Duquesne (6-9, 1-3) suffered a 78-69 loss to Saint Louis Wednesday night, much in part by shooting 13-of-34 from the foul line.
The Dukes blame their loss on free throw shooting, having only one fewer field goal than the Billikens. Junior guard Micah Mason led Duquesne with 12 points, and is 15-of-24 (.625) from the field and 11-of-17 (.647) from the 3-point arc in his three career games against Saint Louis. Also contributing for the Dukes includes senior forward Dominique McKoy with nine points and a career-high 12 rebounds, freshman forward TySean Powell and junior guard Jordan Stevens with nine points each, and junior guard Derrick Colter with eight points.
Saint Louis’ redshirt junior guard Ash Yacoubou scored a game-high 18 points and had 10 rebounds in leading his team to victory. Sophomore guard Mike Crawford scored 11 of his 14 total points in the second half alone, contrasting freshman guard Marcus Bartley’s 13 points all scored in the first half of play.
Colter hit 1-of-4 3-point attempts to bring his season percentage to .535 (38-of-71). He has now shot at least 50 percent in 10 of Duquesne’s 15 games.
Duquesne head coach Jim Ferry commented on his team’s failure to perform at the line.
“This is really simple,” Ferry said. “This one is free throws. Otherwise the game is completely even. We shot 46 from the field and 42 from three. You can’t come on the road and shoot 38 percent from the foul line when you go 34 times. You can’t let that happen.”
Seven Duquesne players missed at least one free throw. McKoy was 1-of-10.
“I went into the locker room and gave Domo [McKoy] a big hug,” Ferry commented. “What can I say? They’re in the gym, they shoot them every day. It seemed like it just snowballed. It took the momentum away from us. We were up early, and then the scoreboard just stopped changing because we couldn’t convert from the line.”
Ferry stated that his team failed to make the most of their scoring opportunities.
“We had so many empty possessions,” Ferry said. “We got stops, but we couldn’t take advantage of them because we were missing opportunities with free throws.”
Duquesne will host No. 17 (AP) Virginia Commonwealth University (VCU) (14-3, 4-0) Saturday at 2:00 pm ET at the CONSOL Energy Center.
Photo credit: GoDuquesne.com
