PITTSBURGH, Pa. – It's been a long weekend for Longwood men's basketball, and Sunday it showed.
 
Fewer than 48 hours after expending themselves in an overtime win against Frostburg State Friday night, Longwood (7-4) ran out of gas late and succumbed to a second-half comeback in which Duquesne overcame an 18-point deficit and upended the Lancers 81-70 Sunday afternoon at the A.J. Palumbo Center.
 
Eric Williams Jr. led that charge off the bench, scoring a team-high 22 points and grabbing 12 rebounds to help the Dukes (6-2) overcome Longwood's 47-32 halftime lead and the Lancers' most proficient first-half offensive performance of the season.
 
Williams played all but 30 seconds in the second half and initiated a game-changing 16-0 run with a three-pointer at 8:47. That trey sparked a rally in which the Dukes scored on nine of 10 possessions while forcing Longwood into five straight missed field goals and five turnovers.
 
That 16-point tear lasted 3:37 and was bookended by two Williams free throws that gave Duquesne its first lead of the game with 5:09 to play. The Dukes never trailed the rest of the way.
 
"We told the guys at the beginning of the game, the reality is we needed to be an attacking team today," said Longwood head coach Griff Aldrich. "We clearly were the aggressive team in the first half. I think when it came to the second half, they woke up a little bit and decided to punch us back. We really didn't respond well to it."
 
That second-half rally came from a Duquesne team that improved to 5-0 at home and defeated its second Big South opponent after dispatching Big South Preseason No. 1 Radford 69-64 on Nov. 17. Led by Williams' 6-of-11 shooting performance from the field, the Dukes became the first team to score more than 75 points against Longwood this season.
 
Williams, Lamar Norman Jr. and Tavian Dunn-Martin all scored in double figures to help Duquesne overcome Longwood's best first-half shooting performance of the season and a career-high 20 points from junior forward JaShaun Smith. The Lancers shot .613 (19-of-31) from the field and .615 (8-of-13) from three-point range in the first half but hit just seven field goals and four three-pointers while committing 14 turnovers after halftime.
 
"That was a big part of the game too, fatigue," Aldrich said. "I told the guys, unfortunately, with Frostburg State, even though we got a win against them, they might have beaten us because we had to play so much Friday that they ran out of gas. Shabooty [Phillips] played 38 minutes Friday night, [Damarion] Geter played a ton, and they just didn't have it there at the end. That's a real disappointment, and it came back to haunt us maybe not Friday night, but certainly this afternoon."
 
Longwood's struggles during the second half started out of the gate when Frankie Hughes hit a three-pointer less than a minute in, but they compounded minutes later when junior guard Seán Flood collided with the base of the goal post after his attempted layup was blocked by Austin Rotroff.
 
Flood did not return, and Longwood went from shooting .571 (20-of-35) from the field through the game's first 24 minutes to shooting just .316 (6-of-19) for the remainder of the game.
 
The Dukes took advantage of Flood's departure and embarked on a second half in which they outscored the Lancers 48-20 and outrebounded them 22-14. Nine of those rebounds came on the offensive glass, including four by Williams.
 
"I'm not sure I'd say there are a whole lot of technical aspects I'm focused on; the big key to the game was the offensive rebounding," Aldrich said. "We knew going into the game they were an excellent offensive rebounding team, and the bottom line is we didn't execute. I think that's a real disappointment because those are mental lapses.
 
"Rebounding is being focused on boxing out, and secondly wanting it more than the other guy. Unfortunately, I think they wanted it more in the second half than we did."
 
The rebounding margin finished even at 33-33, but Duquesne grabbed 13 offensive rebounds – the most Longwood has allowed this season – and turned them into 13 second-chance points.
 
The loss disrupts a program-best start for the Lancers, who are still off to the best 11-game tear of the 15-year Division I era at 7-4. Only four non-conference games remain on Longwood's schedule before the start of Big South play, which will pit the Lancers in a high-profile showdown against reigning league champion and Commonwealth rival Radford on Jan. 5.
 
"What we're talking to the guys about right now is we have to be mentally tougher," Aldrich said. "We have to eliminate the mental mistakes throughout our performances. The guys are playing hard, but it's not enough just to play hard. You have to play hard and intelligent, and you have to play smart basketball. In the second half today, when it came down to the defensive end and, again, particularly the boxing out, I don't think we did a great job with that."
 
Along with Smith's 20 points, Shabooty Phillips also finished in double figures with 18 points and a career-high seven assists. Both Smith and Phillips have now scored in double figures together for three consecutive games and have combined to account for 45 percent of Longwood's scoring during the six-game injury-related absence of leading scorer Isaiah Walton.
 
Now the Lancers will look to rebound this Thursday, Dec. 13, when they return home to host Averett for a 7 p.m. matchup in Willett Hall. That game will precede a trip to Cornell on Dec. 17, a home game against Stetson on Dec. 21 and the non-conference finale at The Citadel on Dec. 29.
 
"Going forward this week, they're through with exams, so it will be a good week for us to be together," Aldrich said. "It will be good to focus on a lot of skill work and shoot the ball and continue to get better in that regard. We'll prepare for Averett, and then we've got a great test against Cornell following that."
 
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