Duquesne Dukes Fan Forum / NCAA tourn

**Posted by NapaDuke** 3/20/2025 2:28 am

FAM wrote:
Added;
Dayton won, George Mason Won, St Joseph lost n
Loyola is playing at 11:00 PM. All NIT games.

Dayton almost blew it near the end of the game. A couple timely 3's helped them avoid a last second lose. They couldn't play on their home court even though they were the number one because they are hosting the NCAA this year.

**Posted by FAM** 3/20/2025 5:51 am

Loyola won.

**Posted by PhoenixRising2** 3/20/2025 8:34 am

Gee, remarkable that the #2, #3 and #4 seeds in the A10 tourney all won their NIT games, while the 5,6 and 8 seeds all lost. It has nothing to do with talent, but whether they played uptempo.

Repeating myself for at least the 10th time, I really wish that this board had an ignore feature. That wish might be higher on my list than getting a quality point guard.

**Posted by townsonkid** 3/20/2025 9:49 am

Who would think, that considering, even on a message board, to play with a little more pace and urgency would cause such drama. Norman Dale would be proud of you guys.

**Posted by NapaDuke** 3/20/2025 12:47 pm

PhoenixRising2 wrote:
Gee, remarkable that the #2, #3 and #4 seeds in the A10 tourney all won their NIT games, while the 5,6 and 8 seeds all lost. It has nothing to do with talent, but whether they played uptempo.

Repeating myself for at least the 10th time, I really wish that this board had an ignore feature. That wish might be higher on my list than getting a quality point guard.

I guess I didn't get my point across, too wordy on that RE comparison, But you just pointed out two of my points. Does Kent State really have more talent than DU? No. We lost at St.B. at their court Yet, Kent State ran right over them on St.B.'s court? Uptempo did win that game. And yes, get a quality point guard, but it's likely will not mean that much if the Dukes don't play more aggressive on offense. Am I the only one that notice that several teams we did beat are in post season and we are not because of our over-all record. We didn't lose because of defense, we lost because of little offense.

**Posted by BluffHunter** 3/20/2025 2:18 pm

FYI - the women play in the WNIT at 6 PM. Make it out to the Coop! Game thread on the women’s forum.

**Posted by PhoenixRising2** 3/20/2025 3:56 pm

NapaDuke wrote:
PhoenixRising2 wrote:
Gee, remarkable that the #2, #3 and #4 seeds in the A10 tourney all won their NIT games, while the 5,6 and 8 seeds all lost. It has nothing to do with talent, but whether they played uptempo.

Repeating myself for at least the 10th time, I really wish that this board had an ignore feature. That wish might be higher on my list than getting a quality point guard.
I guess I didn't get my point across, too wordy on that RE comparison, But you just pointed out two of my points. Does Kent State really have more talent than DU? No. We lost at St.B. at their court Yet, Kent State ran right over them on St.B.'s court? Uptempo did win that game. And yes, get a quality point guard, but it's likely will not mean that much if the Dukes don't play more aggressive on offense. Am I the only one that notice that several teams we did beat are in post season and we are not because of our over-all record. We didn't lose because of defense, we lost because of little offense.

In conference, the teams with the fastest tempo were Rhode Island, UMass, Fordham and La Salle; that worked out well for those teams.

Are you really sure that the Dukes had superior talent than Kent State? It’s much, much closer than you think. Many of us greatly overvalue the talent on this year’s team (and undervalued the immense loss of talent from last year’s team).

Agreed, the Dukes didn’t lose because of defense. They lost because they didn’t have good enough players. There was not one player on this team that you could consistently count on to get a bucket at the end of a tight game. They need to get better players, especially at guard.

**Posted by phil95** 3/20/2025 4:25 pm

After Jake & Brandon went down, the only viable guards on the roster were Rozier & Dinkins. Matus, Max, & Cam have some guard tendencies in their games, but they are really SFs. Nobody else is even close. That made for some choppy half-court offense & a susceptibility to late game pressure.

Because Necas has not turned into the beast he could be & Corbett doesn't have the size/shooting ability to be an A-10 PF, the 4 was also a position of weakness for this team.

So, yes, the Dukes were not talented enough to be a top flight A-10 team. What that tells me is that in order to get over the hump next season, some very likable, long-term players will need to go.

I think Dinkins demonstrated enough late game chops to be counted on as a clutch scorer. However, once teams figured out that nobody else on the roster had the same quality, he was constantly blitzed into giving up the ball.

**Posted by levon1975** 3/20/2025 5:18 pm

Well said Phil! I’ve been trying to point this out on the Board all season. This team did not have the offensive shot makers and finishers to try and run, run,run as some have suggested. That strategy would have been disastrous. The Dukes were offensively challenged and played a style that gave them a chance to win almost every game. Failure to close out games turned the season from a winner to a loser. Without DAE DAE and Tre Clark the offense and big-play potential was lacking. Trying to run with opponents would not have been the answer.
VCU is going down right now, really due to a lack of offensive playmakers. In this Tournament you need guys who can score! That’s why Duquesne last year was a more dangerous team than VCU in 2025! So The Dukes and Dayton made bonus money for the A-10 by winning in the Tourney! A-10 darling VCU fails again!

