While discussing Duquesne’s prospects as it prepares for the start of the Atlantic 10 season, coach Keith Dambrot was hit with a question that caused him to pause.

“What am I happy with?” he said, repeating the reporter’s query.

That’s an interesting question for Dambrot, who likes his team but just wishes it could grow up faster.

After junior guard Mike Lewis II announced his plans to transfer to Nevada, the Dukes, who open Atlantic 10 play Saturday at Davidson, have no juniors or seniors on a basketball scholarship. Junior Kellon Taylor, who is averaging 8.3 minutes in only four games, is on a football scholarship.

“I think we have good physical makeup, good ability,” Dambrot said. “We just have to be more mature as people. That’s probably the biggest thing.

“If our maturity improves, just mental maturity, not worrying about the last play, not worrying about two plays before, no worrying about ‘how many minutes I get, how many shots I’m getting,’ we’ll play better.”

After starting the season 8-2, Duquesne (9-4) lost two of its past three games to Penn State (7-7, 0-3 Big Ten) and New Jersey Technical Institute (12-3). Nothing happened during the nonconference schedule that surprised Dambrot.

“We’ve played exactly how our makeup of our team is,” he said. “We’ve played consistently inconsistent because we’re freshmen and sophomores.

“We played good enough to win most of the time, but we have to get a lot better on details in order to have success in the A-10 season.”

Dambrot said losing Lewis hurts “because of the type of person he is,” but the Dukes have plenty of other shooting guards, including Frankie Hughes, Lamar Norman Jr., Eric Williams, Brandon Wade and Tavian Dunn-Martin. Williams leads the team in scoring (13.8 points per game).

The problem is the Dukes’ 3-point shooting percentage (31.8).

“That’s not going to win many ballgames,” Dambrot said.

Duquesne has proven to be a dangerous team in a full-court game, forcing 17.8 turnovers per game (13th in the nation, first in the A-10), largely due to an effective press and freshman point guard Sincere Carry’s 41 steals. But Dambrot would like to see the half-court defense improve.

“We’re very good in full-court pressure, more than probably any of my previous teams in Division I have ever done,” he said. “But you can’t do that all the time to good teams.

“It’s good to have it in your pocket for when you’re behind, but you don’t want to rely on it for 40 minutes.”

The game at Davidson (9-4) will be a serious test for the Dukes, who haven’t left Pittsburgh since their game Nov. 20 at Notre Dame. Davidson, picked third in the A-10 preseason poll, is 6-0 at home.

Plus, only two players — Williams and Taylor — have played in an A-10 game.

“I’ve never seen anything like this in my life,” Dambrot said. “If you can win when you’re young, you can win when you’re old. That’s the way I see it.”

But the players test Dambrot every day in practice.

“They’ll do it right three times in a row, and the fourth one, inexplicably, they won’t,” he said. “That’s what teams that aren’t very successful will do at times. This team, I have to pay attention to every single detail because they’re basketball young.”

Sophomore forward Marcus Weathers is confident the team eventually will iron out its wrinkles.

“It’s a weird dynamic. Everybody’s young. Everybody’s trying to figure it out,” he said.

“We’re playing at 50 percent of the level we can play at. When we reach 100 percent, we’re going to be a very scary team to play.”

Jerry DiPaola is a Tribune-Review staff writer. You can contact Jerry at jdipaola@tribweb.com or via Twitter @JDiPaola_Trib.

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