Today is game day - Dukes vs. Colonials 7pm

Hopefully a Saturday night game against GW will bring out a big crowd tonight. I have been a bit disappointed with the student turnout so far this season, so I hope a Saturday night game will prompt a large contingent of students to attend the game and be extra rowdy. The ironic thing is that I will be unable to attend the game tonight because it is my fiance's birthday and for some strange reason she doesn't want to celebrate at the Palumbo Center, (what is she thinking?)

This was the student section during The City Game earlier this season

I would like to send a big thank you to all of the faithful fans who have helped fill up the Palumbo Center more than I have seen it filled in a long time. Getting more fans is a fairly simple task, all the Dukes have to do is keep winning games. The Dukes play their biggest home game of the season next Wednesday night when UMass comes to town, and a win tonight against GW would help bring out a large number of fans for that game.

The frustrating thing is that the Dukes have 3 other huge games left on the schedule and they are all on the road at Xavier, Dayton, and Charlotte which is off to a surprising start in A10 play.

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Links

Duquesne game preview

PG game preview

Game Notes

Duquesne vs. GW - Game Preview

Duquesne will host George Washington Saturday evening at 7pm. The Colonials are 5-9 on the season, and 0-7 on the road. On the surface it would appear that GW is struggling this year, which is mostly true, but most of their loses have come at the hands of big time teams, (UCLA, Auburn, VTech, Alabama, Xavier, and Rhode Island) and an overachieving UMBC team. 5-9 is a big change from last year when GW won the A10 Tournament and went to the NCAAs.

GW is led by one of my favorite A10 coaches Karl Hobbs. Hobbs is in his 7th year at GW and was the A10 coach of the year back in 2006. Hobbs has proven to be a capable recruiter and a coach who can develop talent. Before coming to GW Hobbs was an assistant coach at UConn and has been given credit for recruiting and developing Richard Hamilton, Khalid El-Amin and Kevin Freeman who were all starters on UConn's 1999 National Championship team.

GW is led by a duo of junior forwards, Wynton Witherspoon and Rob Diggs (pictured right). Witherspoon is a 6'7 195 pound forward who is averaging 12.2ppg, 4.4 rpg, and he leads the team with 20 steals and 35 assists. Rob Diggs is 6'8 202 pounds and is 2nd on the team in scoring with 12.1ppg and leads the team in rebounding with 7.6 per game. Diggs is also a monster on the offensive boards having collected 46 offensive rebounds on the season.

GW has lost 4 of their last 5 games with their lone win in that span coming in that infamous game against Saint Louis when the Billikens scored a total of 20 points in the entire game. The win over Saint Louis is GW's only win in the A10 this year, with loses coming against Fordham, Xavier, and Dayton.

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Will James be ready for George Washington?
Ron Everhart's response:
"If he looks good at the shoot-around and exhibits he's ready, it would be nice to have James available."

In short James is a game time decision.

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My thoughts:

This is a must win game for Duquesne. GW is an inferior opponent and they have yet to win a game on the road this season. If James can't play on Saturday the Dukes should consider themselves lucky in a way because if you had to pick two A10 games that you had to be without James they certainly would be home games against the St. Bonaventure and GW.

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It has been rumored that Duquesne recruit Johnny Higgins will be at the Palumbo for the game on Saturday night.

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College Chalk Talk has a great post about the Duquesne game against the Bonnies and an overview of how the two programs are going in different directions. This is a must read for Dukes fans.

Be sure to check out Colonial Hoops, a George Washington basketball blog and friend of Dukes Court.

Ron Everhart Interview from DVE

The folks over at DVE sent me a MP3 file copy of the Ron Everhart interview from earlier this week. Click the link below to download or listen to the interview.

I'd like to send a big thank you over to the folks at DVE for providing this to Dukes Court.

Ron Everhart interview on DVE - 1-23-08.mp3

The Day After

Our new rankings after the win over the Bonnies:

RPI: #67
This was a bit of a surprise since after we lost to Fordham last weekend our RPI was 59.

Sagarin: #41
We were at 40 after we lost to Fordham

Kenpom/Pomeroy: #54
Pomeroy is still predicting that Duquesne will defeat UMass, but now they predict we will lose to Temple, Charlotte, Dayton, and Xavier. Charlotte deserves some respect, they are now 12-6 and 3-1 in the A10 with wins over Clemson, Wake Forest, Davidson, Temple, and St. Joe's on the season.

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I was a bit hard on the Dukes in my wrap up of the game last night. I do stand by my opinion that the effort the Dukes gave last night will not be good enough to defeat teams in the upper echelon of the A10. The Dukes will host another struggling A10 team Saturday night at 7pm when George Washington comes to town, (more on that game tomorrow).

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Shawn James' injury:

Shawn James bruised the underside of his left kneecap and suffered a mild medial collateral ligament sprain in the same knee during practice on Monday. James had an MRI done late Tuesday which showed no further damage. His status for Saturday's game against George Washington is not known at this time.

Kieron Achara stepped up and had a big game last night in James' absense. A lot of Dukes fans have been upset about Achara's play lately, and it was nice to see Kieron step it up a notch with James out of the lineup. Granted the Bonnies are a team in rebuilding mode but still I missed seeing Kieron battle down low.

