“Locked in,” guard Jimmy Clark III said.
“We’re excited,” guard Dae Dae Clark said. “We’re ready for the challenge. We don’t think nobody wants to play us, to be honest with you.”
Those comments came after No. 6 seed Duquesne (21-11) beat No. 14 Saint Louis 83-73 in the second round of the Atlantic 10 Conference tournament. The Dukes will play No. 3 seed Dayton (24-6) at 7:30 p.m. Thursday in the quarterfinals. The winner will play No. 2 Loyola Chicago (23-8) or No. 7 St. Bonaventure (19-12) in the semifinals at 3:30 p.m. Saturday.
“We have the utmost respect for Dayton,” Duquesne coach Keith Dambrot said. “With that being said, we’re going to try to compete and try to win.”
The Flyers have won 11 of the last 12 games in the series. That includes two victories this season.
Dayton beat Duquesne 72-62 in Pittsburgh on Jan. 12 and 75-59 on Feb. 13 at UD Arena.
In the first game, Dayton opened the game with a 13-2 run and never trailed. UD forward DaRon Holmes II scored 14 points, nine on three 3-pointers, in a five-minute stretch to secure the victory after Duquesne trimmed a double-digit deficit to four points with 10 minutes left in the second half. He finished with 33 points.
In the second game, Duquesne built an early 22-11 lead. Late in the second half, the Flyers took over the game with a 22-0 run, turning a 57-53 deficit into a 75-57 lead. Duquesnescored on its last possession with nine seconds remaining to avoid being shut out in the last six minutes.
“I thought we played a really good game at Dayton other than the last five minutes of the game,” Dambrot said. “So we certainly are capable. They present some issues that are difficult. When it comes to crunch time, the ball’s going down in, and then they have the best 3-point shooting in the league or one of the best. So you’ve got to be on it. They popped us pretty good at the end of the last game, but I thought it was a misleading score. But they’ve got one of the best coaches in the country. They’ve got really good players. They’re high-character people. We have a lot of respect, but with that being said, we’ve got to go in there and try to do our job.”
Duquesne won its fifth straight game thanks 20 points from Clark, 17 from Grant and 13 from Dixon.
“I was a little nervous at halftime because the score was so high,” Dambrot said. “Typically, that’s not good for us. We had some rough moments. We’ve made big strides in taking punches and delivering punches when we’ve gotten hit. We’ve become more of a winning team. I’ve said it all along that this league is unbelievably balanced, and every game in this tournament has shown that. I like the way we hung in there.”
Credit: David Jablonski
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