Mike Lewis II is a big reason why the Dukes are winning of late.

After suffering through buzzer beaters and letting winnable games slip by earlier in the year, Duquesne has been playing much better ball the past four weeks.

The Dukes now find themselves at a season high two games over .500 (8-6) and winners of four straight. Two of those wins during their current streak were by just three points, which is a true change of pace from their early season struggles finishing games.

“It’s growth. It’s maturity,” coach Jim Ferry said on Dec. 22. “…[O]ur record could be significantly different, but it doesn’t really change who we are. I think it showed some character for us to bounce back.”

So what’s working for Duquesne and can it continue in A-10 play?

Mike and Lewis II

The common ground between the four games on this winning streak has been the strong performances from Isaiah Mike and Mike Lewis II.

Sure, there have been big games from graduate students Emile Blackman and Kale Abrahamson along the way, and Tarin Smith has shown signs of his explosiveness here and there, but the two freshmen starters have scored double digit points every game during this four win stretch (Lewis II has scored at least 10 in each of his last eight games). They have been remarkably consistent of late, especially in the final three games of the non-conference schedule.

Seeing a big game from a starter is a lot more fun and newsworthy, but with a young team that was looking to replace over 70 percent of its scoring from a year ago, you have to shoot for consistency. Mike and Lewis II were starting to show it at the right time, and Ferry complemented his forward on his aggressiveness and for not settling on plays.

The two cooled down in the Dukes’ A-10 opener at Fordham on Dec. 30. They combined to go just 1-10 from three point range, and Mike turned the ball over four times. Still, they found a way to contribute in the 75-72 win. Mike may have been held to just 10 points, but he racked up six boards and a pair of steals. Lewis II went 6-8 at the line and finished with 15 points, which was the second best for the Dukes. It may not have been spectacular, but it got the job done, and the Dukes opened their conference schedule with a road win against a team that was picked ahead of them in the preseason poll.

So was last Friday’s game a sign of things to come now that the competition will be getting stiffer?

Wednesday’s contest is against VCU, who have a pair of players who were represented on the preseason All-Conference defense team (graduate student forward Mo Alie-Cox and senior guard JeQuan Lewis). They might have their work cut out for them, but playing at home should help a bit.

There is a little bit of a reprieve after the Rams game, as they go on the road against La Salle on Jan. 7 and then return home against Saint Louis on Jan. 11. Both schools are struggling on defense. La Salle has allowed at least 77 points in eight of their 11 contests this year and teams are shooting at a .481 clip against them. The Billikens are doing a little better, but their 72.2 PPG average is hardly threatening, especially since it’s paired with their anemic offense. Both of those defenses are doing worse than Central Connecticut (61.5 PPG allowed) and Jackson State (69 PPG allowed), who the Dukes and the duo handled well during this winning streak.

While the schedule gets harder after that, there’s a good opportunity for both freshmen to find their footing early in A-10 play.

Jordan Robinson

Robinson did not find any time on the court at Fordham, but the Dukes’ junior has proved to be a more complete player this year in limited minutes.  His performance against Colgate on Dec. 22 was a bit out of the ordinary for him. With Darius Lewis in foul trouble, Ferry gave Robinson 11 minutes of action, and the 6’8” forward grabbed six rebounds. Even though he didn’t score, Ferry was pleased with the performance.

“Normally with Jordan, when he plays well, it’s because he scores,” Ferry said on Dec. 22. “…[D]on’t think Jordan’s not going to keep getting opportunities now when he keeps doing that. If he can play well without scoring, we have a chance to be pretty good.”

Robinson has only played in nine games so far this season and is averaging just six minutes an appearance, but there might be more time to be won, especially since Darius Lewis is being used less and less (the opening day starting center was limited to just five minutes in Fordham).

The Graduate Students

Blackman and Abrahamson proved why they were worth bringing into the program against Fordham. Blackman had a team high 17 points, and Abrahamson picked up his first double-double as a Duke, grabbing 10 boards and 12 points.

The two newcomers seem to have adjusted to the system and their experience could steal another A-10 game or two before the season’s all said and done, especially if they can do damage from behind the arc.

Blackman has been the Dukes’ best option from three, converting 35.7% of his shots from downtown. Abrahamson is also shooting at a 35.7% clip, though he has only played five games after sitting out the first month and change. He was second for Drake last year in threes (54) and made at least three in a game nine times.

While that’s a far cry from Micah Mason and Derrick Colter a year ago, it’s enough to keep teams honest. Between those two, Mike, Smith, Rene Castro and Lewis II, the Dukes should almost always have at least three guys on the court who could be a threat from deep. The deep ball was an important part of the Dukes’ game for years under Ferry, and making three pointers is a great equalizer when playing a good team. The two veterans will need to keep doing damage from downtown if the Dukes want to push for a decent seed in the A-10 tournament.

Freshman Isiaha Mike has adapted quickly to college basketball and looks to lead a new core into A-10 play.
Image via Duquesne Athletics

On March 4, 2015, the Dukes took a disappointing 10 wins into Fordham’s Rose Hill Gym. They lost to some crap teams in non-conference and blew some games they should have won earlier in the year. Some nights they came out flat like when they visited St. Louis and hit just 38% of their free throws. Others, like their home loss to St. Bonaventure in overtime, their porous defense let them down. Duquesne fans endured Micah Mason’s struggles as he switched from shooting guard to point guard. It wasn’t an essential change but an extremely disruptive one. Mason responded like someone fed him a footlong meatball sub on normal bread when he had to carry the basketball over mid court.

That day, Tom Percora was on the hot seat, though things were looking up for the Rams. He had two of the better freshmen in the league and every starter was a relevant player, not just starters that were eligible again the next season. Fordham struggled mightily early in the season, posting a losing non-conference record and dropping their first 9 league contests in a row. However, they looked like they were turning the corner a little bit winning 4 of the previous seven. Some, like their fifteen point win over La Salle, were quite convincing. With another team looking likely to finish in the bottom four, the Rams may have thought they’d run it to ten. Instead, the Dukes put in one of their best performances in an all together meaningless game for everyone except Pecora. While his fate may have been sealed long before this, I’ve always felt like the Dukes put the final nail in his coffin as the head coach of the Rams. They won one more game in the first round of the Atlantic 10 Championship, but that was all she wrote for him. He was fired shortly after the season ended.

While it will only be the first game of the conference season, Duquesne at Fordham may go a long way to determining the Dukes’ coaching situation in the offseason. After a promising 5-1 start to the season, Fordham have fallen back and struggled. Meanwhile the Dukes have been up and down beating Pittsburgh, but losing to UMBC and Robert Morris in the same week. They lost some close games, but they also blew some big leads against inferior opponents.

