Duquesne Dukes Earn Biggest Win Of Season
L.G. Gill and the Duquesne Dukes avenged a loss to George Washington with a 78-62 home win Wednesday. Photo courtesy Stephen Pope
Following the Duquesne men’s basketball team earning a 78-62 victory against George Washington Wednesday, there was a general consensus among the players.
“We just talked about what they did to us last time at GW, that’s a great team,” junior guard Jeremiah Jones said. “They beat us by 15 and absolutely dominated us on the glass and all 50-50’s. So our focus in practice was to rebound well, play them tougher and offensively just stick to our principles. When we went down to GW we didn’t play offensively the way we wanted to and today I thought we did that.”
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It was 18 days earlier that Duquesne had trailed by 36 points and by its own admission had been embarrassed. Dukes coach Jim Ferry initially was reluctant to state that this was the biggest win of the year considering the previous loss in this series and then losing 95-69 at Davidson Saturday while also playing this game without TySean Powell and Jordan Stevens both of whom did not play due to a violation of team rules. However after considering all of this, Ferry finally cracked.
“For us to win the way we did and have it play out the way it did that was absolutely the biggest win of the year considering we were down 36 points 18 days ago,” said Ferry. “We talked about since we got off the bus at Davidson, believe me that’s all we talked about. As a matter of fact we talked about it at George Washington after the game, about how we had these guys again in a couple of weeks and that we had to respond as people and our guys really did.”
The Dukes win puts them at 8-14 and 3-8 in the Atlantic 10 although they have won two of their past three conference games. Duquesne is now 7-6 at home and led wire to wire for the second time all season. The Dukes also scored the most points allowed by GW all season.
“For the way our guys responded I’m proud to coach those guys,” said Ferry who won his first ever contest against George Washington. “We had two guys that were suspended and everyone rallied around each other, even the guys that were out. That was a fantastic win for our team tonight and a fantastic win against an outstanding George Washington team, one of the best teams in the league.”
Junior guard Micah Mason led the Dukes with 24 points and also had four assists. Junior guard Derrick Colter had 18 points for the Dukes while sophomore guard L.G. Gill had 10 points off the bench. Junior forward Jeremiah Jones had 10 points, seven rebounds and seven assists in the game. Additionally sophomore guard Darius Lewis set a career high with 12 rebounds.
“I’ve been struggling a little bit with my shot but coach keeps telling me to stay aggressive and shoot the next one and that’s what I did,” Mason said.
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George Washington was led by forward Kevin Larsen who recorded his fourth double-double of the season with 16 points and 11 rebounds. Guard Kethan Savage added 16 points in the loss.
“You have to give them credit they came out and played hard, but they’re sitting in a 2-3 zone and we’re two for our first 20 shots,” Colonials coach Mike Lonergan said. “I just think our mental toughness is really lacking right now for whatever reason. It’s just a disappointing effort from start to finish for our team.”
Duquesne opened the game with a 12-4 lead with Mason scoring five early points. During this stretch the Dukes capitalized on their fast break opportunities taking an 8-0 lead in that statistic. Meanwhile on the other end George Washington was struggling to knock down field goals shooting 7.7 percent early in the first half. It made two of its first 20 shots.
“They make 70 percent of their baskets inside and four threes a game,” said Ferry. “We talked about how if they were going to beat us that they would have to do it uncomfortably and from the outside.”
Duquesne led 33-21 at halftime shooting 44.8 percent from the field. It enjoyed a 12-2 advantage in fast break points and were favored 7-0 in bench points.
In conference games this season, opponents have outscored the Colonials by 15 points and the Dukes were a +4 in the second half.
It was Duquesne that struck first in the second half to take a 14 point lead, however George Washington cut the lead to 49-42. The Dukes responded with a dunk and then a three point basket from Gill. GW never got the deficit to single digits after that.
With the win against George Washington, Duquesne settled a major score, however now against Massachusetts Saturday it has a bigger one, winning on the road. The Dukes are 1-7 away from home this season and Ferry is unsure what can be done to change this mark.
“I think that’s the true definition of frustration,” Ferry said. “I haven’t slept in weeks because I’m trying to figure that out. We’re playing the same guys. We’re playing the same way.”