Duquesne MBB Pulls Away From Sacred Heart

In a game where there were 54 total fouls, the Duquesne Men’s Basketball Team came away with a 92-80 victory over Sacred Heart Friday night at the UPMC Cooper Fieldhouse, improving to 2-0 in the process.

Duquesne was paced by a duo of newcomers in Tarence Guinyard and John Hugley IV each of whom recorded 25 points.

Guinyard added seven assists against one turnover in 36 minutes, while shooting 13-for-15 at the charity stripe. Hugley’s post presence was an important aspect to get Duquesne going and he also grabbed eight rebounds while drawing six fouls.

Sacred Heart (1-1) had a trio of double figure scorers in Nyle Ralph-Beyer (17), Dashon Gittens (16) and Anquan Hill (13).

Duquesne was also able to gain early momentum with official Tim Kelly calling a couple of technical fouls on Sacred Heart, the last of which was on Hill for what he later deemed “mouthing off”. The forward and the Pioneers leading scorer would reach four fouls and reacted by taking his chair and hitting it against the wall behind the bench.

The Dukes led by as many as 10 points in the first half but briefly lost that advantage late. Between this and foul trouble, Duquesne went to Alex Williams off the bench.

Williams successfully made a circus shot in the paint and got his first points as a Duke. After a forced turnover, his four teammates on the court surrounded him in excitement, energy clearly achieved.

Up 45-42 at halftime, Duquesne went on a 10-2 run to stretch its advantage back into double digits and would do this once more later in the second half and in doing so earned its largest advantage of the game at 17 points.

Duquesne remains home to take on Queens Tuesday at 8 p.m. in a doubleheader with the women’s team.

There will be an accompanying piece for this game, but in the meantime here are pressers with Hugley, Guinyard and Cam Crawford in addition to Duquesne coach Dru Joyce III.