**Posted by NapaDuke** 3/20/2025 5:29 pm

levon1975 wrote:
Well said Phil! I’ve been trying to point this out on the Board all season. This team did not have the offensive shot makers and finishers to try and run, run,run as some have suggested. That strategy would have been disastrous. The Dukes were offensively challenged and played a style that gave them a chance to win almost every game. Failure to close out games turned the season from a winner to a loser. Without DAE DAE and Tre Clark the offense and big-play potential was lacking. Trying to run with opponents would not have been the answer.
VCU is going down right now, really due to a lack of offensive playmakers. In this Tournament you need guys who can score! That’s why Duquesne last year was a more dangerous team than VCU in 2025! So The Dukes and Dayton made bonus money for the A-10 by winning in the Tourney! A-10 darling VCU fails again!

BYU had too much muscle in the paint for VCU to handle. And that zone did bother them.

**Posted by FAM** 3/20/2025 5:36 pm

VCU lost in the first round to BYU. NCAA
80-71

**Posted by PhoenixRising2** 3/20/2025 5:37 pm

phil95, really good points. I agree that we may have seen the last of some well liked players. I’m glad I don’t have to make those decisions, especially after investing 3 years in their development. Can they really take a big leap forward, especially with a presumed improvement at guard?

levon1975, I’m with you. Playmakers are the cheat code for coaches.

**Posted by levon1975** 3/20/2025 5:50 pm

That’s true, but the zone will bother teams that can’t shoot!

**Posted by levon1975** 3/20/2025 9:30 pm

Drake plays beautiful offense and beats Missouri, despite shooting Free Throws like Duquesne!

**Posted by PhoenixRising2** 3/21/2025 9:23 am

levon1975 wrote:
Drake plays beautiful offense and beats Missouri, despite shooting Free Throws like Duquesne!

First year in D-1, Ben McCollum certainly has some coaching chops. All that success in D-2 certainly translated well; the man can coach and recruit. Hope Drake can keep him for another year (their previous coach, DeVries, did well moving onto WVU for a year and then onto Indiana).

**Posted by NapaDuke** 3/21/2025 12:41 pm

Robert Morris hanging in there down 4 at half. Could be an upset. Great half RM a bit physical.

**Posted by WashPaRick** 3/21/2025 1:22 pm

What a showing for Bobby Mo.

**Posted by NapaDuke** 3/21/2025 2:45 pm

WashPaRick wrote:
What a showing for Bobby Mo.

Agree, they even went up by one in the middle of the second half. They put up a good fight. Great game to watch. Lots of scoring and drives in the paint by both sides. That soph. big for RM from I think Spain is quite a player.

**Posted by NapaDuke** 3/23/2025 5:37 pm

UCONN let it slip away in the last 2 plus minutes. Just a couple of rim-outs and some lucky threes got Florida the last minute win. All game it looked like UCONN was about to pull away. Just didn't happen.

**Posted by NapaDuke** 3/23/2025 5:42 pm

BYU almost got screwed near the end of their game last night. They got called for a foul under the basket that on the big screen replay showed the BYU player didn't touch the Wis. player, but the BYU player protesting to the ref and pointed to the big screen replay was hit with a technical for pointing up at the replay on the big screen to the ref ? Instead of BYU ball, they were assessed a foul and a technical foul which gave Wisconsin 4 free points to narrow the score. Lucky for BYU, they won anyways, but the refs must have had some money on the game or something.

Last edited by NapaDuke (3/23/2025 5:43 pm)

**Posted by NapaDuke** 3/23/2025 10:15 pm

Loyola and Kent State both won and face each other next in the NIT. With Kent State beating Stanford, only Duke remains in post season for the ACC. How many times did that ever happen before.

**Posted by townsonkid** 3/24/2025 9:25 am

ACC was better when it had 9 teams. Every one of them had star players. Greed isn't always good.

**Posted by PhoenixRising2** 3/31/2025 7:38 am

https://www.usatoday.com/story/sports/college/columnist/dan-wolken/2025/03/30/mens-ncaa-tournament-final-four-ken-pomeroy/82734840007/

**Posted by luckymcd** 3/31/2025 5:35 pm

With all the changes to the sport favoring the big dogs I fear this tournament will become the norm. Bigger conferences (with the accompanying larger broadcast deals) means the gap between power conferences and all the rest will continue to widen. NIL means those schools have a leg up going after the best talent. The transfer portal means they can let smaller schools groom the talent for them to fill any holes they need filled. A great coach may be able to overcome these challenges, but it will really take greatness. Call me nostalgic (or un-American if you must) but I miss the old days of college athletics.

**Posted by levon1975** 4/01/2025 7:46 am

That’s really a done deal at this point. The plan to allow P-4 to rob the talent from Mid-Majors prevents the smaller programs from building a program with their own players for four years. These veteran teams were sometimes capable of beating p-4 schools whose best players often left early for the NBA. So they ended up with younger inexperienced players that could be beaten by a veteran mid -major team. P-4 didn’t like that so they dismantled the system.