AKRON, OHIO — Down by 10 points early on in the second half, a crucial stretch approaching five scoreless minutes allowed Duquesne to defeat Bradley 69-67 Monday evening at the LeBron James Arena.
Jimmy Clark III led all scorers with 21 points and also grabbed five rebounds. Andrei Savrasov scored a season high 17 points on 8-of-9 shooting and Dae Dae Grant also achieved 17 points.
Duquesne (8-2) saw its game winner occur when Clark jumped in front of Bradley’s inbounds pass, and he found David Dixon who beat the buzzer.
As the Dukes celebrated on the court, the officials reviewed the play and found 0.2 seconds remaining. When Dixon intercepted home run pass, it secured victory.
Duquesne is now 5-0 under coach Keith Dambrot in games play in Akron.
Bradley (6-5) saw Duke Deen’s 15 points take top honors. Darius Hannah added 14 points and Malevy Leons a double-double of 11 points and 10 rebounds.
At the beginning of the game it was all Savrasov as he scored Duquesne’s first seven points, frustrating Bradley coach Brian Wardle to the point that he could be heard on the bench stating that “it’s going to be a long night”.
The Braves snapped out of it with a couple of three-point baskets from Iceland native Almar Atlason kept them in the fight.
Bradley getting back into form and leading for almost the entire rest of the first half stemmed from winning the rebounding battle, with nine offensive rebounds creating addition opportunities to assert its will.
Duquesne was undone by two scoring droughts, the first of which lasted 4:20, allowing for Bradley to go on a 10-0 run. Even when Clark broke the run, that news was not completely positive as he made just one of three free throws.
The Braves enjoyed another 8-0 run after the Dukes went scoreless for over three minutes once again.
As Duquesne struggled to find consistency, it did find a spurt towards the end of the half scoring twice in the final 70 second of the half.
When Clark found Grant for a three-point make in the closing seconds, Duquesne cut its halftime deficit to 40-37.
Duquesne’s mistakes compounded as Bradley added a press which threw the Dukes for a loop and an early stumble.
It was an uneven start for Duquesne as it could not string too many plays together, but it overcame that with the aforementioned 4:32 scoreless streak.
Duquesne’s victory extends the winning streak to four games as it faces Santa Clara Saturday in Las Vegas at Orleans Arena, a venue the Dukes played during Dambrot’s first season with the team.
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