Dec. 14, 2009

Complete Game Notes

CANISIUS (4-4) at DUQUESNE (7-3)
Wednesday, Dec. 16, 2009 ­• A.J. Palumbo Center (5,358) • Pittsburgh, Pa. • *7:30 p.m.
* - doubleheader preceded by Duquesne vs. Canisius women at 5:00 p.m.

DUQUESNE RADIO: KQV-AM (1410) with Ray Goss & George Von Benko
STREAMING AUDIO: redzonemedia.com or GoDuquesne.com
STREAMING VIDEO AND GAMETRACKER: GoDuquesne.com

DUKES TO PLAY TWO VERSUS CANISIUS: Duquesne (7-3), coming off a hard-fought 59-54 home win over Robert Morris on Saturday, stays home to host Canisius (4-4) at 7:30 p.m. on Wednesday, Dec. 16. The Canisius game is part of a women's/men's doubleheader as the Duquesne and Canisius women's team will meet at 5:00 p.m. The Dukes, who finished final exams on Tuesday, will be facing Canisius for the first time since a 77-67 home win on Dec. 7, 1999.

THE SERIES: This is the first Duquesne/Canisius meeting since December of 1999 (a 77-67 Dukes win) ... DU leads the overall series 9-5, however the Golden Griffins have won three of the past four ... in games played at Pittsburgh, the Dukes lead 6-1 ... Canisius (4-4) returns five starters from last year's 11-20 team ... the Griffs, who are coming off a 58-54 loss to Bowling Green on Saturday, are 2-2 on the road with wins at St. Francis, N.Y. (79-69) and at Albany (73-71) ... guard Julius Coles (17.3 ppg.) and Frank Turner (16.4) lead Canisius in scoring ... Turner is the Griff's 10th all-time leading scorer with 1,382 points ... DU is coming off a 59-54 win over Robert Morris on Saturday ... sophomore B.J. Monteiro paced the Dukes with 17 points ... Duquesne has limited nine of its first 10 opponents to sub-40 percent shooting.

DUQUESNE LATELY: Duquesne, coming off a 59-54 win over Robert Morris on Saturday, is holding opponents to 61.5 points per game ... it is the lowest opponent scoring average since 1961-62 (61.1 ppg.) ... opponents are also shooting .367 from the field ... that number, which ranks tied for 11th nationally, is the lowest by DU opponents since 1956-57 (.355) ... last year, Duquesne ranked 309th of 330 teams in scoring defense (74.7 ppg.) and 294th in field goal percentage defense (.462) ... only one team, Western Carolina, has shot over 40 percent against the Dukes this season ... DU's three losses have come to teams that began the week with a combined 25-3 record (Western Carolina 10-1, West Virginia 7-0 and Pittsburgh 8-2) ... Damian Saunders began the week ranked 3rd nationally in rebounds/g. (12.9), 7th in steals/g. (3.2), tied for 7th in double-doubles (7) and tied for 18th in blocks/g. (2.8) ... Duquesne finished final exams on Tuesday ... classes resume on Jan. 7 ... the Dukes head to Indianapolis, Ind. to face IUPUI on Saturday, Dec. 19 before returning home to host Saint Francis, Pa. on Dec. 22.