Jim Ferry finds himself on the hot seat this time around and for him a good start in conference play will be crucial. Like Pecora, Ferry has a promising young crop of players with Mike Lewis II and Isiaha Mike winning 5 of the first 7 Atlantic 10 rookie of the week awards in the 2016-17 season. He also returns most of his core players for next year. However, the rough non-conference will make it considerably more difficult for him to hold onto his job. At this point, his team needs to make up for a poor start against more difficult league opponents.

Since the beginning of the season, my magic number for Ferry has been 14 wins. If he hits that, he gets to come back for a sixth season, provided his freshman and sophomores look like a group fans could put their faith in. I believe they have. Lewis II has exceeded all expectations and after a slowish start, Mike is beginning to look a little more comfortable. He still turns the ball over too much but he’s going to the hoop and the free throw line more in the last five games. Tarin Smith is also beginning to get his game legs back. His finishing is a still a bit off at times but he’s taking better care of the basketball and attacking the hoop the way we expected he might. Meanwhile, Nakye Sanders has taken the full time starting position from senior Darius Lewis and might quietly be the team’s most valuable player, despite scoring in double figures just once. The suspended Josh Steel looked excellent in his two games and could cut deeply into Emile Blackmon’s minutes if he ever gets on the court again. All five have two or more years left in their career and all, except Steel, have gone a long way to establish themselves with another crop of solid recruits on paper following them next year to serve as depth with a bench full of seniors.

It’s also worth noting that this group can defend pretty well unlike Ferry’s earlier recruits. They have the best defensive rating among any Ferry coached teams so far. They also tightened up late in the non-conference and even on days when the offense has struggled, and it’s struggled often, they’ve kept themselves in games. To me, this is a top 100/bubble NIT core. If the incoming class lives up to expectations, the group could play even higher. That’s where I want to program to be eventually, but I will take it as progress.

Pecora was in a similar situation at the end of 2015. Sure he took his lumps and honestly showed less than Ferry in his first five years. However, he had an elite player in Eric Paschall, a young core around him and some veteran leadership with Ryan Rhoomes and Mandell Thomas. Jeff Neubauer posted a winning record his first year, but could you imagine what might have been if they still had Paschall? Would they have taken the step back they did this year so far this year? It’s my opinion that Pecora had the program ready to compete. Neubauer got to take the credit. The new coach did improve defensive efficiency but not by much more than I would simply attribute to the maturation process. The offense took a step back.

However, Ferry has to show us a little something. It’s difficult for me to envision seven conference wins without the Dukes beating the Rams twice. Can it be done? Sure, but every loss and the road gets a little more difficult. Mark the sweep for the Dukes on rpiforecast.com’s Wizard, and sure enough the Dukes’ projected record is 14-17. Split and we’re down to 13-18. Lose both, and you guessed it, the expected outcome is twelve wins. You can’t sweep a team if you don’t win game one, starting this Friday night.

There can be only one winner in the County Game and it better be Duquesne.

December 2, 2016

I tried a new approach for City Game Day 2016: negativity. Most years I write stuff about how it’s the day anything can happen for Duquesne fans. The day we get to flirt with glory and the local limelight. Not this year. I went salty and it worked great. Here’s an actual text I sent to another Duquesne alum and long time fan, like myself, just after parking my car.

I’m not even sure why I even left the house tonight.

After sending that text, I noticed a tweet from Zach Weiss that Jamel Artis would miss the City Game due to suspension and the usual City Game Day hope crept in. I had to smash it down and remind myself that only negative energy could fuel the Dukes to a win this year.

As luck would have it, I was randomly seated next to another long time fan who I’ve spent many a summer league night with checking out the future of Duquesne basketball. Normally as positive as you can get, he seemed to be taking the same tact as myself for this one. He declared that he’d be happy if the Dukes trailed by five or less at the half regardless of what happened in the second. I congratulated him on his win for the evening at the break as he headed up the steps to the Captain Morgan Club bar to celebrate his moral victory. Sincerely, I was also pleased.

When the Dukes roared out to an early nine point lead, the old City Game me snuck back out from the part of my brain that I was repressing and I began to believe that the Dukes might pull it off.  A three-quarter court press that set up a stifling wall of 6’6” or taller guards in Pitt’s 3-2 zone reminded my joy-in-waiting of where to go. Just as he returned to the shadows, Rene Castro hit a late shot clock three he had no business making. To me, that was the turning point that ultimately restored the lead to Duquesne for good. Of course, I didn’t allow myself to celebrate fully until Eric James sank his second free throw before he went all Troy Polamalu on Chris Jones’s notably telegraphed pass to the wing on Pitt’s third-to-last possession leading to a breakaway dunk.

Then and only then could I actually believe. Duquesne fans celebrated like the Cubs winning the World Series or Browns fans beating the Steelers. The fans stormed the court and we chanted in the streets. People drove by honking. For some (not me), this is still the most important game for Duquesne of the season. It’s not, but most who attended likely had no plans to come to another game this year. Hopefully that changes, but it won’t if the Dukes can’t beat Robert Morris in the same venue on Tuesday night.

December 15, 2012

I was still aglow from the Dukes win over West Virginia four days earlier as I bought my ticket at the Sewall Center. It was an ugly contest against a relatively weak WVU team, but a win is a win and Jim Ferry in his first year did something to restore some street cred to the program and beat a team we had no business beating, something the recently fired Ron Everhart rarely managed.

It was a relatively large crowd at the Sewall Center, swelled by a ton of Duquesne fans making the short trip to Moon Township. If I had to guess, I’d have said the Dukes were equally represented in the stands against the home standing Colonials. After beating WVU, a win against Robert Morris seemed like a given, even if we’d lost a couple of fluky contest to them in a row. We had a new coach who had done well against Andy Toole in conference while he was at LIU. The Dukes had all the momentum in the world or so it seemed. I sat with a handful of Yuku Dukes readers and we speculated on the margin of the impending Duquesne victory.

The Dukes lead by five at the 12:10 mark in the first half when I heard someone exclaim from a galaxy far far away…

Admiral Ackbar was correct. It was a trap. The Dukes got absolutely stomped in the second half by a Robert Morris team that just seemed to want it more. After Duquesne trailed by only one at the half, the Colonials outscored them by 21 in the second. All the good will from the WVU game vanished in 20 minutes of atrocious basketball.

December 6, 2016

The Dukes are gearing up for another trap game against Robert Morris. This time it will have the added importance for the Colonials as they’re moving the County Game to the PPG Paints Arena for the first time. Truly, this is a big game for Bobby Mo, likely the biggest of their 2016-17 schedule and probably the most important game of some of their current players’ careers. Don’t think for a second that a win over the school from Oakland guarantees anything over the school from Moon.