Dukes win ugly 83-67

Box Score

Game Recap

• Tonight's game was the ugliest 16 point victory I have ever seen. If the Dukes expect to play like this and beat teams like UMass and St. Joes they will be sorely mistaken.
• Shawn James did not play tonight because of a bad knee. We still do not know if he will play Saturday against GW.
• With James out Kieron Achara was forced to step up and he answered the call. Achara had 18 points and 12 rebounds.


• Ron Everhart wisely chose to use the two platoon system tonight. The Bonnies are a struggling team with a short bench who simply could not keep up with the running and gunning Dukes.


• Phillip Fayne took advantage of his minutes tonight playing hustle defense and scoring 11 points on 4-7 from the field and 3-4 from beyond the arch. It was nice to see the Fayne I had grown accustomed to seeing in non-conference play.
• I saw "Wunderkind" T.J. McConnell at the game tonight with his father and some friends.

I'll be totally honest I was not happy with the Dukes' performance tonight. St. Bonaventure is a horrible team, who does not have a road victory this season and yet the Dukes allowed them to hang around until the end of the game. I admit the game was never in doubt, but still this is a team that Duquesne has to totally and completely dominate if they expect to compete with the big boys in the A10. The Dukes will need a better performance Saturday against GW.

(11-5, 1-2)Dukes host (6-11, 0-3) St. Bonaventure tonight at 9pm

Tonight's game will be broadcast by CSTV and shown on FSN Pittsburgh locally. The Dukes are 0-2 this season when their games are televised locally having lost to WVU and Fordham.

WWE commentator Jonathan Coachman will represent one half of the broadcast team for tonight's game, (no I am not kidding check the Game Notes).


Some nuggets:

• Duquesne is 7-1 at home this year, (their only loss coming at the hands of then fully healthy Pitt)
• St. Bonaventure is 0-9 on the road this season.
• Duquesne has won 5 of the last 7 meetings between these teams.
• This will be the 98th meeting between these two teams. Duquesne has played St. Bonaventure more than any other team in Duquesne's history.
• Duquesne is in the middle of a two game losing streak even though they have out shot their last two opponents (.508 to .474) and the Dukes also committed 2 few turnovers.
• Reggie "Action" Jackson has led the Dukes in scoring in three of the past four games with 19 at Bowling Green, 15 vs. Fordham and 19 at Rhode Island (he's averaging 16.0 ppg. over that four-game stretch)
• St. Bonaventure is coached by Mark Schmidt formerly of Robert Morris

The Bonnies are led by Michael Lee (pictured below) a 6'9 215 pound senior. Lee is averaging 17.4ppg and 8.2rpg while shooting .509 from the field.

Zarryon Fereti (pictured below) is the other half of a potent senior combination at St. Bonaventure. Fereti, a 6'3 205 pound guard, is averaging 14.8ppg and leads the team in 3 pointers with 35 and .354 3 point shooting.

Let's be honest this is a must win for Duquesne. If Duquesne hopes to make either the NCAA or NIT Tournament they cannot lose to an A10 bottom feeder like the Bonnies at home. I will be attending the game tonight and I hope to see a large crowd to cheer on the Dukes.

Congrats to the Lady Dukes

This may be a bit late but I still would like to congratulate the Lady Dukes for their upset victory over Dayton on Saturday. Kristi Little had a career-high 26 points against Dayton on Saturday and is quickly becoming the kind of guard that the Lady Dukes desperately need.

Suzie McConnell-Serio, a talented guard in her day, has taken a special interest in Little

Prior to the upset Dayton was receiving votes in the Women's AP Top 25. The Flyers had been on a 16 game winning streak before they ran into the Lady Dukes.

Duquesne is now 10-8 overall and 1-2 in the A10. The Lady Dukes did not win 10 games all of last year under former coach Dan Durkin.

The Lady Dukes can't celebrate their win for too long because they play host to defending Atlantic 10 Conference champion Xavier at 7 tonight at Palumbo Center.

A recruiting update

Bill Barton had said he was recruiting some players from California and these are a couple of the names that have been rumored:

Teammates from San Jacinto(CA.) Mount San Jacinto C.C. Tim Island 6'5 SG and DeJuan Flowers 6'7 SF. Island is being recruited by some good programs.

Duquesne commit Eric Evans is still listed as the #1 combo guard in Michigan by InsidePreps

6'7 forward Shawntez Patterson, another Duquesne commit, and teammate of Evans is listed as the 12th best small forward by InsidePreps. Reports are that Patterson has really been coming around this season and has grown quite a bit since Coach Everhart started recruiting him.

The Dukes are apparently interested in B.J. Monteiro, (pictured below). Monteiro is a 6'5 175 pound shooting guard from the land of Damian Saunders, Waterbury CT. Other schools interested in B.J. include, Fordham, Penn State, Clemson, Virginia, and Seton Hall.

What I want to know is where are all the big guys Duquesne was supposedly recruiting?

Coming home

I'll be spending most of MLK Day driving home from DC. I am sure I'll spend some significant time dealing with the loss to Fordham while I am on the road. I actually taped the Dukes game on DVR while I was away I am still trying to decide if I should watch the game or not.

The Day After

PG Article
Trib Article

Here are our new rankings:

RPI: #59
Sagarin: #40
Kenpom: #45