It wasn’t just a 25-year hex that Duquesne’s most recent victory exorcized. It allowed the program to achieve another milestone for the first time in school history.

The Dukes’ 74-68 win Wednesday was their first at Richmond since Dec. 20, 1993. Although the tangible value of that particular accomplishment can be debated, this cannot: it lifted their record in Atlantic 10 play to 3-1.

Duquesne also won three of their first four conference games last season, its first under coach Keith Dambrot. That’s significant because over 43 seasons of play in four conferences, the Dukes had never in consecutive seasons won three of their first four conference games.

Duquesne (12-5) can improve to 4-1 in the A-10 when it plays at George Washington (6-11, 2-2) at 4 p.m. Sunday.

“Last year was a good year for us, and we are fighting the same thing this year,” Dambrot said from Palumbo Center on Friday before the team left — a day early to avoid the coming winter storm — for Washington, D.C.

“We will be judged ultimately on how many wins we have, and that’s the nature of this business. … All we can do is try to make this program a championship quality program before I am out of here. That’s really how I view this thing every day.”

Last season Dambrot became only the second Duquesne coach in the past 30 years, spanning seven coaches, to guide the Dukes to a 4-1 or better start in Atlantic 10 play (Ron Everhart’s Dukes won their first eight conference games in 2010-11).

For perspective, here are the starts to conference play that previous coach Jim Ferry got off to: 0-9, 1-4, 1-7, 0-3, 2-10.

For his part, Dambrot brushes aside his strong starts at Duquesne — in part, because last season’s 5-2 start in the Atlantic 10 deteriorated when the Dukes lost nine of their final 11 regular-season games.

The Dukes won double- and triple-overtime games during that opening stretch; they lost an overtime game and two other one-possession games during the slide. In other words, Dambrot points to regression to the mean as a factor for why any team can be streaky.

“That’s typical of what basketball is, and sometimes the schedule is a little different, too,” Dambrot said. “You might play some of the harder teams at different times.

“So, you just have to win close games in this league. That’s what it comes down to.”

The Dukes have done that well this season, going 5-1 in games decided by five points or fewer and 3-0 in one-point decisions.

What makes that remarkable is Duquesne is showing late-game mettle not as a veteran bunch but as one of the youngest teams in the country. The only player who does not have freshman or sophomore eligibility is junior Kellon Taylor, who did not join the team until football season was over.

“I think we start to play better once we know the game is on the line because we play better defense,” freshman point guard Sincere Carry said. “We seem to talk and move the ball more. And Coach Dambrot gets us ready because at practice we go hard and we compete, so it carries over to the game.”

Carry joins four sophomores as starters in the Dukes’ most recent game: center Michael Hughes, guards Eric Williams Jr. and Frankie Hughes and forward Marcus Weathers.

“We have won (close games) to this point — now we have to continue to win them,” Dambrot said. “Whether we are average, good or great will be dependent on whether we win those games or not because every game we played in the A-10 has been close. And really, the majority of our season has been close. So that’s what our season is going to come down to.”

Chris Adamski is a Tribune-Review staff writer. You can contact Chris at cadamski@tribweb.com or via Twitter @C_AdamskiTrib.

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