Dec 14, 2019 4 min read

Marcus Weathers had 19 points and 13 rebounds to lift Duquesne to a 71-49 win over Radford on Saturday, the Dukes’ ninth straight victory to open the season.

Tavian Dunn-Martin had 12 points for Duquesne (9-0). Michael Hughes added 11 points and three blocks. Sincere Carry had six assists for Duquesne.

Leroy Butts IV had 12 points and nine rebounds for the Highlanders (3-6).

Carlik Jones, who led the Highlanders in scoring coming into the contest with 22 points per game, was held to only 9 points on 2-of-10 shooting.

Duquesne takes on Austin Peay next Saturday.

West Virginia 83, Nicholls 57: West Virginia’s young inside presence stood out, but it was a balanced scoring attack that helped the Mountaineers outlast Nicholls State’s pesky defense.

Sophomore Derek Culver scored 16 points and grabbed 16 rebounds while freshman Oscar Tshiebwe had 15 points and 11 rebounds to lead West Virginia to an 83-57 victory over Nicholls State.

West Virginia pulled away down the stretch after Nicholls State had tied the game. And it took a team effort to do it. Miles McBride added 15 points while Emmitt Matthews Jr. and Sean McNeil scored 10 apiece for the Mountaineers (9-1).

“That was really good,” Tshiebwe said. “Coach told us we’ve got to play like we’re down 10 to 15 points.”

With Culver and Tshiebwe doing their work near the basket, it’s allowed players like McNeil and Taz Sherman to showcase their outside shooting. McNeil and Sherman combined to make 4-of-8 3-pointers.

“Having somebody like Sean, who can make shots, really helps us,” Mountaineers’ coach Bob Huggins said. “Taz is starting to be the player that we thought we recruited.”

So is Tshiebwe, a McDonald’s All-American as a high schooler who leads the Big 12 in rebounding at 9.3 per game, while Culver is third at 8.9.

Culver made 6 of 9 shots from the floor.

“If you all knew how far he’s come. He’s come a long way,” Huggins said. “He just continues to get better.”

West Virginia transfer D’Angelo Hunter scored 14 points for Nicholls State (6-5), including a three-point play that helped erase a 10-point deficit and tied the game at 43-all with 16:43 left. But the Colonels never retook the lead.

“At the end, I was just disappointed,” Nicholls coach Austin Claunch said. “I thought the last four minutes we lost our way a little bit.”

Culver scored six points during an ensuing 20-5 run that gave the Mountaineers a 63-48 lead with 8:57 left. Nicholls State got no closer than 11 points after that.

“Once we calmed down in the second half and locked in, we became who we are in our DNA, which is to be the tougher team,” Culver said.

Nicholls committed 17 turnovers and shot 4 of 25 (16%) from 3-point range.

“Overall, it was just a great experience to come play here against a team that is going to be better than people realize,” Claunch said.

Penn State 73, Alabama 71: When Pat Chambers needs his best player to pick up the pace on defense, he doesn’t need to ask.

Lamar Stevens just does his thing.

Penn State’s leading scorer drained 13 of his 18 points in the second half, grabbed 11 rebounds and added five blocks and two steals to lead Penn State to a 73-71 home win over Alabama.

“The fact that your best player wants to play defense at all is fantastic,” Chambers said. “He became a dominant player the last four minutes.”

Curtis Jones scored 18 points, Myreon Jones added 17 and Mike Watkins grabbed 10 rebounds for Penn State (9-2), which trailed 40-34 at halftime.

Before that, Alabama took its biggest lead of the afternoon, 52-43, on a Herbert Jones layup with 14:53 left.

But Penn State came back with a 14-5 run that featured six points from Curtis Jones and a 3-pointer from Myles Dread that made it 57-all just over three minutes later.

“We definitely looked sluggish in the first half,” Chambers said. “We were trying to catch up to them and we’ve got speed ourselves.”

Galin Smith reclaimed the lead for Alabama with a pair of tough inside baskets, but Penn State got nine points from Stevens over the next 9:58. They fueled a 16-10 run to the finish for Penn State before Watkins came up with a block and steal on back-to-back Alabama possessions with less than a minute to play.

The Tide had a chance with five seconds left to in-bound the ball, but couldn’t get a clean shot off.

James Bolden scored 15 points and Alex Reese added 12 for Alabama (4-5).