Duquesne looks to rediscover winning ways against new Atlantic 10 foe
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One thing that the Duquesne basketball team has improved upon during the 2022-23 season is stopping a slide before it ever gets going.
That’s very different from last year when the Dukes ended the season on a 17-game Atlantic 10 losing streak.
This year, at 13-7, the Dukes have yet to lose more than two in a row. They snapped back after back-to-back losses to Marshall and New Mexico State in early December with a 66-55 win over DePaul.
Now, Keith Dambrot’s Dukes are looking for a similar result against Loyola-Chicago on Wednesday (7 p.m., UPMC Cooper Field House) following consecutive Atlantic 10 losses to St. Bonaventure (65-56) and Fordham (65-58) last week.
“We played two rotten games. And we paid the price for it. And emotionally, we’ve got to get our head out of our (backside) and play better than that,” Dambrot said after the home loss to Fordham Saturday.
At 3-4 in Atlantic 10 play, after a 10-3 non-conference start, it’s not just about stopping the bleeding. The Dukes would also like to get a winning streak going again so as to climb into the upper half of the conference. Duquesne is currently ninth in the 15-team league.
Offense has been a particular issue of late for Duquesne. The Dukes are averaging 74.1 points per game this season — third among A-10 clubs. Yet they’ve been stuck below 60 points in each of the last two games.
“The guards couldn’t get past the bigs, and when we went down low, the bigs couldn’t finish,” guard Kareem Rozier said of the loss to Fordham. “It’s two tough losses that I believe we shouldn’t have lost from playing badly. It’s time to hit the reset button and figure this thing out.”
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One clear indicator of how a given game is going to go for Duquesne is the production of leading scorer Dae Dae Grant. The Miami (Oh.) transfer is averaging 15.1 points per game, 11th in the A-10.
During Duquesne’s 13 wins this season, he’s averaging 18.7 points per game — reaching at least 11 in every contest. In the seven losses, Grant is at 8.2 points per game.
“It’s difficult on him. I don’t think a lot of his problems are him, necessarily. It’s our problem. If our point guard doesn’t play at a high level, or our big guys don’t score inside and require some double teams, then Dae Dae doesn’t get as many opportunities. And the opportunities that he does get aren’t great,” Dambrot said during a taping of his coach’s show on Monday.
On paper, Loyola-Chicago appears to be a potential remedy for the Dukes. The Ramblers have struggled during their first season as an Atlantic 10 member. They are 7-12 overall and 1-6 in conference play.
Champions of the Missouri Valley Conference a year ago, the Ramblers have had a tough time on defense. They allow 72.1 points per game, 13th among A-10 schools. And their field-goal defense of 45.2 percent is at the bottom of the conference. Loyola-Chicago also leads the conference with 16.2 turnovers per game.
All that said, though, Drew Valentine’s team just won its first conference game of the year on Saturday, a 67-55 defeat of St. Bonaventure. That’s the same Bonnies club that defeated the Dukes three days earlier.
“It’s a very balanced league,” Dambrot said Monday. “I think the bottom part of the league is better than what most people thought, and probably the top isn’t quite as good as what some people thought. From that perspective, that makes it difficult. There are a lot of teams around the .500 mark. How people progress from now until the beginning of March will determine how well people play in the A-10 Tournament.”
That’s a tournament the Dukes exited in the first round a year ago, ending a season that saw the group finish 6-24.
Dambrot’s team appears to have made significant strides since then. Avoiding an extended rut at an important time on the conference calendar would be extremely useful evidence to advance that theory even more.