The Dukes can’t let up. Ferry can’t let up. Some people said the City Game win secured the Duquesne coach another year in Pittsburgh. It didn’t. I thought he coached a very good game last night, something he is very capable of doing. Some people said this team might be turning a corner. I hope that is indeed true and I hope they use their confidence to believe that they can not only beat Robert Morris but dominate them as well. They are good enough to hang an ugly loss on the Colonials, but they need to want it as badly as they wanted a City Game win. They need to respect Robert Morris as a goodwill vampire. The Colonials would love bite the Dukes in the neck and suck out some of the Dukes goodwill with a surprise victory. They’ve done it in the past and would gladly do it again.

But more importantly the Dukes need to believe they can beat anyone they play. They can. This is a pretty damn good team despite their record. In truth, it’s the best core of freshmen and sophomores they’ve had since the year they went to the Atlantic 10 finals in 2008-2009. The best thing for the program is for Jim Ferry to build on this momentum, find a way to save his job and then keep his core together moving forward. The first step is beating Robert Morris. As a fan, I’m not going to go into this game assuming anything the way I did on December 15, 2012. The Dukes can’t either or all the happy thoughts we’re having today will be flushed down the toilet.

And yes, I’m trying to be negative, because it worked really well on Friday!

After 15 years, the City Game finally goes in Duquesne’s favor.

Friday night was a game Duquesne fans should cherish for years to come.

Regardless of what happens the rest of the year, at least for one night, Duquesne basketball was king in Pittsburgh. It wasn’t the Steelers, Penguins or Pirates. It was Duquesne basketball.

They beat Pitt. The City Game mattered again. The rivalry mattered again. They mattered again.

“It hasn’t been much of a rivalry lately, and from what we have been through this year, that just shows how hard these kids worked tonight,” coach Jim Ferry said.

The rivalry was supposed to re-ignite a year ago. The Dukes were older and on a hot streak. Pitt looked vulnerable. Instead, they were clobbered by 21 points.

This year they came in losers in four of their last five and with five different starters than a year ago. They were down by 10 in the first half and came back. Go figure.

Maybe this is the type of team that just plays to the level of their opponent. Maybe they were too young and stupid to realize that they were supposed to lose by 20.

For a defense that had found new and creative ways to lose in the second half for the last 12 months, their performance in the last 20 minutes may have been the best in the Ferry era. They got the most out of their guys.

“I think it’s really big for our team coming off a tough start this season, we really needed this.” sophomore guard Tarin Smith said. “We believed we would win, we know we are a really talented team and this is really big for us as far as confidence going forward.”

The Dukes and the school take this game seriously. Ferry said afterwards that he was happy to win this game for the players who always fell short against Pitt. Micah Mason took to Twitter to celebrate with his fellow Duke fans.

The school’s Union building has “Beat Pitt” written on it in soap on its windows. They were ready for this game, even if conventional wisdom said they did not have a chance.

It was easily their best turnout of the year. Everyone knows that this team is young and isn’t destined for greatness this year, but this was their Super Bowl. Pitt is the alpha target.

Pitt, on the other hand, has a lot of rivals. There are old ones like Syracuse, some dormant but ready to reignite foes like West Virginia, and then the rest of the very demanding ACC. Duquesne is just another grudge game, and it’s more due to proximity and tradition rather than competitiveness.

Can you blame them? Pitt had won 15 in a row by an average of more than 16 points a game. Pitt makes regular trips to the Dance while Duquesne has one NIT berth since 1995. The freshmen in the Zoo Friday night were three years old the last time Duquesne won. Michael Young was in first grade. A win in the City Game was a Panther fan’s birthright since the Reagan administration.

That was until the Duquesne student section ran onto the court. Who cares if Artis was out? Who cares if a lot of bounces went their way? A win’s a win.

And it was in front of a full student section. You can tell that it was the first game for a lot of them too. When the pep band started singing “You’re not gonna make it” when a Panther stepped to the free-throw line, plenty of the greenhorns sang “take it” instead. Sometimes the chants felt like going to a midnight screening of the “Rocky Horror Picture Show” when people screw up the call backs, but like “Rocky,” the important thing is having fun.

The student section has been mostly empty this year. A good chunk of their home games so far were during Thanksgiving break, but there have been times when you did not have to take off your socks and shoes to count how many students were in attendance. The pep band and the poor Kramer head cutout can get lonely this time of year.

But they came out and were loud. Whether it was them chanting that they had “Dukes out for Harambe” or giving Pitt a culinary suggestion, they were hyped from start to finish.

It’s the type of win that can keep a fan warm through what should be some rough winter months once A10 play starts. The Dukes could go winless and it would not matter to some. They’re in the black and playing with house money.

On the other hand, this is their chance to reestablish themselves as a legitimate program.

Like I said earlier and will be saying throughout the course of the year, this is a very young team. They started four underclassmen Friday and will likely be going with at least two or three all year. Wins and losses in a lot of these games are not as important as just improving.

But if there is another “big” game on their schedule, it’s Tuesday. They are returning to PPG Paints for their “other” City Game against Robert Morris. If they win, they have bragging rights over both programs and are getting media attention for their performance rather than being trapped on a bus.

They can prove that Duquesne basketball matters for more than just one night.

Duquesne fans are losing their damn minds. They lost an exhibition to a D-II side that meant nothing, but have dropped two that count against middling teams from below-average conferences at the buzzer against Canisius and UT-Martin. Jim Ferry has naturally been taken to task. Zachary Weiss shredded him for making excuses and I got this number in my twitter feed on Sunday.

Jim Ferrys seat is so hot he can't sit down. #LetsGoDukes @GreatGhostsAliv @SteveDiMiceli pic.twitter.com/6K4aBuqDO8

— J.J. (@JJYoungDrums) November 27, 2016

After a couple of underachieving seasons following Ferry’s slow start, it shouldn’t come as a surprise that those fans still on the bridge are thinking about jumping. However, should we really be surprised about the start?  Just before the season began,  I broke down the Dukes schedule and predicted between 13-18 wins. In the piece, I noted:

While the talent level is similar to last year after a solid offseason, a couple things stand in Duquesne’s way of matching their first .500 season under Jim Ferry. The Dukes have five new pieces and a transfer who they need build their rotation around. In all likelihood, a couple of the freshman guards won’t factor, but it will take time for this team to gel. This could lead to an early season hiccup or two and when I mean hiccup, I mean bad loss or tighter than expected wins. November could be a complete crap shoot, but the team might be better than last year’s by March.

I was wrong about the freshman guards. Both Mike Lewis II and Spencer Littleson have featured prominently into Ferry’s plans early. This is a positive sign for the future, but a new challenge in the short run when dealing with the inconsistencies of freshmen. Lewis dropped a 20 spot on Cleveland St. and 19 on Penn St., but he put up a goose egg against St. Francis and two against UT-Martin.

The rest of the quote holds up. They dropped a couple of close games to teams they should have beaten because in large part, its taken the team a while to come together as evidenced by the turnovers and the assist to field goal made ratio under .5.  The team has looked like a complete mess at times, but they’ve also looked dominant at others. To me, this is all part of the process.

