Pittsburgh, Pa. – The Duquesne University men's basketball roster for the 2025-26 season under second-year head coach Dru Joyce III is set, which includes 10 returners and eight newcomers. Of the eight new Dukes, four will be freshmen this fall and another four are transfers.

WELCOME BACK
Duquesne returns a pair of starters in 2025-26, including redshirt senior guard Cam Crawford and junior forward Jakub Nečas. Crawford led the Atlantic 10 in three-point field goal percentage last season, knocking down 43.1 percent (44-for-102) of his opportunities from beyond the arc, in averaging 8.6 points and 2.5 rebounds in 29 games, including 22 starts. Nečas saw action in 29 games overall, as well, earning 21 starts, and produced averages of 6.0 points and 4.4 rebounds while being one of four players to block at least 20 shots. He scored in double figures on five occasions, with Duquesne 4-1 (.800) in those contests, and in the final game of the year against St. Bonaventure in the 2025 Atlantic 10 Championship contributed nine points while setting a career high with 10 rebounds. In all, the Dukes return 42.8 percent (948-of-2,212) of their scoring, 44.9 percent (490-of-1,091) of their rebounding and 32.1 percent (142-of-442) of their assists.

THE ELITE EIGHT
A total of eight new players join the Duquesne roster for the 2025-26 campaign, including four guards, three forwards and a center. Four of the eight are NCAA Division I transfers, while four more will play their first season of NCAA Division I basketball beginning this fall. Welcome to the Bluff ...
 

#	Name	Year	Pos.	Ht.	Wt.	Hometown / High School (Previous School)
1	Tarence Guinyard	Sr.	G	6'2"	170	Tampa, Fla. / Lee (UTM)
3	Jimmie Williams	Jr.	G	6'5"	210	Solon, Ohio / Solon (South Florida)
4	John Hugley IV	Gr.	F	6'11"	270	Cleveland, Ohio / Brush (Xavier)
7	Dom Aekins	Fr.	G	5'10"	155	Columbus, Ohio / Walnut Ridge
8	Arness Lawson	Fr.	G	6'2"	170	Columbus, Ohio / Pickerington North
17	Frederik Jellum	Fr.	F	6'10"	210	Copenhagen, Denmark / Cushing Academy (Mass.)
18	Stef van Bussel	R-So.	C	6'10"	255	Ommel, Netherlands / Phillips Van Horne (Charleston)
27	Lazar Milošević	Fr.	F	6'9"	240	Bileća, Serbia / OKK Spars Sarajevo

FOUR SEASONS
In today's day and age of college basketball with the NCAA Transfer Portal, Duquesne offers senior forward David Dixon, who will play his final season with the Dukes in 2025-26 and has spent his entire career on the Bluff. Dixon enters next year with career totals of 569 points and 423 rebounds and last season became just the second player in program history to eclipse career totals of both 100 blocks and 100 dunks. A career 55.1 percent (221-for-401) from the field in 96 games, including 24 starts, Dixon ranks fifth in the Duquesne record book for blocks (129) while sitting second in dunks (104). Dixon is the program's active leader in both points and rebounds and is 77 caroms shy of 500 for his career.

THE TALLY
The four NCAA Division I transfers that will compete for Duquesne next season own combined career totals of 1,650 points, 750 rebounds, 218 assists and 117 steals entering the 2025-26 season. Hugley IV has compiled career totals of 871 points and 469 rebounds over the last five years, which have included stops at Pittsburgh, Oklahoma and Xavier. An All-Atlantic Coast Conference (ACC) Honorable Mention selection after his sophomore season with the Panthers in 2022, Hugley IV needs 129 points to reach 1,000 as well as just 31 boards for 500 in his NCAA career.

