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Sunday, February 16, 2003

By Ray Fittipaldo, Post-Gazette Sports Writer

BRONX, N.Y. -- Kevin Forney had seen this type of game too many times throughout his career. A tight contest against an inferior team, and somehow, some way Duquesne would find a way to lose.

After games like that this season against Mount St. Mary's and the University of Denver, Forney wasn't about to let it happen again. Not against a Fordham team that ranks as one of the worst in NCAA Division I.

So Forney, a 6-foot-4 guard, put the Dukes on his shoulders in the final minutes, scoring nine of his game-high 21 points in the final 6:38 to lift the Dukes to a 74-65 victory at Rose Hill Gymnasium yesterday.

The win snapped an eight-game losing streak for the Dukes (8-16, 2-9 in the Atlantic 10), who hadn't celebrated a victory since a home win Jan. 8 against Temple.

"That's why I had the ball in my hands most of the time," said Forney, a senior who became the 29th Duquesne player to score 1,000 career points with a free throw early in the game. "I wasn't going to let us lose. I wanted the ball in my hands at the end of the game."

So did Coach Danny Nee, whose game plan at the end was to spread the floor and allow Forney to dribble penetrate and score or get fouled. Forney delivered almost every time, going 5 for 9 from the field and 11 of 13 from the free-throw line.

He was clutch at the end. His two free throws with 6:38 remaining gave the Dukes a 57-56 lead they would not relinquish. He proceeded to make another basket and five of six free throws in the waning moments to secure the victory.

"I thought Kevin Forney was out of sight," Nee said. "We gave him the ball the last three or four times down the floor. He's such an excellent free-throw shooter. He gets into a groove and makes a couple, he gets that hop to him, and he's very hard to guard."

It was a matchup of the two worst teams in the Atlantic 10, and the contest was played that way for long periods. Both teams had 21 turnovers in a sloppy game that won't make the highlight shows.

"In a game like today with the two worst teams in the conference, it was going to be good news for somebody because somebody was going to get a win," said Fordham Coach Bob Hill, whose team lost for the 10th consecutive time and dropped to 2-20 on the season. "The game was there for us, but we just couldn't take care of it."

The Dukes aren't feeling sorry for the Rams. Nee had been practicing his team hard the past few weeks, sometimes going twice a day in an effort to wake his players from their doldrums.

"They sucked it up," Nee said. "Their attitudes have been super. They don't have a losing attitude. They have a great attitude. We kept telling them, you've earned it, you deserve it, don't give it away. I kept telling them that in the huddle."

The Dukes demonstrated some cool resolve late in the contest. They held a 61-58 lead with 1:40 remaining before Forney stepped to the line and made the first of a one-and-one. His second shot rimmed out, but center Ron Dokes outjumped his defender and tapped in the rebound for a 64-58 lead.

In the final 37 seconds, the Dukes made 8 of 8 free throws and converted 14 of 15 in the second half.

All the while Forney kept telling himself and his teammates to think of the consequences of losing to Fordham.

"We just kept telling each other don't let us be the team that loses to them," Forney said. "That was a lot of motivation."

NOTES -- Dokes (14), Brad Midgley (12) and Elijah Palmer (10) also scored in double figures for the Dukes. ... Freshman guard John Blackgrove led the Rams with 20 points, but he scored just four points in the second half. ... The Dukes made 24 of 28 free throws for the game. ... Fordham was 1 for 9 from 3-point range in the second half after making 7 of 13 from beyond the arc in the first half. ... The Dukes next play George Washington Wednesday at the Palumbo Center.