Duquesne’s strong start helping to erase memories of last year’s struggles
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In one sense, it’s a sign of real progress for the Duquesne basketball team.
In another, it’s a reminder of how far the program needed to come.
“It means we (stunk) last year,” coach Keith Dambrot said. “Six wins. What the heck?”
No. Six wins don’t sound like a lot. Because it isn’t. Yet that’s all the Dukes could muster last year.
This year, though, with a 72-61 victory over UC-Santa Barbara on Tuesday night, Dambrot’s team has already claimed its sixth win of this season.
In just seven tries.
“You’re supposed to be able to do that,” Dambrot said of reaching that six-win plateau.
Sure. But maybe not before the end of November. That’s only happened once at Duquesne since a 6-0 start in 2007, and that was the 2019-20 season when Dambrot’s team started 10-0 en route to the Dukes’ first 20-win season in a decade.
“We are brothers now. We trust each other,” forward Tre Williams said after Tuesday’s win. “We are always there for each other. We know we have each other’s back. That’s why we play the way we play.”
Williams is one of only a few holdovers from last year’s roster. After a slew of off-season transfers, Dambrot reshaped this team with five freshmen and five transfers of his own. The goal of building the new team was to foster more versatility and experience in the backcourt and more depth up front.
So far, so good on both fronts. Especially with the addition of Miami, Ohio, transfer Dae Dae Grant. After 26 points versus the Gauchos on Tuesday, Grant is now averaging 20.1 points per game. That’s the third-best average per game of any player from an Atlantic 10 school so far.
Dae Dae from Deeeeeeeeeeeep!
Dukes 45 UCSB 31#GoDukes pic.twitter.com/XhB0pb8diP
— Duquesne Basketball (@DuqMBB) November 30, 2022
“He’s been coachable. He’s done whatever we have asked him to do. He’s been a good teammate. And he has consistently put the ball in the basket,” Dambrot said of Grant.
Duquesne has only played one team from a Power 5 conference. That was their only loss, a 77-52 defeat by No. 19 Kentucky. And their other opponents’ collective record is only 14-29.
But with the difficulty of building early-season schedules for schools in conferences such as the A-10, it’d be self-defeating for Dambrot to do a lot of “yeah, but” thinking about how or why this team is off to a hot start.
Especially since that group that started 10-0 two years ago also went 11-7 in conference play and ended up fourth in the A-10. That was a high-water mark since Ron Everhart’s 19-13 (10-6) club of 2010-11.
“We’ve got some good players,” Dambrot said. “We just have to keep developing. We’ve still got a lot to learn. We’ve made some strides. … Can we win big in the league? We’ll find out. The key is how much better you can get every single day. But one thing is for sure: We have shown that we can shoot the ball, and we can pass the ball.”
That’s indicated by some of the early-season stats. The Dukes are averaging 79.1 points per game. At 80.4 per contest, Saint Louis is the only A-10 school scoring at a higher clip. Saint Louis is also the only A-10 school averaging more assists (16.4) than the Dukes (16.3) per game.
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Duquesne still has six non-conference games — all at home — to go before the A-10 schedule begins at Dayton on Dec. 28. One of them is against defending WAC champion New Mexico State (Dec. 11). Another is against a Big East School when DePaul comes to town Dec. 14. Other opponents such as Ball State, Marshall and Indiana State are a combined 15-5 so far.
So the competition does ramp up between now and Christmas. But regardless of how Duquesne has gotten to where it is, the entire tone around the team is different from a year ago, when the team was only 3-4 by this point.
And had already accrued what would end up being half of its victories for the entire year.
“I don’t even want to talk about last year. You had to remind me of that?” Dambrot said with a laugh following the victory Tuesday over UC-Santa Barbara. “I try to enjoy the game, the win, and you had to remind me of those six rotten wins last year.”
If the Dukes keep winning at a pace like this heading into conference play, last year will be a lot easier to forget.