Pittsburgh Post-Gazette

Slow start, but what a finish

Dukes dominate Tigers with impressive second-half effort

- By Mike Persak

It took awhile for Duquesne to get going Tuesday night.

At one point in the first half against Princeton, the Dukes trailed by 14 points. By halftime, the Dukes had battled their way back to within five.

And then, at the beginning of the second half, the floodgates broke open. At the 14:37 mark, Duquesne led by two. It then proceeded to go on a 22-2 run in which everything went right.

In the end, the Dukes outscored the Tigers, 57-25, in the second half, erasing the ugly first half to win their season opener, 94-67, at PPG Paints Arena.

“In the first half, we were selfish, we weren’t making the extra pass and we weren’t playing hard on defense,” sophomore guard Sincere Carry said after the game. “When we went into halftime, [coach Keith

Dambrot] told us that we need to do better in those areas, and then the second half, that’s what we focused on. We played free out there. We all played hard, gave it our all and played together. That just made the game simple.”

Carry was the star of the show offensivel­y. The leading returning scorer from last year finished the opener with 23 points on 10for-14 shooting, 3-for-7 from beyond the arc.

Duquesne also enjoyed strong play from its big men when it needed it. Starting center Michael Hughes picked up two early fouls and played less than 10 minutes all night.

In his stead, fifth-year senior Baylee Steele, a graduate transfer from Utah Valley, made a strong debut. Somewhat surprising­ly, that came from beyond the arc for the near-sevenfoote­r who was 2 for 11 in his college career before Tuesday night.

Steele hit three of his five 3-point attempts against Princeton, though, tallying 19 points in total to go with four rebounds, three blocks and five steals.

“I’ve always worked on shooting, stepping outside, but Coach D likes bigs shooting 3s, so that’s why I was shooting them,” Steele said.

Added Dambrot: “If you watch him shoot in drills or when he’s working out, you’ll think he’s one of the best 3-point shooters on our team. So it’s just a matter of getting that mindset that he believes he can make in a game, because he’s never shot in a game. So, when he gets that, he becomes a really hard matchup.”

Junior forward Marcus Weathers added 16 points, including a pair of clutch layups when Duquesne was making its second-half run.

The Dukes’ slow start was mainly due to a struggle to find Princeton’s shooters. It didn’t help that Hughes almost immediatel­y got into foul trouble, and the Dukes suffered in all facets as a result. The Tigers broke to a 23-9 lead with 11:10 left in the first half.

Dambrot was forced to take a timeout at that point to talk things over.

Immediatel­y afterward, the Dukes made a little run. Steele and sophomore wing Lamar Norman Jr., hit two 3-pointers each in the next four minutes to pull Duquesne within two. Carry hit one minutes later to give Duquesne its first lead of the game.

The Tigers battled back to take the lead heading into halftime, but, when the teams returned for the final 20 minutes, the switch flipped for the Dukes.

In no time, it seemed, they were up by 20 and running away, rendering the first half a distant memory.

“I thought it was a good game for us from the perspectiv­e of we got hit in the mouth and we had to react,” Dambrot said.

“It’s going to happen another 30 times this year, so we might as well learn to take that body blow and see if we can react to it. I thought we did a much better job defensivel­y [in the second half], obviously they shot 17 of 29 in the first half.

“So you’re not going to win many games when you do that, and then I think we kind of wore them out a little bit.”

 ?? Christian Snyder/Post-Gazette ?? Duquesne center Michael Hughes takes a 3-pointer Tuesday night in the Dukes’ rout of Princeton at PPG Paints Arena.
Christian Snyder/Post-Gazette Duquesne center Michael Hughes takes a 3-pointer Tuesday night in the Dukes’ rout of Princeton at PPG Paints Arena.

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