Pittsburgh, Pa. – Senior guard
Jimmy Clark III hit a pair of free throws with 2.1 seconds left to help lift the Duquesne University men's basketball team to a 67-65 win over George Washington Saturday at the UPMC Cooper Fieldhouse. In securing their fourth consecutive victory, the Dukes improved to 20-11 (.645) overall during the 2023-24 season while finishing in sixth place in the Atlantic 10. Duquesne finished conference play 10-8 (.556) after an 0-5 start.
SENIORS SPARKLE
Prior to the game, Duquesne honored its senior class, which consisted of seven student-athletes in Clark III, guard
Dae Dae Grant and forwards
Fousseyni Drame,
Hassan Drame,
Dusan Mahorcic,
Andrei Savrasov and
Tre Williams. Clark III had given the Dukes a 63-58 lead with 3:23 to go after a dunk off a steal, but the Revolutionaries responded with a 5-0 burst to tie it, 63-63. Clark III came through after a drive and foul with 2:06 remaining, hitting a pair at the chalk to give Duquesne a 65-63 edge. The score remained that way until James Bishop IV hit a jumper with 34 seconds left that knotted the game for the 10th time. Holding for last possession, Grant missed a floater with 11.1 seconds to go and, after a scramble for the loose ball, the Dukes came up with the offensive rebound. Out of a timeout, Clark III drove the lane and was fouled by Babatunde Akingbola for the eventual game-winning free throws. A shot from half court as time expired for GW was off the mark.
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"Anything easy usually isn't good for you," head coach
Keith Dambrot said. "That goes all the way into life. Anything you have to work for that you earn is good for you. We were fortunate. Jimmy made a good drive, got contact and then made his free throws. The Senior Day games are rough. It's hard to control your emotions because a lot of family is usually there. Jimmy's a competitor. He's been through a lot and has had to battle to get to this point. He's a good person and a good player. I was happy for him."
BACK AND FORTH
Duquesne opened its 2023-24 season with a 79-77 triumph over Cleveland State in a game that featured a season-high 13 lead changes. Saturday's game matched that total as neither the Dukes or Revs owned a double-digit lead. George Washington grabbed an early 4-0 advantage, while the biggest lead for Duquesne came at the 5:09 mark in the first half when a jumper from sophomore forward
David Dixon gave the Dukes a 28-20 cushion. The Revolutionaries closed the first half on a 10-6 run to trim their deficit to 34-30 at the break and scored the first five points after halftime to jump in front, 35-34, setting up a second half that witnessed neither team own a lead of larger than five points.
BACK-TO-BACK
In picking up its 20th win of the campaign, Duquesne has notched back-to-back 20-win seasons for the first time in over 50 years. The Dukes finished 21-4 (.840) in 1970-71 and 20-5 (.800) in 1971-72 under Red Manning, who posted four 20-win seasons in 16 years on the sideline. Dambrot has led Duquesne to at least 20 wins three times after guiding the 2019-20 squad to a record of 21-9 (.700) as well as a 20-13 (.606) mark last season. Dudey Moore owns the most 20-win seasons of any head coach in program history with five in 10 years from 1949 to 1958.
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"Every game is a mutually exclusive event," Dambrot said. "What you've done in the past certainly helps you prepare for what you do in the future, but every game is different. Every team is different. We played seven of the top nine teams in the league on the road. Clearly we're a good team, but we're also capable of losing to anyone. That's what this league is. It's a tough league. You have to battle every single night regardless of what place the teams are in. We didn't have a cake walk to open the season, and we showed we were fairly competitive in most of those games. We've earned everything that we've gotten. We came from down and out to get to 10-8. People may say we shouldn't have been 0-5, but maybe we should've. Maybe we weren't quite ready to win those types of games yet. Sometimes you have to lose to win. I'm proud of our guys' resiliency and their toughness."
STAR OF THE SHOW
Clark III finished with 22 points, three assists and four steals in the win Saturday, becoming the third member of the Dukes this season to eclipse 1,000 career points. His first free throw with 2.1 seconds left helped him reach the mark as he joined
Fousseyni Drame and Williams to reach the plateau. The three assists for Clark III also pushed his career total to an even 200, while his four thefts helped him crack the top 10 in the Duquesne career record book. He owns 150, surpassing former guard Mike Sisinni, who posted 148 steals from 1980 to 1984. Also scoring in double figures Saturday for the Dukes was Dixon, who finished with 11 points, seven rebounds and four blocks off the bench.
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"Day by day, brick by brick," said Clark III. "I'm grateful for my teammates and thankful for the coaches, because without them none of this would be possible. Make these free throws so we can get this win. That was the only thing. I was locked in. This was a good test for us going into the tournament because a lot of games are going to be close, tough games. Being able to fight it out and get the win with the experience and group of guys we've got, it was definitely good for us."
UP NEXT
Duquesne enters the 2024 Atlantic 10 Championships as the No. 6 seed and will travel to Brooklyn, N.Y., Wednesday, March 13, for a 7:30 p.m. tip at the Barclays Center. The Dukes will face the winner of game three of the tournament, which features No. 11 Rhode Island and No. 14 Saint Louis. The Rams and Billikens square off Tuesday, March 12, at 4:30 p.m.
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