Duquesne sets sights on long-awaited return to relevance

This time, things might be different. This time, there could be no excuses.

It has been 45 years since Duquesne last appeared in an NCAA Tournament in men’s basketball. Perhaps, the once-proud Dukes finally will make their sixth showing in one of college sports’ biggest events.

“We’re going to have a good team, once we get them all together,” said Duquesne coach Keith Dambrot, who, after a long and successful run at Akron, is in the final season of a seven-year contract he signed in 2017, when he came to the city’s Uptown campus where his late father, Sid, played during the school’s glory years.

With the elder Dambrot a senior on the Dukes 1953-54 team, Duquesne briefly reached No. 1 in the Associated Press poll before settling for a No. 3 final ranking.

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— Duquesne Basketball (@DuqMBB) November 6, 2023

And now, 70 years later, the potential to organize a team with a deep bench has had Dambrot simultaneously smiling and fretting leading up to Monday night’s season opener against Cleveland State at UPMC Cooper Fieldhouse.

“It’s going to be hard to put them together,” said Dambrot, who is attempting to become the first Duquesne coach with back-to-back 20-win seasons since Red Manning in 1971 and ’72.

The Dukes welcome back three starters among seven players with significant minutes from last season’s 20-13 team that played in the CBI Tournament and experienced the fourth-best turnaround in Division I after a 6-24 record in 2022.

Combined with four fifth-year transfers, it could add up to an even better season, where the Dukes are picked to finish fourth in the Atlantic 10, their highest placement since the league’s inception in 1977, the only year Duquesne has won the conference tournament and the last time it appeared in the NCAA Tournament.

Senior Dae Dae Grant, the Dukes’ top scorer a year ago and a preseason first-team all-A-10 pick this season, described the will to win as playing with “tenacity, fire and furor.”

Said Grant: “We want to win it all (in the A-10) and go to the tournament, like everyone is expecting us to do. We want the same. That’s our main goal, and we can do that if we continue to be us.”

But who are these Dukes?

A year after notching his 500th career coaching victory, Dambrot hopes to find a favorable solution. Four players are gone from last year’s squad but seemingly none irreplaceable.

Is Dambrot excited over the voters’ willingness to include his club among the A-10’s elite teams this year?

“It doesn’t mean anything,” he said. “They picked us to finish last (among 15 teams) last season, and we finished sixth. We could’ve finished fourth.”

The Dukes were in the hunt for a double-bye in the A-10 Tournament entering the regular-season finale, but they were bumped from the running by La Salle and its twin big men, the Drame twins — Hassan and Fousseyni — who since have joined Duquesne’s roster through the NCAA transfer portal.

The others are 6-foot-10, 235-pound forward Dusan Mahorcic, from North Carolina State, and 6-7 sharpshooter Andrei Savrasov, a second-team all-Sun Belt pick at Georgia Southern a year ago.

Mahorcic has battled injuries throughout much of his career — he also spent time at Illinois State and Utah — and Dambrot said he doesn’t believe Mahorcic will be healthy enough to make his Duquesne debut until some time in December at the earliest.

Dambrot also revealed that 6-9 forward David Dixon and promising 6-8 freshman Jakub Necas are questionable for Duquesne’s opener while nursing injuries.

“You’ve just got to get on a roll and believe you’re a good team and figure out what your roles are and who can do what,” Dambrot said. “That’s the biggest thing. Everybody has been a little uncomfortable because they don’t know if they’re going to play as much as they’d like. A lot of guys are used to playing, and they’re now in a new situation and they’re not used to it.”

He said he constantly has been encouraging his players to not try to do more than needed.

“It’s actually a great benefit because you know you have guys who have to earn everything they get,” Dambrot said. “In the short term, it might be a little bit uncomfortable, but I just tell them to try to have fun and relax and don’t worry about the future. Take it day-by-day. We’ve all been there. We’ve all had to battle for what we get.”

With an emphasis this season that figures to be more on defense and rebounding, Duquesne is hoping it would translate into even more offense. The Dukes were ranked third a year ago in the A-10, averaging 75.5 points.

“I want to take a bigger role on the defensive end,” said Duquesne senior Jimmy Clark III, who was an all-A-10 defensive team selection last season, when he led the league with 76 steals (2.3 per game).

“I want to win defensive player of the year.”

Senior Tre Williams joins Grant and Clark as the Dukes’ returning starters. He has transformed his body into more muscle and less flab.

Dambrot is hopeful 6-9 sophomore Halil “Chabi” Barre will return to his encouraging form before he was sidelined for much of the season with an unspecified condition.

“He’s rusty, as are several other guys,” Dambrot said, “but he’s working his way back.”

Sophomore Kareem Rozier, whom Dambrot called the team’s best leader, is expected to handle much of the point guard work for now, with freshman Kailon Nicholls as a backup. Grant and Clark also have played the position, and Dambrot indicated they might see time there again this season.

“We wanted to give them a chance to handle the ball for the benefit of their (prospective) pro careers,” he said.

Others on that deep playing chart are 6-8 Matus Hronsky, who is trying to return from an injury that plagued him last season, and 6-6 Andy Barba.

After Monday’s game, the Dukes are scheduled to return to the court Friday against College of Charleston at the one-day Veterans Classic at Navy. The other game features the host Midshipmen against Temple.

As Grant continued to muse about the impending season, he considered the fleeting thought of a breakthrough year.

“We’ve got a pretty good team,” he said. “I’m just excited, man.”