Duquesne wants to play with the big boys.
They announced in October 2018 plans for a comprehensive renovation of the A.J. Palumbo Center, where many of Duquesne’s athletics teams call home.
Their men’s basketball head coach, Keith Dambrot, revealed on a local sports radio show, Jan. 23, that he had the opportunity to take the Duquesne head coaching job “years ago,” but didn’t feel like the commitment was there from the university to have a winning program. He revealed during the same interview that he eventually took the job two years ago after seeing a restored commitment to winning “from the top.”
And heading into the Saturday, Jan. 26 matchup at home against Atlantic 10 conference power VCU, the Dukes had won five straight and near the top of the A-10 conference.
The result was an 80-74 loss, but not all is lost on Duquesne’s hopes and plans.
The team was without their Mr. Everything, Sincere Carry, a 19-year-old freshman from Solon, Ohio, has been dealing with a troublesome knee injury, and may not be available for tonight’s (Jan. 30) home game against Rhode Island.
“Playing without Sincere is kind of like the Penguins playing without Sidney Crosby,” Dambrot said after Duquesne’s loss to VCU. “I’m not saying he’s of that caliber, but it’s all relative.”
In 19 games this season, Carry has averaged 12.1 points per game and an amazingly-high 111 assists for a freshman player (5.8 APG). His 53 steals are nearly 30 more than the next-highest player’s total (Frankie Hughes, 24) and leads the team in minutes played per game (32.5).
“We’re taking our best defender, our leading scorer in the A-10, our leading assist guy that creates about 50 percent of our offense out of our lineup, so guys have to play outside of their realm a little bit, and you take some bad shots,” Dambrot said. “This guy is not just one of the best freshmen in the league, he’s one of the best players in the league, and that was a little bit too much for us to overcome tonight, but we better get used to it, if we have to play without him again.”
As of Jan. 27, the Dukes were 14-6, 5-2 in-conference, trailing only George Mason (7-1) and Davidson (6-1) for the conference lead. Including tonight’s contest against Rhode Island, the Dukes have 11 conference games remaining, followed by the A-10 Tournament in Brooklyn, March 13-17.
A team can get into the NCAA Tournament field of 68 by winning their conference tournament (which Duquesne has never done since it was labeled the A-10 conference), or by having an impressive enough record in the regular season and conference tournament to secure an at-large bid. Duquesne’s last visit to the NCAA Tournament came in 1977, when they defeated Villanova, 57-54, at The Spectrum in Philadelphia to win the Eastern College Basketball League conference tournament.
In that year’s NCAA Tournament, Duquesne lost in the opening round to VMI.
KEITH DAMBROT
Duquesne Men’s Basketball Head Coach
More than 40 years later, Duquesne is still looking for that next trip to the Big Dance. Players like Carry, sophomore forward Eric Williams Jr. (who leads the team with 13 PPG), Michael Hughes (11.7 PPG) and Frankie Hughes (8.5 PPG) are trying to learn on the fly, maintain a consistent high level of play, and, quite frankly, have enough bounces go their way to break into the NCAA Tournament.
“He’s a terrific athlete, he’s probably one of the best offensive rebounders I’ve ever had, and that’s from the small forward position,” Dambrot said of Williams during an interview with Mark Madden on 105.9 The X, Jan. 23. “He’s a good defensive rebounder as well…he’s a guy that is developing other parts of his game…He’s a capable defender when he wants to be, he’s a guy that needs to continue to work on making other players better, and I think that’s what most guys nowadays have to work on is making others better.”
Also during the interview, Dambrot praised the university for their commitment to the soon-to-be UPMC Cooper Fieldhouse, which will break ground in March. In a release announcing the renovations, there will be “significant” square footage additions to the building site and create a consolidated, total performance center.
“A newly revitalized facility will be not only at the heart of our campus but at the heart of this entire community,” Duquesne University President Ken Gormley said in the October 2018 release.
The building is named after Chuck Cooper, who captained Duquesne’s men’s basketball team before going on to become the first African American drafted into the NBA in 1950.
“I think the school really had enough of not winning,” Dambrot said on 105.9 The X about his decision to become Duquesne men’s basketball’s 17th head coach on March 28, 2017. “I think there’s tremendous commitment from the top and that would be the board of trustees, the president, and I really like the AD (athletic director), he really has a great knowledge of what it takes to win in the A-10.”
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