Well, here we go again. ASU men's basketball will hit the airport later today for the short flight over the Great Smokies/Appalachians to the rust city of Pittsburg, home of Iron City Beer and the Dukes of Duquesne, for a 7 PM clash tomorrow evening.

After consulting the ol' Ouija Board, here's the situation in brief. ASU (4-8) on the season and the only SoCon institution sans a Division I win this season will take on the Dukes in the last chance of the regular season to pick up an OOC D-I win. Duquesne (5-6) will be looking to extend a three-game win streak.

Sagarin ratings have the Dukes at #216 in the nation; with ASU mired near the bottom at # 319. The Dukes are favored by 13 on their home court. Ok, so it can't get any worse than that, can it? In four words, oh yes it can.

RealTimeRPI.com rates it two ways--by RPI and by Power Rating (PR). Duquesne steps into the center circle at RPI #281; while ASU is in at an almost all-time low of RPI #339. This makes the Dukes a 10 point favorite in the game. When taking power ratings (PR) into account, it only gets worse for the Apps. The Dukes presently carry a PR of #205; while the Apps carry a PR of #345. Seriously #345. This translates into Duquesne being an 86-66 victor tomorrow night (a 20 point spread). ASU is given only a 12% chance of pulling an upset.

After following "rating systems" for about 20 years--I've never seen an Appalachian team rated this low (#345). To make us feel even worse about it, ASU has already lost to team #349--Presbyterian.

Two things are clear. One, Jason Capel needs an absolute miracle turn-around to get a one-year contract extension. Two, the only way we can go is up--because we're complete bottom feeders at this snapshot in time.

Note: In the unlikely, but vaguely possible, situation that Jay Canty is cleared to play and that both Tevin Baskin and Ty Toney have recovered from injuries, then this is a winnable game. Que sera, sera!

asu66 wrote:
Note: In the unlikely, but vaguely possible, situation that Jay Canty is cleared to play and that both Tevin Baskin and Ty Toney have recovered from injuries, then this is a winnable game. Que sera, sera!

FWIW, official "Game Notes" for tonite's game at Duquesne state..."Appalachian State will receive a huge boost on Thursday as Jay Canty has been cleared to return after missing the first 12 games of the year."

Of the current Mountaineers who faced Duquesne last season, Jay Canty had one of the best performances. Canty scored 15 points and dished out 10 assists against the Dukes. I guess we'll see if he really does return to the lineup; and how long it'll take him to get the rust off.

Canty will play, confirmed that at the airport yesterday.

Have we ever gone winless in non-conference games since moving to D1? Sadly, that is the only "record" this team will ever sniff.

BeauFoster wrote:Canty will play, confirmed that at the airport yesterday.

Dang were you lurking around G-S-A or Charlotte-Douglas.....or do somehow you care enough to fly with them to Pittsburg!

He might be someone trying to bribe the TSA agent to NOT let Capel go on trip.

asutrnr81 wrote:

BeauFoster wrote:Canty will play, confirmed that at the airport yesterday.

Dang were you lurking around G-S-A or Charlotte-Douglas.....or do somehow you care enough to fly with them to Pittsburg!

The perks of a delayed flight and a gold club membership...you tend to overhear things

All is not well; 34-20 Dukes...just under 7 minutes to play in the first half.

Down 25 at the half...completely inept performance except for Hamilton...missed layups, dribbling ball off their own feet, getting totally embarrassed in the paint...getting beat down the court on the break...we have NAIA talent...I give up...

Nah, it's not that bad. I'd say we're more like marginal Division 2 level talent.

Shot 31%, out rebounded by 19.

This is against a sub 200 RPI team.

WataugaMan wrote:Nah, it's not that bad. I'd say we're more like marginal Division 2 level talent.

We have D1 talent, just not D1 coaching.

T-Dog wrote:

WataugaMan wrote:Nah, it's not that bad. I'd say we're more like marginal Division 2 level talent.

We have D1 talent, just not D1 coaching.

We have SOME D1 talent.

0-9 is an embarrassment. Time to end the experiment and find a real coach. Nothing personal against Caple, but his record speaks for itself.

34 days until football signing day and 43 to the start of baseball season. That's about all we have to look forward to at this point.

I think this is the worst team since Press M's final year.

I witnessed ALL of the Maravich debacle and you are right.....this is worse.

WataugaMan wrote:Nah, it's not that bad. I'd say we're more like marginal Division 2 level talent.

There are only very slight differences between the two--entrance requirements. Looks like RealTimeRPI.com had us pegged about right. They missed the spread by just four points. They gave us too much credit. Arghhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh. We'll probably drop even further into the 300s. We should probably have Presbyterian's #349 slot.

I'm a positive person who looks for some good during the bad times, which is why my posts have dropped way off in the past few weeks, but this is beyond embarrassing. It's pretty much disgusting. We are not in one of the elite basketball conferences so we're not going to get the kids that are ready for the NBA out of high school but we can and do get kids who have talent but it's raw and needs teaching to polish it. Our coaches cannot teach or polish and due to lack of any leadership our kids are regressing to the point that even the fundamentals learned in grade school are gone. I've seen high schools play better team offense and defense. TEAM being the key word. It's not rocket science. At the mid major level you identify each of your players strengths and weaknesses and design your game plans to bring out those strengths while accounting for the weaknesses as best as you can. Capel and company can't do that and thus we have what we see on the court.

I'm sorry for the players. They deserve better than this. So does the university. And so do the fans.

I've tried to live by the old adage..."If you can't say anything nice..."

Well, when the topic of App State basketball comes up, it means one has absolutely nothing to say.

firemoose wrote:It's not rocket science.

That sums it up...It isn't rocket science! Maybe making the Final Four (Sweet 16, et) is, but finding 5 guys that can shoot a basketball isn't. You would have to constantly pick the worst shooting players at tryouts to build a team that shoots this bad.

It's hard to tell how a player will do certain things but shooting isn't one of them, it can be tested and measured better than anything else you can do on the court (especially foul shots).

I don't blame the kids that much, because I don't know that they were meant to be shooters, not every player on the team is meant to be. Also they do have to work as a team to take advantage of the ability they do have.

I'm sorry for the players, the fans and even the teams we play. I don't know if it's all Capel fault but as HC he has to take the responsibility.