The Duquesne Dukes played host to Division III opponent Carnegie Mellon at the Palumbo Center last night in the first exhibition game of the 2012-2013 season. The game provided fans their first look at new head coach Jim Ferry’s squad.
In a streaky showing by the young Duquesne team, versatile sophomore forward Kadeem Pantophlet led the Dukes in scoring with 11 points, while seniors Andre Marhold and Sean Johnson had 10 apiece. Marhold was also a significant contributor elsewhere in the game with 7 rebounds and 3 blocked shots. The bright spots of the game for the Dukes came on defense, where they outrebounded the Tartans 45 to 23 and allowed only one player (senior guard Andre Moore) to score double figures. However, although Duquesne scored 74 points, they were plagued by offensive inconsistencies throughout the game. In an interview with the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, head coach Jim Ferry said he thought his team “did a horrendous job of taking care of the basketball.” Duquesne managed to turn the ball over 19 times, while their opponents recorded only 9 turnovers.
Many of the team’s inconsistencies came from the backcourt, where the Dukes are the most inexperienced. True freshman Derrick Colter and sophomore transfer Marvin Binney saw significant time in the point guard and two guard positions respectively. With the only senior at a guard position being Sean Johnson, coach Ferry needed to give his younger guards some significant court time in order for them to gain experience. Although Ferry told the Post-Gazette that he “wasn’t impressed by the ball-handling of Binney or Colter,” the game will hopefully serve as a necessary learning experience for both players.
The Tartans came out firing, hitting three 3-pointers to gain an early 13-9 lead. But Duquesne clamped down defensively in the final 12:16 of the half and outscored the Tartans 30-5. Pantophlet hit two 3-pointers early in the 2nd half to give the Dukes a 29 point lead. Sophomore PJ Torres also added 7 points in the latter half of the game, which gave the home team a spurt on their way to a 39 point lead with 9:14 left. The visiting Tartans wound up shooting 25% from the field.
Duquesne has one more exhibition game left this Sunday, when Hawaii-Hilo comes into the Palumbo Center. They travel to Albany on November 9th for their first regular season contest.
