Duquesne beats Colgate in Keith Dambrot's hometown, Akron

AKRON, Ohio — Duquesne remains unbeaten in the Keith Dambrot coaching era in games played in Dambrot’s hometown of Akron.

But just barely.

In gut-wrenching fashion, the Dukes made it 4-for-4 on Friday night at St. Vincent-St. Mary High School, where Dambrot once coached LeBron James, by holding off Colgate, 85-80, behind hot shooting and attentive defense.

“This is a good game for us. We need to be in more games like this,” said Dambrot, who brought Duquesne to his hometown in 2018 and ’19, when it registered wins over Radford both times, and in 2021, when it beat UC Irvine.

The Dukes (3-1) nearly wasted a pair of 16-point second-half leads against Colgate before prevailing after Austin Rotroff and Dae Dae Grant sank 3 of 4 free throws with 27 seconds left to seal the victory.

“We let them back in the game twice,” Dambrot said. “We handled it, though.”

Duquesne got hot shooting from Grant, who led the way with 24 points on 7-of-12 shooting (5 of 7 on 3-pointers).

And Tevin Brewer (16 points, 6-for-12 overall).

And Tre Williams (15 points, 7-for-7 overall).

In fact, Duquesne sizzled as a team, giving Colgate a taste of its medicine by finishing the night 50.8% overall (31 for 61) and 45.8% from behind the arc (11 for 24).

Colgate (3-2), coming off an 80-68 upset of Syracuse on Tuesday behind 19 3-pointers at the JMA Wireless Dome in Syracuse, N.Y., was led by Ryan Moffatt’s 21 points.

Oliver Lynch-Daniels added 17 for the Raiders, the Patriot League preseason favorite who last season finished 23-12 and lost to No. 14 Wisconsin, 67-60, in an NCAA Tournament first-round game.

“The thing I’m most proud of is we handled a lot of adversity,” Dambrot said. “They’re an NCAA Tournament team — they have been. They have good talent. They shoot it in, so you’re never out of the woods.”

The Raiders came back to earth from the 3-point line against Duquesne, but they still shot a respectable 40% (10 for 25) after busting Syracuse’s famed 2-3 zone by shooting 19 for 39 (48.7%) in their second victory in as many years against the Orange.

“We went from having seven bigs to having hardly any because of all the injuries,” Dambrot said. “That hurt us some, too.”

Dambrot lauded the play of 6-foot-8 freshman David Dixon, who logged five points, three rebounds and three blocks in 8½ minutes after 6-8 senior Joe Reece went down with a sprained ankle and didn’t return.

Duquesne also was missing 6-7 forwards R.J. Gunn Jr. and Kevin Easley Jr.

Gunn, a graduate student, made the trip to Akron and sat on the Dukes bench in warmups while wearing a boot on his left foot.

The former two-time Division II all-conference player at Lenoir-Rhyne is expected to be sidelined for several weeks with what the team said was a stress-related injury originating from an ankle sprain that kept him out of the lineup for most of last season.

In three games off the bench this season, Gunn is averaging 4.8 points and 2.0 rebounds.

Easley, meanwhile, did not travel with Duquesne after he was suspended for a violation of team rules. A junior, Easley, who in 2019 was the Southern Conference Freshman of the Year at Chattanooga, was averaging 5.7 points and 3.0 rebounds over three games in a reserve role.

Easley last season started 26 of 30 games and finished third on the team in scoring (10.7 ppg).

The suspension comes days after Duquesne associate head coach Dru Joyce III, who played for Dambrot at St. Vincent-St. Mary and later at Akron, stressed the need for team unity with a group that includes nine new players.

Duquesne, which lost a host of players through the NCAA transfer portal, brought on Joyce this season to work with the Dukes’ new roster.

Earlier this week, Joyce stressed the need to remain cohesive as a team after Duquesne ended last season on a 17-game losing streak and was picked to finish last this season in the 14-team Atlantic 10 Conference.

“The core is built around the chemistry of the guys,” Joyce said. “That’s something we aimed to really chase after. We’ve got to be a united group and protect our culture. Everyone wants to build culture, but it’s on the coaches and players to be accountable for it. That’s been a key thing here.”

Duquesne raced to a 48-34 halftime lead after shooting 60% (9 for 15) from 3-point range and 51.4% (18 for 35) overall.

The Dukes extended the lead to 51-35 on a three-point play by Williams before Colgate mounted a comeback, using a 17-2 run to close within 53-52.

Rotroff’s dunk stopped the bleeding for Duquesne at the 12:47 mark.

But Lynch-Daniels’ 3-point shot brought Colgate all the way back from their 16-point deficit to tie it 55-55.

Rotroff gave Duquesne a 58-55 lead with another dunk and completed a three-point play, and the Dukes went on a run of their own, outscoring Colgate 22-6 to take a 77-61 lead on a 3-point shot by Brewer with 5:46 left.

“I’m used to the pressure,” said Brewer, a transfer from Florida International. “We played a lot of pressure games in Conference USA. I’m really looking forward to the competition in the Atlantic 10.”

Colgate gave one last push, getting within 82-80 with 30 seconds remaining on a 3-point shot by Moffatt.

“Dae Dae shot it in, which he’s going to do,” Dambrot said. “Tre Williams was good around the basket, which is a very, very important detail for us because we’ve been lacking that inside scoring. Tevin Brewer was really good, and Rotroff played really well.

“We have a good team, a capable team of winning. We’ll learn some things from this game. It’s a good group of guys. They work well together.”