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Scouting Duquesne!!
By
Andy Mac Williams,
1/10/2012
The Muskies took a giant step in the right direction with Saturday's A-10 win at Fordham. Xavier now embarks on a 3 game homestand starting with Duquesne Wednesday nite (7PM-CBS Sports Network with Pete Gillen doing the game). St Bonnies follows at Cintas Saturday. It's resurgent St Joe's a week from Wednesday. XU hasn't lost an A-10 home game in 5 years. That's a record 40 game streak. It doesn't ensure that the Muskies will win all 3 games coming up but it shouts out how hard X is to beat on Victory Parkway.
The Dukes are 10-6 overall - 1-1 in the A-10 and 1-3 on the road with the win coming at George Mason (not bad).
XU beat DU last February at the Consol Energy Center in Pittsburgh 71-63. Both teams were 8-1. The Dukes were favored across the board, but the Muskies controlled the boards against a lite cavalry D line-up-made plenty of FTs-survived 20 turnovers-got good scoring games from Tu Holloway and Dante Jackson-and held Duquesne to 63 points(18 below their average). X went on to win the league.D faded to 10-6 and 4th place.
The Dukes are guard-oriented again this season-maybe even more so. Star forwards Damian Saunders and Bill Clark who combined for 31 points and 15 rebounds are gone. Soph point guard TJ McConnell is in charge. He's a Pittsburgh High School legend who played for his dad. Pete Gillen compares him to Bobby Hurley. TJ stuffs the stat sheet with 12 PPG-4 rebounds-6 plus assists-and 3 steals. He shoots it 49% from 3-seldom forces a shot and scored 28 in an 84-82 overtime loss to St Joe's.
DU beat St Bonnies 66-52 in their other A-10 game. Both were in Pittsburgh. Senior forward BJ Montiero (15P-6R) has missed 2 games with a cut left hand from a New Year's Eve altercation. His status for Xavier is not known. Other key guards are Sean Johnson (16PPG), Eric Evans (10PPG) and Mike Talley (8PPG). Andre Marhold is usually the 5th starter.
The Muskies have a huge post and power forward edge. DU is outrebounded by 7/game. Their 3 point shooting is much less deadly than last season though. DU lives to turn the opponent over. They are plus 7 in that category.
X is used to playing against 4 guards now after La Salle and Fordham. The Muskies should be able to get great shots once they crack the DU pressure. Aggressive packline defense should limit the Dukes to one shot and done on many possessions.
It should be a good night to be a Muskie fan.
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