Not enough punch against Dukes

The Boston College men's basketball team took it on the chin last Saturday afternoon in a 84-66 loss at No. 11 Kansas, and limped away down three players, including senior forward Jared Dudley (left foot). Last night, the rudderless Eagles suffered the consequences in a 98-93 overtime loss to Duquesne before a stunned Conte Forum crowd of 6,516.

So, was this one tougher to swallow than the loss to Kansas?

"Oh, no question about it, because we had control of the game, that's why," said BC coach Al Skinner, whose team (7-4) wasted career-high scoring performances from senior guard Sean Marshall (30 points on 10-for-19 shooting) and sophomore guard Tyrese Rice (29 points on 10-for-18 shooting) and the first career triple-double from junior center Sean Williams (19 points, 10 rebounds, career-high 13 blocked shots) against its Atlantic 10 visitors from Pittsburgh.

It was a nightmarish nightcap to a horrendous day-night doubleheader at The Heights as the BC women got things started with a 68-58 loss to Harvard. The men trailed, 37-34, at intermission, squandering a 10-point lead with 4:44 to go in regulation, then committed several gaffes in overtime.

"You had control of the game and you didn't take care of the basketball," said Skinner, whose team blew a 75-65 lead by going 1 for 4 from the field and committing four turnovers in its last eight possessions of regulation. "Credit to Duquense, they came after us, they played hard, and they didn't relinquish. I just thought we were very cavalier and I just don't think we respected them enough to do what we had to do, and because of that we made tremendous mistakes."

Playing without Dudley, junior forward/center John Oates (who sat for the second game in a row with an injured left arch), and junior forward Akida McLain (who sat with a sprained right ankle he suffered in his season debut at Kansas), the Eagles committed 15 turnovers, which led to 17 Duquesne points, were outrebounded, 42-39, but saved their costliest gaffes for overtime.

"It shouldn't have even went into overtime, that's the way I look at it," Marshall said. "I've never been in a game here, being up by 10 points with [four] minutes left, where we couldn't get the ball up the floor and we couldn't get into the flex. I mean, when we can't get into our bread and butter, and then we do get into it and turn the ball over, it's frustrating."

Playing without coach Ron Everhart, who watched a webcast of the game from his hospital room in Pittsburgh, where he was recovering from an abdominal ailment, the Dukes (4-7) seemingly answered every big BC 3-pointer with one of their own. Phillip Fayne buried a trey to break a 34-34 tie just before intermission; Scott Grote (19 points) tied it, 77-77, when he hit a three with 8.2 seconds left in regulation; and Aaron Jackson (19 points) answered a 3-pointer by Rice to tie it, 84-84, with 2:04 left in OT.

The harder BC tried, the harder the Dukes responded. "Seemed like that the whole game," Williams surmised.

With 1:30 left in overtime, however, BC came undone when Rice fouled Robert Mitchell as he hoisted a 3-pointer. Mitchell (team-high 20 points) canned all three free throws for an 87-84 lead. Williams was then called for a technical after arguing a fifth foul against teammate Tyrelle Blair (3 points, 4 rebounds, 4 blocked shots), giving the Dukes four foul shots.

Duquesne, however, made just 2 of 4 to leave the door ajar. But the Eagles never were able to regain their composure, especially when Williams drew his fourth personal on an intentional foul that put Reggie Jackson on the line for two free throws that gave the Dukes a 94-89 lead and, for all intents and purposes, their first victory ever in an Atlantic Coast Conference arena.

"We have a very delicate balance and it's disrupted right now," said Skinner, whose team will likely be without the same three players for Sunday's home game against a Northeastern team led by former BC assistant Bill Coen. "Because of that, it's why we made some of the mistakes we did. I'm not sure there's anything left on the books that we could have done. We made all the mistakes you could have made over the last seven minutes of the game."

Michael Vega can be reached at vega@globe.com.