G2 | DUQUESNE (1-0) at No. 4 (AP) KENTUCKY (1-0)
Fri., Nov. 11 2022 • 7:00 pm ET • Lexington, Ky. • Rupp Arena at Central Bank Center (20,500)

LIVE STREAM: SECN with Mike Morgan & Mark Wise
RADIO: 104.7 HD2 / iHeartRadio with Ray Goss ('58) & Jarrett Durham ('71)

Duquesne (1-0), coming off a season-opening 91-63 win over Montana on Tuesday, heads to Lexington, Ky. to face No. 4 (AP) Kentucky (1-0) on Friday, Nov. 11 at 7:00 p.m. (SECN). This is just one of two times the Dukes will leave city limits in non-confernce play (the other is a trip to Akron, Ohio to face Colgate on Nov. 18).

This is Duquesne's first game versus a ranked team since an 80-70 defeat at No. 5 (AP) Dayton on Feb. 22, 2020. UK is the highest-ranked team DU has faced since its last trip to Lexington, when the No. 2 (AP) Cats handed Jim Ferry's Dukes a 93-59 defeat on Nov. 20, 2016.

Duquesne is a team in transition with 10 first-year players on the roster.

Sixth-year DU head Coach Keith Dambrot who entered the season second among Atlantic 10 coaches with 484 wins, saw seven players make their Duquesne debut vs. Montana.

Dambrot 4-2 vs. the SEC with wins over Mississippi State (twice), South Carolina and Arkansas, all while at Akron.

Kentucky, playing without three starters, extended its home win streak to 20 in a 95-63 win over Howard on Monday.


THE SERIES VS. THE WILDCATS

• This is the first of three Dukes games as part of the Tribute Classic presented by Kentucky Tourism; vs. South Carolina State (Nov. 14) and vs. North Florida (Nov. 21) are the others. This is DU's lone road game in the Classic.
• This is the third meeting between the Dukes and Wildcats, with UK ranked No. 2 (AP) in the two previous games. The first was a 55-42 win by No. 2 Kentucky in the first round of the UK Invitation Tournament on Dec. 17, 1982 at Rupp Arena. The crowd for that game (23,964) stands as the largest at DU team has played before in its 106-plus seasons of basketball. Kentucky also downed the Dukes 93-59 at Rupp on Nov. 20, 2016.
• This is DU's second game against an SEC opponent in 25 seasons. The last non-Kentucky opponent was on Dec. 3, 1997 at Florida (L, 66-99).
• Duquesne is 6-13 all-time against schools that comprise the current SEC.
• The Dukes are looking for their first win on a current SEC team's home floor (0-6).
• DU's last win over a current SEC team came on Jan. 30, 1978 at home over South Carolina (63-61) when the Gamecocks were an independent
• Duquesne's last win over an active SEC team was on Dec. 27, 1972 over Georgia (71-66) at the Quaker City Tournament in Philadelphia.
• The Wildcats are in their 14th season under Moon Township, Pa. native and Clarion University graduate John Calipari. Calipari is 207-17 at Rupp Arena, including a 105-6 mark in non-conference home games. UK's current home streak stands at 20 games. Calipari is 12-4 all time vs. Duquesne, with the first 15 meetings coming during his eight seasons at Massachusetts (1988-89 through 1995-96).
• This is the highest ranked team DU head coach Keith Dambrot has faced  in his 25-year career (previous was No. 4 (AP) Notre Dame in the 2011 NCAA Tournament when he was at Akron (L, 56-69).
• Dambrot is 0-3 vs. ranked teams at Duquesne, including a buzzer-beating 61-58 defeat at No. 24 (AP) Rhode Island in 2018 and a pair of close losses to Dayton in 2020 (73-69 at PPG Paints Arena and 80-70 at UD).
• The highest ranked team any Duquesne team has ever defeated is #2 (AP) St. Bonaventure at home on Mar. 1, 1961 (79-74 in OT). The Dukes were unranked at the time.

