Duquesne’s losing streak reaches 6 in loss to Richmond
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The losses hurt so bad that Duquesne coach Keith Dambrot made a confession Tuesday night during his 20-minute postgame chat with reporters.
“There are a lot of days I feel like eating this microphone,” he said.
That was after the Dukes were swallowed up by Richmond in the second half and lost a 74-57 decision in front of a crowd of 2,211 at UPMC Cooper Fieldhouse.
Duquesne’s losing streak reached six in a row, tying the longest during Dambrot’s five seasons. The Dukes also lost six in a row in Dambrot’s first season, and he wasn’t afraid to step in the confessional one more time:
“We’re probably less competitive now than my first year. The scores don’t lie.”
Duquesne (6-13, 1-6 Atlantic 10) has scored in the 50s in four of those six losses while shooting only 39.2% from the field.
Tuesday night, Duquesne trailed only 35-32 at halftime, even led for nearly 17 of the first 20 minutes. At one time, the lead reached nine points.
But the Dukes missed 20 of 30 shots in the second half while allowing Richmond (14-8, 5-4) to hit 12 of 22 (54.5%).
“Right now, I don’t think we’re good enough to beat the good teams consistently on most nights,” he said. “We played pretty good in the first half and let it get away from us. In the second half, I felt like we competed. We just didn’t make anything.”
In the year of the reboot, Duquesne has several inexperienced players who – after 19 games – still haven’t figured out how to mesh as a team.
“I knew we weren’t great,” he said. “I thought we were better than this. Honestly, I really did.”
Many players enjoy moments of productivity, just not enough. Leon Ayers III led Duquesne with 14 points while Toby Okani played, perhaps, his best game in two seasons and scored 13.
But there aren’t many steady reinforcements. Injuries to 6-foot-10 Austin Rotroff and 6-foot-7 R.J. Gunn Jr. have hurt, but Dambrot isn’t sure their presence would help. He knows the roster needs fortification that only can be found in the off-season.
“We have to keep developing guys, but we have to add to what we have. We clearly don’t have enough,” he said.
“Would it be different with the other two? Maybe. Maybe we still don’t have enough,” he said.
Three of the eight players in the rotation are freshmen, including talented guards Primo Spears and Jackie Johnson III and 6-foot-11 center Mounir Hima, who plays in an attempt to compensate for the loss of Rotroff and Gunn.
“We’re a little small,” Dambrot said. “When Mounir doesn’t play, we’re really small. When he does play, he’s so inexperienced that he’s going to make some mistakes. We have to throw him out there, regardless of the result to get him better. See what he is.
“We had a small margin of error, then the two guys got hurt. That hurt us badly. Some people are built better for injuries than others. We’re not built very well with injuries with a brand new team.”
To his credit, Dambrot shoulders the blame himself.
“If you don’t have enough guys, it’s still on me. My job is to win games regardless of the circumstances,” he said. “I feel bad for the Duquesne fans. I owe them more than that.”
The only immediate answer can be found in the practice gym in the hope that players will improve.
“All I’m trying to do is build habits,” he said, “get them better so when we add people to them, now we can be competitive again.”
He tries to stay encouraged, even joked about the Bengals reaching the Super Bowl. “That’s like Duquesne in the NCAA Tournament,” he said.
“I can still laugh because the one thing I do every day is I put my boots on and come to work. That’s all I can do.
“I’m not happy. When I was 26, 27 as a head coach, I don’t know if I was mature enough to handle this. But I’m mature enough to handle it now and I’ve got good people around me to help me, too.
“You have to take the good with the bad in life. This game’s been very good to me. What am I going to do? Cave in now? Now, I have to take my punch in the mouth.”