Duquesne WBB Desires Better Execution After A-10 Loss

As the Duquesne Women’s Basketball Team possessed the ball, the Saint Louis bench all began to shout one word in unison.

“Three!”

Indeed, the officials blew their whistles signaling a three-second call and it left Dukes coach Dan Burt in somewhat of a surprise at it being called.

Towards the end of the game, Duquesne was trying to get back into the contest but in doing so came up empty on a possession in which it had four open shots that were passed up.

It had been 10 days since Duquesne triumphed in a City Game victory over Pitt and began preparing for Atlantic 10 play. Burt had cautioned his team that even in said triumph it was younger than he thought and in a 72-62 loss to the Billikens Wednesday at the UPMC Cooper Fieldhouse this was very evident.

Duquesne is now 7-6 overall on the season dropping both A-10 contests, with this representing the first home setback of the campaign.

“Saint Louis played their game and did a great job and the four starters played very well,” he observed. “We looked like the young, inexperienced team we are when you look at how physical the game was. We were somewhat shellshocked by the physicality and it clearly determined a lot of the game. You learn more from the losses than the wins. Wins can hide certain deficiencies of things you need to do.”

Much of the game appeared to baffle Burt though he correctly stated that a lack of execution was why his team lost.

He was quite surprised that with 17 turnovers, Duquesne was still tied at halftime, but attributed the miscues to a team that does not value the ball enough and to youth.

“I’m tired of talking about us being young and I’m hoping that we can find more than one who can step up and not turn the ball over at such a high rate because it’s literally everyone that’s playing more than 12 minutes,” stated Burt. “We have to meet passes, not throwing bounce passes on the perimeter that led to a basket. We show our youth and inexperience passing and catching that lead to turnovers and that’s fixable and I’d like to fix it for Dayton. You hope it clicks sooner that later.”

But how long will it take to click? Call it frustration, honesty or both, but Burt believes it will take the whole season.

“You don’t have an older upperclassman coming in on a white horse being a shining knight and saving us,” Burt analyzed. “These guys are really young, and they’ve got to grow up together. We’re going to have hard times like this, and we’ve got to grow from that. Part of that is our screening action wasn’t very good today. It’s a hallmark of a very young team and don’t put it on them as much as you put it on me because at the end of the day the buck stops with me. 

“We have to be a better basketball team and our accountability level from our coaches, me, has to be greater. It could be a good year, coach-led teams are good years, you have a good year you usually have a coach-led team. If you want this to be a great year, and this still could be a great year, the players have to lead and take a greater accountability. I think they are capable of doing that and I can see us doing it. It’s just them learning on the job very simply. No one likes to learn on the job when you have a loss. Saint Louis made us learn some things today.”

Duquesne did have a clear positive in Nadia Moore’s return, her first game action since Nov. 6. There was some evident aggression from Moore, who poured in 15 points in 22 minutes before fouling out.

Burt was happy with how hard she played, despite not quite being 100%. As Duquesne attempts to bounce back, Moore provides another weapon to be able to do so.

That positivity was not enough to overcome Burt’s disappointment and understanding that a lot of work needs to be done.

As the press conference wrapped up, Burt’s watch randomly told him it was 3:27 p.m. The notification caught him off guard and caused him to look at his wrist. The clock read 3:33. Burt could not help but lightly chuckle. To a degree it probably summarized the game for him as he silently sat for several minutes, quite possibly until 3:33 processing what unfolded.

“It just comes down to having growing pains this year and it’s not something I’m overly accustomed to, and we haven’t turned the ball over ever in my career at this rate because we’ve always had some experience at guard, so it is imperative on me to get these kids where they need to be,” he concluded.