Duquesne men end season by tying losing streak record

Forget its unimaginable record, Duquesne was playing for pride. And, despite having won just six games — all in the first half of the season — it showed.

The Dukes played like they knew how to win.

They almost did.

But, while it came down to the wire Wednesday in their first-round Atlantic 10 Tournament game, No. 14 seed Duquesne couldn’t avoid tying a school record for consecutive losses in men’s basketball after stumbling for the 17th time in a row, narrowly losing to No. 11 Rhode Island, 79-77, at Capital One Arena in Washington, D.C.

“The last three games, I thought we really battled. Today was no exception,” Duquesne coach Keith Dambrot said. “We just have to stay positive and not doubt ourselves. I know we can get it done. We didn’t show it this year, but that’s the way it goes.”

Dambrot’s assessment of the season might be a primitive one, but it’s accurate. It truly is the way it went.

The Dukes (6-24) were among Division I’s least-experienced teams heading into the year and also lost three players to season-ending injuries.

“It’s been a tough, difficult, humbling year for us,” Dambrot said. “It’s been a new experience for all of us. We really haven’t had a losing season (in some time). I guess when we decided to have one, we had a big one. A lot of things went wrong.”

In yet another loss in the final outing for the battered Dukes, Antwan Walker’s 17 points and 11 rebounds led Rhode Island and helped send the Rams into a quarterfinal-round game Thursday night against No. 6 Richmond.

Duquesne, which last won Jan. 8 in its A-10 opener at Massachusetts, had a chance to win at the buzzer and end its skid.

But, with no timeouts remaining and not enough time left after Duquesne’s Davis Larson rebounded a missed Jeremy Sheppard free throw with 5 seconds to go and fed Tyson Acuff, the Dukes were hoping for a prayer when Acuff’s desperation 3-point heave fell short as time expired.

“We still have some breath. We still have an opportunity. We still have some minutes to play,” Rhode Island coach David Cox said.

Primo Spears scored 30 points — the second consecutive time the freshman guard has hit the mark — to lead Duquesne. Spears, who averaged 29.7 points over the Dukes’ final three games, shot 12 for 25. He added six rebounds and five assists.

“Primo looked like one of the best players in the league today,” Dambrot said.

Count Cox among the believers, too.

“Primo Spears is a heck of a ballplayer,” he said. “In 1-on-1, he’s hard to guard. He got into a rhythm early, and there was no looking back. I probably tried three, four, five guys on him.”

In his previous game, Spears scored a career-high 34 points in Duquesne’s 85-76 loss to La Salle in the regular-season finale Saturday at UPMC Cooper Fieldhouse. He notched 25 in the Dukes’ 98-93 triple-triple overtime loss at George Washington three days earlier.

“Coach D believes in my talent to beat my guy 1-on-1,” said Spears, who finished the year as the Dukes’ leading scorer (12.7 ppg.) and shot 36% overall. “I’ve taken advantage of my opportunities when Coach D gave it to me.”

Kevin Easley Jr. added 20 points and Jackie Johnson III, another freshman guard, scored 13 for Duquesne, whose 17-game losing streak ties a school record set by the 1998-99 team, which finished the season 5-23.

Four others scored in double figures for Rhode Island (15-15), which handily defeated Duquesne during the regular season, 70-54, on Feb. 26.

Sheppard (15 points), Ishmael Leggett (12) and the Mitchell brothers, Makhi and Makhel (10 each) joined Walker as Rhode Island’s leading scorers.

Duquesne from the start showed it didn’t intend to lay down, even with a thin roster that included Larson, a graduate assistant who was activated early in the season after the team was hit with injuries.

Larson, who played most of his college career at Division II Hillsdale, earlier this year scored his 1,000th career point against Fordham on Feb. 12 at UPMC Cooper Fieldhouse.

“Coach has been stressing all year that our best attribute is ‘character in the locker room.’ ” Spears said. “We came ready to fight, ready to try to get a couple of games in here. We probably did our best facilitating at the end of the season. I’m proud of our guys. Everybody gave everybody a hug in there. The energy was very good today.”

Easley, who last season played at TCU under former Pitt coach Jamie Dixon, already was looking to the future.

“We had a meeting and decided we’re going into this tournament 0-0, and we just wanted to compete for ourselves,” Easley said. “It was us against everyone else. No one believed in us. We fell short, and coach is still upset about that. But he was very proud of how we fought, and I’m very proud of it, too.”

Said Dambrot: “Do you put up the white flag or battle to the bitter end? We didn’t show any signs of waving the flag, did we? We mentally showed what we were made of. That’s important for the future. We have a lot of work to do as a staff and a program to get back to where we were (21-9, 11-7 A-10 in 2019-20).”

Rhode Island trailed Duquesne for most of the time until going on a 14-6 second-half run that turned a 43-37 deficit into a 51-46 lead.

Spears’ jumper with 6:01 left brought Duquesne back to a 63-63 tie, but Makhi Mitchell’s 3-point shot gave Rhode Island the lead for good, 66-63.

From there, Duquesne went down by as many as seven points but crept within 78-77 on Johnson’s layup with 11 seconds left.

But, after Sheppard hit 1 of 2 free throws for Rhode Island, time ran out on Duquesne’s bid for that elusive seventh victory — in a postseason tournament, no less.

And that’s the way it went.