Duquesne Basketball
December 5, 2014
DEJAN KOVACEVIC, DK ON PITTSBURGH SPORTS
Getting ready for tipoff …
Game: Pitt (4-3) vs. Duquesne (3-1), 83rd City Game, 7:02 p.m., Consol Energy Center
TV, radio: ESPN3, 93.7 The Fan, WJAS 1320 AM, iHeartRadio 3WS HD2
Online: GameTracker / Pitt multimedia / Duquesne multimedia / Pitt official game notes / Duquesne official game notes
December 5, 2014
Rob Scuderi clears the puck from Thomas Greiss’ crease during a Vancouver flurry Thursday. — GETTY
DEJAN KOVACEVIC, DK ON PITTSBURGH SPORTS
Weekly roundup of a lot of randomness from a lot of time around our city’s teams …
• The NHL already has Sharks and Predators, but you should also know it’s got sharks and predators.
General managers around the league have been calling the Penguins’ front office, I was told at Consol in the hours leading up to the 3-0 throttling by the Canucks on Thursday night, and it’s wholly because they smell blood with the recent injury losses of Pascal Dupuis and Chris Kunitz.
And this was before Patric Hornqvist was felled on a hellacious hit by Vancouver’s Ryan Stanton in the second period and did not return.
December 2, 2014
DEJAN KOVACEVIC, DK ON PITTSBURGH SPORTS
Getting ready for tipoff …
Game: Duquesne (2-1) vs. Howard (4-3), 7:02 p.m., A.J. Palumbo Center
TV, radio: Atlantic 10 Video, WJAS 1320 AM, iHeartRadio 3WS HD2
Online: GameTracker / Multimedia / Official game notes
November 29, 2014
The Dukes’ Micah Mason brings the ball up the floor as NJIT sets the defense. — DAVE DeNOMA/DUQUESNE ATHLETICS
DEJAN KOVACEVIC, DK ON PITTSBURGH SPORTS
News: Duquesne lost for the first time in the 2014-15 season, 84-81, to NJIT on Saturday at the Palumbo Center, prompting Jim Ferry to remark afterward, “I thought that was one of the worst defensive performances I’ve ever seen.” He later clarified that it was the worst by the Dukes in the past two seasons. But still …
Views: He probably had it right the first time. My goodness, the Dukes were awful defensively.
Oh, wait, Ferry wound up using that word, too.
Well, if adjectives don’t sum it up, this will: The Dukes got 18 points from Micah Mason, 16 from Jordan Stevens, 14 each from Derrick Colter and TySean Powell … and defense from absolutely no one. NJIT shot 56.9 percent from the field and, stunningly, were 12 of 24 from 3-point range. Some of that was legit, as Damon Lynn, one of the nation’s most productive outside shooters, put down 27. But he and the rest of his 2-4 team had clean looks all game, inside and out.
Cue Ferry: “If you think you’re going to outscore people, then you’re not going to win.”
November 29, 2014
DEJAN KOVACEVIC, DK ON PITTSBURGH SPORTS
Getting ready for tipoff …
Game: Duquesne (2-0) vs. NJIT (1-4), 2:02 p.m., A.J. Palumbo Center
TV, radio: Atlantic 10 Video, WJAS 1320 AM, iHeartRadio 3WS HD2
Online: GameTracker / Multimedia / Official game notes
November 28, 2014
Frank Coonelly has been the Pirates’ president since late in the 2007 season. — GETTY
DEJAN KOVACEVIC, DK ON PITTSBURGH SPORTS
A weekly roundup of a lot of randomness from a lot of time around our city’s teams …
• The Pirates “certainly can and I suspect will” top the $90 million mark in payroll in 2015, Frank Coonelly told DKonPittsburghSports.com exclusively Thursday.
And yes, this will represent another significant increase, contrary to widespread misinformation and misrepresentation of the truth.
If you want bluster, click away. If you want facts, here you go …
The Pirates’ 40-man roster payroll for 2014, the one audited and verified by Major League Baseball’s accounting offices, was $82.1 million. While multiple other outlets were howling over payroll being in the low-$70 million range, this site informed you in the Sept. 5 Friday Insider that the actual projected figure for the full year was $82.4 million.
November 26, 2014
Ben Roethlisberger and Antonio Brown celebrate a touchdown hookup earlier this season. — GETTY IMAGES
DEJAN KOVACEVIC, DK ON PITTSBURGH SPORTS
Feeling especially and personally thankful on this Thanksgiving eve …
• I’m thankful to cover professional sports in a town blessed by not one not two but three truly elite performers on each team, which I’m guessing is more than most would count into that category.
I’ll go Ben Roethlisberger, Antonio Brown and Le’Veon Bell with the Steelers, each of whom can currently claim a legit argument for being the very best at his position in the NFL.
I’ll go Sidney Crosby, Evgeni Malkin and, yes, Marc-Andre Fleury with the Penguins. Because anyone who would discount the latter doesn’t fully appreciate what it meant Monday that he became the third-youngest goaltender in NHL history to 300 wins. And get this: Since making his debut Oct. 10, 2003, at the Civic Arena, Fleury has accounted for 69 percent of the Penguins’ 432 victories while sharing the crease with 15 other men.
November 22, 2014
DEJAN KOVACEVIC, DK ON PITTSBURGH SPORTS
Getting ready for tipoff …
Game: Duquesne (1-0) vs. Abilene Christian (1-1), 5:02 p.m., Moody Coliseum, Abilene, Texas
TV, radio: Abilene Video, WJAS 1320 AM, iHeartRadio 3WS HD2
Online: GameTracker / Multimedia / Official game notes
November 15, 2014
Derrick Colter shoots over Bluefield State’s Avery Holliday on Saturday. — DAVE DeNOMA / DUQUESNE ATHLETICS
DEJAN KOVACEVIC, DK ON PITTSBURGH SPORTS
No sooner had the basketball been launched from Derrick Colter’s fingertips than he was hacked by Bluefield State’s Avery Holliday. Hard enough that Duquesne’s gifted junior guard fell back onto the A.J. Palumbo Center court and was wholly horizontal by the time that ball touched twine.
Even with the rest of his body prone, Colter’s arms shot up, raised in triumph.
Did he see the 3-pointer?
“Just kind of felt it,” he’d confess to me later with an aw-shucks grin. “All I saw was ceiling.”
Quite the raise-the-roof moment, if you will.
And no, not because played an infinitesimal part in the Dukes pounding a badly overmatched opponent, 91-51, in the university’s 99th season opener Saturday.
Not because it would be one of a career-high seven 3-pointers, one shy of the school record.
Not because he’d spike up to a career-high 26 points after averaging 9.3 last season.
Not even because the game of his life was occurring on this extraordinary young man’s official return from a five-month battle with cancer — non-Hodgkin lymphoma — that involved 20 consecutive days of radiation treatment.
“It was the shot. That’s it,” Colter said. “When I put up a shot, I want it to fall. So when it went down after I got knocked down, yeah, I enjoyed it a little.”
Believe it.
November 15, 2014
DEJAN KOVACEVIC, DK ON PITTSBURGH SPORTS
Getting ready for tipoff …
Game: Duquesne vs. Bluefield State, 99th season opener, 2:02 p.m., A.J. Palumbo Center
TV, radio: Atlantic 10 Digital Network, WJAS 1320 AM, iHeartRadio 3WS HD2
Online: GameTracker / Multimedia / Official game notes
Tipoff between Jordan Robinson and Bluefield State’s Shane Greco at 2:02 p.m. — DEJAN KOVACEVIC
