Chicago State transfer making immediate impact at Duquesne

Almost immediately after Jahsean Corbett entered the NCAA transfer portal during college basketball’s latest offseason, Duquesne came calling.

“They actually hit me up 5 minutes after I entered,” Corbett said.

Luckily for the Dukes, the versatile, 6-foot-6 senior guard/forward, who played three seasons at Chicago State, was receptive and eventually transferred to Duquesne while passing on others, including Miami, Mississippi State, Utah State and Southern Illinois.

Corbett leads Duquesne (0-2) in scoring (12.5 ppg) and is second in rebounding (7.5 rpg) heading into a Friday night game at DePaul (3-0).

“I told myself that whoever contacted me first was going to get a lot of my attention,” he said. “Duquesne seemed very interested in me, and that made me feel good. They were one of the guys I was going to give a chance because (assistant coach) Rick McFadden was constantly at it with me and my dad.

“I always felt like I wanted to be somewhere safe and comfortable and be myself. It feels like I’ve been here before.”

Actually, he has.

Who could forget Corbett’s near knockout-punch performance last season against Duquesne at UPMC Cooper Fieldhouse, when he put up a double-double of 21 points and 11 rebounds for Chicago State in a 65-60 loss to the Dukes on Jan. 31?

“Oh yeah,” Corbett said, grinning.

It was enough to get the attention of Duquesne’s coaches, who made him a priority in their efforts to rebuild a roster that lost its top two scorers from the program’s first team to qualify for an NCAA Tournament in 47 years.

“He’s been great for us so far,” rookie head coach Dru Joyce III said.

Corbett heads a list of seven Duquesne transfers this season.

Through the Dukes’ first two games — a five-point loss to Lipscomb and a seven-point setback at Princeton in outcomes that saw Duquesne squander second-half leads each time — Corbett was shooting 50% (10 for 20) and averaging a team-leading 34.0 minutes per game for a group with 10 players seeing double-figure minutes so far.

“I’m not surprised. I saw him do it with Chicago State,” said Joyce III, who was the Dukes’ associate head coach last season, when Duquesne turned in a record of 25-12. “I was on the sideline and witnessed it. He can be even better, and it’s up to even us as coaches to figure out how we can put him in some different spots and take advantage of his skill set even more.”

Corbett, a native of Orlando, Fla., will be returning Friday to the city where he spent three seasons at Chicago State, starting each of the 93 games in which he appeared.

His career totals, including early on at Duquesne, were 1,328 points (14.0 ppg), 740 rebounds (7.8 rpg) and 44.7% shooting.

“It’s hard to rebuild chemistry when you lose seniors and bring in transfers,” Duquesne guard Kareem Rozier said. “The goal is to win now. We’re going to be OK. We’re going to be good. We just have to keep believing.”

Duquesne was seeking its first win of the season in a rematch of the Dukes’ 66-55 victory over DePaul on Dec. 14, 2022, at UPMC Cooper Fieldhouse. The Blue Demons’ leading scorers so far have been two transfers of their own — guards Isaiah Rivera (16.7 ppg), from Illinois-Chicago, and Jacob Meyer (16.0), from Coastal Carolina.

With five healthy transfers (two have been injured) mixing with the team’s veterans, Duquesne’s bench strength can be a factor as the Dukes attempt to return to the form that carried them through a second-half surge last season, leading to an Atlantic 10 championship and first-round NCAA Tournament victory over BYU.

“I actually watched that team a lot more after I played against them, just to see what was going on,” Corbett said. “They beat us (Chicago State), but it didn’t seem like what they were doing was any different than what we were trying to do.”

As Corbett continued to monitor Duquesne’s games, he began to see intangible elements come into play.

“I saw the little details. The effort was there,” he said. “You could tell they were really, really connected. No matter what, none of them cared about making mistakes. They were just going to the next play, and it seemed like they were listening to coach (Keith) Dambrot very well. They were very disciplined and they seemed like they knew exactly what they wanted to do.”

Now, if only this Duquesne team could figure it out.