PITTSBURGH (93.7 The Fan) – The last appearance in the NCAA Tournament came days into the Jimmy Carter administration. There is belief among a Duquesne team that has already shocked people this year they could continue to do so in the Atlantic 10 Tournament.
"I believe whole-heartedly that we are going to go 4-0 in the tournament," said Duquesne freshman David Dixon. "That's the confident I have in my guys."
"If we shoot the basketball well for four days and we can amp up defensively and rebound a little bit and take care of the ball," said Duquesne head coach Keith Dambrot. "We got a shot."
The sixth seed after being picked last in the A-10 preseason poll, the 20-11 Dukes face LaSalle at 7:30 on Wednesday after the Explorers were a plus-17 on the boards beating Rhode Island 73-56. Dukes won the only matchup between them 91-74 in Philadelphia as Joe Reece led five players in double figures with 26. Tre Williams had 14 points, seven rebounds and six assists.
"We are capable of being able to play four in four nights," Dambrot said. "You can't get to four unless you win game one. We just need to go out and relax and have fun. Not let anybody rain on our parade."
"I believed in the Summer after the first two weeks of workouts," said Dukes transfer forward Jimmy Clark of when they team could surprise people. "After I saw the talent we had, I knew once we came together and displayed that, it would turn out the way it should."
"It took us a while to buy into what we wanted on defense as a team. As the season went along and we continued to talk through it, work on it at practice and go hard every day (it improved)."
"As soon as I got here, I saw it was a great group of guys," David said. "I thought we could do something, for real. I thought we were going to go 30-0, that's the confidence I had in this team."
"With this defensive emphasis, I feel bad for the teams we are going to play because they are not going to score on us much."
Dambrot was in nine MAC Championship games, seven in a row while coaching at Akron. The --- year-old said he never enjoyed any of them because they were the favorite. He's enjoying this group, he thinks they have the ability to do what Shaka Smart did with VCU, finishing in the middle of the conference, got in the NCAA and then made noise.
"How do you approach it?" Dambrot said. "Do you come in relaxed? You want to be competitive, but you want to be relaxed. You have to enjoy the moment."
"If we shoot the basketball well for four days and we can amp up defensively and rebound a little bit and take care of the ball. We got a shot."
Dukes finished third in the league in scoring, led the Atlantic 10 with a .367 three-point percentage, while also leading with 278 made three-pointers. They also handle the ball well, second in the A-10 in turnover margin and assist/turnover ratio.
"I still think we haven't played the best we can play," Dambrot said. "I think that's going to be the next part of this over the next week. We just got to let our hair down and play. No one thinks we can win it anyway. We are scary because we can shoot it in."
All Conference
Junior guard Dae Dae Grant (15.2ppg, 40% from 3) named Second Team All-Atlantic 10 and Jimmy Clark III (led conference in steals) on the All-Defensive Team.
