GAME 14
Duquesne (9-4 | 0-1 A-10) at Loyola Chicago (9-5 | 1-0 A-10)
Saturday, Jan. 6, 2024 | 4:00 p.m.
Chicago, Ill. | Gentile Arena (4,486)
 
TV: CBS Sports Network with Carter Blackburn & Avery Johnson
Radio: 104.7 HD2 / iHeartRadio with Ray Goss ('58) & Jarrett Durham ('71)
 
Game Notes | Record Book | Media Center | TV/Radio Spotter Chart | Watch | Listen | Live Stats
 
Opening Tip
 
- The Duquesne University men's basketball team concludes a two-game road trip to open Atlantic 10 play Saturday, Jan. 6, with a 4:00 p.m. tip in against Loyola Chicago at Gentile Arena.
 
- The Dukes opened their 2023-24 A-10 slate with an 80-61 loss at Massachusetts as senior guard Dae Dae Grant paced Duquesne with 18 points while also adding four rebounds, a pair of assists and two steals.
 
- Senior guard Jimmy Clark III added 16 points, three assists and a pair of thefts against UMass. Both Grant and Clark III have reached double figures in 12 of Duquesne's first 13 games of the 2023-24 campaign.
 
- Grant, the active career scoring leader in the A-10 with 1,929 points in five seasons at the NCAA Division I level, enters Saturday's game against the Ramblers leading the Atlantic 10 in scoring at 19.0 points per game, while Clark III tops the conference leaderboard in steals with 30, an average of 2.31 per contest.
 
- When holding opponents to less than 70 points under head coach Keith Dambrot, Duquesne has posted a record of 62-16 (.795), including a 6-0 mark during the 2023-24 season.
 
- Duquesne returns home to the UPMC Cooper Fieldhouse after taking on Loyola Chicago, hosting Dayton Friday, Jan. 12, in a 7:00 p.m. tip.
 
Scouting the Ramblers – Saturday marks the 19th game between Duquesne and Loyola Chicago, with the Dukes owning a 12-6 (.667) advantage in the all-time series. The series dates back to a 29-13 Loyola win in Chicago, Ill., Dec. 11, 1929. The two met 15 times between 1929 and 1962 and did not play again until two meetings in 1993 as conferences foes in the Midwestern Collegiate Conference (MCC) in 1993 (DU's only non-A-10 season). Saturday's game concludes a home-and-home series between the two programs, with Duquesne earning a 72-58 win over the Ramblers, Jan. 25, 2023, at the UPMC Cooper Fieldhouse last season in the first meeting as members of the Atlantic 10. In the win last year guards Dae Dae Grant and Jimmy Clark III each scored 13 points to lead four Dukes in double figures.
 
Head Coach Keith Dambrot (Seventh Year at Duquesne | 26th Year Overall) – Keith Dambrot, who built Akron into one of the most successful - and most respected - programs in the Mid-American Conference over 13 seasons, was named head men's basketball coach at Duquesne University on March 28, 2017. The veteran coach wasted no time making an impact on the DU program with 65 wins in his first four seasons. He became just the fourth head coach in program history to reach 100 victories thanks to a 95-47 win over Cleary, and his two 20-win seasons - in just six years - are tied for the third-most in program history. Dambrot reached a significant career milestone on Feb. 8, 2023 when he posted his 500th career victory with a 75-52 triumph over George Mason. Dambrot owns an overall record of 513-297 (.633) during his career as a head coach, and his father, Sid, was part of Duquesne teams that finished ranked in the Associated Press Top 10 in 1952 (No. 4), 1953 (No. 9) and 1954 (No. 5). The 1954 team, which went 26-3, made it to No. 1 in the AP poll for two weeks in February of 1954. The Dukes played in both the NCAA tournament and NIT in 1952 and the NIT in both 1953 and 1954.
 
