Milestone for Dukes
Team reaches 20 wins for first time since 2008-09
Duquesne defeats George Mason for first 20-win season since 2009.
Duquesne simply couldn’t pull away from George Mason Saturday night.
The Dukes held leads of seven and eight points at different times throughout the game, but the Patriots responded nearly every time with a run to draw close.
That is until late in the game, with just three minutes left and Duquesne clinging to a one-point lead. Junior forward Mike Hughes got fouled, hit his first free throw and missed his second. But fellow junior forward Marcus Weathers was there for the offensive rebound and put-back.
On the in-bounds play, George Mason was called for a travel, and the Dukes got two more points immediately on two free throws from sophomore guard Sincere Carry. The rest of the game was a free-throw shooting affair for the Duquesne, and while it didn’t hit as many of them as it would have liked, it did hit enough.
The Dukes (20-8 overall, 10-6 Atlantic 10 Conference) earned no style points against the Patriots, but they gutted out a win nonetheless, 81-78. It is the first time since 2008-09 that they have won 20 games in a season.
“The good teams find different ways to win,” coach Keith Dambrot said after the game. “So why’d we win tonight? Because we turned them over 20 times in the press, and then we scored inside when it mattered. Simple as that.”
Despite the general unease of the game for
Duquesne, its offensive numbers were quite solid. It shot a hefty 56% from the floor and hit 37.5% of its 3pointers. Carry was the workhorse for most of the night, finishing with a gamehigh 23 points, but Weathers and Hughes each took their turns with the offensive load, scoring 16 and 12 points, respectively.
The Dukes’ biggest problem was on the other end of the court, where George
Mason hit 52.7% of its own shots, tallied 17 offensive rebounds and scored 28 second-chance points.
“[Fifth-year senior forward Baylee Steele] was sick, so he didn’t rebound at all. Mike Hughes had a little foul trouble, which hurt us. Marcus is a really good rebounder, but he’s not a really good box-out guy,” Dambrot said. “It’s as simple as that. We gave up a bunch of them.”
Duquesne came out of the gates with a sense of urgency, employing a fullcourt press to speed the game up and force turnovers. And that worked, as George Mason turned the ball over 20 times.
But the second-chance buckets for the Patriots hurt the Dukes, forcing them to show resiliency. And though Duquesne made it interesting by going just 19-for-33 from the free-throw line, they eventually did enough to earn their 20th win of the season and slip into a tie for fourth place in the A10 standings.
“I love the fact that we’re resilient and tough, and I think when we went down one tonight after we had about an eight-point lead, that kind of typified how our guys are. Their back went against the wall, and they fought again.”