Duquesne travels to Dayton for a game Wednesday night against one of the premier teams in the A10. The Dayton Flyers have an RPI of 16 and are 16-6 overall and 4-5 in A10 play. While the Dukes were taking care of La Salle Saturday afternoon Dayton was getting upset by George Washington 57-54.
Dayton was one of the best teams in the country earlier this season, at one point they had a 14-1 record with wins over Pitt, Rhode Island, and at Louisville, but then super frosh Chris Wright got hurt and things changed for the Flyers. Since January 12th the Flyers have lost 5 of 7. While the Flyers seem to be in a bit of a freefall they are still 12-1 at home, their only loss at home came against UMass.
Dayton is led by 6'2 senior guard Brian Roberts. Roberts is a finalist for the Los Angeles Athletic Club's John R. Wooden Award, the Atlanta Tipoff Club's Naismith Trophy, and the Basketball Hall of Fame's Bob Cousy Award. He was named Preseason First Team All-Atlantic 10. He was the winner of last year's John L. Macbeth Scholar-Athlete award, and is the only Flyer basketball player to be named all-conference and academic all-conference in the same season. In short, Brian Roberts is a stud.
Roberts' 2007-08 stats: 18.7ppg, 81 assists, 60-140 for 43% 3FG, 48FG%
At the start of the season I had the Dayton game marked down as a loss on Duquesne's schedule. Now that the Flyers are struggling and without Wright the Dukes have a shot to steal this game. A win at Dayton won't be easy, the Flyers have only lost 1 game at home this year (lost to UMass 82-71), and the Flyers will be highly motivated after losing this weekend to George Washington. On top of that Duquesne has only 1 road win in the A10 this year, (La Salle). A lot of things will need to fall into place perfectly but if the Dukes play like they did against St. Joe's last week they will have a shot at an upset.
No comments:
Post a Comment