Duquesne Basketball Coach Keith Dambrot

[UAZippers]

I really don't see a joke about Dambrot losing weird early noncoference games as trying to degrade him or "turn him into a villian". The fact that we won so many games last season just proves further how bad the YSU loss was. Its certainly true that Akron always seemed to have one really bad effort early in the year. I can think of the Green Bay game off of the top of my head as another recent example. No need to be so uptight. 

[Balsy]

I'm confused...Akron "won the MAC every year?"  I'm pretty sure the last time we were MAC Champions was in 2013 (4-long seasons ago).  That's winning the MAC as far as i'm concerned.  I know we're splitting hairs here, but winning the MAC in the regular season literally means nothing when you subsequently lose the conference championship game, or don't even make it that far in the Tournament.  It's sad but true.

 

I will equally be critical of Groce if he drops a game against cupcakes.  So far, it hasn't happened.

 

 

[Let'sGoZips94]

14 hours ago, Balsy said:

A Keith Dambrot led team losing an early season game against a team it probably has no business losing to?  What!?!?

 

And shooting 65.5% from the line to boot. 

 

Assuming our current free throw percentage trend continues, I won't miss the days of 60% being the norm. It's incredible the night-and-day difference in fundamentals so far...

[ZippyRulz]

3 hours ago, Bruce Willis Drummond said:

Life is way too short for me to check for the Duquesne score.  I wish Keith the best but I couldn’t care less about his career with the Dukes.  I even heard that LeBron James stopped following him on Twitter.

 

And yet you have time to read and post here in the KD thread...

 

[NWAkron]

3 hours ago, Bruce Willis Drummond said:

Life is way too short for me to check for the Duquesne score.  I wish Keith the best but I couldn’t care less about his career with the Dukes.  I even heard that LeBron James stopped following him on Twitter.

I appreciate the proper use of "too" and "couldn't care." . Keep posting!

[GoZips88]

 

From Duquesne men's basketball site ...

"Duquesne, which took a 48-47 lead on a Verhoeven tip-in with just under nine minutes to go, missed seven consecutive shots over the next eight minutes as Robert Morris built a 61-53 lead."

 

L-O-N-G scoring droughts happened a bit too often for my liking in the past under Dambrot.

 

Have to say I'm enjoying the fresh start so far. It appears that we have enough talent to be entertaining if not competitive until Groce and his staff build out their entire bench.

[UAZip0510]

5 hours ago, Bruce Willis Drummond said:

Life is way too short for me to check for the Duquesne score.  I wish Keith the best but I couldn’t care less about his career with the Dukes.  I even heard that LeBron James stopped following him on Twitter.

 

LeBron still follows him and they remain close.  Duquesne became a LeBron/Nike basketball school almost immediately after KD accepted.

[UAZip0510]

5 hours ago, LZIp said:

I'll be getting my shots in all season long. Don't get so worked up about it, Akron isn't good enough for the "Akron man".

 

Silliness.

[NWAkron]

We are definitely in the honeymoon stage.

[Z.I.P.]

7 hours ago, LZIp said:

I'll be getting my shots in all season long. Don't get so worked up about it, Akron isn't good enough for the "Akron man".

Are we experiencing a #WarOnAkronMen now?     smh.

[LZIp]

8 games into the season and KD has the Dukes at the 5-3 mark. Zero wins against a team with a pulse yet, including losses to both very average inter-city rivals. He should win out the rest of the OOC, as it was literally filled with low-majors outside of Pitt, Robert Morris, and Cornell. I have a feeling he will be in for a rude awakening come conference play.

Edited December 9, 2017 by LZIp

[skip-zip]

You came here to post the obvious?  Can we interpret this as your latest installment of "I'm going to take my shots at him all season long"? (see your previous post)

 

They were 3-15 in conference play last year, and finished in last place in a 14-team league.  I'm sure he is well aware of the challenge that's ahead of him, without a bitter Akron fan taking every opportunity to remind him.    

[LZIp]

10 hours ago, skip-zip said:

You came here to post the obvious?  Can we interpret this as your latest installment of "I'm going to take my shots at him all season long"? (see your previous post)

 

They were 3-15 in conference play last year, and finished in last place in a 14-team league.  I'm sure he is well aware of the challenge that's ahead of him, without a bitter Akron fan taking every opportunity to remind him.    

I hope he has more important things to do than read this board, even though I believe at least one of his family members do. All I did was post an update of how the season was going. Don’t believe I was critical one way or the other.

