PITTSBURGH - Dae Dae Grant scored a team-high 14 points and handed out six assists to lead Duquesne (2-1) to a wire-to-wire 96-71 win over South Carolina State (0-3) in the Tribute Classic presented by Kentucky Tourism at UPMC Cooper Fieldhouse on Monday night.

Jimmy Clark III was perfect from the field (6-of-6) in scoring 13 points and Austin Rotroff added a career-high 11 rebounds in 12 minutes off the bench for the Dukes who got points from 13 players in cruising to the victory.

Clark III provided the spark early for Duquesne, with a dunk, a steal that led to a David Dixon putback dunk, a 3-pointer and another dunk as DU jumped out to a 20-12 lead.

The Dukes extended the lead to 31-16 on back-to-back 3-pointers from Grant and Tevin Brewer that forced an South Carolina State timeout at the 8:43 mark.

The Bulldogs put together a 7-0 run to cut it to nine before Clark III found Rotroff for a dunk to make it 35-24.

Kareem Rozier's 3-pointer, off a pass from Dixon upped the lead to 13.

R.J. Gunn buried a pair of 3-pointers late in the half, with the second coming at the first half horn to make it 50-29.

The Dukes got seven 3-pointers from five players in the opening 20 minutes.

The Duquesne lead reached 30 for the first time on a Brewer bucket with 9:49 left.

DU assisted on 21 of 35 field goals with 10 players registering at least one assist.

Duquesne returns to action on Friday, Nov. 18 when it takes on Colgate at St. Vincent-St. Mary High School in Akron, Ohio. The game, set for a 6:00 p.m. tip, will be free to fans.


NOTES

• The Dukes finished with 21 assists and 11 turnovers.
• The 96 points were the third-most the Dukes have scored under Keith Dambrot (a 101-94 3OT win over La Salle on Jan.13, 2018 and a 97-48 win over Delaware State on Dec. 9, 2017 are numbers one and two).
• Duquesne's 51 rebounds, 25 second-chance points and 52 bench points were all Dambrot Era highs.
• This was Austin Rotroff's first career double-digit rebound game (11). His previous career high was nine vs. New Hampshire last year.
• R.J. Gunn went 3-of-6 from the arc in scoring nine points off the bench. Grant also finished 3-of-6 from deep.
• The Dukes finished with eight dunks, including three from Clark III.
• Duquesne, which led from start to finish, had a largest lead of 34 at 80-46 with 8:38 left.