Duquesne's three-game win streak came to an end in disappointing fashion Tuesday night, as a miserable first-half effort led to a 19-point halftime deficit and ultimately an 82-62 setback at the hands of Dayton in Atlantic 10 Conference play at the UPMC Cooper Fieldhouse.
"We just had bad juice all around. Even yesterday, we just couldn't quite get it in practice," KareemRozier said. "Just no excuses. From the start, they hit us in the mouth a little bit, went on a little run and we could never quite recover."
Duquesne (9-10, 4-2) struggled to limit Dayton (13-6, 3-3) from three-point range, as the Flyers capitalized on plenty of quality looks in relying on a 56.5% (13 for 23) shooting performance from deep. Additionally, the Dukes were outscored in the paint by a 36-22 margin and committed costly turnovers -- 16 of them -- at inopportune times.
The numbers surely weren't in Duquesne's favor, but most of all, they didn't match Dayton's intensity from the outset, according to Dru Joyce III. The Flyers, who went 9 for 13 from three-point range in the first half, gained separation by going on an 11-2 run midway through the half and finishing on a 12-6 run in the final four minutes. The Dukes trailed by as many as 30 points in the second half and struggled to generate any type of offensive fluidity until Dayton's lead was already insurmountable late in the game.
"I thought we were chasing, especially defensively. And then we didn't move the ball on offense the way we're capable of. I think we tried to do too much and refused the simple play. The plays that were right in front of us, I thought we just tried to do one more extra dribble or were looking for our own shot at times too much," Joyce said. "When you play good teams, if you make mistakes, they punish you for those mistakes, and tonight we were punished for every mistake we made. We deserved to be because I didn't think we, from a complete standpoint, were ready to play, and I'll take blame for that. If your team is not ready to play, the first person I'll look at is me. Why weren't we ready to go? We'll get back to the drawing board and we'll figure it out."
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THE ASYLUM
José Negron
9:55 pm - 01.21.2025UptownDuquesne lacks 'juice' in loss to Dayton
Duquesne's three-game win streak came to an end in disappointing fashion Tuesday night, as a miserable first-half effort led to a 19-point halftime deficit and ultimately an 82-62 setback at the hands of Dayton in Atlantic 10 Conference play at the UPMC Cooper Fieldhouse.
"We just had bad juice all around. Even yesterday, we just couldn't quite get it in practice," Kareem Rozier said. "Just no excuses. From the start, they hit us in the mouth a little bit, went on a little run and we could never quite recover."
Duquesne (9-10, 4-2) struggled to limit Dayton (13-6, 3-3) from three-point range, as the Flyers capitalized on plenty of quality looks in relying on a 56.5% (13 for 23) shooting performance from deep. Additionally, the Dukes were outscored in the paint by a 36-22 margin and committed costly turnovers -- 16 of them -- at inopportune times.
The numbers surely weren't in Duquesne's favor, but most of all, they didn't match Dayton's intensity from the outset, according to Dru Joyce III. The Flyers, who went 9 for 13 from three-point range in the first half, gained separation by going on an 11-2 run midway through the half and finishing on a 12-6 run in the final four minutes. The Dukes trailed by as many as 30 points in the second half and struggled to generate any type of offensive fluidity until Dayton's lead was already insurmountable late in the game.
"I thought we were chasing, especially defensively. And then we didn't move the ball on offense the way we're capable of. I think we tried to do too much and refused the simple play. The plays that were right in front of us, I thought we just tried to do one more extra dribble or were looking for our own shot at times too much," Joyce said. "When you play good teams, if you make mistakes, they punish you for those mistakes, and tonight we were punished for every mistake we made. We deserved to be because I didn't think we, from a complete standpoint, were ready to play, and I'll take blame for that. If your team is not ready to play, the first person I'll look at is me. Why weren't we ready to go? We'll get back to the drawing board and we'll figure it out."
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