The early surprise in the Atlantic 10 has been Ron Everhart’s Duquesne Dukes, who despite some of their individual talents weren’t expected to be undefeated in conference play this far into the season. But there they are, tied for first place with Xavier thanks to an 83-67 win over Charlotte at the A.J. Palumbo Center. B.J. Monteiro led the Dukes (13-5, 5-0) with 20 points on 8-for-11 shooting from the field while also accounting for six rebounds and four assists. Forward Damian Saunders also played well for Duquesne, scoring 15 points to go along with six rebounds, five steals, four assists and two blocks. Chris Braswell led Charlotte (9-10, 1-4) with 18 points and 11 rebounds while Jamar Briscoe added 16 in a losing effort. For Duquesne Saturday’s triumph was their eighth consecutive win, their longest win streak in 39 years.

Simply put this was a thorough beating in Pittsburgh, with Duquesne taking the lead for good on a Joel Wright layup with 15:11 remaining in the first half (13-11). The 49ers have suffered from an inability to take care of the basketball and the Dukes’ ability to convert those turnovers into points got them in trouble early (15 points off turnovers in the first half), snowballing into a 31-2 edge in points off turnovers for the home team. Wright’s layup touched off an 21-4 Duquesne run that ended with a Braswell dunk with 7:36 remaining in the half to make the score 32-17, and the 49ers were able to cut the deficit to nine (39-30) by halftime. But the run didn’t serve much use as Duquesne was able to get their lead back into double figures by the first media timeout of the second half.