Dukes’ softness riles up Ferry
Coach tough on team after rout
Duquesne coach Jim Ferry didn’t want to give many answers that didn’t invoke his team’s lack of toughness.
After all, how does a team trot onto the Dukes’ home court and commit just four turnovers, with none in the first half? How does it grab 19 offensive rebounds and score 50 points in the paint? How does one player score 20 points and grab 7 rebounds in just 10 minutes?
Well, it all came back to the same message from Ferry after Rhode Island throttled Duquesne, 90-69, Saturday afternoon at Palumbo Center.
“Anything that had to do with toughness, we got destroyed on,” Ferry said. “They beat us to every 50-50 ball, they crushed us on the glass. … The start of the second half, I thought our guys had that glazed look on their face. I was just playing guys who were going to compete. If you gave up an offensive rebound or a competitive play, you were coming out of the game.”
Indeed, not two minutes into the second half, Ferry subbed out four players on the floor for four new ones. The low point might have come a couple of minutes later. Ferry had just shuttled in two more reserves in hopes of getting a rebounding spark with Rams freshman Cyril Langevine at the free-throw line. Langevine missed the second shot, but no one boxed him out, so he simply stepped forward and grabbed his own rebound, only to get fouled again.
Ferry went back to his bench immediately, not budging on his desire to find some fight in his bunch. Rhode Island still won the rebounding battle, 44-40, and left town with its eighth consecutive victory at Duquesne while sending the Dukes to their third loss in a row.
“I think we’ve been [that] team this year at times,” Rams coach Danny Hurley said. “Maybe not as consistently as we would’ve liked. … We’re an older, mature team, and that’s kind of the way we should play against a young and talented team that’s just lacking in experience.”
Young or not, the Dukes (9-11, 2-5 Atlantic 10 Conference) got anything but a free pass from their coach. Rhode Island (12-6, 4-2) was picked to finish second in the conference’s preseason poll, but Ferry said this was the first time he has seen a lack of effort this season, and that it was as frustrated as he has been with this group.
“You’ve got to be competitive,” he said. “Collective competitiveness, we didn’t have it. I don’t know where it didn’t come from, because we’ve had it all year.”
The Rams led, 41-31, at the break after scoring the final five points of the first half, a run that extended to 13-0 as they took a 49-31 lead early in the second. They didn’t commit their first turnover until 14:56 of the second half and had just three the rest of the way.
Rhode Island’s insideoutside duo of E.C. Matthews and Hassan Martin, both preseason secondteam all-conference selections, imposed their will. Martin, a senior forward who played just 10 minutes, scored a game-high 20 points, 18 on 6-of-6 shooting in the second half, and Matthews, a junior guard who missed all last season with a torn ACL, added 19 points. Not to be outdone by his classmates, senior forward Kuran Iverson notched a double-double with 17 points and 12 boards.
For Duquesne, sophomore guard Tarin Smith and freshman guard Mike Lewis II led the way with 11 points apiece. It was Lewis’ 14th consecutive game in double figures.
• NOTE — Sophomore guard Josh Steel is no longer with the team and has left Duquesne. Steel had played in just two games this season and was suspended for the first five for an unspecified violation of team rules. He averaged 9.5 points in 22.5 minutes in his two games played, but was apparently suspended again, this time for undisclosed reasons. Ferry said the 6-foot-4 Steel has returned to his native England.