KenOTR73 wrote:

I finally calmed down enough to post. I left the PPG with 7 minutes to go. Here's my beef and I haven't seen anyone else mention it, so I will. Pitt absolutely destroyed us not with their outside shooting but just driving to the hole. They couldn't hit the broadside of a barn shooting 3's in the first half. KD has mentioned that he is not averse to paying a little zone from time to time. Well, if this wasn't the perfect time to try it, I don't know when that would be. 

Ken that is a very good point. One would think that if the Dukes want to play "big" the zone might make it easier for our young "bigs" with long arms to be more effective on defense.   
 

FAM wrote:

Ken,
I don't disagree, but I don't think that would have won the game.  We missed many shots the second half and had many turnovers.  We imploded...albeit because of their defense.  We have Eric for outside and Hughes for inside...but you can't win basketball games with only counting on 2 out of 5 guys being able to shoot consistently  The zone could have helped on defense but wouldn't have solved the offensive issues.  He needs to find another guard who can get open and make threes more often than not.

Turnovers to fast break points just killed us. Zone would have helped a lot.  But, this Dukes team is young and it's hopefully a learning experience. 

And Niagara beat Pitt despite having more turnovers than Duquesne did (24-22), despite their three starting guards committing 17 of those turnovers. Just looking at the box score, looks like they made the shots that we missed. And they beat up Pitt pretty good on the boards, something a lot of our posters thought we could do going in, before anyone knew Weathers wasn't going to play.

BTW, Niagara started two seniors and two juniors and brought another senior off the bench for some quality minutes. Their last three players off the bench were freshmen and they didn't give them much, but they only accounted for 17 minutes between them, vs. six freshmen playing 85 minutes for the Dukes last Friday night. Experience matters in games like this.