Nov. 25, 2008

Box Score

SPARTANBURG, SC - Jason Duty scored all of his career-high 17 points in the first half and Damian Saunders scored 15 of his 20 in the second to help Duquesne improve its record to 4-0 with a 79-69 win at South Carolina Upstate.

The victory was the third in six days for the Dukes, who stay on the road to face No. 7 (AP) Duke (6-0) on Friday.

Saunders, who hit a big 3-pointer to give Duquesne a six point lead with 3:20 left, added 12 rebounds for his first career double-double. Aaron Jackson, who hit 5-of-6 free throws in the final 50 seconds to seal the win added 15 points, a career-high 10 assists and eight rebounds as the Dukes posted their third wire-to-wire win in four tries.

Bobby Davis led South Carolina Upstate (0-4), which was playing its only home game prior to Jan. 3, with a game-high 24 points.

Duquesne, the first Division I non-conference opponent to ever visit the G.B. Hodge Center, jumped out to a 23-9 lead behind nine points from Duty who went 4-of-5 from the 3-point arc in the first half. The Dukes upped their lead to 36-21 before Upstate mounted a 19-8 run to cut the lead to 44-40 at the half.

Saunders scored the first five points of the second half to put the Dukes up nine, before Davis caught fire and scored six of Upstate's next nine points to cut the lead to two with 14:33 left.

Duquesne maintained at least a three point lead until Davis cut it to 67-65 on a three-point play - on Saunders fourth foul - with 5:38 to go.

DU took a three point lead when Bill Clark it a free throw and Saunders doubled the advantage with a big 3-pointer from the top of the key with 3:20 to go.

Upstate got no closer than six the rest of the way as the Dukes buried 8-of-10 free throws down the stretch.

"I'm very proud of how the guys handled adversity," said Duquesne head coach Ron Everhart. "We did a good job of keeping our composure. A lot of teams would fold or miss free throws down the stretch, and we didn't. I told our guys we learned a very expensive lesson pretty inexpensively by getting out with a win."

Duquesne, which shot under 50 percent for the first time this season (46.8%) won despite shooting 31.8 percent in the second half. The Dukes held Upstate to 43.1 percent shooting, including 37.9 percent in the second 20 minutes.

Duquesne concludes its stretch of four games in nine days on Friday afternoon at No. 7 (AP) Duke (6-0) at 3:00 p.m. The game will be televised nationally by ESPN.

NOTES
• Duty's 17 points came in 17 first-half minutes ... his previous career high was 13 vs. Dayton as a freshman ... this was the third double-digit game of his career.

• This marks the first time since 1985-86 and 1986-87 that Duquesne has opened back-to-back seasons 4-0 ... last year the Dukes got off to their best start in 28 years at 6-0.

• This was Duquesne's second consecutive "wire-to-wire" win and third this season (DU also never trailed in the opening day win over High Point and in Sunday's victory over Furman).

• This is the third time DU has won consecutive road games under Ron Everhart ... prior to Everhart's arrival DU hadn't won back-to-back road games since 1993-94.