Penn State gets by Duquesne
STATE COLLEGE – Lamar Stevens scored 24 points, Tony Carr added 20, Mike Watkins netted 15 and Penn State beat Duquesne, 82-74, Sunday.
Mike Lewis II led Duquesne (0-2) with 19 points and Darius Lewis scored 12 for the Dukes who have lost 12 of their last 14 dating to Feb. 6.
An unremarkable first half that ended with Penn State up 33-29 gave way to a back-and-forth second. The teams swapped the lead six times before Penn State (1-1) went ahead for good on a Julian Moore slam dunk that made it 54-53 with 10:57 left.
The Nittany Lions made 48 percent of their field goals, hit 6 of 7 from long range in the second half and closed out the game with a 28-21 run.
Carr led the team with seven rebounds.
Duquesne: With just two starters back and having lost more than 71 percent of their scoring from last season’s 17-17 squad, the Dukes remain a work in progress.
They’ll have plenty of opportunities to find chemistry as they continue the busiest opening month in school history. Duquesne will play six games in the next 15 days to cap an 8-game November.
Penn State: Pat Chambers’ objective with an equally young team is to play hard and fast and worry about cleaning up mistakes later. They had plenty to correct after a error-filled opening half led to a loss against Albany on Friday.
More importantly, Penn State needed to address those concerns in a bounce-back that gave Chambers a chance to reinforce his message with a positive tone.
DePaul 78, Robert Morris 72: Eli Cain scored 21 points before fouling out with 2:57 to play, Tre’Darius McCallum had 12 points, eight rebounds and six assists and DePaul held on for a 78-72 win over Robert Morris.
DePaul (1-0) used a 12-4 run to open up a 63-50 lead with 6:44 to play, but back-to-back 3-pointers by Isaiah Still pulled Robert Morris within two with 10 seconds left. Two free throws by Chris Harrison-Docks gave DePaul a 76-72 lead before a steal and dunk by McCallum with 1 second left sealed it.
Still led Robert Morris (0-2) with a career-high 26 points on 10 of 17 shooting, including 4 of 8 from 3-point range.
DePaul made 27 of 34 free throws and never trailed.
Each team committed 16 turnovers but the Blue Demons outscored Robert Morris 20-10 in points off turnovers.