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The UMass Minutemen basketball team will host the Duquesne Dukes in Atlantic 10 play on Saturday.
The game (2 p.m. ET start time) will be televised on NESN Plus locally, but if you don’t have that channel, anyone in the United States can watch it live on ESPN+:
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Once signed up for ESPN+, you can then watch Duquesne vs UMass live on your computer via ESPN.com, or on your phone (Android and iPhone compatible), tablet, Roku, Amazon Fire TV, Apple TV, Chromecast, PlayStation 4, Xbox One, or other streaming device via the ESPN app.
Duquesne vs UMass Preview
The Dukes had a five-game winning streak snapped on Wednesday, falling to the Rhode Island Rams 77-55 on the road to slip to 15-3 on the season and 5-1 in conference play.
Duquesne led at halftime, then got outscored 47-17 following the break.
“We’ve gotta be able to handle adversity better than that,” Dukes head coach Frank Dambrot said in a video shared by the team’s Twitter account. “We had some guys who sulked, let things bother them. Emotionally they were up and down and they paid the price.”
Duquesne forward Marcus Weathers scored a team-high 20 points to go with 7 rebounds, a steal, and a block. Center Michael Hughes led all participants with a trio of blocks, adding 6 points and 7 rebounds.
The frontcourtmates form one of the best shot-blocking duos in the nation. Hughes swats 2.9 attempts per game, ranking 11th in Division I and second among Atlantic 10 players. Weathers’ 1.6 blocks per contest are good for 76th nationally and fifth in the conference.
As a team, the Dukes block 6.3 shots per game, ranking eighth out of 353 Division I teams.
“I’m just trying to get our team the ball,” Hughes told the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette in December of his shot-blocking prowess. “That’s the only thing that matters. People talk about all these accolades, like, ‘Oh, you’re ranked in the country for this and that.’ I could give two damns about that, because at the end of the day, it’s not going to get us what we want, and obviously that’s to play for a national championship. That’s also to play for an A-10 tournament championship.”
The Minutemen opened their season with five consecutive victories, but they’ve lost 12 of 14 since, including their last four. They fell to the George Mason Patriots 73-63 on the road on Wednesday, dropping to 1-5 in Atlantic 10 play.
Guard Carl Pierre led UMass with 23 points, adding 3 rebounds and a steal. Center Tre Mitchell scored 14 points, blocked a pair of shots, and tied for a game high with 12 rebounds. Reserve forward Dibaji Walker served as UMass’ third-highest scorer, with 6 points.
“We can’t have Tre and Carl, both in double figures, and nobody else is really even close,” Minutemen head coach Matt McCall said, according to The Massachusetts Daily Collegian.
“Someone else has to step up for us offensively. Sometimes out there it feels like we are playing a little two-on-five, and we got to have that third and that fourth guy that are producing for us offensively.”