Local Scene
Dukes Just Getting Started
By Joe Giardina

If the overloaded section of students all wearing the same color doesn't throw you off, then the lines of fans wrapped around the front of the arena waiting for tickets might.

The scalpers sprinkled through the crowd are no help either.

For a moment, you have to check road signs just to make sure you're at the A.J. Palumbo Center on the Bluff and not at the Petersen Events Center atop Cardiac Hill in Oakland.

But this is the new Duquesne basketball. The team that substitutes like the Pittsburgh Penguins, often bringing in five new players at a time to keep legs fresh. The team that plays all ten players consistently, with no player averaging less than 15 minutes a game. The team that presses. And presses. And presses.

And more importantly, the team that is starting to win.

Through their first 16 games (they went 5-11), the Dukes averaged 71.5 points. During their five-game winning streak that started in January, they averaged 100.8 points.

"We decided that we were going to have to hurry things up and get a little faster rather than have teams pick us apart," Dukes' coach Ron Everhart said. We all know what the Dukes have been through lately, with the September shootings still fresh in everyone's mind. But the Dukes haven't used excuses. Instead, they have embraced their strengths.

"One of the advantages we have is small players who can get the ball up the floor quickly," Everhart said.

The disadvantage is that while they have speed, they lack size. With the exception of 6'10" center Kieron Achara, the Dukes have no player taller than 6'6". So by mid-February, teams began to figure them out. Five straight loses showed that the Dukes simply didn't have the talent to compete against more athletic teams. And while Everhart's gimmicks were nice, they wouldn't last long.

But help is coming next year. Three top players were forced to sit out this season due to NCAA transfer rules. Shawn James, a 6'10" forward, 6'2" point guard Kojo Mensah and 6'7" forward Stuard Baldonado are all expected to have significant roles next season.

Still, that shouldn't discount what the Dukes have done for Everhart this year.

"I'm very proud of our basketball team," Everhart said after a recent win. "Our guys never stopped believing."

Everhart has other people believing, too. That's why he is a front runner for A-10 Coach of the Year.

Some may say the thought of scalpers at a Duquesne home game seems about as ridiculous as the thought of them scoring 222 combined points in consecutive games. But they did. So while the fans and the attention have come this season, the players and the winning should make an appearance by 2008.