Duquesne men suffer 5th straight loss, falling at home to Saint Louis
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Hushed, composed and humble, Keith Dambrot met his detractors head-on. It was as good a time as any for Duquesne’s fifth-year men’s basketball coach to reflect on the past and wonder what might be down the road.
Dambrot, in the aftermath of a blowout loss at home, was searching for some perspective.
“Most of the time, as you know, I kind of tell it like it is,” he said Saturday after visiting Saint Louis had just finished punishing his Dukes, 77-53, at UPMC Cooper Fieldhouse. “I’m going to be careful today, because if I tell it like it is, it wouldn’t be good for anybody.”
But then, Dambrot began to “tell it like it is.”
“Listen,” he said in an unreservedly serious tone, “I can’t put it on anybody else. It’s straight on me. If we can’t play any better than that at home … are you kidding me? That’s ridiculous!”
Duquesne’s seasonlong woes grew to a five-game skid against a Saint Louis team with a four-point loss to current No. 1 Auburn on its resume.
The 24-point margin marked the worst home loss for Duquesne since Dambrot arrived on The Bluff in 2017. That season, the Dukes lost to Fordham by 23 points (80-57) at Palumbo Center.
Duquesne (6-12, 1-5 Atlantic 10) will try to put the latest outcome aside and prepare for its next game Tuesday against Richmond at Cooper Fieldhouse, where the Dukes are just 3-6 this season.
“I haven’t been here in a long time,” said Dambrot, who has experienced just two losing seasons — back-to-back at Central Michigan from 1991-93 — in 24 years as a college head coach. “I told them after the game, I haven’t sit down in 35 years (overall) as a coach. Do you want me to sit down when things go poorly? What kind of body language would that show? That’s not really me.”
Indeed, Saint Louis began punishing the Dukes and never let up until the final horn after going on a 17-4 run to erase a one-point Duquesne lead in the first half.
When the Billikens opened the second half with three unanswered baskets to stretch their lead to 19 points, Dambrot recalled how they’d just taken a firm control of the outcome.
“I didn’t like it, but I kept trying, kept prodding,” he said. “I’m not just going to give up, even though I knew we weren’t going to win.”
Kevin Easley Jr. led Duquesne with 11 points, and Leon Ayers III and freshman Jackie Johnson III added nine each. Toby Okani finished with seven rebounds off the bench for the Dukes, who were outrebounded 43-37.
Also, little-used 6-foot-11 freshman Mounir Hima registered four points, six rebounds and five blocks in 13 minutes.
Francis Okoro scored 14 points and grabbed eight rebounds, and Fred Thatch Jr. added 14 points for Saint Louis (14-6, 5-2). Gibson Jimerson, the A-10’s leading scorer, chipped in 12 for the Billikens, who won their third game in a row and fourth in the past five.
Yuri Collins recorded 11 points and 10 assists. Collins entered the game leading Division I in assists (157) and has been jockeying with Oakland’s Jalen Moore for the lead in assists per game.
The victory also was Saint Louis’ first road win over Duquesne since January 2014, a span of six games.
“We’ve pretty much had our way with Saint Louis since I’ve been here,” said Dambrot, whose teams had beaten the Billikens in four of the previous five meetings overall. “We won the last two by 14 points, and the last time we played them at Saint Louis, they were 17-5 and we beat them (82-68 in February 2020). But, we had a little different makeup on those teams. We were very old. We had unbelievable belief in ourselves, even too much.”
Duquesne won a total of 55 games in Dambrot’s first three years, including a 21-9 mark in 2019-20 before covid-19 denied the Dukes an opportunity to play in the postseason.
“This team has some fragility that the belief structure’s not great,” Dambrot said. “Rightfully so, because they’ve gotten smacked around a few times. You have to mend their fragility and at the same time you have to be tough enough to get them better. That’s a tough dynamic, especially if a guy’s not naturally mentally tough or has never been in that position. That’s coaching. But they have to buy into that. It has to be the whole group.”
Duquesne’s offensive struggles continued as the Dukes managed just seven assists on 19 baskets and tied a season-high with 20 turnovers. It marked the seventh time the team has totaled less than 10 assists in a game.
Freshman guard Primo Spears, who entered the game as Duquesne’s leading scorer, was held to 1 point on 0-of-5 shooting, while Tre Williams, the Dukes’ leader in rebounding and blocks, finished with just four points, three rebounds and one block.
“Obviously, when a team plays like that,” Dambrot said, “that’s on me.”
A bit later, he declared: “I didn’t think we cared about winning, really. Again, when a team doesn’t care about winning, that’s on the coach. I take responsibility for it.”
Dambrot went on to mention “mental toughness,” which perhaps involves “physical toughness,” he wondered. But he believed that “everybody has to play through that kind of stuff, and we just didn’t. We just went, ‘kaput.’ ”
Saint Louis, which lost at home Dec. 18 to then-No. 13 Auburn, surged in front 31-19 with 6 minutes, 35 seconds left in the first half. Duquesne tried to fight back, getting within 39-29 with a chance to cut the deficit to single digits.
But after Hima blocked a Saint Louis shot, he missed a dunk at the other end, and the Billikins established a 42-29 halftime lead on Collins’ long 3 at the buzzer.
Saint Louis came out blazing in the second half, scoring six points at the start before Williams’ bucket slowed Duquesne’s bleeding, but not nearly enough to start a comeback.
Saint Louis continued its onslaught, building the advantage to as many as 28 points late in the game.
“Obviously, we’ve had issues,” Dambrot said, ”You can’t get beat 77-53 at home. I don’t (care) if you’re playing the Harlem Globetrotters and you’re the Washington Generals. You can look at my coaching career. I don’t know if I’ve ever lost as many games at home, regardless of who we played. You have to win at home if you’re a decent team. Right now, obviously, we’re not decent. … I have to figure out a way to fix it, but I think they have to fix it, one person at a time.”
Dambrot was encouraged by the play of Hima, who has seen increased time after the recent loss of 6-10 Austin Rotroff, who is sidelined for perhaps for the rest of the season with a stress fracture.
“I don’t think I have any choice not to play him,” Dambrot said. “We’re so small without him. It’s the right thing to do to develop the team. We certainly aren’t going to win any championships. Why not play him? He’s a great kid. He’s just developing. He’s big and he tries hard. He’s going to make mistakes, and he’s still learning the game, but he’s taken a huge jump from last year to this year.
“The blessing with the injuries (Rotroff and 6-7 R.J. Gunn Jr. are out for Duquesne), at least you get to develop (Hima) and you know what you’re going to get next year from him. Are you going to win with him this year? Maybe not. But he deserves to play because he competes.”