NOTES FROM THE DUKES CLIPBOARD
• Duquesne returns four starters from last year's 21-13 NIT team.
• One of the key returnees, 6-3 sophomore Melquan Bolding, is out 4-6 weeks with a fractured wrist suffered in the opener vs. Nicholls State. Bolding, who had a team-high 25 points vs. Nicholls, had surgery on his right (shooting) wrist Nov. 17 and had a hard cast removed on Dec. 1.
• DU's 21 wins last season were the most since the 1971 NCAA team went 21-4.
• DU, which has gone 10-19, 17-13 & 21-13 in three seasons under head coach Ron Everhart, is looking for its third consecutive winning campaign. The last time that happened on the Bluff was from 1968-73 when Red Manning's Dukes finished above .500 six straight times.
• Duquesne was coming off a 3-24 season, and hadn't finished above .500 since 1994, when Everhart took over in 2006-07.
• Juniors Damian Saunders (second team) and Bill Clark (third team), both preseason All-Atlantic 10 picks, have led the way for the Dukes so far. Saunders is averaging 14.3 ppg., 12.9 rpg., 3.2 spg. and 2.8 bpg. and Clark a team-high 14.7 ppg. (with 22 3-pointers).
• Duquesne has won its past seven non-conference games at the Palumbo Center.
• The Dukes are 14-3 in non-conference games at the Palumbo Center over the past three seasons. The losses have come to West Virginia & Old Dominion in December of 2008 and No. 2 (AP) Pitt in December of 2007.
• Duquesne, which entered the season as the fifth-highest scoring team in the nation over the previous three seasons (79.8 ppg. in the Everhart Era), is averaging 64.4 ppg.
• Through 10 games, just one team, Western Carolina (.455), has shot over 40 percent from the field against the Dukes.
• Opponents are shooting .367 and averaging 61.5 ppg., an improvment of 9.7 percent in defensive field goal percentage and -16.1 in opponent points per game over DU's first three seasons.
• The current .367 opponent field goal percentage is the lowest forced by a Duquesne team since 1956-57 (.355). The 61.5 opponent points per game are the lowest since 1961-62 (61.1 ppg.).
• Entering this season Duquesne was 1-19 under Ron Everhart when scoring fewer than 70 points. So far this season, the Dukes are 3-2 when scoring under 70 (the wins: 52-50 at Iowa, 58-44 over Savannah State and 59-54 over Robert Morris).
• DU has held second half leads in nine of 10 games this season.
• The Dukes have also held a double-digit lead in eight of 10 games this season (at WVU & vs. Robert Morris are the exceptions).
• Going back to to last season's finale, DU has played at least one extra period in three of its past 11 games (two this season). The school record for overtime games in a season is four, done three times (1993-94 last).
• Duquesne faced an Atlantic 10-tying high five NCAA tournament teams in non-conference play in Binghamton (W, 70-52, neutral), Pitt (L, 67-58 in 2OT at Mellon Arena), Radford (W, 71-63, home), Robert Morris (W, 59-54, home) and at No. 6 (AP) West Virginia (L, 68-39). La Salle is the only other conference school that is playing as many 2008-09 NCAA tournament teams in non-league play.
• Four different players have scored 20 or more in a game: Bill Clark (three times) and Damian Saunders, Melquan Bolding and B.J. Monteiro (once each).
• Five active Dukes are averaging over 32 minutes per game (Bill Clark, 37.0, Damian Saunders, 34.7, Jason Duty, 34.1, Eric Evans, 32.4 and B.J. Monteiro, 32.6).
• Duquesne has now opened with at least four consecutive wins in each of the past three seasons (4-0 this season, 4-0 last year and 6-0 in 2007-08). The 2007-08 start was the school's best in 28 years. The last time Duquesne put together three consecutive seasons with 4-0 (or better starts) was from 1961 through 1963 (4-0, 7-0 & 5-0).
• Junior forward Damian Saunders was the first Duquesne player in 39 years to open a season with six-straight double-doubles before notching six points, eight rebounds and five blocks in 32 minutes vs. Pitt.
• The Dukes, who are outscoring opponents 317-270 (+47 points) in the first half, have been outscored by 18 in the second half and overtime (345-327).

IN NCAA STATS (through Dec. 13)
Individual Top 50
Rebounds per game -- Damian Saunders, 3rd (12.9 rpg.)
Double-Doubles -- Damian Saunders, t3rd (seven)
Steals per game -- Damian Saunders, 7th (3.2 spg.)
Blocks per game -- Damian Saunders, t18th (2.8 bpg.)

Team Top 75
Field Goal Pct. Defense -- t11th (.367)
Scoring Defense -- t58th (61.5 ppg.)
Blocks per game -- t72nd (4.6 bpg.)
Steals per game -- t72nd (8.3 spg.)

