PITTSBURGH (93.7 The Fan) – Pitt basketball had to cancel its game on Tuesday. Duquesne will play on Wednesday having their December mostly wiped away due to COVID-19.
The Dukes haven’t played since December 2 and are 1-1 on the season. They went two weeks without a practice and now will play at one of the traditionally best programs in the Atlantic 10 Wednesday night facing 7-1 St. Louis at 7p.
“Like I’ve said many times before, nobody cares,” said Duquesne head coach Keith Dambrot of their situation. “All they care about at the end of the year is who won that game, who won that game and what your record is. We have to put our big boy pants on and compete. Will have to play shorter intervals and play more people.”
While some may not care, Dambrot is worried about a lack of practice time and that they have only be able to put in basic concepts and plays with limited work on the court.
“Feel like we are starting over every single time,” Dambrot said. “After two days off its hard to get them going. We figure we’ve been off 3 or 4 different times, 10-14 days. That’s ridiculous.”
“I know I’m not too comfortable. I know there are parts of the game that we are not going to be very good at because we can only do so much every single day. I’m just trying to get them in shape and feeling good about themselves.”
Dambrot heard that Pitt head coach Jeff Capel’s thought that college basketball shouldn’t be playing. The veteran coach said he wasn’t sure if they should or not, but did agree with Capel that this is strange.
“He’s right when he says it feels kind of funny ‘cause it does,” Dambrot said of playing. “It feels kind of funny. That’s a very true statement.”
“The hard part is you see these kids come off the quarantine. You look in their eyes and you can see they’ve been sick. It’s not like anything I’ve seen before. It takes them 2, 3, 4 days to even resemble themselves out there.”
He’s seen a lot of it in his program, believing his players are following protocols, but the team got infected during their opening trip to Louisville in late November/early December.
“If I didn’t think it was fairly safe,” Dambrot said of their decision to continue. “I’m 62. I’m probably in more harm’s way than them. If I get sick, I got to battle. I wouldn’t hold it against anyone that wants to opt out. I really wouldn’t. Most of the kids want to play.”
That would include senior forward Marcus Weathers.
“For me, no fear at all,” Weathers said. “I’ve seen a lot of different things. I’m just super-excited to play and really grateful to play because of everything going on.”
Dambrot mentioned he likely will play a lot of players off their bench, that includes a Pitt player from last year. Senior Ryan Murphy transferred just weeks ago to Duquesne.
“Most guys wouldn’t have the guts to come into a program that’s fairly established in the backcourt, pay your own way to school and basically have to make friends with people you are competing with,” Dambrot said. “He loves the game and is capable of helping us. He has to learn a lot of things in a short time period, which is hard.”
Everything is hard this year, especially so far for a Duquesne team capable of getting to the NCAA Tournament for the first time in 43 years.