Duquesne women’s basketball wins exhibition
Duquesne center Jose-Ann Johnson goes for the opening tip in Friday’s exhibition victory against Davis & Elkins.
The Duquesne University women’s basketball team was repeatedly breaking Davis & Elkins College’s press defense but the quickest thing in this 112-72 Dukes victory were the official’s whistles.
In total 61 fouls were called and 86 free throws were shot.
“That is an example of the way women’s basketball is going to be officiated for at least the first month or two,” Head Coach Dan Burt said after the game. “There’s an initiative to clean up hand checking, physical play and post play. We knew that there were going to be a lot of fouls called. It’s not ideal and it will be interesting to see how they address this going forward, because this is going to affect television games.”
This game was the first of any that Duquesne has scored at least 100 points since Nov. 28 2008, when the Dukes defeated Niagara University 100-42.
In the match-up it was a team effort as all 10 dressed players saw action, scored and picked up at least one foul. The trio of Wumi Agunbiade, April Robinson and Belma Nurkic each scored 18 points. Agunbiade had nine total rebounds in her 21 minutes of work while Robinson registered nine steals in 30 minutes. Davis & Elkins did itself no favors with 38 total turnovers and 31 team fouls. Duquesne was able to score 34 points from the free throw line.
Duquesne scored 67 points in the first half to take a 25 point lead in the locker room. This came after trailing 6-2 47 seconds into the game. A total of 22 turnovers were forced by the Dukes in the first half which meant that the Duquesne offense had an issue with running some of its plays.
“We got so many easy looks at the basket,” Burt said. “They’d continue to press us and we’d break their press. I’m not going to take my foot off the accelerator, we’re going to try and score at every opportunity. We wanted to pull out and run our offense. Anytime you can break the press you usually have a two on one situation.”
The game was fans first opportunity to see Raegan Moore and Jose-Ann Johnson in the starting lineup. Both discussed the preparations and adjustments that needed to be made.
“It’s something that we’ve had to work really hard for,” Moore said. “Being a senior, it was my last year. I can’t save anything for next year, I have to give it 110 percent and see what comes out of it.”
For Johnson, it was more about believing in herself.
“It took a lot of self-motivation and it really helps when there is a coach behind you that cares for you and believes in you,” Johnson said. “It’s easier to believe in yourself when you know someone believes in you. That was a push for me.”
Duquesne opens its season against the defending Big West champion in Cal Poly with a neutral site in Chicago, IL as part of the Maggie Dixon Classic. The home opener will be a tilt against Green Bay on Nov. 17.
Of note:
Want to know how high expectations are for Burt? Amadea Szamosi scored 12 points and had 7 rebounds. Burt said that she was the ‘last kid off the bench’, but despite these numbers they weren’t good enough for him.
“She probably missed three or four bunnies inside,” Burt said. “She may have been able to have 18 or 20. In a sense I’m actually kindly disappointed. I’m greedy that way.”
Of the three freshman, Burt said the one that is furthest along was Angela Heintz. Heintz attended Seton-LaSalle High School in Pittsburgh and had six points in 17 minutes. She also was the last player to foul for Duquesne.
“She came in prepared from a physical standpoint,” Burt said. “She knows our system as well as anybody.”