LEFTOVERS FROM THE MONTANA GAME
Duquesne 91, Montana 63 • Nov. 8 • UPMC Cooper Fieldhouse

• Seven players (Joe Reece, Jimmy Clark III, Quincy McGriff, Kareem Rozier, Matus Hronsky and David Dixon) all made their Duquesne debuts. Reece (12 pts.), McGriff (10 pts.) and Hronsky (13 pts.) scored in double digits. Reece, Clark III and McGriff started.
• First-year Miami, Ohio transfer Dae Dae Grant pitched a perfect game, going 8-of-8 from the field (6-of-6 from 3-point) and 3-of-3 from the foul line in scoring an efficient 25 points. According to @OptaSTATS Grant is the only D-I player in the past 25 years to score 25 or more points in a season opener without missing a field goal attempt or a free throw.
• It was the second-most accurate 3-point shooting performance in school history, with only James Hargrove's 7-of-7 game at Robert Morris (31 pts.) on Dec. 10, 1991 better.
• Duquesne shot a Keith Dambrot Era high .644. The previous best was .585 vs. Columbia in 2019-20. It was the first time DU shot over .600 in a game since a 120-112 CBI win over Omaha (37-59, .627) on Mar. 16, 2016.
• The Dukes outscored the Grizzlies 46-22 in the paint and 22-12 off turnovers.
• DU got 30 points from its bench.
• Duquesne led for 38:30 - with a largest lead of 42 points with just under eight minutes left - in the win.

A COMMONWEALTH CONNECTION

 • JIM TUCKER (1952-54), who was inducted to the Kentucky High School Association Hall of Fame in April of 2012, was an All-American for the Dukes in 1952. Tucker, who played at Paris (Ky.) Western High School in the late-1940s, was guided to Duquesne by legendary UK coach Adolph Rupp, who was a friend of DU head coach Dudey Moore. Tucker, who was in the same class as - and played with - the father of current Duquesne head coach Keith Dambrot, led DU to a 70-15 record and three consecutive AP Top 10 rankings in his three seasons on the Bluff. Tucker was  was the first player in school history to score 500 points in a season (512 points, 18.9 ppg.) when he helped lead the '52 Dukes to a 23-4 record and No. 4 national rank as a sophomore. The '54 Dukes were the first (and only) DU team to ever reach No. 1 in both the AP and UPI polls following a 20-0 start. Moore called Tucker: "the greatest jumper in college basketball today" in 1953. Tucker, who played three seasons with the NBA Syracuse Nationals, joined Earl Lloyd as one of the first two African-American players to play for an NBA championship team in 1955.


WORTH NOTING

• Duquesne has added 10 newcomers as it looks to bounce back from last year's 6-24 season.

• Sixth-year head coach Keith Dambrot, who enters the season with the second-most career wins among Atlantic 10 coaches, welcomes back a pair of starters in 6-7 junior forwards Kevin Easley Jr. (10.7, 6.6) and Tre Williams (10.8, 5.7). Easley Jr., a second-year transfer from TCU, scored in double digits a team-high 21 times including a season-best 20 points in DU's season-ending loss to Rhode Island in the first round of the Atlantic 10 Championship. Williams, who came to Duquesne last year from Indiana State, ranked 39th nationally in blocks/g. (2.08) despite missing DU's final four games following a knee injury suffered in the Feb. 23 game vs. Davidson. Both Easley Jr. and Williams averaged over 31 minutes per game in a thin Duquesne frontcourt.

• Dambrot will be looking for a pair of returning grad students, both of whom had their 2021-22 seasons cut short by injury, to contribute in the frontcourt. F Austin Rotroff (2.9, 3.8), who has played in 65 career games with eight starts, shook off a preseason foot injury to play the best basketball of his DU career prior to re-injuring his foot in early January. The injury forced him to the sidelines for the remainder of the season and led to off-season surgery. DU went 0-16 following Rotroff's departure. F R.J. Gunn, a 1,183-point career scorer at D-II Lenoir-Rhyne, missed last season following a preseason ankle injury.