ON THE MEND
Among the returners for Duquesne in 2025-26 are a pair of student-athletes that missed last season due to injury, while another played seven games for the Dukes before missing the rest of the year. Both guard Brandon Hall and forward Alex Williams will see their first action on the Bluff in 2025-26, while guard Jake DiMichele looks for a healthy season after averaging 10.9 points and shooting 50 percent (29-of-58) from the floor in the first seven games of the 2024-25 campaign, each coming off the bench. Included among his performances early last season was a career-high 21 points, including 19 in the second half, against Milwaukee. As a rookie in 2023-24, DiMichele started 21 games, with the Dukes 15-6 (.714) in those contests.

JERSEY SWAP
A number of Dukes will sport new jersey numbers during the 2025-26 season. Crawford moves to No. 5 after wearing No. 1 last year, while Nečas switches to No. 9 after sporting No. 7 his first two years on the Bluff. Redshirt senior guard Maximus Edwards, who averaged 16.3 points and 3.8 rebounds over his final four games of the 2024-25 season, will wear No. 22 next season after donning No. 8 in his first year with the Dukes, while Hall will make his Duquesne debut at No. 0 after being assigned No. 55 last season. Edwards joins Dixon as the only returning Dukes to play in all 32 games last year, with Edwards producing overall averages of 8.3 points and 3.6 rebounds per game. Edwards enters next year with 986 career points at the NCAA Division I level, just 14 shy of 1,000, and eclipsed 500 career rebounds with his first board at the 16:20 mark of the first half last season at St. Bonaventure. Edwards has tallied 528 career caroms over the last three years.

TOE THE LINE
Guinyard joins the Dukes after spending the 2024-25 season at the University of Tennessee at Martin (UTM), where he led the Skyhawks in scoring at 16.3 points per game while also averaging 4.7 rebounds and 2.3 assists per contest. Owning an uncanny ability to get to the free-throw line, Guinyard averaged almost six trips to the stripe per game last year, converting 74.3 percent (142-for-191) of his opportunities in 32 games. Guinyard ranked fourth in the Ohio Valley Conference (OVC) in scoring and ninth in free-throw percentage en route to being named to the 2025 All-OVC First Team. His penchant for getting to the stripe last year followed a junior college career where in two seasons at Florida State College at Jacksonville (FSCJ), Guinyard finished 338-for-486 (69.5 percent) at the free-throw line. In two seasons with the Blue Wave, Guinyard scored 1,302 points in 63 games, an average of 20.7 points per contest.

PEDIGREE
Another newcomer with a decorated junior college career is Williams, who spent the 2023-24 campaign at Wallace State Community College. In 35 games, Williams helped guide the Lions to an overall record of 26-9 (.743) by averaging 22.5 points per game along with 8.3 rebounds and 5.0 assists per contest. He posted 14 double-doubles that season, including a pair of triple-doubles, and in the quarterfinals of the Alabama Community College Conference (ACCC) Tournament dropped a Wallace State single-game record 48 points. Named a 2024 National Junior College Athletic Association (NJCAA) All-American, Williams spent last year at South Florida, where he appeared in 30 games and averaged 7.5 points, 2.6 rebounds and 1.2 assists per contest.

THE ROOKIES
In addition to the four transfers for the Dukes in 2025-26, four fresh faces join the program, including a pair that hail from Columbus, Ohio, and two international players. Aekins originally signed with the Dukes in November of 2023 before spending a year at prep school, while Lawson is the all-time leading scorer at Pickerington North High School. Jellum and Milošević, meanwhile, join the Dukes from Denmark and Serbia, respectively. The international pair join Nečas and van Bussel as international players for Duquesne. Last season, van Bussel earned a medical redshirt while at the College of Charleston after appearing in 21 games as a true freshman during the 2023-24 season at fellow Atlantic 10 foe Saint Louis. In an average of 7.8 minutes per game with the Billikens, van Bussel averaged 1.6 points and 2.6 rebounds, including six points and a career-high 10 rebounds in a career-high 26 minutes against Rhode Island.

UP NEXT
Preparation for the 2025-26 season is underway with summer workouts under Joyce III, who is in his fourth year overall on the Bluff. Deposits for season tickets for the 2025-26 campaign are now being accepted. Fans wishing to renew, upgrade or purchase season tickets for the first time can use the following link to lock in seats for next year.

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