QUICK NOTES: DU is shooting just .263 from the 3-point arc ... sophomore B.J. Monteiro (12.3 ppg., 6.2 rpg.) has been a pleasant surprise as a starter in place of the injured Melquan Bolding (out 4-6 weeks, wrist surgery) ... Monteiro has led the Dukes in scoring three times ... he scored 14 of his team-high 17 in the second half of DU's win over Robert Morris ... in his first start, at Iowa, Monteiro blocked Eric May's field goal attempt at the buzzer to preserve DU's 52-50 win ... Monteiro, a former high school teammate of Saunders, has set a new career scoring high in two of his past seven games (18 vs. Arkansas-Monticello & 21 vs. Radford) ... his career best entering the season was 12 (last year at Dayton) ... he has scored in double digits six times ... junior Bill Clark is averaging a team-high 14.7 ppg. ... Clark, who opened the season with seven consecutive double-digit scoring games (including 20 or more three times), has scored just 14 points on 4-of-25 shooting (.160) in the Dukes' past three games ... Clark shook off a two-game 2-of-14 3-point shooting slump to hit a career-high six from the arc (on 14 attempts) vs. Pitt (23 points) ... since the Pitt game he is 2-of-11 from the arc ... Clark leads the Dukes with 22 3-pointers made ... the 6-5 Californian has grabbed nine rebounds three times, including twice in DU's past four games ... fellow junior Damian Saunders, who is the first DU player in 39 years to open a season with six consecutive double-doubles saw that streak end in a foul-plagued six point, eight rebound outing vs. Pitt ... Saunders bounced back with 15 points in 31 minutes against Savannah State before being whistled for three fouls in the first 11 minutes at WVU ... he finished the West Virginia game with a team-high 12 points in 25 minutes ... Saunders, who leads the Dukes with 20 dunks, had three slams at WVU ... the Connecticut native followed the WVU game with 10 points, 17 boards and four blocks against Robert Morris ... Saunders set new career highs for points (24 vs. Binghamton) and rebounds (19 vs. Nicholls State) and tied career-bests for blocks (6 vs. Radford) and steals (6 at Iowa) in DU's first six games ... Saunders (5-of-26) and sophomore point guard Eric Evans (3-of-28) are a combined 8-of-54 from the 3-point arc ... Evans, who leads the Dukes with 37 assists, has struggled from the field where he is shooting .301 ... he is shooting .385 on two-point attempts ... Evans (37-33) is one of just two Dukes with a positive assist-to-turnover ratio ... senior guard Jason Duty (18-8) is the other ... Duty badly jammed his right (shooting) shoulder during the Nov. 25 game at Western Carolina ... since that game he is shooting .240 (6-of-25) overall and 3-of-19 from the 3-point arc ... Duty, who missed the WVU game with a sprained ankle suffered late in practice on Dec. 7, is a career .347 3-point shooter ... true freshman Sean Johnson has seen action in all 10 games ... he scored seven in 24 minutes vs. Savannah State, topped that with eight points in 19 minutes at No. 6 (AP) West Virginia and added 10 in 24 minutes vs. Robert Morris ... Johnson 8-of-18 from the field in and averaging 8.3 ppg. his past three games ... sophomore Oliver Lewinson had two points, five rebounds and two steals in a career-high 22 minutes at West Virginia ... freshman Andre Marhold came off the bench to grab four rebounds and block two shots in 16 minutes at WVU.

A NOT SO NEW FACE: Six-eight forward Rodrigo Peggau, who underwent successful right knee surgery last December, was cleared to participate in individual workouts the in early September. Peggau, who played in four games last year prior to opting for season-ending surgery, is classified as a redshirt freshman. His last full season of basketball was in 2006-07 at The Calverton School (Md.). He missed the 2007-08 season at The Patterson School (N.C.) due to a torn meniscus in his right knee. Peggau had a blocked shot in six minutes of the season opener vs. Nicholls State and added a pair of rebounds in five minutes at Iowa. He played a total of 18 minutes in three games before breaking out with nine points and seven rebounds in 27 against Pittsburgh. He added eight points and seven rebounds in 15 minutes against Robert Morris.