New players see stability at Duquesne despite coaching change, roster makeover

As the Duquesne men’s basketball team approached the 2024-25 season, it sold something to recruits and potential incoming transfers that you wouldn’t have assumed it had.

Stability.

That’s not a quality one would associate with a team that’s going through a coaching change and a quest to replace three of its top four scorers.

But it’s something that new players on the Dukes’ roster identified within the program even though Keith Dambrot retired in March after a seven-year run as head coach.

It’s something they saw within the team even though the likes of Dae Dae Grant, Jimmy “Tre” Clark III and Fousseyni Drame concluded their college careers in March by guiding Duquesne to its first NCAA Tournament berth since 1977.

However, with Dambrot’s former assistant Dru Joyce III taking over as head coach and six significant contributors from last season’s team coming back, the Dukes can approach their Atlantic-10 Tournament title defense without dealing with upheaval from within.

As Chicago State transfer Jahsean Corbett described, Joyce isn’t acting as if he is a first-year coach. It’s more that he is the newest steward of an established organization.

“It was like I was walking into an eight-year program,” Corbett said. “The way he moves, the way he conducts us, the way he moves about practice, the way he moves off the court, you can just tell it’s professionalism at its best. You can tell he is coming to get me better as a player as well. I trust him a lot. I feel like this year is going to be really exciting.”

Like Corbett, Maximus Edwards played against Duquesne. He had been a member of Atlantic-10 rival George Washington the past two seasons. He also made the decision to move to the Bluff for his junior season.

“The culture, the whole coaching staff, it was more of a want than a need (to recruit him from the portal),” Edwards said. “The way (Joyce) carries himself, the standard he expects us to be at every day. The way he treated us. You wouldn’t expect that he is a first-year coach. I expect great things from us this year.”

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Joyce said the most important part about finding new players who can offset the departures of Grant, Clark and Drame was to find guys capable of scoring within Duquesne’s structure.

“We still have to be unselfish,” Joyce said this week. “We have to play as a unit with good ball movement and good player movement. That’s always a big part of scoring. But you do need some talent. And I think we did a pretty good job in the portal of our evaluations of who can put the ball in the basket. You have to have some guys who can score and do it well.”

The Dukes also have some returning players, such as David Dixon (7.2 points per game), Jake DiMichele (6.4 ppg) and Jakub Necas (2.6 ppg), who will likely see their minutes and scoring opportunities increase.

“We brought in such weapons to fit into the concept we already have, and with the returners, I feel like we have an advantage at every position on the court,” Necas said.

Regardless of the scoring output, the most important thing Joyce has maintained the on-court tenacity that led the Dukes to an A-10 championship a year ago.

“The energy and what he brings day to day, that dude is hard nosed,” junior point guard Kareem Rozier said. “He’s got that chip (on his shoulder). He’s got that fire lit under him like he wants to win.”

Duquesne’s title defense begins Monday at home against Lipscomb. So does year No. 1 of Joyce’s Duquesne head-coaching career.

Or — if you prefer — year eight of the program’s tenure.

LISTEN: Tim Benz and Dru Joyce III talk about his upcoming first season as the head coach of the Duquesne men’s basketball team.