With five players in double-digits, Duquesne (6-1) came away with its fifth home victory of the 2015-2016 season in its non-conference win over Mississippi Valley State. Both Micah Mason and Eric James each scored 18 points and were tied for the game’s high scorer slot with Issac Williams of Mississippi Valley State.
James’ 18 points was a career-high for the sophomore.
The Dukes took control of the contest early on when Mason scored the first points with a jumper with just under a minute gone. For the next eight minutes and through two media timeouts the Dukes enjoyed a 17-2 run, which was stopped when Latrell Love hit a jumper with 11:52 left making the score 17-4.
For the remainder of first half — or the game for that matter, Duquesne enjoyed a double-digit lead. The Delta Devils came to within only 10 points several times of catching Duquesne.
Going into halftime, Duquesne enjoyed a comfortable 53-30 lead.
“I thought we came out and played extremely unselfish basketball,. We came out really hard, especially in the first half, we defended with a great disposition,” Duquesne head coach Jim Ferry said.
Overall, Duquesne would end up on top in only one of three shooting statistics, hitting 47 percent of its field goals, compared to the Delta Devil’s 39 percent The Delta Devils ended up hitting 52 percent of its 3-pointers compared to Duquesne’s 31 percent, and were successful in five out of seven, or 71 percent of its free throws to Duquesne’s 60 percent.
Duquesne substituted frequently during the game and some of its walk-on players saw their first action with several minutes left in the game.
Duquesne had three other players who attained double-digit scoring; Derrick Colter with 16, Darius Lewis with 11 and Powell with 10.
The Delta Devils of the Southwest Athletic Conference who have yet to post a win this season, loosing 10 in-a-row now was not taken lightly according to Ferry, when he commented on how the team almost made a come-from-behind victory, when it lost 65-64 to the Air Force Academy in November.
Duquesne faces a formidable Pitt team which lost its first game tonight to Perdue 72-59, Friday night in the rival City Game at the Consol Center.
