University of Richmond Athletics
University of Richmond
at Duquesne
Men's Basketball Downs Duquesne, 62-48
01/11/2006 | Men's Basketball
Jan. 11, 2006
PITTSBURGH, Pa. - The University of Richmond men's basketball team used a 14-2 run to open the second half and led by as many as 17 points on the way to a 62-48 victory over Duquesne on Wednesday night in the Palumbo Center.
Seniors Jermaine Bucknor and Kevin Steenberge each scored 12 points, while juniors Gaston Moliva and Peter Thomas scored 11 apiece. It was the first time this season that Richmond (8-7, 1-1 Atlantic 10) had four players reach double figures. Sophomore Oumar Sylla just missed a double-double with nine points and a career-high 11 rebounds.
"We have one guy with nine points and four players in double figures, that's ideally the type of stat sheet we would like to see," Richmond head coach Chris Mooney said. "Don't get me wrong, we want great players to have great games. But to have a game like this, it means everybody is touching the ball, everybody is involved in the offense and everybody is involved in the game. We seemed to be playing together on defense too. That's a great way to play."
The Spiders couldn't shake the Dukes in a battle of undermanned teams. Duquesne (2-12, 0-3 Atlantic 10) dressed just eight players due to injuries and academic issues. Richmond is down to just 10 players in uniform, including seven scholarship players, due to injuries. Sophomore Jarhon Giddings, who had started every game before tonight, could be out for the rest of the season.
Moliva stepped in for Giddings and played a career-high 35 minutes in his first start of the season and the 11th of his career. Moliva reached double-figures for the second-straight game and made his first-career 3-pointer.
Bucknor made three 3-pointers on his was to 12 points. He also grabbed five rebounds and tied a career-high with five assists.
Bryant McAllister led Duquesne with 19 points, but he was the only Duke to reach double figures. Richmond held Duquesne to just 26.7 percent shooting in the second half.
Richmond led 30-28 at halftime but opened the second half with a quick 14-2 run over just 4:02 to open up a 44-30 lead. Moliva scored inside off a nice feed from Steenberge and then Moliva muscled his way inside on Richmond's next possession, his lay-up bounced out, but Steenberge was there for the tip-in. Bucknor found Steenberge on the baseline for a thunderous two-hand dunk and the foul. Steenberge made the free throw for a 37-28 lead and then Thomas would go on a 7-0 run of his own.
Thomas converted an old-fashioned 3-point play on a fast-break lay-up, coming off a nifty no-look pass from Bucknor. Two consecutive back-door lay-ups, including an alley-oop from Bucknor made it 44-30.
"We were trying to be assertive with our offense," Richmond head coach Chris Mooney said. "We went on that run at the beginning of the half when we were just being very aggressive. That was the most important part of the game."
"We knew we needed to get on a run to start the second half, we couldn't let them hang around," Steenberge said. "We knew we needed to stop them defensively because offensively we were doing well enough. We knew we had to play better defensively in the second half."
Duquesne was able to get the gap down to nine points three times, the last of which came at 49-40 with 9:59 to play. That's when Richmond's defense really stepped up, holding the Dukes to four points in eight minutes, including a five-minute scoring drought as the lead grew to 17 points with 2:16 to play.
"The defense was better tonight than it has been lately, much, much better," Mooney said. "In the second half we stopped their offense and then it turned into stopping their individual players, and we did that."
Richmond returns home for two-straight games, hosting Dayton on Saturday at noon and then Saint Louis on Wednesday at 7:30 p.m.