To Weiss’ column, I think it’s worth noting that there are excuses and there are hard truths. While I’d like to hear Ferry take a little more accountability for the team’s failings, it has also been easy to see this start coming. The reality of the situations is that the team is young, the players are completely new to the system and they haven’t had much time to work on the things they need to work on. Like it or not, this team is inexperienced and flawed. Fixing the problems won’t happen overnight and the new guys have basically had to learn on the job. The freshmen had a whopping four games of real experience heading into the tough losses. They need to learn how to win and sometimes we have to fail in order to learn.

Still, Ferry seems to be coaching for a theoretical future that may not come for him if he continues to neglect the rest of his non-conference schedule. The way I see it, his safe number to keep his job is 14. I don’t get excited about another crappy season, but I think Duquesne fans don’t need too vivid an imagination to see this team improving considerably next season. They have a talented and deep core and while they’ll lose some important players to graduation, they have enough returning that they should quickly build. Isiaha Mike is a star in the making and Tarin Smith has flashed some high end upside despite sitting out a year. There are a number of complementary players like Nakye Sanders, Josh Steel, Littleson, and Lewis II all with at least two years of eligibility remaining beyond this one. It may not look like it now, but this group could win 20 games and play in an NIT if they stay together next season.

There is a long way to go in 2016-17 and I still believe this team could play its best basketball in March. If they are, it will have made the lumps worth it. There is talent, but they need time to grow and mature. At the same time, Ferry can’t afford to lose too many more like this one.

Other Notes

Women’s Basketball

How times have changed for Duquesne women’s basketball! The Dukes went on a two game road trip in New York against likely top 100 RPI teams and took both. St. John’s could flirt with the top 50 and an NCAA at-large bid. Iona should compete for the MAAC’s automatic bid. They quietly started the foundation for another solid resume. Buffalo and California losses will likely be more missed opportunities than damaging.

Here’s the kicker. This was supposed to be a transition year with the departure of April Robinson and the rest of their starting back court. The Dukes have only one senior playing a major role in Amadea Szamosi, so not only are they off to a great start, they’re off to a great start with a young team. With four of five starters returning, this could just be the beginning of a special run.

Football / Robert Morris Comparisons

I haven’t paid much attention to Duquesne football this year, but they just did what they keep doing, sharing the NEC title. They ended up finishing a late touchdown at St. Francis short of their second straight outright title and back to back FCS tournament appearances.

At the other end of the conference was Robert Morris and while the Dukes have been racking up title shares, the Colonials have fought to avoid last place. For me, it’s time to put to bed any argument that Bobby Mo has a better athletic department than Duquesne. Sure, men’s basketball is still suspect, but Andy Toole’s team has slipped since their last NCAA appearance due to extreme roster turnover. This year’s men’s game is meaningless to the season series since Duquesne has already clinched the better all sports record. Sure, Robert Morris competes nationally in hockey with a top 30 program, but that’s out of 60 teams. Meanwhile, Duquesne has a top 50 women’s program out of 346 teams. To me, the later is more impressive. The Dukes could use some separation in men’s hoops, but just because Robert Morris may have an edge in one sport doesn’t mean they’re better, or even competitive, overall.

The A.J. Palumbo Center is going to be home to some rough games this season.

The Duquesne men’s basketball team had plenty of chances to put Canisius away Friday, but they fell short in a 78-77 loss.

Down 10 points in the first half, Mike Lewis had three shots at the line. He missed two. With just over three minutes to go in the game, Tarin Smith fell down near midcourt, resulting in a turnover and an easy layup to tie the game at 70. After taking the lead back with nine seconds to go, Duquesne left a senior forward wide open, and he hit the game winning 15 foot jumper.

Things like this are bound to happen when you start three underclassmen. All three of those mistakes were committed by either freshmen or sophomores, and four underclassmen were on the court on the deciding shot.

Simply put, Duquesne is at the start of a year of growing pains. At least a couple more losses like this are on the horizon.

“For the most part, we are a younger team. We’ve got guys that haven’t played as much or as many games as other guys,” guard Emile Blackman said. “…it’s good for guys like Isaiah and Mike to be finishing a game like that, and although we didn’t get the result that we wanted, we lost by one point…it will pay off for us going forward.”

It’s probably not fair to compare this year’s team with the 2015-2016 squad. Last year they had seniors Derrick Colter, Micah Mason and Jeremiah Jones, and even then they could only barely crack .500. Freshmen Isaiah Mike, Lewis and Spencer Littleson have promise and could be the next big three for Duquesne, but it will, of course, take time.

And after finally getting a taste of being a legitimate program last year, starting another rebuild is a tough pill to swallow.

Still, all things considered, things have not been too bad for the Dukes so far. Yes, they were embarrassed in their exhibition game to start the year and they have three losses, but two were on the road to Penn State and Kentucky, so the average fan can’t be too disappointed.

There’s been some sloppiness, but most of their young players have had at least one good game. The flip side of that is many of them have had a very bad game as well. It’s the curse of trying to learn to play together but you can’t practice because you have eight games in November.

Lewis went 6-13 from the field with three 3-pointers in a 19 point performance against Penn State (which earned him A10 rookie of the week honors), but he followed that with 11 bad minutes against Saint Francis.

Littleson has been aggressive from three, and he made four deep balls on seven attempts his first two games, but has gone 2-12 since.

Mike has been the most consistent out of the three, but his five turnover game against Saint Francis was not pretty. A lot of those miscues by Mike happened in what fifth-year coach Jim Ferry called the “ugliest 15 minutes” of his career.

Mike’s worst performance probably came in the exhibition game on Nov. 5, where he got into foul trouble early before the Dukes blew a nine point lead to a Division II team. Between the charges and the turnovers, Jim Ferry said he and the other younger players have to find that balance between being aggressive and being reckless.

“He’s a kid. He did some dynamic things. He did some great things,” Ferry said. “…it’s experience, guys. It’s what he’s got to do. He’s got to get experience.”

Ferry said at that same presser that he was confident in his offense this year, and so far, he’s been right. The Dukes averaged 76.3 PPG in their first four contests (I’m omitting the Kentucky game Sunday because that was a mercy killing). Despite losing their four leading scorers from 2015-16, their .458 shooting percentage is just a shade lower than last year, when they shot .462 from the field.

His main concern then was rebounding, and for good reason. Duquesne has 6’11” senior center Darius Lewis, but it’s telling that he was on the bench at the end of the Canisius game when his coach was looking for a rebound. Even though the big man had fouls to give, Ferry went with Nakye Sanders because he feels he is the team’s best man on the boards.

Sanders and the rest of the team did not come through and Canisius grabbed an offensive board before taking the lead with just seconds remaining in the game.

Now that these players have had a taste of what collegiate level basketball is like, they have found two other things they will need to work on: communicating and starting better.

The communication problem will probably sort itself out as the year progresses (like it does for almost every team).

