PITTSBURGH – Sometimes, the best defense can only hinder an offense firing on all cylinders. That was the case for the University of New Orleans men's basketball team on Monday evening at Duquesne as the Privateers dropped a 95-75 decision to the host Dukes in the A.J. Palumbo Center.
Duquesne buried 14 3-pointers among its 32 buckets and connected at a .615 clip from the field in the contest, tallying eight of its treys while shooting .704 (19-of-27) in the first half. Six of those 3-pointers came in the first seven minutes of the action as the Dukes raced out to a 21-7 lead and never looked back. Down 54-27 at halftime, the Privateers never gave in and actually outscored the home team in the second half, 48-41. The early deficit, however, proved to be too much as UNO fell to 0-2 on the young season.
"We knew they were an extremely talented offensive team with two of the better guards in a strong Atlantic 10 Conference, which is a great basketball league," head coach
Mark Slessinger said. "We knew it was going to be a tough matchup for us. We didn't get to them as quickly as we wanted to early, but we were able to make adjustments at halftime and really changed the way we were able to guard them.
"Offensively, we didn't get a lot of rhythm early in the first half, but I'm proud of the way the guys made adjustments in the second half. They followed the adjustments we asked them to make and you can see that in the numbers where we shot 52 percent from the floor, made our 3s and were able to get to the free throw line 10 more times than them here on the road. In a game like this, that's hard to do."
Sophomore wing
Michael Zeno led the offense with a career-high 23 points after connecting on 9-of-14 field goals and 5-of-6 opportunities from the free-throw line. Junior guard
Christavious Gill was next for UNO with 17 points – 11 of which came in the second half – while junior forward
Erik Thomas followed with nine. Junior point guard
Nate Frye paced the Privateers with five assists and three steals, and senior forward
Kevin Hill headlined the squad with eight rebounds.
As a team, New Orleans finished 24-of-59 from the field (.407), shaking off an 8-of-28 performance (.286) over the first 20 minutes to post a 51.6 field goal percentage (16-of-31) in the second half. The Privateers hit all four of their 3-point tries after intermission.
"I'm really proud of the growth we made today," Slessinger said. "We knew we had to make some adjustments and changes from our first game on Saturday. We came out and played a lot tougher offensively and defensively. Against a good offensive team like this, you just can't afford to have empty possessions where you take a bad shot or you miss an assignment because they're going to make you pay.
"We had some mess ups but I'm excited and pleased with how the guys grew from Saturday until today. It was a huge jump from game one to game two. I'm not pleased with a 20-point loss, but I sure am pleased with the amount of growth we showed from Saturday to now."
UNO got off to a good start as freshman guard
Cameron Reed opened the scoring with a 3-pointer from the left wing on the game's first possession. The Dukes, however, followed with six treys of their own over the next five minutes to take a 21-7 lead and never looked back. Duquesne's first-half lead swelled to as many as 29 on two occasions late in the period and a pair of free throws by Gill made it 54-27 at the break.
Gill's freebies sparked an 11-4 run that extended into the early portion of the second half as UNO cut the deficit to 22 at 58-36 and the Privateers later got to within 20 on a pair of Zeno free throws to make it 69-49 with 11:40 remaining in regulation. That was as close as New Orleans would get until the waning moments of the game as the Dukes answered Zeno's freebies with a 14-5 run to push the Duquesne lead back to 29.
The Privateers used an 8-0 rally to make it a 19-point contest with 2:29 on the clock only to see Duquesne respond by sandwiching 3-pointers by Mar'Qywell
Jackson and Josh Steel around a Privateers' layup by Thomas to quiet any talks of a UNO comeback.
Micah Mason led three Duquesne players in double figures offensively with a game-high 28 points after hitting 10-of-13 shots, including a 6-of-9 showing from beyond the 3-point arc, to go with a pair of free throws. Derrick Colter was next for the Dukes with 15 points and Jeremiah Jones was close behind with 12. Colter had seven of Duquesne's 25 assists, Darius Lewis pulled down 11 boards, and the tandem of Lewis and L.G. Gill posted two blocked shots each.
The Privateers return to action on Thursday, Nov. 19, when they open the home portion of the 2015-16 schedule against Pensacola Christian College at 7:45 p.m. in Lakefront Arena. The game against the Eagles is the second half of a UNO basketball double-header as the women's team will take on LSU-Alexandria at 5:30 p.m.
"We're excited to go back and open up the season at home," Slessinger added. "It's going to be great to be in the friendly confines of Lakefront Arena and to have our friends and family there to watch us play a double-header with our women's team. They're great partners for us in basketball, in coaching and in friendship. It will be good to get home and get a game in before we have to go back on another tough road stretch again against some really, really good basketball teams again."
Season tickets for the UNO men's basketball team remain on sale at prices of $100 for general admission and $500 for Courtside Krewe status. UNO alumni can order season tickets for $80 while faculty and staff season tickets run $50. Single-game tickets are also available for pre-order and at the gate at $10 for general admission, $5 for children 12 and under and $7 each for groups of 10 or more. Current students can attend all UNO events free of charge with a valid ID.
Tickets can be purchased by calling the UNO Athletics Ticket Office at (504) 280-GAME (4263) or visiting logging on to the internet at UNOPrivateers.universitytickets.com/packages/PackageList.asp and clicking on "Season Tickets" in the header.
