Duquesne can't hold lead vs. Richmond as losing skid hits 4 games

Back in October, when the college basketball buzz was picking up, Duquesne’s optimism for a successful Atlantic 10 season was everywhere. The Dukes were chosen to finish fourth in a preseason poll of conference coaches and select media members.

There was talk, even, of a long-awaited return to the NCAA Tournament, where their last appearance was in 1977.

So far, Duquesne surely has made things difficult for itself.

“I feel bad. Our guys showed they’re a good team. They just couldn’t finish the job,” Duquesne coach Keith Dambrot said Tuesday night after the Dukes lost a lead late and fell to Richmond, 63-61, at UPMC Cooper Fieldhouse to drop to 0-4 in the Atlantic 10.

Neal Quinn scored 16 points and Isaiah Bigelow converted four free throws in the final 1 minute, 36 seconds, as Richmond (12-5, 4-0) rallied to stay unbeaten in conference.

The last time these teams met, Duquesne let a 22-point lead slip away and lost a two-point heartbreaker in January 2023 at Richmond’s Robins Center.

This time, playing at home, the Dukes allowed the Spiders to come back from 10 points down and escape with another victory, their seventh in a row this season.

Dambrot said the Dukes, who led 59-51 in the second half, should’ve won but were victimized by suspect officiating.

“You’re going to hear the truth now,” Dambrot said. “It might cost me some money, but (forget) it.

“We didn’t make a lot of great plays at the end of the game, but every referee in the country knows in the last two minutes, a coach can call a timeout. I called it twice. He didn’t respond to either one of them. I’ve got a hard time with that. Then, the next call, I have a hard time with that, too, because I watched it on tape. (Bigelow) intiated contact (on Duquesne’s Kareem Rozier). They sent (Bigelow) to the line.

“I thought there were four (calls) right at the end of the game that, really, didn’t go our way. So, I got problems with that. I feel bad for our guys because we made some mistakes. But, for the most part, we played well and we played hard. We made up for Dae Dae’s absence. Our guys did a hell of a job, and we should’ve won the game.”

Duquesne opened the game with a new-look lineup as Dambrot attempted to breathe life into his withering team.

“Everybody stepped up and played their role,” Rozier said. “For 37 minutes, we had the game. The last three minutes, it came down to we didn’t make enough plays. It hurts.”

Senior guard Dae Dae Grant and his team-leading 18.3-points scoring average figured in the lineup changes, and with the 6-foot-2 Grant sidelined while in concussion protocol, Dambrot chose the hot hand of local product Jake DiMichele, the WPIAL’s third all-time leading scorer at Our Lady of the Sacred Heart.

DiMichele, a 6-4 walk-on, has seen his minutes increase of late and was coming off a career-high 12 points in Duquesne’s 72-62 loss to Dayton on Friday.

“He’s not doing great,” Dambrot said of Grant, who was not on the Duquesne bench. “He’s had some struggles. He has a concussion. He’s in concussion protocol. He’s got headache issues. We’re trying to make sure he’s healthy before he comes back. Those concussions are dangerous things.

“It was a freaky accident. We’re not really sure how it all happened. It might have happened before the last game (Dayton) in a walk-through. He wasn’t having any symptons before that and all of a sudden, he got hit pretty hard.”

With his team in the throes of a three-game conference skid, Dambrot reworked the Dukes’ lineup against the streaking Spiders.

It worked for most of the night, but Richmond clawed back just in the nick of time and Duquesne’s woes continued.

A successful first half yielded a 33-28 halftime lead for Duquesne after the Dukes had led by much as 25-15 with 13 minutes gone by.

From there, Duquesne held the upper hand for most of the way before Richmond tied it at 59-59 at the 1:19 mark on two free throws by Bigelow.

The teams traded baskets and remained tied until Dji Bailey’s driving layup with 14 seconds left proved to be the game-winning shot.

Jimmy Clark III drove to the hoop for Duquesne and was fouled by Bailey, but Clark missed the first free throw. His second, an intentional miss, didn’t touch the rim, giving Richmond possession.

Bailey (12 points), Jason Roche (11) and Jordan King (10) also scored in double figures for the Spiders, who entered the game as one of three A-10 unbeatens.

Dambrot said he received no explanation for what was deemed “an inadvertent whistle” by an official standing close to him, when Dambrot said he tried calling timeout with Duquesne leading 59-57 with a 1½ minutes remaining before an official at the opposite end was calling a tie-up amid a scrum between both teams near the Richmond basket.

“Evidently, they didn’t think I called a timeout,” Dambrot said. “Evidently, he thought the jump ball was before the timeout. He missed the first timeout I called. I’m right next to his (behind). I don’t know if you’re deaf, but like I’m right next to him. As soon as I called it the first time, if he missed it, he should’ve acknowledged that one. But I had to yell it two times. In reality, I like (referee) Matt Potter. He’s a good guy. But I think he messed it up. I don’t know how much money that’s going to cost me, but I really don’t give a damn.

“I know it’s a hard game to referee, but you can’t make mistakes in the last two minutes.”

Rozier was whistled for a foul moments afterwards and Bigelow made the tying free throws.

“I thought that was a rotten call, too,” Dambrot said. “(Kareem) knew the play was coming. He jumped it and (Bigelow) intiated the contact, came into him, and (the official) called the foul on (Rozier). Especially after he just didn’t give us the timeout. So they went bang, bang.”

Meanwhile, big man Dusan Mahorcic made his first Duquesne start since transferring from North Carolina State before the start of the season. The 6-10, 235-pound grad student started the year inactive before appearing in four games, averaging 7.2 minutes per game, since recovering from offseason knee surgery.

He scored five points on just 2-of-11 shooting in a season-high 17 minutes.

In addition, 6-7 senior Tre Williams, who had been sidelined for seven games recovering from hand surgery and had played sparingly since his return, also was in the Duquesne starting five.

Clark, a senior, and sophomore point guard Kareem Rozier rounded out the starters, remaining the only players on Dambrot’s roster to start every game so far this season.

Clark scored 16 points and David Dixon added 12 for Duquesne (9-7, 0-4).

Grant, who transferred to Duquesne from Miami (Ohio) before the start of the 2022-23 season, ranked eighth in scoring among NCAA active players with 1,956 points.

But Grant and Clark (15.9 ppg), who’ve combined for an average of 34 points per game, have been fighting their way through shooting slumps that covered the duration of the Dukes’ first three A-10 games.

Dambrot even replaced the duo briefly during the Dayton game when he questioned their shot selection.

DiMichele spent the 2022-23 season at Washington (Pa.) First Love Academy, where he scored 41 points in a game against Woodstock (Va.) Massanutten Military Academy.

His 2,642 career points at OLSH are the third-most in WPIAL history behind former 2023 Aquinas Academy graduate Vinnie Cugini, who finished with 3,189, and Duquesne star Tom Pipkins, who had 2,828 at Valley.

Dambrot clearly was frustrated with this latest outcome, but he said he’s not giving up.

“Ultimately, when we lose games like this, it’s my responsibility. I’ll take the hit for all the unhappiness that everybody has,” he said. “I’m fine with it. I understand it’s a results-driven business and my job is to win games. But I’m not quitting. I’m going to battle to the bitter end. We have a team that can win. We’ve been in every single game. We have to be more consistent. We tried to do the right things tonight, which is encouraging. We just didn’t win.”