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Duquesne 'running in mud' while losing opener to Little Rock

Jerry DiPaola
| Monday, November 30, 2020 8:14 p.m.

Duquesne’s 76-66 loss to Arkansas-Little Rock in its season opener Monday was troubling, but coach Keith Dambrot saw it coming.

“We just didn’t play very well,” he said on a conference call from Louisville, the site of the Wade Houston Tipoff Classic. “Doesn’t surprise me. We haven’t practiced particularly well.

“Looked like the first game to me.”

Like every team in the nation, the offseason and opening weeks of 2020-21 have been thrown off course by coronavirus shutdowns (the Dukes have had a few), a delayed and reduced nonconference schedule and the resultant inability to properly prepare for the season.

“I didn’t feel like we’ve been in great condition most of the fall,” Dambrot said. “That’s what scared me about not having scrimmages, exhibition games. We kind of died on the vine.

“The (lack of) spring and the summer conditioning and the shutdowns have hurt us. We can sit there and say we’re experienced, which we are, but you still have to have energy.”

Little Rock (2-1) is the preseason favorite to win the Sun Belt Conference West Division, and it had played twice before confronting the Dukes. Their best players responded well to the situation.

Guard Markquise Nowell, a 5-foot-7, 155-pound junior, was one rebound short of a triple-double with 13 points and 11 assists.

Ruot Monyyong recorded a double-double (10 points, 13 rebounds), and Nikola Maric just missed one (16/8).

Both are 6-10 and were successful in minimizing the Dukes front line of Marcus Weathers and Michael Hughes.

Weathers and point guard Sincere Carry scored 12 points each, and Hughes came off the bench to contribute seven and eight rebounds. Carry played 37 minutes, but coaches plan to find a reliable backup eventually to ease some of the burden on him.

It was a bit of a surprise that Hughes, a senior, was replaced by junior Austin Rotroff in the starting lineup. Dambrot called it an “easy decision,” without elaboration.

“Our big guys had very little juice,” he said. “Marcus, Mike, they looked tired.

“Little disjointed. Not the end of the world, but we have a lot of work to do.”

Dambrot said Weathers is “10-12 pounds heavier” than he was last season.

“He wasn’t here all summer because his mom was sick,” the coach said. “It’s going to take him time to be what he was last year, simple as that.

“When he only gets four rebounds, it’s a tough day for us. He’s a good rebounder.”

Meanwhile, Duquesne didn’t shoot well (38% from the field), missing 22 of 29 3-point attempts. Lamar Norman and Tavian Dunn-Martin combined to hit only five of 18 from beyond the arc.

“We had a lot of good 3s (looks),” Dambrot said. “We didn’t make any. We had out good shooters shooting open ones and didn’t make.”

The game was close through the first half — the Dukes trailed, 34-30, at intermission — and for nearly seven minutes after play resumed.

Holding a 48-46 lead, Little Rock ran off a 9-0 blitz and was in control the rest of the way.

“It felt like we were running in mud most of the night,” Dambrot said. “We really didn’t have any answers fror them.”

Next up for the Dukes is its second of three scheduled games in Louisville on Wednesday against UNC Greensboro.

“We play a better team Wednesday,” Dambrot said. “We better buckle up.”


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