Bonnies qualifies as a Quad 1 win.