Some things I meant to post yesterday and earlier today...
Duquesne's coach reflects on an extraordinary season
One of the stories in the A-10 that hasn't gotten nearly enough play locally or nationally is how Duquesne recovered from having five players shot at the beginning of the season.
Dukes coach Ron Everhart was asked about this after his team lost to St. Louis last night, and I figure the best thing to do is just reprint verbatim what he said:
"I think that in a lot of ways, there's a lot of reflecting to do from a coaching perspective. I think, one, I couldn't be any more proud or honored to be the coach of Duquesne University. The type of support that we have there with our athletic director and our president, with the people on campus reached out to support these kids in some tough times, it was just phenomenal.And I think, two, I'll always look back on this year as one where I'm very, very proud of the effort that our kids gave throughout. The way they handled adversity, the way they handled success, the way they handled failure -- I thought [it] was very mature, very resilient. I think in that way, along with the fact that all of the kids who got shot got up and walked out of that hospital, [it] probably has been, for me, one of the most rewarding years of my life."
No need to analyze words when spoken that well.
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St. Louis' win at Duquesne's tempo
So I wrote a whole long thing about the tempo of St. Louis-Duquesne last night and never got around to posting any quotes about it.
"What we did in practice in preparation for Duquesne's pressure was to just play against six guys all the time," Billikens coach Brad Soderberg said. "And yet, when we played them, if I could do it over again I'd have us practice against seven."
"I'm glad we survived that game," he concluded.
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Headcount
The attendance for the evening session yesterday was 5,068. The attendance for the afternoon session today was 4,762. The latter number seemed a bit more accurate.
