After five attempts, Duquesne finally has its first Atlantic 10 victory at home this season.
“I hope it excites people,” coach Dru Joyce III said. “Our players are pretty excited.”
Jimmie Williams scored 22 points and narrowly missed a double-double with nine rebounds, Tarence Guinyard added 14 points and Duquesne beat Rhode Island, 76-61, on Sunday, putting an end to its recent A-10 woes at UPMC Cooper Fieldhouse.
The Dukes (12-10, 4-5) held off a second-half charge by Rhode Island (13-9, 4-5) and pulled away down the stretch to continue a pattern of alternating victories.
During a span of six games since Jan. 13, Duquesne is 3-3 while trading victories for losses. The latest result carried some special meaning.
“Just a little bit of relief to get that out of the way,” Joyce said of the team’s first home A-10 victory. “You can feel the pressure, even if you try to downplay it. But there’s a confidence that comes with getting it. Part of your spirit is to protect this home court. We’ve just got to continue to build it up. We can’t let anybody walk in here and just keep beating us. We’ve got to put a stop to it.”
The Dukes finally did by turning up their defensive effort, a season-long issue for a team that seems to score at will but has had trouble keeping its opponents off the board.
“It’s all we heard in practice,” Williams said. “The coaches were emphasizing stops.”
While sporting a 3-1 road record in the A-10, Duquesne had lost four conference home games to VCU, Dayton, Saint Louis and St. Bonaventure while yielding an average of 83 points before its 15-point victory against Rhode Island.
If not for a made 3-pointer at the buzzer Sunday, the Rams would’ve fallen short of the 60-point mark.
“It’s not a mystery what’s been happening in our losses,” Joyce said. “We haven’t defended well, and we haven’t done a really good job in transition. This afternoon, we made some progress in those areas.”
Despite Guinyard in Duquesne’s previous game tying a school record with 12 assists during an 87-79 home loss to St. Bonaventure on Wednesday, Joyce publicly called out his senior floor leader afterward without mentioning the player’s name.
“The tone starts with the guy on the ball. That’s usually the point guard,” Joyce said at the time.
On Sunday, he praised Guinyard’s defensive prowess against Rhode Island.
“I don’t know if you noticed, but Tarence Guinyard was picking up full-court and trying to set a tone,” Joyce said. “That’s a lot of what we talked about. If you’re a point guard, you’re the first person that we see on defense. If you’re laid back with your hands on your knees, what do you expect the rest of the guys to do? He took an initiative and guarded their guy full-court. And he did it playing 34 minutes. That’s not an easy task, but it was important to him. I thought he did a great job setting the tone.”
Said Guinyard: “We took pride in defense today. It’s a big thing we’ve been struggling with, and we had to dig in and take pride in defending. We emphasized it in practice.”
Rhode Island, coached by former Blackhawk star Archie Miller, shot 38.9% (21 for 54) and was outrebounded 38-28. The Rams came in having won three straight games, including victories in their previous two against second-place George Mason — just the Patriots’ second loss overall and first in the A-10 — and at Dayton in overtime.
“They were a hot team. They walked in here with some confidence,” Joyce said. “We really played well throughout the game, and hopefully we can build on it.”
After a trip Wednesday to face George Mason (20-2, 8-1), Duquesne returns to UPMC Cooper Fieldhouse against George Washington.
Alex Williams added 12 points for Duquesne, which made 20 of 22 foul shots, despite ranking in the lower third of the A-10 in free-throw shooting (71.1%).
Overall, the Dukes shot 44.0% (22 for 50) and finished at 44.4 (12 for 27) from 3-point range.
Tyler Cochran’s 18 points led Rhode Island. Jahmere Tripp added 15, and Myles Corey finished with 10.
It marks the Duquesne’s fourth consecutive victory against Rhode Island and the sixth in a row at home against the Rams dating to the 2016-17 season.
Duquesne built 15-point leads twice, the last at 55-40 when Alex Williams hit four free throws in a span of 23 seconds. But the Dukes nearly let it all slip away before rallying to push the lead back to double digits.
Guinyard’s steal and layup and a Brandon Hall 3-pointer pushed the Dukes’ lead to 70-54 with 3:08 remaining, and they limited Rhode Island to seven points the rest of the way — three on Cochran’s shot at the buzzer.
Rhode Island twice crept within five points in the second half. The Rams last trailed 59-54 with 5:43 to go on a pair of free throws by Keeyan Itejere.
But Duquesne scored 11 unanswered points, igniting a 14-2 run to take a 73-58 lead with 1:19 remaining.
Jimmie Williams’ 15 points powered Duquesne to a 37-27 halftime lead.
“We had a confidence to us, even when Rhode Island made a push,” Joyce said. “We didn’t get rattled. We stayed poised. We answered all their runs by not just getting a basket, but getting stops, sometimes 2-3 stops in a row. It’s a good sign.”