The poor starts have been more surprising. Duquesne has trailed by at least 10 in the first half in three straight games. In the two games that weren’t Kentucky, they were able to mount a comeback to take the lead. (If you watched last year’s team blow double-digit leads in four straight losses, that last sentence may have come as a shock. I hope you were sitting down when reading it and not at a standing desk because I don’t want anyone to get hurt while fainting).

While the comebacks show resilience, the Kentucky blowout proves they can’t do it every game.

“(We have to do a better job) trying not to dig a hole for ourselves early,” Mike said. “We’ve really got to focus on offensive execution and really buckling down on defense.”

Duquesne is hopefully on its way to becoming a legitimate program again, but if they are, they’re on their first step. Mike, Lewis, Smith, Sanders and Littleson should all improve as the year goes on, but the non-section schedule is no longer a cakewalk for the Dukes, let alone A10 play.

To borrow a phrase from another Pittsburgh sports team, this will probably be a bridge year.

Ladies and gentleman, your 2016-17 Duquesne Dukes!
Photo via GoDuquesne.com

While the talent level is similar to last year after a solid offseason, a couple things stand in Duquesne’s way of matching their first .500 season under Jim Ferry. The Dukes have five new pieces and a transfer who they need build their rotation around. In all likelihood, a couple of the freshman guards won’t factor, but it will take time for this team to gel. This could lead to an early season hiccup or two and when I mean hiccup, I mean bad loss or tighter than expected wins. November could be a complete crap shoot, but the team might be better than last year’s by March. Second, the schedule should be considerably tougher. The A-10 sets up its strongest season since Xavier, Butler and Temple were poached by different conferences. Kenpom projects eight teams in the top 100 and only one league program to finish higher than 175 in RPI. The meat grinder is back and it might be even more exaggerated than in previous years. As Alex Stumpf pointed out, the Dukes are probably looking up at most of the league.

A step back in record is likely even if the team on paper doesn’t look too much worse. I’ll break down the season, the same way I do every year, by putting each game in the season into one of five categories based on “An Upset If They Lose” are games the Dukes should win 85% of the time. “Games The Dukes Should Win” are games Duquesne should come out on top between 84-55% of the time while “Tough But Winnable” should win between 54-40% of the time. Under “Longshots,” the Dukes have about a 39-15% to win and in the “An Upset If The Dukes Win,”  I give Duquesne less than a 10% chance of winning. I’ll tab it all up at the end.

An Upset If The Dukes Lose

vs Loyola-Maryland, vs St Francis (PA), vs UMBC, vs CC St

The season kicks off with Loyola – Maryland and it should also kick off with a win. The Greyhounds haven’t been the same since Jimmy Pastos left for Siena. They return their top scorer in Andre Walker, but lost their next three. St Francis played the Dukes tough in Johnstown last year, but lost annual thorn in our side Ben Millaud-Meunier. They return Malik Harmon, but are otherwise depleted. UMBC return a good chunk of their 7 win team from last season including former VCU point guard Jarius Lyles.

Games the Dukes Should Win

vs. Canisius, vs UT-Martin, vs Cleveland St, @ (sort of) Robert Morris, vs Jackson St, vs Colgate, vs Saint Louis, vs UMass, vs Fordham

Canisius are returning a considerable amount of their 14 win team from last year, but not their coach. Jim Baron retired abruptly in May and the Golden Griffins replaced him with Reggie Witherspoon. UT – Martin have a large number of JUCO’s coming in, so they’re a bit of a crap shoot even if they won 20 games last year. Cleveland St struggled to score last year. While the roster hasn’t changed much, it’s difficult to fathom them keeping up with the Dukes. Rivalry aside, Robert Morris belongs in the upset category. However, they’ll give the Dukes everything they have. Jackson St. also won 20 games last year, but may not have the size to handle Duquesne. Colgate lost their leading scorer, but are an excellent three point shooting team. If the Dukes perimeter defensive woes continue in 2016-17, this will be a difficult game.

In conference, the pickings are a little more slim, but they have three home games they should win. Saint Louis is going to get to the top of the Atlantic 10 pretty fast under Travis Ford, but their best players are sitting out as transfers.The Dukes will have a chance to sweep the double.  Fordham lost their two best players and brings in a ton of JUCOs. They return the bones of a decent squad and could be better. Of course, the Dukes should still beat them at home. UMass has a hell of a freshman class and a hell of a player in Donte Clark, but a number of players who haven’t lived up to their potential. If a couple of them, like Zach Coleman or CJ Anderson do, they’ll move out of this category.

Tough but Winnable

@ Penn St, @ La Salle, @ Fordham, vs St Bonaventure, @ St Louis, vs George Washington, @ George Mason, vs St. Joseph’s

Penn St has an extremely young, but talented team. Playing them as the second game in the season is a gift even if they have to go on the road. La Salle likewise will have considerable gelling to do as their new pieces get into the lineup. If this game were later in the season it would probably move to long shots. St Bonaventure returns Jalen Adams, but they lost a lot from the team that got the NCAA snub last year. George Washington has some top end returning players like Yuta Wantanabe and Tyler Cavanaugh returning and they have a couple of solid transfers in Jaren Sina and Patrick Steeves. George Mason has a solid young foundation and a couple of vets, but it’s still likely a year or so before Dave Paulsen rights the ship. They’ll rely heavily on their freshman class. St Joe’s might be the best team in this pool, but the Dukes beat a better Hawks team to close regular season. No reason why they can’t do it again.

Longshots

vs Pitt, vs VCU, vs Dayton, @ George Washington, vs Rhode Island, @ Davidson, @ Richmond, @ St Bonaventure

Every year Pitt fans like to tell me this is Duquesne’s year and every year the Dukes end up losing. They could be onto something though this time with the coaching change and the 6’7” small forward they have running the point this year. VCU and Dayton are probably the two best teams in the conference, but home games against put these games within reach. Same goes for Rhode Island. Davidson and Richmond are a tier down from the top of the league. Wins against them on the road are unlikely, but I don’t think the world of sports would meltdown with shock if the Dukes won either.

Upset if the Dukes Win

@ Kentucky, @ Dayton

I’d be satisfied if they stayed within twenty points of Kentucky. I do think this is a game that will pay dividends to the program down the road. The Dukes are fortunate that the game against Dayton on the road is the only one against a top team on the road in the A-10.

****

So let’s add it all up. We’ll tally all of the “An Upset If The Dukes Lose” as wins and all of the “Upsets If The Dukes Win” as losses, so we’ll start at 4-2.  Among the nine “Games the Dukes Should Win,” they’d take 5 on the 55% side of the range and 7.6 on the top end. Of the eight “Tough but Winnable” contests they should emerge victorious between 2.8 and 4.3. The “Longshots” should yield between 1 and 2.4 wins. Add it up and they should finish somewhere in the range of 13 and 18 wins. That’s a wide range of outcomes, but there are a lot of questions marks surrounding this team that can be answered in a number of ways.

