Nov. 22, 2006

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Vova Severovas and Shawn Hopes scored 22 and 20 points on combined 17-of-21 shooting to lead Oakland to a 67-53 win over Duquesne at the Palumbo Center.

Oakland (4-2) shot 61.4 percent for the game, while Duquesne (2-2), which went scoreless for a 8:19 span of the first half, shot 33.9 percent.

Scott Grote and Robert Mitchell were the only Dukes in double figures with 13 and 10 points.

Duquesne hit 5-of-8 shots in jumping out to a 10-4 lead, before Oakland, behind the scoring of Hopes and Severovas, went on a 12-0 run to go ahead 16-10. Hopes, who went 9-of-10 from the field mainly from close range, scored the first two buckets and Severovas the final three. Johnathon Jones' jumper at the 13:12 mark gave the Golden Grizzlies the lead for good.

Duquesne, which missed 10 straight shots during the OU run, broke the 8:19 drought with a Grote bucket to make it 16-12 with 7:26 left.

Eric Kangas, who went 4-of-5 from the 3-point arc, answered with a 3-pointer to up the lead to seven. The Dukes briefly cut the lead to three before Oakland closed out the half with an 11-0 run to make the score 30-16.

"Outside of the first five or six minutes, I don't know that we were in the game," said Duquesne coach Ron Everhart. "They controlled how the game was played with their ability to get the ball inside. They really exposed a lot of weaknesses on our team. Hopes is very difficult to guard and right now we don't have very much depth up front."

The Dukes missed 19 of their final 22 shots of the half. Duquesne, with one player taller than 6-6 on the current roster, was outrebounded 24-8 in the opening 20 minutes.

Oakland shot 14-of-19 from the field in the second half in building a lead that reached 19 points.

Kangas finished with 12 and Jones added 10 for Oakland.

Duquesne, which missed its first seven 3-point attempts, finished 3-of-17 from the arc. The Dukes were also outrebounded by a 36-19 margin.

"We missed some close-in shots and open three's that we had been making," said Everhart. "I don't know that we took any bad shots, we just weren't able to get our tempo because we didn't make shots."

Duquesne returns to action to face Northern Illinois at DeKalb, Ill. on Saturday, Nov. 25. It will be the second meeting between the two in six days. NIU took a an 87-82 decision over DU at Pittsburgh on Nov. 20.