Duquesne gets 1st A-10 win of season, holding off long-time nemesis St. Bonaventure

The chip squarely was placed on Duquesne’s shoulder.

Despite playing for the third time in a row without its leading scorer Tuesday night, the Dukes, against an old nemesis, finally ended a five-game losing streak that began with the start of its Atlantic 10 schedule on Jan. 3, a span of 21 days.

“Guess we’re not dead yet,” Duquesne coach Keith Dambrot said.

Jimmy Clark III converted 3 of 4 free throws in the final 40 seconds, and Duquesne survived a late St. Bonaventure rally to come away with a 54-50 victory at UPMC Cooper Fieldhouse, the Dukes’ first A-10 success of the season.

Duquesne (10-8, 1-5) nearly wasted a double-digit lead but survived to win for just the fifth time in the past 25 meetings with the Bonnies. The game followed a familiar pattern for a number of the Dukes’ games this season, building a seemingly comfortable lead only to fall behind in the closing minutes and wind up losing.

Only, this time, the Dukes didn’t lose their advantage.

It was a sweet victory for Duquesne, which had lost three A-10 games each by five points or less and was coming off back-to-back two-point decisions to Richmond and Saint Joseph’s, the latter on Cameron Brown’s game-winning rebound shot for the Hawks with 0.3 seconds left.

“Mark Schmidt has made Bonaventure into a consistent winner in this league, a contender every single year in this league,” Dambrot said of St. Bonaventure’s 17th-year coach, who previously led Robert Morris to a 58-52 record in six seasons from 2001-07. “If you hold them to 50, you’ve done a hell of a job. And really, if you take the last four minutes out, we held them to 40. We did a really good job.”

After Assa Essamvous converted two free throws to pull St. Bonaventure within 50-47 with 1:27 remaining, Duquesne’s Tre Williams misfired on a 3-point shot.

St. Bonaventure regained control, but Clark stole the ball for Duquesne and was fouled before making both free throws to give the Dukes a four-point cushion.

Essamvous and Clark then traded free throws and Duquesne freshman Jakub Necas added 1 of 2 from the line to put the Dukes ahead 54-48 with 14 seconds left before they came away a victor for the first time since beating NAIA Cleary on Dec. 30.

“We played really good, defensively, for 95% of the time,” Dambrot said. “I just think we had the jitters, the yips again in the last four minutes. But we survived and advanced.”

Duquesne was without senior guard Dae Dae Grant, who is tied for second in the A-10 in scoring, in a game that continued the Dukes’ longest-running rivalry.

The Dukes and Bonnies were playing in their 132rd all-time meeting dating to 1920. St. Bonaventure (11-7, 2-4) holds a 70-62 edge in the series.

Duquesne’s defense stifled St. Bonaventure from the opening tip as the Dukes led the Bonnies at halftime, 22-15, and completed a mostly smothering effort by holding them to a season low in points.

“We played together more and were all on the same page tonight,” Clark said.

It is the sort defensive effort that Dambrot has been craving, especially with the Dukes struggling on offense of late.

“Defensively, we won the game,” he said. “We certainly didn’t do much offensively. That’s kind of how it’s been for us. It was like mud wrestling. Nobody could get out of their own way. But if you play good defense every night, you have a chance.”

Sophomore point guard Kareem Rozier, the self-appointed unofficial spokesman for Duquesne’s players, was impressed with how Duquesne responded following a series of gut-wrenching losses.

“This was our best defensive game — both halves, not just one,” he said. “Down the stretch was beautiful how we came together, stuck together to finish it out.”

Added Dambrot: “It was a good (defensive) performance. I don’t know if it’s the best, but it’s one of the better ones. These guys have never quit. We’ve had our issues. I’m just happy for them because, emotionally, it’s hard to bring them back every single day when you lose close games. It’s a tribute to their character that they just kept battling.”

The Dukes led 49-33 with five minutes left on a 3-point shot by former OLSH star Jake DeMichele before St. Bonaventure went on a 12-0 run. The Bonnies closed within 50-47, outscoring Duquesne 14-3 during the stretch and 17-5 until the final buzzer.

Duquesne held St. Bonaventure to 27.1% shooting, including just 2 of 13 from 3-point range, and limited Chad Venning, the Bonnies’ leading scorer (14.4 ppg) to six points.

Clark led Duquesne with nine points as nine of the 10 Dukes players scored. Duquesne shot just 30.6%. Fousseyni Drame added eight points and Williams led the way with eight rebounds.

Charles Pride’s 14 points led St. Bonaventure, which lost its second in a row and fourth in the past five games. Essamvous added 12 points and eight rebounds for the Bonnies, who controlled the boards, 44-39.

Grant, who is averaging 18.3 points per game, continued in concussion protocol following an injury that likely occurred during a walk-through session on Jan. 12 prior to Duquesne’s 72-62 loss to No. 16 Dayton.

Grant played in that game and led the Dukes with 14 points — all in the final 5 minutes, 35 seconds — but began to show symptoms afterwards.

Grant leads the A-10 in free-throw shooting percentage (94.3 %), converting 82 of 87, including a school-record 43 in a row earlier in the season.

“While, certainly, we miss Dae Dae, it has developed our bench,” Dambrot said. “DiMichele didn’t do much offensively (seven points), but he guarded. And Jakub (Necas) guarded and Matus (Hronsky) guarded. We had to win a different kind of way. We have to get better on offense, there’s no question about that.”

Before the game, Duquesne recognized Drame, who scored his 1,000th point in the Saint Joseph’s game.

Drame, a graduate student transfer from La Salle, began his college career at Saint Peter’s, where he was part of the Peacock’s Elite Eight team in 2022.

Meanwhile, Duquesne continues a three-game homestand Saturday afternoon against Fordham, hoping to build some momentum as the season heads towards February.

“This is a funny team,” Dambrot said of his current group. “If we can make progress and get better, we can make a run at this at the end of the year.”