Pittsburgh – Duquesne (8-9, 1-5) was just a few shots away from grabbing national attention and upsetting #19 Saint Louis (18-2, 5-0). The game will go down as their fourth straight loss, even though the players played their hearts out.
Ferry, who spent two days preparing his team on exactly how to beat the Billikens defense, was pleased that his team never lost confidence. “I think they played with great confidence, right down to the end,” Ferry said. That confidence showed in the later stages of the game.
Duquesne led for most of the second half, thanks to a great rebounding performance and a fairly balanced score sheet that saw three players with over 15 points. Micah Mason was the X-factor for the Dukes Wednesday night, coming through with five huge 3-pointers. His best shot came with 18:37 left in the second half, a heavily contested 3-pointer from the corner that went in as the shot clock expired. Mason would finish with 15 points and 6 assists.
Soko, who led all scorers with 18, had his best performance in a couple games. He was also a force on the glass, grabbing seven rebounds, two of them offensive.
Duquesne’s largest lead was eight points, a 47-39 advantage with 15:49 to play in the second half. But in the end, Saint Louis’ experience showed.
“How many teams in the country have five seniors and have been to the NCAA tournament twice?” Ferry said after the game.
From there, the Billikens slowly worked down the Duquesne lead. Austin McBroom of Saint Louis hit his first big 3-pointer of the half at 13:25 to bring his team within three. He would hit another two minutes later to give his team 53-51 lead – their first since the opening possession of the second half. But Duquesne’s resiliency didn’t falter, and McKoy and Soko came up big in the paint. Of the game’s 19 lead changes, most of them came in the second half.
The shockingly small crowd started to sound like a Final Four audience when Micah Mason hit his fifth 3-pointer of the game, to give Duquesne a 69-68 advantage with about two minutes to play. But missed free throws and an inability to come up with key stops at the end killed the Dukes. In two trips to the line with only minutes to play, Soko split his number of misses and makes. Colter also failed to hit the front end of a one and one with under 4:30 to play that could have given Duquesne another lead.
Nevertheless, Duquesne still had a chance to tie things up with seconds to play. McKoy, ball in hand, drove to the rim with 15 seconds remaining, but couldn’t hit a reverse layup that would have tied the score at 74. Saint Louis’ Mike McCall Jr. grabbed the rebound and was intentionally fouled, effectively stifling the Dukes’ chances at an upset.
Soko was upset at his free throw shooting later in the game, but credited the Billikens on the win. “We’ve got to learn from it obviously, but it shows that they had five seniors starting,” Soko said.
For Saint Louis, the win is their 12th in a row, the longest win streak for a Saint Louis team since the 1993-94 season.
“They probably had more transition buckets on us than some team get in three games,” said Saint Louis coach Jim Crews.
Ferry certainly prepared his team well for this game, and he, like his players, expected to win the whole time. “The leagues’ brutal, there’s some great teams in this league,” he said. “The ones who understand that the big picture is about getting better are the ones that are going to be successful,” he added.
Photo Credit: Stephen J. Nesbitt for the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette
