Duquesne center Dominique McKoy had high hopes for his senior season. The Dukes went 13-17 a year ago and had four starters, including McKoy, returning.
McKoy (6 feet 8) averaged 9.7 points and 7.2 rebounds per game last season, his first after transferring from Cowley Community College in Kansas, and along with then-senior Ovie Soko provided Duquesne with a potent frontcourt.
McKoy, now the Dukes’ elder statesman and lone senior, saw his expectations for this season quickly buried by a reality that was “not how I envisioned it to be,” he explained Friday.
He expected wins by the handful, not the six-game losing streak the Dukes (6-13, 1-7) hope to snap tonight against George Mason (7-12, 2-5) in an Atlantic 10 Conference game at Palumbo Center.
He expected to be a starter, too, but watched from the bench when the season began. McKoy says he’s not entirely sure how or why he lost his starting role — maybe coach Jim Ferry was testing him or using the non-conference season to try out younger players — but it had an impact.
“Going through that situation was very frustrating for me,” McKoy said.
“Some nights I couldn’t really sleep. I was just trying to figure it out. … I was thinking too much, but, at the same time, it’s my senior year, and I felt like I should have been on the court.”
He earned his way back into the starting lineup with his characteristic hustle. After an efficient and energetic 19 minutes off the bench Dec. 17 against Saint Francis, Pa, Ferry put McKoy back into the starting five.
Since then, McKoy is averaging 8.1 points and 5.9 rebounds per game, but Duquesne is 1-7 in 2015. It’s “very frustrating,” McKoy said.
The little things have snowballed into a six-game skid.
“You can’t get those games back,” he said. “They’re gone now.”
His challenge tonight is to contain Patriots big man Shevon Thompson, a 6-foot-11 center from Jamaica who averages 13.5 points and 11.5 rebounds as a freshman. Thompson and St. Bonaventure 7-footer Youssou Ndoye are the only Atlantic 10 players averaging a double-double this season.
And that name, Ndoye, brings up a bad memory for McKoy.
Duquesne’s zone defense held Ndoye to one point and two rebounds in the first half Jan. 22, but he dominated the rest of the way with 19 points and 13 rebounds in the Bonnies’ 100-97 overtime win.
The zone is a blessing and a curse for the undersized Duquesne.
A blessing, McKoy said, because “we can just pack it in and wall up around him.” But it also doesn’t give any single man the responsibility of getting position on the big man to grab a rebound.
Thompson, the fifth-leading rebounder in Division I, hauls in an average of 4.8 offensive rebounds per game.
“Just try to keep him off the glass as much as we can and limit his touches on offense, so he can’t catch the ball,” McKoy said.
“We’ve seen him on film. Usually, when he catches it down there he’s going to score.”
Stephen J. Nesbitt: snesbitt@post-gazette.com and Twitter @stephenjnesbitt.
First Published: January 31, 2015, 5:00 a.m.
