As the players on the Duquesne men's basketball team returned to campus for the start of classes this week, a large portion of their future was and still is up in the air.
What will their fall practice schedule look like? Who will they play in their first game? Where will that contest take place?
Keith Dambrot doesn't know the answers to these questions. What he does know is that if the Dukes do compete this winter, they will do so with a high level of experience and an even higher set of expectations from him and his staff.
Meaning ...
"Duquesne hasn’t been to the NCAA tournament for about 45 years," Dambrot said. "It’s a crazy amount of time. So that’s a goal. Then obviously win an Atlantic 10 championship. Nobody in the world would ever think that Duquesne could win an Atlantic-10 championship. Nobody in the A-10 at least.”
The Dukes' coach believes this current roster does have the talent to make that happen. After finishing with 19 or more wins in back-to-back seasons for the first time since 1971 and 1972, Duquesne returns all five starters and seven of its eight leading scorers from last year's team.
"I think it’s the best team, I think it’s the deepest team, I think it’s the most experienced team," Dambrot said of this group when asked to compare them to the three teams prior. "When the season starts it’s going to be a little bit of a different situation for us so we just have to make sure we progress regardless of what the circumstances are.”
Led by second team All-Atlantic 10 forward Marcus Weathers, and three-year starters Sincere Carry and Michael Hughes, the Dukes have in the words of their head coach, "multiple guys who can do multiple things."
Weathers, a 6-5 senior, led the team last season in both scoring (14.3) and rebounds (8.1). He enters the season with 1,048 career points, putting him at 36th on the school's all-time scoring list.
"Marcus had a terrific year last year and really took a huge jump," Dambrot said. "He figured out where his bread was buttered and took advantage of his physical strength and athletic ability."
Meanwhile Hughes shines on the other end of the floor. Last year the 6-8 senior big man had a team high 44 steals while also finishing eighth in the nation in blocked shots per game (2.7).
Carry, a 6-1 junior point guard will once again be in charge of the offense. He proved to be the Dukes most reliable player in the back-court last season, leading the team with 158 assists, scoring 12.2 points per game and providing solid defense.
Guards Larmar Norman Jr. and Maceo Austin will round out the starting five while 2019 A-10 sixth man of the year Tavian Dunn-Martin, along with forwards Amari Kelly and Austin Rotroff are expected to make large contributions off the bench.
The Dukes will look to improve in three major areas: Defensive rebounding, defense on the wings and three-point shooting. Duquesne adds a hand full of players in what Dambrot refers to as the best recruiting class in his four years with the program that can hopefully address those areas of need.
Some young players who could see minutes this season include 6-4 guards Tyson Acuff and Jett Roesing. Acuff, a finalist for 2020 Michigan Mr. Basketball, is listed as a point guard while Roesing, a product of First Love Academy in Washington, Pa. is described as a sharp shooter.
Mike Bekelja, the younger brother of Carry, could also see time in the back-court while freshman forwards Tobi Okani, Chad baker and Andre Harris will look to provide energy to defend the rim.
Dambrot says his team made the most of the off-season in spite of the limitations that came from the pandemic. Normally Duquesne gets eight weeks of work in over the summer. This year, that amount of time was nearly cut in half, with summer workouts only lasting five weeks.
The pandemic is not the only thing that the Dukes have been challenged with this off season. Similar to what we have seen this week in the NBA, Dambrot says his players were and still are deeply upset by the civil unrest throughout the nation.
"The racial strife is really hard," Dambrot said. "It’s hard on these kids. With the NBA boycott earlier this week and the continued social injustice, it’s hitting hard on these kids mentally. Compound that with covid and not a real college experience and it’s hard times for everybody."
Dambrot mentioned that shortly after the death of George Floyd, the entire team was gathered over zoom to discuss how they felt and how they'd like to react as a group. A similar discussion took place last week following the shooting of Jacob Blake.
"We’ve been a little slowed down due to the virus as to what we can really accomplish," Dambrot said. "We’re really over the next two to three months going to try to do a lot and make a bigger impact on this social injustice side.”
The Dukes believe that "bigger impact" starts with providing guidance to area youth.
"We are going to adopt an elementary school in the Hill District," Dambrot said. "We are really going to try and make a difference with those kids on the academic side. We’re still working on some other things as well."
Some of those other things include getting every member of the team registered to vote, which Dambrot says will happen by the time November rolls around.
Speaking over November, the month that normally serves as the start of college basketball season will likely look much different for the Dukes in 2020. At this time, there is no word on when Duquesne's season will start. Whenever they find out, Dambrot says his team might still be in need of a home court.
"I don’t think the new arena will be done until January," Dambrot said. "We got caught up with the pandemic so they had to shut down the construction. Depending on when the season starts will determine if we play [at Duquesne] or not. If not, will they let us play at other places? That becomes an issue as well. We don’t even know if we are going to have a non-conference schedule. That’s the crazy thing about all of this.”
Regardless of the obstacle, one thing in Duquesne's corner is experience. They say with age comes wisdom. Their head coach believes that will give them a significant advantage in a year like this one.
"When you hear all the good coaches around the country they all say the same thing: Get old and stay old," Dambrot said. "That's us. We’ve been through a lot of adversity. We practiced in the rec center last year. We didn’t have our own home court. We won a lot of road games in the league. We’ve shown that we can handle tough times. If this becomes a difficult time, we’ve already been through it for a year.”
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