Duquesne fades late against Richmond in 1st game in 17 days
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Like any coach, Duquesne’s Keith Dambrot is never happy with a loss.
In a college basketball season of uncertainty, though, perhaps there’s a spot for some wiggle room.
Duquesne’s 79-72 road loss to Richmond on Saturday still falls under the wrong column in Dambrot’s book, but the fourth-year Dukes boss was as happy as he felt he could be with his team’s effort after a 17-day covid-related layoff.
“I’m too competitive to ever be pleased with a loss, but you’ve got to be a realist,” said Dambrot, in his 19th season as a Division I coach. “If we hadn’t made so many defensive mistakes as we did, I felt like we win by 10.”
It would have been just another twig on the pile for Dambrot, who has won 476 games as a college coach. But with a roster laced with promising freshmen, Dambrot is confident there’s a lot more victories to come.
“Those freshmen,” he said, “I told them in the locker room that it’s the best freshman class I’ve ever had. They’ve got great competitiveness, and they’re getting better defensively.”
Saturday’s test for the Dukes, against a Richmond program known for its deliberate “Princeton-style” play, was one they nearly passed, despite not having been able to play at all recently.
“We made too many mistakes early,” Dambrot said. “(Richmond coach Chris Mooney) is a true Princeton guy. He played for Princeton for ‘the old man,’ Pete Carril, and he knows it better than anybody. Even with a mature, disciplined team, it’s really hard to play against them.
“We had a couple of stretches where we weren’t very good, and we had stretches where we were pretty good and they had some issues.”
After a second lengthy, covid-related layoff, Duquesne returned to the court and shook off some early rust to contend for its fourth consecutive victory.
But Richmond, playing in its third game since returning from a similar two-week absence, turned back the Dukes’ charge in the final minute.
All five Richmond starters came in averaging double figures, and each finished the game with at least 10 points, led by 17 each from Jacob Gilyard and Blake Francis.
Richmond (12-5, 5-3) converted four consecutive free throws — two each by Gilyard and Francis — in the final 48 seconds to break a 72-72 tie.
Gilyard stole the ball and hit a meaningless 3-pointer at the buzzer to give the Spiders their seven-point spread.
“We went into the game knowing we had to punk them physically,” Dambrot said. “And if it was a finesse game, they were going to win. We were going to be ‘Pittsburgers.’ We didn’t do a great job of it for most of the first half.”
Richmond looked as though it would run away with the outcome in the first half, rolling to a 30-15 lead on Grant Golden’s layup. But Duquesne regrouped and cut the deficit in half, 40-33 at halftime.
Tyler Burton added 16 points, Nick Cayo contributed 13 and Golden had 10 for Richmond, which shot 55.1% (27 for 49), including 65% in the first half.
Michael Hughes paced Duquesne (7-7, 6-6) with 20 points and nine rebounds. The 6-foot-8 senior also contributed four steals, three assists and a block and overcame a twisted ankle in the second half that saw him head to the bench for several minutes.
“Mike’s the most underappreciated player in this league,” Dambrot said. “People can say what they want. They might not like his emotion, but he’s a winning guy. Any team in this league would like to have him on their team.”
Marcus Weathers and Chad Baker added 12 points apiece, and Andre Harris chipped in 10 for the Dukes, who last played Feb. 2, a 69-64 victory over Dayton in their first game at UPMC Cooper Fieldhouse.
Then, another layoff hit as Duquesne’s covid testing again turned up a postive result leading to its second shutdown of the program this season.
When the Dukes returned, so did sophomore guard Maceo Austin, who left the team for personal reasons after a Jan. 5 game against Davidson. He was among three defections — all starting players — though only his was temporary.
Junior guards Lamar Norman and Sincere Carry have left the team for good.
Duquesne came all the way back from 15 points down in the first half and seized its first lead since early in the game, 62-61.
Hughes scored on a layup, then followed up seconds later, flushing a dunk on a crisp pass from Tavian Dunn-Martin with 6:59 left.
Francis’ basket with 13:21 to go gave Richmond a 53-41 lead.
Duquesne used a 21-8 run to take its one-point lead before the Spiders regained control for a 68-64 advantage as Duquesne went scoreless for a span of 2 1/2 minutes.
The Dukes pulled even again on a Hughes dunk at the 3-minute mark, and the race to the finish line was on.
Gilyard’s free throw put Richmond up by a point before Duquesne went back in front on Weathers’ off-balance jumper in the lane. Gilyard’s 3-pointer from deep in the corner gave Richmond a 72-20 lead with 1:29 to go.
“We kept putting them at the line when we’d take the lead,” Dambrot said.
Hughes’ putback tied it at 72-72, but Richmond’s free throws in the final minute did in the Dukes, who play at La Salle on Wednesday before closing the abbreviated regular season against Rhode Island on Saturday at Cooper Fieldhouse.
“If not for a loose ball here or there …,” Dambrot said. “They made a couple of more shots than we did at the end of the game, but our guys competed hard.”