Jim Ferry has brought in a stable recruiting class for the first time in ages.
Photo by Justin Berl/Pittsburgh Sports Report

Those who have read my pieces on Duquesne and college basketball in general may recall that there are four situations a program can find themselves in an offseason. The first and most ideal is ‘Building‘. This is where a team is poised to improve after returning most of their key players or adding some important pieces. The second is ‘Reload‘, where teams have internal options lined up to replace departing players. The third is ‘Transition‘, where the next core group of players is in place, but it may take a year or two to take over for a departing cohort. Generally, this means at least one down season before the program get back to it’s feet. Finally is ‘Rebuild‘, where at most a couple of the next core are in place. Often times, it takes 3-5 years to recover from a total rebuild.

As the Dukes entered into last offseason, they appeared to be headed for a transitional year. Gone were players like Micah Mason, Derrick Colter, and Jeremiah Jones. The issues only compounded themselves when L.G. Gill left as a grad transfer to Maryland. Some may have seen it as a rebuild, but the Dukes already had some players in place behind them. Eric James filled in adequately for Jones and could easily surpass his value to the team as a junior this year. Tarin Smith, who proved serviceable as a Big Ten starting point guard for Nebraska, would likely replace some of the production of one of the guards. After sitting out a year, it would have been difficult to expect him to replace one of them completely. Jordan Robinson and Nakye Sanders both looked like options to offset some of Gill’s productivity closer to the basket, while servicing in a post rotation with Darius Lewis and freshman Isiaha Mike. Neither could spread the floor the way Gill could. The team had question marks at one guard spot and the depth wasn’t awe inspiring. They’d need to rely heavily on players who had never played in the Atlantic 10 or in college basketball to have any success.

The offseason turned around in a hurry. Emile Blackmon, the MAAC’s number nine scorer a season ago, joined the Dukes as a grad transfer. Within a matter of days, the Dukes added a second grad transfer in Kale Abrahamson who is a similar player to Gill. Combine that with Mike appearing more Division I ready and Rene Castro’s summer league resurgence and the Dukes have managed to make the trend closer to reload than transition. Blackman could replace one of the departing guards, in theory, and the bench looked considerably better. Ken Pomeroy has the Dukes 168 in his preseason rankings just 12 places off their disappointing 2016 finish. In April, I’d have put them in the 200’s.

One might say that a reloading season to remain a mediocre program during a coach’s 5th season isn’t much of an accomplishment and possibly grounds for firing. I can’t say I agree with that sentiment. For starters, progress isn’t always linear and given the circumstances Jim Ferry was hired under, it’s important to consider how we got here.  Duquesne fired Ron Everhart relatively late in March of 2012. To put it into perspective, Rhode Island hired Danny Hurley two days before Everhart’s departure. Ferry arrived at Duquesne days before the spring signing period opened giving him little time to fill the five open scholarships let alone evaluate his core returning players. He managed to cobble together a class that included a player who beat cancer and finished his career as Duquesne’s 6th all time leading scorer in Colter and an A-10 leading scorer in Ovie Soko. The problem is, five of the returning players with more than a year of eligibility left never made it as they all transfered to D-II programs after the season or quit basketball entirely. Coupled with the transfers of Marvin Binney and Quevyn Winters, Ferry needed to replace seven transfers. Really, this is where the rebuild begins and this one got off to an auspicious start.   Isaiah Watkins, Ferry’s first recruit of the fall, never materialized and his second, January verbal Robinson spent most of his first year at Duquesne in NCAA clearing house limbo, ineligible to even practice with the team until the end of the year. This forced perceived projects Gill and Lewis into bigger roles as freshmen. Again, rebuilds can take three years and that’s when things go perfectly. They didn’t go perfectly.

Things began to change after that. There were fewer openings in the spring in each class. A couple of the scholarships that did not get filled went to former targets that got away like Castro and Smith. There was less scrambling and more constructing. This year’s freshman class will be the first composed entirely of fall recruits and its total members match the cumulative first year’s eligible to sign during the early period during the previous three seasons. Next year, there are already four lined up. A plan is beginning to take shape.

The question remains whether or not the Dukes will be able to match their win totals from a year ago. I will breakdown the Dukes tougher schedule and try to predict a range of outcomes in a subsequent post in this series. Reloading a program in college basketball’s equivalent of the dead center of Division I basketball doesn’t feel like an exciting place to be or much of an accomplishment. However, it’s certainly better than the alternative which was a team staring at ten wins and a finish deep in 200’s of the RPI. On top of that there are signs that things might be better from here on out in terms of roster composition and success in the fall recruiting period. The staff are landing their primary targets, and barring any major roster break downs, the program looks poised to build for the next couple of years, with young players serving as the foundation and others in the pipeline to supplement them. I don’t know if they have the foundation to return to the NCAA tournament yet, but this team could perform at a higher level if we’re just patient for one more year. The 2016-17 campaign has the potential to be fairly good, but they should take steps forward following this season.

The PPG Paints arena will host its first A-10 basketball tournament in March 2017. Photo by Jleedev.

The PPG Paints Arena will host the Atlantic 10 men’s basketball tournament in March, and the league is excited for the change in venue from its usual destination of Brooklyn.

“I think it’s great,” Duquesne head coach Jim Ferry said during A10 media day Oct. 18, echoing many of his peers. “This is a great sports town…I think we’ll be welcomed here.”

With the A10 season around the corner, here’s a preview of the teams that will be coming to Pittsburgh throughout the year against Duquesne and then in the tournament in March. The order is based on their ranking in the preseason coaches’ poll.

1. Dayton (16 1st place votes)

The Flyers have been the A10’s golden boys the last three years, earning three trips the NCAA tournament and winning five games during that stretch. Last year was a bit of a step back, settling for a tie atop the A10 regular season standings and getting bounced in the first round in the NCAA tournament.

Senior guards Charles Cooke and Kyle Davis were both named to the preseason All-Defensive team, and Cooke was included on the All-Conference first team, averaging 15.6 PPG and 1.2 BPG in 2015-2016.

The Flyers will need to rely on their backcourt to win. Sophomore Sam Miller is the highest scoring returning forward from a year ago, and he only averaged 3.2 PPG.

2. Rhode Island (12 1st place votes)

Rhode Island was bit by the injury bug in 2015-2016, holding them to a 17-15 record.  Guard E.C. Matthews and forward Hassan Martin both made the All-Conference second team. Matthews was the biggest loss last year, missing his entire sophomore season after averaging 16.9 PPG as a freshman. Martin, a senior and one of the few players to stay upright last year, averaged 12 PPG.

If the Rams can stay healthy, they can compete for the title and a trip to the NCAA tournament.