Massachusetts Leftovers – The Minutemen own a 43-29 (.597) advantage in the all-time series after the A-10 opener for both programs ... Massachusetts visited the free-throw line 20 times in the first half and overall finished 24-for-34 (70.6%) at the stripe ... The 34 attempts at the chalk for UMass marked a season high by an opponent ... Duquesne finished 13-for-22 (59.1%) at the free-throw line ... Sophomore forward Halil Barre scored a career-high eight points and grabbed four rebounds in 11:29 of action, all of which came in the second half ... Barre finished 3-for-4 from the field and 2-for-3 at the free-throw line ... UMass owned a 36-33 edge in rebounding, with the Dukes posting a 13-8 advantage on the offensive glass ... Forward Fousseyni Drame garnered game-high honors in rebounds (9), his fifth game of the season with at least nine boards ... The two teams combined for 70 points in the paint, including 42 by the Minutemen.    
 
Picking His Spots – Sophomore guard Kareem Rozier has joined guards Dae Dae Grant and Jimmy Clark III in starting all 13 games for the Dukes in 2023-24, and the main floor general has done a solid job both distributing and scoring. Rozier enters Saturday's game at Loyola Chicago ranked fifth in the Atlantic 10 in three-point field goal percentage, having knocked down 22 of his 49 attempts for a success rate of 44.9 percent. Rozier has also been adept finding the open man and protecting the rock, as he leads Duquesne with an assist-to-turnover ratio of 2.62. In 45 career games with the Dukes, Rozier owns 102 assists against 38 turnovers, an assist-to-turnover ratio of 2.68.
 
Closing In – Forward Fousseyni Drame is one of a number of players closing in on 1,000 career points for Duquesne in 2023-24. Drame enters Saturday's game at Loyola Chicago with 988 career points in five seasons at the NCAA Division I level, a total that includes 597 points in three seasons at Saint Peter's. Forwards Andrei Savrasov (956) and Tre Williams (947) also are within striking distance of 1,000 career points as Atlantic 10 play gets into full swing. Senior guard Dae Dae Grant, who is 71 points shy of 2,000 for his career, is also looking to score 1,000 points in two seasons with the Dukes. Grant has scored 758 points in two years at Duquesne, averaging 16.5 points per contest.
 
Chalk Talk – Senior guard Dae Dae Grant has proven to be adept at the free-throw line during his career, and those numbers have only been amplified in his two seasons at Duquesne. Having established a new program record for consecutive free throws (43) made this season, Grant converted his first five free throws in the Atlantic 10 opener for the Dukes at Massachusetts before missing his final opportunity of the contest, snapping a streak of 29 consecutive free throws. Since the season opener against Cleveland State, where he hit his final three free throws as part of an 8-for-11 performance, Grant converted 72 of 73 chances (98.6%) before missing his final attempt against the Minutemen. Among A-10 leaders at the stripe, Grant ranks second in the conference at 93.9 percent (77-for-82), a success rate that is also tied for 10th in NCAA Division I with Tylor Perry of Kansas State. Grant also ranks 17th in NCAA Division I in free throws, as he averages 6.30 trips to the line per game.
 
Converting – Duquesne shot a season-high 52.2 percent (36-for-69) from the field in a 95-47 win over Cleary at the UPMC Cooper Fieldhouse to close out the 2023 calendar year. The win helped the Dukes improve to 26-2 (.929) in seven seasons under head coach Keith Dambrot when converting at least 50 percent of their shots from the floor. Duquesne has also won nine consecutive games dating back to the beginning of the 2022-23 season when turning the trick, and under Dambrot the Dukes are 15-1 (.938) when scoring 90 or more points.
 
Did You Know? Senior Dae Dae Grant, who has hit at least one three-pointer in 21 consecutive games dating back to last season, has drained 132 triples in 46 career games at Duquesne, an average of 2.87 per contest. Grant is just two three-pointers shy of cracking the top 10 in program history in the category, as former guard Jimmy Tricco (2002-04) sits 10th in three-point field goals with 134.
 
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