Scoring leader Dinkins, Duquesne prepare for final stretch of A-10 schedule

The way Duquesne’s Tre Dinkins III sees it, basketball is a pretty simple game.

At any level.

The 6-foot-2 guard from Chester seems to have played the game with ease everywhere he’s been.

He was an all-Philadelphia Catholic League second-team player at Cardinal O’Hara.

He was an NJCAA All-America third-team selection at Harcum Junior College in Montgomery County.

He was an all-Metro Atlantic Athletic Conference third-team pick at Canisius.

Now at Duquesne, where he is averaging 12.3 points per game and shooting 40.4% (38.3 from 3-point range), Dinkins might not be considered an all-conference player by some in the more elite Atlantic 10, but he insisted there’s no magic formula for mastering the game, no secret to succeeding no matter where you wind up.

“Just getting out here knowing what we’re supposed to do. Just playing our game and keeping it simple,” the senior guard and Duquesne’s leading scorer said. “At the end of the day, basketball is just playing for each other. Somebody’s going to win, and somebody’s going to lose.”

It has been nearly a week since Dinkins and the Dukes last played a basketball game, a 69-56 victory over Loyola Chicago on Saturday at UPMC Cooper Fieldhouse that ended a five-game losing streak.

Well rested, Duquesne (10-14, 5-6) heads to Dayton’s stately UD Arena on Saturday for a rematch of its deflating 82-62 loss to the Flyers (17-8, 7-5) on Jan. 21 at UPMC Cooper Fieldhouse, a game that kicked off that ugly skid.

The Flyers were a struggling bunch when they showed up at Duquesne, having lost three in a row before squeezing out an 83-81 victory at home against Loyola Chicago three days prior to that 20-point rout of the Dukes.

Since then, they’ve gone 4-2 after a 93-76 victory at Fordham on Wednesday.

“Listen, I don’t know what we’re going to get from them,” Duquesne coach Dru Joyce III said. “I do know we’ll be on the road. They’ve got 13,000 loud fans that are ready to cheer them on.”

Joyce said that, for whatever reason, the Dukes weren’t prepared for the first meeting.

“They were more physical than we were from both sides of the basketball,” he said. “That was a hungry team that came in against us. We didn’t match their intensity.

“Whether they’re struggling or not, they’re going get support and energy from their fan base. We’ve got to be ready to go with our pace and physicality. We need to get off to a good start, and then I’d love to finish the game strong.”

Though Duquesne knocked out Dayton in the A-10 Tournament quarterfinals last season, the Flyers hold a huge 64-26 edge in the all-time series, including 42-11 in A-10 regular-season games.

The Flyers shot 58.2% overall and 55.6% (13 for 23) from 3-point range in the season’s first meeting between the teams.

A pair of familiar names lead Dayton in scoring. Former Pitt forward Nate Santos tops the team at 14.2 points per game, and former Robert Morris guard Enoch Cheeks is next at 12.7.

Dinkins, who needs 36 points to hit 1,000 as a Division I player, has scored in double figures for Duquesne in nine consecutive games, including a team-high 12 points in the victory over Loyola Chicago.

He’s averaging 15.6 points while shooting 43.4% overall during that stretch.

Duquesne will need his production for the rest the regular season, a particularly challenging stretch of seven games that includes five teams ahead of the Dukes in the A-10 standings.

“We’ve got to lock into the scout, play our tails off, pay attention and listen to details,” Dinkins said.

The Dukes’ best chance of piling up more victories is to limit their opponents’ points.

“We’ve had some good offensive outputs, and some we’ve struggled,” Joyce said. “Even though we’re rested, we want to find a way to maintain our intensity to make sure that we’re ready to go.”

Ranked fourth in the A-10 in scoring defense (66.2 ppg), Duquesne is 9-5 this season when holding opponents under 70 points.

What’s more, the Dukes have won 35 consecutive games dating to 2018-19 when opponents score fewer than 60 points, including six times this season.

“We know the games we have coming up,” Dinkins said. “We know the stretch we’ve got going on. It’s going to be some tough games, for sure, (but) coach has confidence in us, and I have confidence in everybody, including myself.

“Just play our game and keep it simple. Once we do that, we’ll be fine.”