Freshman guides Duquesne to victory in final seconds

Upon entering UPMC Cooper Fieldhouse, an air of anticipation was everywhere Saturday.

Duquesne fans — a sparse crowd, no less — were wondering how their beloved and longsuffering Dukes would respond against New Hampshire following a third consecutive loss, a 20-point beatdown at DePaul four days earlier.

“We were OK for 30 minutes at DePaul. We were pretty good for 30 minutes,” Duquesne coach Keith Dambrot said. “And, by the way, they went to Louisville (on Friday) and won.”

For starters against New Hampshire, Dambrot tweaked the starting lineup, pairing both of his promising freshman guards, Primo Spears and Jackie Johnson III, in the backcourt, looking for a spark.

And while Johnson III immediately responded with a 3-point shot to open the scoring, it was Spears, the “veteran” between the two, having started every game so far, who made the shot of the night, a short, pull-up jumper with 3.6 seconds left that lifted Duquesne to a 64-62 victory in a game in which the Dukes finished with a school-record low of three turnovers.

It was a fact overshadowed only by Spears’ winning swisher.

“I knew Primo could at least get a shot, and I knew he could get it to the scoring area and get a shot,” Dambrot said. “That’s why we went to him. And I didn’t call timeout so they couldn’t load up on us. You can’t get a much better shot than that, really. A 15-foot pull-up with his right hand, which he’s good at. He shot it at 6 seconds, but I wish it would have been a little less time left.”

Spears rebounded a missed shot by New Hampshire’s Taylor Mattos and calmly walked the ball up the court, surveying the Wildcats’ defense.

“I knew where I was going when I got that rebound,” Spears said. “I just appreciate Coach D for believing in me.”

Asked if he has had input into Dambrot’s decision-making, Spears smiled.

“He’s been coaching for a long time,” he said. “I’m very confident in his decision-making, so I just sit back and do what I’m told.”

With the clock winding down, Spears inched closer to the hoop with a defender locked on him before raising up and letting fly the winning shot.

“It feels good to get back in the win column, even though it wasn’t super pretty,” senior big man Austin Rotroff said. “We’ve got a lot of stuff to work on, still.”

The oft-injured Rotroff has been feeling better, too, about his own play of late. He just missed his first career double-double, finishing with 10 points and a career-high nine rebounds.

“It’s been a long process,” said Rotroff, who has endured knee and foot surgeries during his time at Duquesne. “I’m still not all the way there. It’s been a lot of limited practice days for me. I’m really just managing the pain in my foot, but I’m starting to feel a little bit better.”

New Hampshire followed with a desperation 3-point attempt that didn’t get close to the rim as time expired.

While the Wildcats, of America East, were not a Big East team, such as DePaul, none of Dambrot’s tinkering would matter to that restless clan of Dukes diehards if their school failed to succeed in yet another close game.

Duquesne lost an overtime decision to Colorado in a game the Buffaloes trailed for most of the way and managed to tie with a 3-pointer at the regulation buzzer and suffered a one-point setback at Marshall in a game the Dukes led by 17 points in the first half.

And there were others of similar nature, losses of four points to Weber State and eight points to Bowling Green — games, also, in which the Dukes were unable to protect leads.

“Getting the W was the most important part of today,” Spears said.

Spears and Kevin Easley Jr. led Duquesne (4-7) with 12 points apiece. Johnson III and Tyson Acuff added 11 each for the Dukes, who get the week off before making a trip to Akron, Ohio, next Sunday to face UC Irvine.

The game will be played at St. Vincent-St. Mary High School, where Dambrot coached future NBA superstar LeBron James.

The time off seems to suit Dambrot just fine. The Dukes were delayed for a day at DePaul with problems related to their charter flight out of Chicago on Wednesday.

“It was actually the next night that we got back,” said Dambrot, who gave the team Wednesday and Thursday off. “They looked dead tired. We’ve traveled a lot so far.”

In November, Duquesne spent a long weekend in St. Thomas, Virgin Islands, to play in the Paradise Jam, where the Dukes went 1-2.

“We won it today, but we still tried to spin our wheels,” Dambrot said. “I guess I’m supposed to be excited that we won, but I wasn’t extremely excited because of the way we did it. I think (New Hampshire) is pretty good, don’t get me wrong. I think they’ve got a good team, better than people think. They played a one-possession game at Marquette (75-70 loss Nov. 12), they played Providence close (69-58 loss Nov. 18), they’ve got a good system.”

Biondeau Tchoukuiegno and Josh Hopkins led New Hampshire (4-4) with 12 points apiece, Jayden Martinez added 11 and Nick Guadarrama 10.

Mattos grabbed 16 rebounds to go with eight points for the Wildcats.

Duquesne led 31-26 at halftime and was ahead by 11 points early.

“But we looked emotionless, at times,” Dambrot said. “I don’t want to be negative, but it’s only freaking December. It’s not like digging ditches, man. You’re supposed to have fun out there. It’s a maturity issue with some of our guys. Not all of us. It’s a couple of us. We’re all pretty good, but a couple of guys have got to do better.”

He declined to name any players, saying only he rewarded Johnson III with his first start for no particular reason other than perhaps to gauge his team’s reaction.

“It’s a test of the emergency broadcast system, when you see how guys react to starting vs. nonstarting,” Dambrot said. “You figure out whether they care about winning or care about themselves.”

Dambrot went on to relate to an ongoing and sometimes frustrating scenario he discusses with his players.

“They have to understand the game can be taken away from them like that,” he said. “… Everybody wants to start, but be mature enough not to start. Just look in their face, see how hard somebody’s playing, just look in their face. For two weeks, I’ve said, ‘So is everybody good? We’ve got nine guys. Is everybody good? Whoever starts, starts, right? And whoever doesn’t start, we’re good, right? We care about winning, right?’ They say, ‘Yeah, yeah, yeah.’

“You’ve got to fake it better than that.”