Duquesne comes up short vs. Davidson, takes hit to double-bye hopes

As is often the case this college basketball season, it came down to the final seconds for a result Sunday at UPMC Cooper Fieldhouse, where Duquesne has been dominant, winning 15 of its first 18 games.

This time, the Dukes weren’t so fortunate but still left the window open a crack for a double-bye for the start of the fast-approaching Atlantic 10 Tournament.

“Our fight is still there,” said Duquesne’s Dae Dae Grant, whose 20 points weren’t enough to make a difference in the Dukes’ 71-67 loss to Davidson in the annual Chuck Cooper Classic before 3,111, the second-largest home crowd of the season.

The game was played in memory of the former Duquesne star, who was the first Black player drafted by an NBA team, and the Dukes made a spirited effort to get back into the game after trailing by as many as 16 points in the second half.

Grant Huffman scored 16 points, and Foster Loyer added 15, including a pair of key 3-point shots late, for Davidson (14-14, 7-9), the defending A-10 regular-season champion, which has won three in a row.

The Wildcats, who are 3-8 in games decided by four points or fewer, including Sunday’s victory, returned two starters among six lettermen from their 27-7 team last season that was nipped in an NCAA Tournament first-round game by Michigan State, 74-73.

“They’ve been playing well. Don’t be misled by their record. They’re one of the most unluckiest teams in the country,” Duquesne coach Keith Dambrot said. “We just didn’t have enough to get over the hump. We didn’t play very good, but I don’t think it was for a lack of effort.”

League-leading VCU has clinched a double-bye forn the A-10 Tournament, which begins March 7 at Barclays Center in New York. The trio of Dayton, Fordham and Saint Louis are tied for second place, two games ahead of Duquesne, George Mason and George Washington — all in a tie for fifth — with two regular-season games remaining.

Duquesne (19-10, 9-7), which had a four-game home winning streak stopped, will play its home finale on Wednesday night against Massachusetts before closing the regular season Sunday afternoon at Fordham. Both teams defeated the Dukes earlier this season.

“This season has been full of a lot of ups and downs, but a lot of ups,” said Duquesne’s Austin Rotroff, the oft-injured graduate player among those honored during pregame senior day festivities. “The best memories of playing basketball in my life is playing with this team this year.”

Davidson continued its dominance of Duquesne with its 11th victory in 12 games in the series, and the Wildcats did it with a methodical offense and a system that feeds off cutting and passing and 3-point shooting.

“We looked a little dead on our feet, and that’s part of what they do,” Dambrot said. “They run you around in that motion, and they take your legs away and you don’t shoot the ball very well. That’s what happened to us in the first half. We shot it a little better in the second half.”

Duquesne made just 1 of 11 first-half 3-point attempts but rallied in the second half, connecting on 8 of 13 to finish at 9 for 24 (37.5%). Overall, the Dukes finished at 45.5 % (25 for 55), and Davidson was hot at 54.9% (28 for 51), including 42.9 (9 for 21) from behind the arc.

“They played about as good a game as they could play in the first half,” Dambrot said.

Sam Mennenga contributed a double-double for Davidson with 14 points and 11 rebounds.

Jimmy Clark III added 15 points for Duquesne, all in the second half and all but one in the final 5 minutes, 42 seconds. His basket on a driving layup cut the Davidson lead to 70-67 with 27 seconds to go before Duquesne’s Tevin Brewer stole the ball from Loyer.

Clark III’s 3-point attempt rimmed out from the right wing with 7 seconds to go, and the Dukes fouled Huffman, who made 1 of 2 free throws to seal the outcome.

“It just felt we were a step slow for the most part in playing catch-up and rallied a little too late,” said the 6-foot-10 Rotroff, who totaled eight points and four rebounds in 11 minutes off the bench. “It wasn’t a fault of our effort. Every game is going to be different down the stretch. It’s just another test in knowing how to play against different schemes.”

After Davidson pulled away to a double-digit lead in the first half, Duquesne started to find the range in the second and fought its way back from a 38-22 deficit to close within 64-63 on a 3-point shot by Grant with 1:40 left.

But the Dukes never could pull even.

Just before the start of the game, a period of silence was observed for the late Bill Brown, the all-time winningest coach at Division II Cal (Pa.) and a former volunteer assistant at Duquesne, who died on Feb. 15. He was 71.

Brown, who owned 490 career coaching victories, served his final six years at Duquesne as a volunteer director of community relations and player mentoring on Dambrot’s staff.

At Cal, Brown amassed a record of 364-211 with at least a share of eight Pennsylvania State Athletic Conference Western Division titles and six trips to the NCAA Division II Tournament with one appearance in the Elite Eight.