Duquesne men lose to Saint Louis in overtime, get No. 9 seed for A-10 tournament

It was some early madness.

From the start Saturday night, Duquesne and Saint Louis weren’t about to concede.

But somebody had to win.

Gibson Jimerson scored a career-high 35 points, Robbie Avila added 22 — including a key 3-point shot with 36 seconds left in overtime — and Saint Louis came away with a 90-88 victory at Chaifetz Arena in St. Louis, sending Duquesne to a No. 9 seed in the upcoming Atlantic 10 Tournament.

Both teams earned first-round byes with Duquesne set to play No. 8 St. Bonaventure in the second round at 11:30 a.m. Thursday at Capital One Arena in Washington, D.C.

The teams split a pair of regular-season games, Duquesne winning a 75-57 decision on Jan. 18 at UPMC Cooper Fieldhouse and St. Bonaventure holding on for a 70-63 victory on Feb. 22 at Reilly Center in Olean, N.Y.

“Records don’t matter at this point,” Duquesne coach Dru Joyce III said. “It’s about your mindset, and we can’t allow this to have any effect on what we need to accomplish and how we need to prepare and get ready for our upcoming game.”

Isaiah Swope also scored in double figures for Saint Louis (18-13, 11-7) with 17 points, many at key moments in the game.

His back-to-back 3-point shots in the final 34 seconds of regulation sent the game into overtime, and he connected on another in overtime to put Saint Louis ahead for good.

Duquesne (13-18, 8-10) was led by Tre Dinkins III’s 16 points. Cam Crawford and Jakub Necas added 14 apiece, Maximus Edwards scored 13 and Kareem Rozier finished with 11 for the Dukes, who are 2-7 in road games decided by eight points or less.

“We’re battled-tested. We’ve been through some ups and downs. But all in all, it’s a good finish to our regular season,” Joyce said. “I’m proud of our guys’ energy and effort. Every day, they poured in their time to just try to get better. It’s not an easy thing to do.”

Duquesne led at halftime, 40-38, and never trailed in the second half.

But the Dukes’ luck ran out in overtime. They fell behind on a basket by Swope, but briefly took back the lead on Edwards’ 3-pointer with 1 minute, 45 seconds remaining before Swope connected again from long range just 14 seconds later, giving Saint Louis an 87-85 advantage.

Avila’s 3-pointer stretched the Billikens’ lead to 90-85 with 36 seconds to go, making it a two-possession game.

Duquesne frantically tried cutting into the deficit but missed several attempts with time winding down before the Kareem Rozier beat the final buzzer with a long, meaningless 3-pointer.

“I’m not concerned about the effort or energy that we displayed tonight,” Joyce said. “Our guys, this team battled through everything … They found a way to stay connected and be resilient.”

The pace of the game was quick from the start. Duquesne went into halftime with a two-point lead, overcoming 19 points by Jimerson, Saint Louis’ all-time leading scorer and the A-10’s career leader in 3-point shots.

The 6-foot-5 senior, who has scored a total of 2,391 points for the Billikens, finished the night 14-for-20 shooting (4 for 8 from 3-point range) and also led Saint Louis with eight rebounds.

The Billikens will enter the A-10 Tournament as a No. 5 seed after outlasting the Dukes, despite committing 18 turnovers — 10 by Avila — in a wild ending to the regular season.

“We fought and we just lost a basketball game, a tough basketball game, where two teams battled it out,” Joyce said. “The most important thing is to build from it. We did some tremendous things on both sides of the basketball. Now take the momentum of playing a good, solid game and just get ready to play against St. Bonnies in the tournament.”