After beating George Washington on the road earlier this week, Duquesne Basketball finds itself tied for second in the Atlantic 10 standings at 3-1 in league play. It’s a far cry from the team’s 0-5 start to the season, and they’re playing their best basketball to date.
Their next opponent is St. Bonaventure (15-3, 3-2), coming off a 63-49 home win over Richmond to snap a two-game losing skid. The Bonnies have had a strong season so far and will be looking to get revenge on their rivals after losing all three games between them last year, including in the A-10 Tournament semifinals.
With both teams having new rosters, things will look different this Saturday. Here’s a look at the keys to victory for the Dukes.
1. Limit guard Jonah Hinton
Even though there’s a new cast of characters, Coach Mark Schmidt still doesn’t have a large rotation, riding all five starters for 30+ mpg. As a result, all five are averaging double figures in league play. If I had to pick one as the key guy to watch, it’d be Hinton, even though Melvin Council Jr. puts up 14.2 ppg, 5.3 rpg, and 4.0 apg.
With Dasonte Bowen still out with an injury, Hinton has joined the starting lineup and is putting up 13.8 ppg in the last five games, shooting a team-leading 44% from deep on over seven attempts a game. Lajae Jones (48% on three attempts a game) is also one to watch but when St. Bonaventure is putting up points, it’s usually because Hinton is going off.
2. Team rebounding
Neither team would be considering elite on the boards but St. Bonaventure and Duquesne both uses a collective approach to getting all of them. The Bonnies do have multiple centers 6’10 or taller off the bench but mainly uses 6’10 starter Noel Brown (12.7 ppg and 4.9 rpg), with the rest of the lineup featuring 6’7, 6’5, and 6’4. 6’10 freshman Xander Wedlow gets the minutes when Brown is off the floor but isn’t the same kind of offensive threat. The Dukes will have the size advantage and it should be a good game for the 6’7 Jahsean Corbett at the four-spot.
3. Figuring out new guard rotation
In Duquesne’s stretch of six wins in seven games, they seem to have figured out the rotation, with Cam Crawford getting 30 mpg as a starting guard and Kareem Rozier getting around 20 mpg off the bench. But after a season-high 22 points off the bench at GW, Maximus Edwards could be due for more minutes going forward.
Plus, there’s Jake DiMichele, who averaged double figures earlier in the year and went down with a foot injury. He could return today, potentially throwing the minute allocation out of flux. The Dukes have played better when the rotation was evident, but now it may not, which could be a good thing with fresh bodies, but it may impact the overall chemistry.