Oct 23, 2018 4 min read

Palumbo Center to get $45M makeover

Duquesne University is giving the A.J. Palumbo Center a major makeover after the upcoming basketball season.

The school announced Tuesday that the reimagined 30-year-old arena will be named UPMC Cooper Fieldhouse after former Duquesne basketball player Chuck Cooper. Cooper played for the Dukes from 1947-1950 before becoming the first African-American to be drafted by an NBA team. The Boston Celtics selected Cooper in the second round.

The renovation is expected to begin in March and cost an estimated $45 million. It is scheduled to be completed in time for the 2020-21 season. The school did not say where the Dukes would play in the meantime.

The Palumbo Center opened in 1988 and serves as the home for the Duquesne men’s and women’s basketball teams. While the updated arena will have wider concourses, a new video board and upgrades to premium seats, capacity is expected to stay around 4,400.

Dukes favorites in

A-10 women’s hoops

Duquesne has been selected as the Atlantic 10 Conference women’s basketball preseason favorite in the league’s annual women’s basketball preseason poll.

The Dukes, who are coached by Washington native Dan Burt, garnered 12 first-place votes for a total of 194 points. Duquesne is led by seniors Chassidy Omogrosso and Julijana Vojinovic. Both players were named to the Preseason All-Conference first team. Omogrosso and Vojinovic are joined on the preseason squad by senior teammates Kadri-Ann Lass, who was named to the second team, and Conor Richardson, who was named to the All-Defensive team.

Duquesne was 25-8 last year and 13-3 in the A-10. The Dukes reached the postseason for the 10th consecutive season last year advancing to the third round of the WNIT.

Dayton is second in the poll with two first-place votes and 183 points.

Finishing tied for third in the poll were Fordham and George Washington with 159 points. GW is the defending A-10 champion and winner of three of the last four A-10 titles.

PT to WPIAL

field hockey final

Peters Township advanced in the WPIAL Class 3A girls field hockey playoffs Tuesday night, defeating Norwin 1-0 in the semifinals. The Indians will play Pine-Richland in the finals Monday (7 p.m.) at Fox Chapel. Pine-Richland advanced with a 3-2 victory over North Allegheny in the semifinals.

In the NHL

Mats Zuccarello and Mika Zibanejad each scored twice and the New York Rangers snapped a two-game losing streak with a 5-2 victory over the Florida Panthers on Tuesday night.

Kevin Hayes also scored, Neal Pionk added two assists and Alexandar Georgiev made 36 saves for New York, which collected its third win of the young season.

Vincent Trocheck and Mike Hoffman each scored their third goals of the season, and Jonathan Huberdeau had two assists for the Panthers, who fell to 1-3-3 despite holding the lead in each game.

• Christian Fischer got his first career hat trick, Darcy Kuemper stopped 35 shots and the Arizona Coyotes rallied to beat the Columbus Blue Jackets 4-1.

Fischer scored in all three periods to help the Coyotes beat Columbus for the first time in the last seven tries dating to 2015. Derek Stepan got the primary assist on all three.

Dylan Strome also scored for Arizona as backup Kuemper got his first win of the season in two starts.

Pierre Luc-Dubois scored and Sergei Bobrovsky had 22 saves in what was mostly a lackluster game for the Blue Jackets, even though they had 10 more shots on goal.