CLEVELAND, Ohio — Marshall has endured its fair share of struggles over the first seven weeks of the season.
Anybody watching Sunday’s game against Duquesne would hardly have known.
The Thundering Herd put together their most complete performance of the year to race by the Dukes, 83-61, in the second game of the Cleveland Classic at Rocket Mortgage Fieldhouse.
It was the fourth win in five games for Marshall (6-7), while Duquesne dropped its second straight to fall to 10-2.
“We were playing well and really well defensively, so at halftime we just talked about finishing,” MU head coach Dan D’Antoni said. “We haven’t done that with this team yet. Tonight, they kept that pace up, the defense was strong and we made shots.”
Outside of the Dukes’ Marcus Weathers making 1-of-2 free throws to start the scoring, the Herd never trailed.
Jarrod West scored 11 of his team-high 22 points over the first 9:39, including his second 3-pointer that upped the Herd lead to 21-9.
“We’re starting to make more shots and a lot of it is just confidence,” West said.
Duquense got to within 27-22 on a Weathers layup, but the Herd quickly answered with a 7-0 run that featured five points from Cam Brooks-Harris.
The Herd settled for a 38-29 halftime lead and were in front by double digits for most of the second half.
Darius George, who poured in a career-high 19 points on 8-of-10 shooting, drained two triples early in the second half. George then scored on a tip-in to give Marshall a 46-36 lead with 16:32 remaining.
“George had a good ball game. Maybe we’re finding out who are going to be the players to take this team on down the road,” D’Antoni said. “Hopefully it’ll all work out.”
Maceo Austin’s jumper got the Dukes to within eight, before MU answered with nine straight points to all but put the game out of reach.
The decisive surge featured three points from West, an inside basket from Goran Miladinovic and dunks by Taevion Kinsey and George, the latter of which made it 55-38 with 12:33 left.
“One of the worst performances that I’ve ever been associated with,” said Duquense head coach Keith Dambrot. “I’ve gotten beat up before, but I didn’t like that performance at all. We didn’t play. We didn’t have any energy. We cut it to eight, didn’t have any energy. I can’t fix that. That’s on them.
“Ultimately, it’s on me, because we have to reevaluate and make sure we’re playing the right guys that care about winning. I was very disappointed.”
Duquesne never got closer than 10 the rest of the way, and that only came on one instance — after Tavin Dunn-Martin’s triple cut the Marshall advantage to 61-51 with 7:01 remaining.
West added six assists, while Kinsey scored 13 points to give the Herd a third player in double figures.
Weathers led the Dukes with 25 points and 13 rebounds.
Marshall held Duquesne to 33.8 percent shooting and only seven assists, while the Herd shot better than 50 percent (35-of-68) and made 8-of-18 3s.
“We’ve been executing really well on defense,” West said. “We have to hold our hat on defense.”