• Duquesne has added four transfers with Division I experience in junior G Dae Dae Grant (1,171 points in three seasons at Miami, Ohio), grad student G Tevin Brewer (760 points in three seasons at FIU), senior F Joe Reece (631 points in three seasons at Old Dominion and one at Bowling Green) and junior G Jimmy "Tre" Clark III who scored 130 points in two seasons at VCU, prior to leading Northwest Florida to a NJCAA National Championship last season. The foursome has 2,692 points in 269 combined games (including 201 starts) of D-I experience.

• In addition to the four D-1 transfers, Dambrot has also brought in Second Team All-American JUCO guard Quincy McGriff. McGriff, a sophomore, led his Salt Lake Community College team to the NJCAA championship game where it lost to fellow newcomer Tre Clark's Northwest Florida team. McGriff, a Los Angeles native, and Clark both earned spots on the NJCAA All-Tournament Team.

• Dambrot also added five freshmen including 5-9 PG Kareem Rozier, who was one of five finalists for Michigan Mr. Basketball and fellow guard Devin Carney, who was a 2,000-point scorer at nearby Butler Area High School. Fellow freshman 6-8 wing Matus Hronsky, who hails from Poruba, Slovakia, comes to the Bluff as a polished 3-point shooter. Six-nine forwards Halil Barre and David Dixon are expected to provide depth in the frontcourt. Barre, who spent time this summer playing with the Benin National Team, played at Scotland (Pa.) Campus last season, while Dixon, who hails from Memphis, Tenn., played for Speights (Fla.) Academy in 2021-22.

• Duquesne's 10.0 assists per game last season was the second-lowest average in school history, and ranked 342nd of 350 NCAA D-I programs. That lack of ball movement led to a .403 shooting percentage (the team's lowest since 2000), 65.2 points per game (lowest since 2002) and Keith Dambrot's first losing season since 1992-93. Dambrot took steps to improve that mark with the addition of veteran transfer guards Tevin Brewer (324 career assists at FIU) and Dae Dae Grant (248 career assists at Miami, Ohio), who bring 572 career assists to the Dukes roster. Brewer, who has a 2.1-to-1 career assist-to-turnover ratio (4.9 apg. career), ranked 10th nationally in assist rate (KenPom) and 15th in NCAA assists/g. (5.6) last season. The 5-8 point guard averaged 15.2 ppg. and 5.6 apg. in earning third team All-Conference USA honors last season and is one of just six Division I returnees who averaged over 15 & 5 last season. Grant (17.2 ppg. 4.1 apg.), who was one of 19 players to average over 17.0 points and 4.0 assists/g. last season, led the MAC with a 2.24-to-1 assist-to-turnover ratio. Grant's 561 points last season (1,171 career) were the 10th-highest total in Miami history. Brewer (169) and Grant (132) combined for one more assist than the Duquesne TEAM in 2021-22 (301-to-300).   

• Duquesne's frontcourt lost a total of 50 games due to injury last season: R.J. Gunn Jr. (29) Austin Rotroff (17) and Tre Williams (4). Gunn Jr., suffered a preseason ankle injury and managed to play four minutes in the third game of the season before shutting it down. Rotroff had a preseason foot injury that slowed him in the early season and forced him to the sidelines permanently in mid-January with the Dukes sitting at 6-7. Williams (knee) was lost for the last four games of the season.

• DU, which will open the season with a pair of 1,000-point scorers in R.J. Gunn Jr. (1,183 at D-II Lenoir-Rhyne) and Dae Dae Grant (1,171 at Miami, Ohio), could finish the year with as many as five 1,000-point scorers as Kevin Easley Jr. (needs 146), Tevin Brewer (needs 240) and Tre Williams (needs 271) all have a realistic shot at reaching 1,000 in 2022-23. The last time DU had three players with 1,000 points on the floor at the same time was in 1998 (Kevin Price, Mike James and Nick Bosnic). Duquesne has never had four players with 1,000 points on the floor at the same time.