3.  VCU

The Rams exceeded expectations in Will Wade’s first year as head coach, earning a share of the regular season A10 crown.  Mo Alie-Cox is the biggest name out of the three returning starters. Cox was named to the All-Conference second team after averaging 10.4 PPG, 5.1 RPG and 1.9 BPG in 2015-2016. He and fellow senior guard JeQuan Lewis were both selected to the All-Defensive team.

The Rams lost an average of 28.6 PPG when they graduated guards Melvin Johnson and Korey Billbury. Senior guard Doug Brooks will probably get more playing time as a result. The Rams will look to him to create some opportunities on defense after racking up 69 steals despite never starting a game last year.

4.  Davidson

The 2014-2015 A10 champs had a 20 win campaign last season and earned a berth to the NIT.

The Wildcats are bringing back four starters, the most notable being senior guard Jack Gibbs. Gibbs was the first selection on the All-Conference team, and for good reason, averaging 23.5 points a game last year. If Gibbs is not providing the offense, it is probably Peyton Aldridge, who averaged 15.5 PPG in 2015-2016. The 6’8” forward also impressed at the line, nailing 84.7 percent of his free throws.

Davidson’s defense is still a work in progress, with opponents shooting .459 against them a year ago. They were also outrebounded on average 39.2-35.

5.  St. Bonaventure

The Bonnies were the third team to earn a share of the A10 title last year. They made the NIT, but were bounced in the first round.

This is a different team from a year ago, losing three starters. The change in guard will give A10 co-Sixth Man of the Year winner Denzel Gregg a starting job. 6’9” graduate transfer forward/center Chinonso Obokoh could enjoy the change in scenery from Syracuse.

But the Bonnies did lose 54 percent of their offense and 49 percent of their rebounds from a year ago. That’s a tough task for any team, let alone one that has seven newcomers on a 12 man team.

6.  Richmond

The Spiders finished .500 last year, but the rest of the league is anticipating a more dangerous Richmond team this season.

Senior forward/center T.J. Cline and guard ShawDre’ Jones are a big reason why. Cline was named to the All-Conference first team after averaging 18.3 points, 5.2 boards and 3.8 assists a game last season. Jones earned third team honors after averaging 14.7 PPG.

The big loss for the Spiders is forward Terry Allen, who averaged 17.3 PPG and 7.7 RPG. Senior forward  Marshall Wood will probably have to be the one to step up after finishing third on the team in rebounds in 2015-2016.

7.  La Salle

Last year was a disappointing 9-22 campaign for the Explorers, but with all five starters returning, they look to improve.  Senior Jordan Price should lead the offense, averaging 19.2 PPG on 37.7 minutes a game last year. He also cut down on the fouls from 2014-2015, seeing it drop from 94 to 68.

The Explorers are expected to make a jump in the standings, but they will need to improve at the line to do so. Last year La Salle finished 287th in the country in free throws by making only 66.9 percent of their shots.

8.  George Washington

The Colonials set a school record for wins last year (28) en route to an NIT championship.  Graduate student forward Tyler Cavanaugh took home the NIT MVP, and the Colonials will rely on him again this season. He averaged 16.8 PPG and 7.6 boards a game in 2015-2016. Junior guard Yuta Watanabe lead the team with 40 blocks.

Cavanaugh and Watanabe are the only returning Colonials who averaged at least four points a game. Expect a large chunk of playing time to go to newcomers, including graduate transfer Patrick Steeves.

9.  Saint Joseph’s

The Hawks won their second A10 title in three years and defeated Cincinnati in their first game in the NCAA tournament. Their season came to an end when top-seeded Oregon beat them in the Round of 32.

Phil Martelli is coming in with a very young squad, featuring nine underclassmen and only one senior and one graduate student. Guard Lamarr Kimble highlights that group of underclassmen, earning a spot on the A10 All-Rookie team last year after averaging 6 PPG.

Losing three starters who combined for 45.9 PPG is a big loss, but their presence may be missed most on the boards. DeAndre Bembry, Isaiah Miles and Aaron Brown accounted for 19.1 rebounds a game. The 12 returning players combined for an average of 16.1 boards a contest.

10.  Massachusetts

The Minutemen started 4-0 before stumbling the rest of the way to a 14-18 record.  Donte Clark, who lead the team in points, assists and steals last year, should do so again in his junior year. He had nine 20 point outings a year ago, which was enough to earn a spot on the All-Conference third team.

However, no other returning player averaged more than 5.2 PPG last year, and only guard C.J. Anderson averaged more than 20 minutes a game.

11.  Fordham

Coach Jeff Neubauer lead the Rams to a 17-14 record his first year in charge, good enough to get an invite to the CollegeInsiders.com Tournament. It was their third trip to the CIT in four years.

Guard Joseph Chartouny will look to build off of a successful freshman year where he averaged 11.3 points and 6.2 assists a game. He was named to the preseason All-Conference third team.

The Rams will need to rely on their defense again. Last year, they finished 10th in the nation in steals a game (8.5), but they will be without Mandell Thomas, who had 54 steals in 2015-2016.

12.  George Mason

Last year was a down year for the Patriots, going 11-21 overall and 5-13 in conference.

The Patriots will be powered by Otis Livingston II, who averaged 11.9 PPG in 2015-2016. Jalen Jenkins, a redshirt senior, will probably get more playing time after posting a .497 shooting percentage in 32 games and four starts last year.

If George Mason is going to improve, they will need to do a better job on the road. Last year they were 4-13 on the road or at neutral sites, including a 2-7 record in conference.

13.  Duquesne

While the hometown Dukes started 10-2, a late season seven game losing streak stunted Duquesne’s season. They were still able to go 17-17 overall, including a 120-112 win over Omaha in the College Basketball Invitational. It was the first .500 campaign in Ferry’s tenure, which is now entering its fifth year.

Senior big man Darius Lewis will need to improve from last year, averaging just 6.3 points and 5.8 rebounds a game in 34 starts. Staying out of foul trouble will be key after it limited him to just an average of 20.4 minutes of action a game.

The biggest challenge the Dukes will face is replacing guards Derrick Colter and Micah Mason, who accounted for 198 three-pointers. Guards Josh Steel and Rene Castro will probably take the bulk of the playing time in their absence.

14.  Saint Louis

New coach Travis Ford has his work cut out for him with the Billikens. Saint Louis finished 13th last year with an 11-21 record and things do not look much better this season.

Sophomore guard Jermaine Bishop was named to the Conference All-Rookie team last year, leading the Billikens in assists (54) in A10 play. He also had 11.7 PPG in conference play.

The Billikens will need to improve on the glass, getting outrebounded on average 38.8-32.3 in conference play. The departure of Ash Yacoubou will hurt since he accounted for 5.8 boards a game last year.