[Dr Z]

Chris Mueller is already writing about next season..."At the end of the bench sat Tavian Dunn-Martin, Frankie Hughes, Michael Hughes, Craig Randall II and Marcus Weathers. At this time next year, all five will likely be playing major minutes when Duquesne and Pitt square off again at PPG Paints Arena. Though for now, they’re nothing more than practice bodies. On Friday night, they were in street clothes."  On goes the rebuild for Dambrot, Duquesne after City Game setback

 

KD is also speaking about two to three years down the road.

https://player.vimeo.com/video/245487619

 

 

 

[ZachTheZip]

Considering how many transfers are waiting until next year to play for them, it makes sense.

[UAZip0510]

After defeating Dayton today, Duquesne is 10-4.  The team went 10-22 last season.

[ZippyRulz]

In fairness to Dayton, they're going through a transition with a new coach and some new players 

[72 Roo]

3 hours ago, skip-zip said:

WOW.  That's a big win for them.  Amazing that they've equaled last year's win total before the end of December.  Congratulations to Keith.  If he makes even more progress this year, he may just stun most of us here by making them a winner in a relatively short amount of time.  That would be an amazing accomplishment, considering where they've been in recent years.  

Well said. I wish Keith well except whenever we play. How he left was not the right way, but he's gone and I believe we are better off for it. Still I appreciate all he did for us while here. He accomplished more than anyone thought could be done at our university.

[Valpo Zip]

Congratulations to KD. Beating Dayton (even in a down year) is always a good thing.

We all knew that Dambrot can take a horrible team and make it decent (we've seen him masterfully do that at Akron). So no one will be surprised if he can do that at Duquesne. The question is whether or not he will be able to take that next step and win NCAA tournament games. 

[skip-zip]

2 hours ago, ZippyRulz said:

In fairness to Dayton, they're going through a transition with a new coach and some new players 

 

Yikes.  I hope you're not telling us something about our own Zips, considering how we fared against them.  

 

32 minutes ago, Valpo Zip said:

We all knew that Dambrot can take a horrible team and make it decent (we've seen him masterfully do that at Akron).

 

I'll contend that on two points.  First, the team he took over at Akron was nowhere near "horrible".  Secondly, I think all would agree that he did far more than just make us "decent".  

 

39 minutes ago, Valpo Zip said:

So no one will be surprised if he can do that at Duquesne.

 

To the contrary, I think most people don't think Duquesne has a chance.  I still think it's a daunting task, even with his track record.  If he ever gets them to an NCAA tournament, he'll win conference Coach of the Year, and probably be a candidate for the National honor.    

[ZachTheZip]

21 minutes ago, skip-zip said:

To the contrary, I think most people don't think Duquesne has a chance.  I still think it's a daunting task, even with his track record.  If he ever gets them to an NCAA tournament, he'll win conference Coach of the Year, and probably be a candidate for the National honor.    

 

The A-10 is projected to finish one spot behind the MAC this season (the MAC at #10, A-10 at #11) in the RPI, but the A-10 has much better top teams than anybody in the MAC and more bottom feeders. The MAC has no standouts but there are no bottom-feeders this year.  We have zero opportunities for quality wins in the MAC this season, when usually we can count on Kent or Ohio or Buffalo to give us a boost, but wins over Rhode Island or St Bonaventure would catch the committee's eye. At the same time, Duquesne will have a harder path in their conference tournament because of that while the MAC is looking like a crapshoot where whoever gets hot at the right time will win it.

[Valpo Zip]

2 hours ago, skip-zip said:

 

I'll contend that on two points.  First, the team he took over at Akron was nowhere near "horrible".  Secondly, I think all would agree that he did far more than just make us "decent".  

   

 

I respectfully disagree. For the last 4 years under Dan Hipsher, Akron did not have a winning record - neither in the conference nor in the overall record. That's horrible in my book.
Second, how exactly are we more than just decent? Dambrot made us a decent mid-major that consistently competed for the MAC but didn't consistently win the WEAK conference! 

At the national stage... in 13 years, we went 3 times to the NCAA tournament and we never came close to even threatening our opponent.  That's a decent midmajor, at best.
 

Edited January 1, 2018 by Valpo Zip

[skip-zip]

On 12/31/2017 at 1:29 AM, UAZip0510 said:

After defeating Dayton today, Duquesne is 10-4.  The team went 10-22 last season.

 

They've now exceeded 10 wins last night by knocking off GW to go 2-0 in conference play, and 11-4 overall.  

 

I'm sure everyone (even those who are so vehemently bashing Keith) expected some instant improvement.  But, none of us probably expected the A-10 standings to look like this in January, especially when the real reinforcements are not coming in until next year.  

 

http://www.espn.com/mens-college-basketball/conferences/standings/_/id/3/atlantic-10-conference

[Dr Z]

I read DK Pitt Sports everyday, they are already using the "win ugly", "team has bought in", "defense can win too" story lines. 

[skip-zip]

I'm not surprised that they are seeing some of what we saw for 13 years.  

 

They held Dayton to 62 and GW to 52.