UMass rallies past Duquesne in overtime

“That’s a difficult one to swallow,” Duquesne head coach Jim Ferry said.

UMass’ offense was lead by Jabarie Hinds. The West Virginia transfer came off the bench to score 37 points, which is good for the 3rd most points in the history of the A.J. Palumbo Center. He was 7-8 from behind the arc.

“We didn’t contest him the way we should have,” L.G. Gill said. “We underestimated his 3-point shot.”

Micah Mason lead the Dukes with a career high 29 points and had his second double-double of the season with 10 assists.

Both offenses couldn’t find any rhythm early, with the Dukes starting 1-8 from the field and the Minutemen 1-19. A run of 15 unanswered points by six different players gave the Dukes a 15-3 advantage with 12:19 remaining in the half.

UMass did not go away quietly, rattling off a 21-5 run to give themselves a 24-20 lead with 5:45 left in the first. But the lead was short lived when Antwan Space was charged with a technical after celebrating too much after his layp. That started a 12-0 stretch for Duquesne, the final eight coming from freshman Josh Steel.

Steel would go into the half with 11 points and shooting 4-4 from the field. Aided in part by a second UMass technical, the Dukes went into the half with a 43-33 lead.

Duquesne held onto their double-digit lead throughout the first half of the second period, but a 10-0 Minuteman run in just one minute and 21 seconds tied the game at 63 with 8:49 to go.

“I thought we had the game, and we let them off the hook,” Mason said.

The Dukes were given a few more gifts throughout the later part half, but they couldn’t rebuild a sizeable lead. In addition to committing UMass’ fourth technical, Trey Davis gave the Dukes second life with 4:45 left to play when he chased a ball out of bounds when he didn’t need to. That resulted in a bucket plus one for Darius Lewis to make it 75-69 Dukes.

The Dukes held onto that six point lead until the 2:16 mark, but Hinds and Davis both hit threes to knot the game up again. Two late free-throws by Donte Clark tied the game at 84 and forced overtime.

Overtime was not kind to the Dukes, who lost bigmen Lewis and TySean Powell to fouls and were playing without any momentum. Hinds added five more points in the extra period, and the Dukes never lead after regulation. UMass shot 16-20 from the line to ice it.

“We just gotta keep our head up (and) not let these last three games affect us,” Mason said.

ON DECK
Duquesne will play host to George Washington Wednesday at 7 p.m.. George Washington beat the Dukes 91-64 back at home in early January.

NUMB3RS
1. Steel’s 11 points were a career high, but he was shutout after the first.

2. TySean Powell entered play shooting .640 from the field in conference play. Today
he was 1-4.

3. After starting 1-19, UMass made 31 of their last 51 shots from the field.