Jim Ferry may not be sitting down because his seat is starting to get hot.
Photo by Charles LeClaire-USA TODAY Sports

After a late season collapse, the loss of one of the the greatest college shooters since the introduction of the three point line, and the departure of the program’s top assistant, you would think things are heading quickly in the wrong direction for men’s basketball at Duquesne. They aren’t and in fact, the program almost inexplicably seems to have some momentum going for it. Jim Ferry and what remains of his staff have gone on an all out recruiting blitz this offseason nabbing Emile Blackman and Kale Abrahamson first on the transfer market before class of 2017 Florida guards Jamari Wheeler and Darius Banks verballed within a week of each other.

Despite his early struggles and his disappointing overall results, it still might be a little too soon to sell on Ferry. In midst of the late season decline, I said that if he kept his job this offseason, he should have until the end of the 2017 – 18 season to prove his merits barring a disaster.  I don’t believe in keeping a coach because of his incoming class, but I also don’t think that four years is always enough time to right the ship. All coaches need transitional periods after taking a new job to recruit and develop their players. Anyone expecting a immediate turnaround by the next coach is likely kidding themselves.  Ferry offers the Dukes their only realistic shot of taking the program to the next level in the next 2-3 years simply because he has (or better have) his pieces in place already. His replacement would need 3-4 years to get cooking.

However, I do think he has a chance of righting the ship and making us, like LIU fans before us, forget the struggles of a slow start on the job. So what makes me think things can get better?

The Pieces Seem To Fit The System

During the first few years of Ferry on the Bluff, it never seemed like rhetoric matched style. He preached a team that drove the lane, drew fouls and took high percentage shots close to the basket. In practice, we saw a team that used an inside-out approach to set up jump shots. Part of that may have been playing to personal. It’s not often you have a Micah Mason on the roster. Derrick Colter and LG Gill weren’t bad three point shooters in their own right. With the slow developing core of big men, it made sense to build that offense around perimeter shooting.

Mason and Colter are gone, replaced by combo guards who can attack the rim. Blackman and Tarin Smith are a more prototypical Ferry backcourt and the rest of the roster seems more fit to play around the rim, with the exception of Abramson and freshman Spencer Littleson, who I wouldn’t expect to see much of this year. The Dukes have played fast under Ferry, but they haven’t exactly played the way I would’ve expected. That should change this year.

Ferry Has More To Recruit On

For a program that has slow built its way back to mediocrity after falling off a cliff four years ago, it might be difficult to imagine that the coach has much more to recruit on. However, Ferry does have some feathers in his cap. First, he’s generally been able to build a tight knit group of players. When you see these guys outside of normal games, whether it’s other Duquesne sporting events, summer league or elsewhere, Dukes tend to travel in packs. I don’t recall this as much in the Ron Everhart years, but these guys genuinely seem to like one another. It’s not as over the top as the women’s team, but family environment is becoming ingrained across both basketball teams at Duquesne.

Ferry’s also got a track record of developing his first class or two of players. The guys who have stayed have become considerably better here. Even as bad as the defense still was last season, they’ve gotten better at both ends. Colter’s jump shot improved and he was a more versatile passer by the end of his career. Mason went from needing to have his feet set for a second or two to make a three to a guy who almost seemed more comfortable knocking them down on the move. His ball handling and movement off the ball also improved and while it didn’t work at first, Mason was a legit combo guard by the end of his career. Jeremiah Jones’ basketball IQ caught up with his actual IQ as he learned to shoot less and set up his teammates more. Before his injury, he showed some of the best vision on the team. Darius Lewis was laughed off his first Pittsburgh Pro-Am court and has developed into a competent defender and scorer in the post. LG Gill went from nearly unrecruited to being a Terp. He may have seen the biggest improvement of all, growing in every facet of the game.

Greater Sense Of Urgency

My biggest criticism of Ferry has been his nearly constant focus on the future to the point where the games happening at present are secondary to some broader plan. I bought this his first two years, grew a little impatient in the third and found it somewhat unacceptable last year. Ferry is on the hot seat at this stage so for him, the future needs to be now. If it isn’t, he’ll be out of a job sooner than later. I feel like pressure could bring out his best because he clearly didn’t feel any before now.

The Near Annual Major Road Win

This seems minor, but in each of Ferry’s four seasons, his team has pulled off a major road upset. In his first year, a road win in Philly against Temple gave the Dukes their only conference victory in surprising fashion. Last year, the Dukes also won unexpectedly in the City of Brotherly Love against St Joe’s. The biggest of the three came against the streaking Top Ten Billikens in St Louis in 2013-14. While they didn’t beat anyone major on the road last year, they did knock off George Washington and Dayton at home. Though he still needs to do something more against the teams he’s supposed to beat, there is something to be said about the Dukes beating the teams they shouldn’t under Ferry and to do it so frequently on the road is impressive. He’s going in with inferior talent and less experienced players and finding W’s. That suggests to me that there could be more to his coaching chops than he’s given credit for.

The First Core Exceeded Realistic Expectations

By the time Ferry got to campus his first year on the job, most of the market for freshman talent had been picked over. Ultimately, he settled for a point guard otherwise headed for the NEC, and a guy who looked like a role player at best in Jeremiah Jones. He supplemented that core with a talented but star-crossed class his second year. Mason was obviously a godsend. A program that struggled with him may have been lost without him. Isaiah Watkins dealt with lingering knee issues and transferred. Though they seemed benign enough at first, they’ve completely derailed his career. Jordan Robinson was ruled ineligible and lost an entire year of development to academic issues. Domo McKoy served well as a JUCO transfer, but his services were no longer available in 2016. In the end, expected projects in Darius Lewis and Gill took more important jobs on the team and earlier than anyone would have expected. Both took their lumps and continue to, but both have grown considerably.

Under Ferry, Duquesne has generally lacked star power, but truly, the coach has only had one chance to obtain it and fully develop it. Sure, he had Soko and Mason, but neither managed to make a one of the top two All-Conference teams. He also never had the depth of experience to make up for the lack of a pure go-to. In the end, the caliber of Ferry’s first two classes is what he can reasonably judged upon at this point as they’re the only classes that have developed into upper class men. He’s extracted a lot out of these players, maybe more than he should have. However, the first was rushed and the second mostly busted, in part due to circumstances outside of Ferry’s control. Maybe 16-16 was an overachievement for this group and not a disappointment. If you look at it that way, a black mark suddenly turns into a feather in the cap.

****

Ferry may ultimately still lose his job, but again the Dukes best chances in the immediate future are with him at the helm. He’s shown flashes especially in big road wins, but he needs to coach like every game could be the nail in the coffin for his career. While I don’t think he’ll get canned after this season, barring a complete disaster, any misstep could be costly and a series of them could be deadly. He seems to be getting better players and the players seem to be getting better. That will need to translate into results, but I do think it still can. Ferry slow played his hand at LIU and honestly, if he takes eight years to get the Dukes to an NCAA tournament, would anyone complain that it took eight years? If he can get the job done, and I believe he might for the above stated reasons, style points won’t matter and these first four years will be an afterthought.