Duquesne Blows 13-Point Second-Half Lead to St. Bonaventure in A-10 Tournament

WASHINGTON D.C. — The Duquesne Dukes secured a first-round bye in the A-10 Championship as they ended as the ninth-place team in the regular season. That placing pitted them in a second-round matchup against the No. 8 St. Bonaventure Bonnies.

In the second-round matchup that took place at the Capital One Arena, the home of the Washington Wizards, the Bonnies managed come back from a 13-point second-half defect to take down the Dukes by the score of 64-59 behind the play of Lajae Jones and Melvin Council Jr.

The Dukes started the game off hot on both sides of the ball as they turned two Bonnies’ turnovers into two transition buckets. Then, after the first bucket from the Bonnies, Tre Dinkins nailed a corner three to give the Dukes a 7-2 lead.

That turned into a 9-4 lead at the first media break as the Dukes made five of their first seven shots. Following the media break, Matus Hronsky hit another triple for the Dukes to give them a 12-4 lead but then the Bonnies finally appeared to wake up as they went on a 10-0 run to take a 14-12 lead.

Fortunately for the Dukes, they had an answer for the Bonnies run. After going over five minutes without a point, the Dukes exploded on their own run of eight-straight points. Maximus Edwards scored the first six points of that run on two layups and a tip-in off of his own miss.

The run from the Dukes helped them re-claim the lead which they held for the rest of the first half. The Dukes outscored the Bonnies 14-11 over the remaining eight minutes of the half. The Dukes took a 34-25 lead into the halftime intermission.

The main separator between the two squads in the first half was the Dukes ability to knock down some threes.

While they attempted 15 of them and made just four, the Bonnies only converted two from behind the arc and shot just 33% from the field in the opening period. In comparison, the Dukes converted on 42% of their field goal attempts.

The Bonnies opened the second half making their first two shots including a three from Lajae Jones but the Dukes matched them both times down the court as Eli Wilborn converted a layup and them Hronsky hit another three.

Following the first media break of the second half, the Dukes pushed the lead out to double digits as David Dixon hauled in an offensive rebound over three Bonnies’ players and went to the line where he made one free throw and then Edwards hit a three in transition on the ensuing possession.

The Dukes started to really pull away after Edwards’ three as he came down the court and slammed home a dunk and then hit another three on the next two possessions. That 9-3 run from the Dukes made the score 48-35 in favor of Duquesne.

The Bonnies responded well after the slide as they forced the Dukes to go over four minutes without a field goal as they went on a 9-1 run to cut their deficit to just single digits by the under-eight stoppage. At the break in action, the Dukes held a lead of 49-44.

The Dukes stopped the bleeding when Edwards hit his third triple of the game, but the Bonnies answered on the other end with a three of their own to keep in a single-digit game.

The Bonnies kept their foot on the gas as Noel Brown scored two buckets inside of the paint to make the score 54-51 which was the closest the game was since the score was 18-14. The consecutive buckets from Brown forced Dru Joyce to call a timeout.

The timeout proved well for the Dukes as they immediately hit a three before getting a transition dunk from Necas to push their lead back out to eight before the last media stoppage of the half.

Following the last media timeout, Jones hit a three to make it a two-point game as the score became 58-56. Then, following a three-point miss from Dinkins, the Bonnies hit a layup to level the game up at 58.

The Bonnies then took their first lead of the game since the score was 14-12 on a pair of Council free throws as they made the score 60-58.

After another jumper from Council, the Dukes committed an untimely turnover with just 32 seconds left which forced them to foul. A pair of free throws from Council pushed the Bonnies lead out to five which iced the game.

With the win, St. Bonaventure now advances to tomorrow’s quarterfinal round when they will take on the conference’s top-ranked team, VCU, in the first game of the day at the Capital One Arena. Duquesne’s first season under head coach Dru Joyce comes to an end with the loss.