ABILENE, Texas – Duquesne's inside dominance and depth were too much for Abilene Christian to handle Saturday night as the Dukes walked out of Moody Coliseum with a 102-81 non-conference win over the Wildcats.
The win pushes the Dukes of the Atlantic 10 Conference to 2-0, while the Wildcats of the Southland Conference fall to 1-2. At halftime of Saturday night's game, the court at Moody Coliseum was dedicated to former player and head coach Dee Nutt.
The difference-maker in the game for the Dukes was guard Jordan Stevens, who was playing in his first game of the season after missing the opener last Saturday. Stevens poured in 27 points in 28 minutes to lead the Dukes, who are now 2-0 on the season.
The Dukes' bench – which included Stevens – also outscored ACU's, 67-18, as Stevens had 27, TySean Powell 18 and Eric James 12. The longer and deeper Dukes also out-rebounded ACU 40-30, blocked five shots and outscored ACU in the paint, 30-24.
"We put bodies on those guys, but we just didn't do a good enough job boxing out," ACU head coach
Joe Golding said. "We're just a little bit small inside and they really hurt us in there."
For the Wildcats, junior guard
Parker Wentz – one of the top 3-point shooters in the country – had a career-high 31 points (4 of 5 from 3-point range) to lead the Wildcats, who are 1-2 after the loss.
Duquesne of the Atlantic 10 Conference led the Wildcats (Southland Conference) 46-38 at halftime, but the second half belonged to Stevens, who scored 17 of his 27 points in the decisive final 20 minutes. In fact it a was seven-minute stretch where he did most of his damage and helped the Dukes stretch their lead from eight points to 26 and put the game away.
ACU cut the Dukes' lead to eight points (57-49) on a
Michael Grant free throw with 14 minutes left, but that's when Stevens took over. He hit a jumper and then a 3-pointer to help push the lead to 15 points (64-49) with 12:05 to play. Then in a three-minute stretch he scored nine more points to push the lead from 71-56 to 88-62 with 6:28 to play.
The Wildcats would not be able to get the lead below 21 points the rest of the way as they dropped to 0-2 all-time against Duquesne. Wentz's 31 points tops his previous career-best of 27 points against Houston Baptist on Feb. 6, 2014.
"Stevens is a really good player and he definitely hurt us tonight," Golding said. "They've got a lot of good players on their squad, including him, and that's why they were able to beat a top-10 team in the country last year (Saint Louis).
"We've got to get better, and we will," he said. "But we missed a lot of easy shots in the paint that could have helped us stay in the game. We've got to get some of our inside guys playing better, and we've got to get better play out of our point guards. But we'll get there. It's a process at this level, but we're getting better."
The two teams played a back-and-forth first half in front of a crowd of 2,125 at Moody Coliseum. The first 20 minutes featured three ties and six lead changes, including a lead change with 4:56 left in the half when a
Harrison Hawkins 3-pointer gave ACU a 30-29 lead. But Stevens answered on the other end just 50 seconds later with a 3-pointer of his own to give Duquesne the lead at 32-20, and the Dukes would not trail again the rest of the night.
The Dukes, in fact, were able to run their lead out to 10 points (46-26) with 15 seconds left in the half on a free throw by Eric James before Wentz hit two free throws with three seconds left to cut the Duquesne lead to eight points (46-38) at the break.
Hawkins was the only other Wildcat in double figures, finishing with 17 points on 6 of 10 shooting from the field.
Duquesne finished the game shooting 59.6 percent from the field (34 of 57), including a blistering 12 of 23 from 3-point range (52.2 percent). ACU, meanwhile, shot just 40.3 percent from the field (25 of 62), but did hit 6 of 14 3-point attempts (42.9 percent).
