Duquesne enters tonight’s game against St. Bonaventure with the second highest scoring offense in the conference.
The Dukes have three players averaging 10 or more points, led by junior April Robinson’s 15.2 points per game.
St. Bonaventure has been solid on defense all season long, but if Duquesne can make it tough on Bonaventure’s offense that won’t matter.
“I think a big key is our offense,” said Bona head coach Jim Crowley. “We got to be able to take care of the ball. We got to be able to make them work a bit.”
The Bonaventure offense has struggled, as written about here, but it’s important that even if Bonaventure’s offense isn’t making shots, they take care of the ball and play their style to give them a chance to win.
“We can’t just let me get run outs, and let them run by us,” said Crowley. “We got to make sure that we’re forcing them to execute in the half court.”
The Dukes can score inside and out. The Dukes rank third in the conference in field goal percentage and second in the conference in 3-point percentage. They’re a dangerous team.
“They score in a hurry,” said Crowley. “They’re all confident shooters, and to be honest if we play like the last few, they’re going to get 80 on us.”
On top of being a high-percentage shooting team inside and out, Duquesne’s fantastic at grabbing offensive rebounds.
They’re grabbing 17 offensive rebounds a game.
If Bonaventure can limit Duquesne’s scoring, they’ll have to keep the Dukes off the boards.
And to do that they’ll have to do two things.
“One: we got to be able to contain the basketball. If they’re beating us off the bounce a lot and now we’re reacting to the ball; we’re not in position,” said Crowley. “Two: we got to be ready rebounders. They’re willing to shoot very quickly, and that’s where they get a lot of their offensive rebounds is that people aren’t even ready for them to shoot and they fire them up and they already got three people chasing it down.”
St. Bonaventure tips off against Duquesne at 7 p.m. in the Reilly Center.
feelingjustswell.com 