Tim Benz: ESPN analyst says road results could get Duquesne into NCAA Tournament
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The 14-2 Duquesne basketball team received nine votes in this week’s AP Top 25 poll.
That may not sound like a lot. But it is miles away from where this program was when Keith Dambrot took over as head coach after a 10-22 campaign in 2016-17.
The Dukes look to improve to 5-0 in Atlantic 10 play when they host Fordham (6-9/0-3) at PPG Paints Arena Wednesday night.
At least one well-known national voice is taking note of the success on the bluff.
ESPN “Bracketologist” Joe Lunardi was on the ESPN+ call of Duquesne’s recent 78-60 road win over St. Joseph’s (Jan. 8). When asked if, in person, he thought Dambrot’s team lived up to what he saw on tape and on paper, Lunardi answered in the affirmative.
Definitively.
“I think they are better than I expected,” Lunardi said. “Their length is more impressive in person; the trouble it causes defensively. And they have more ways to score than I thought.”
Lunardi said that the Dukes are exceeding preseason expectations. He had them ranked seventh in his preseason Atlantic 10 poll. The Dukes ended up being eighth.
“Sometimes you get a team where the whole is greater than the sum of the parts,” Lunardi continued. “What has impressed me (against St. Joseph’s) is that it’s more than that. Their parts are good.”
Lunardi cautioned that Duquesne hasn’t faced some of the conference’s best teams on the road yet. But he said if Dambrot’s crew can hold its own in road games against top-notch conference foes, the NCAA Tournament may be within reach.
“We’ll know more when they go to VCU, or go to Rhode Island, or go to Richmond or St. Bonaventure, the toughest places and win. Then we’ll know that they have really arrived as an Atlantic 10 competitive, high-level team. I think they are from what I’ve seen.”
The Dukes don’t visit Richmond. But they do have to travel to those other venues. They also have a road game at No. 13 Dayton and defending conference champion Saint Louis.
“Can they split those kind of road trips?” Lunardi wondered aloud. “If they do, they will be in the tournament with their record. They would minimally be in the NIT.”
Not only that, but Lunardi went so far as to say that the Dukes could even pull off a first-round upset once they get into the bracket.
“If this team was a 12 (seed), they’d (compete) in the game in the right match up,” Lunardi insisted.
The cautionary tale for Dukes fans is that last year’s club started 14-5 overall and 5-1 in conference play. The club ended up 10-8 in the A-10 and 19-13 overall and didn’t win a conference tournament game.
Lunardi stated that last year’s pre-conference schedule wasn’t very challenging. But this year’s was a bit better. He also saw improved margins of victory and level of play game-to-game during this year’s 10-2 start before the A-10 slate opened. He suggested it was a more realistic picture of their talent in 2020.
In fact, Lunardi went so far as to say that if Duquesne had managed to avoid a short two-game slump against UAB and Marshall to wrap up non-conference competition, they might be ranked by now.
Again, though, he underscored that the road challenges would tell the true story of Duquesne’s season.
“They’ve done it at home,” Lunardi emphasized. “This year’s challenge is to get a scalp or two on the road.”
After Fordham, the Dukes will be tested on the road. They head to New England for games at Rhode Island and UMass next week. Those are two schools they did not visit a year ago.
But, as Dambrot is usually quick to point out, the Dukes don’t have any true home games either, seeing as how the Palumbo Center is being renovated and they are bouncing between PPG Paints Arena, the UPMC Events Center and La Roche University as temporary home locations for the year until the UPMC Chuck Cooper Fieldhouse opens.
We’ll have to circle back to the “Bracketologist” to see if that is a fact the selection committee will consider in March.