ALTOONA, Pa. -- Keith Dambrot didn't hold much back Thursday when discussing Duquesne's monumental struggles last season.
"It was a miserable year for me," Dambrot said at Atlantic 10 media day at Barclays Center in Brooklyn. "I hadn't had a losing season since 1994. So, that's a tough deal when you're not used to it."
The Dukes started the 2021-22 campaign OK, going 6-7 and winning their A10 opener at UMass. But then the bottom fell out.
How far did it fall?
Dambrot had a good line when he was being asked about how many games Duquesne lost at the end.
"The last 100 games," he quipped.
It wasn't quite that bad. The Dukes dropped their final 17 games to finish 6-24 overall.
Some upgrades have been made to the roster, but last year's struggles surely are a big reason why Duquesne was picked to finish last in the A10 this season. Here's the projected order of finish from the league's official preseason poll:
1. Dayton
2. Saint Louis
3. VCU
4. Loyola Chicago
5. George Mason
6. Davidson
7. Richmond
8. UMass
9. Rhode Island
10. St. Bonaventure
11. Fordham
12. George Washington
13. Saint Joseph's
14. La Salle
15. Duquesne
Dambrot had been 65-47 his first four years at Duquesne, and 478-256 in his career, so the dropoff to 6-24 was enormous. And unexpected.
"You start to think that you're invincible and it can't happen to you," he said of the big losing season, "but you realize all along that it's about the players. It doesn't matter if you're a good coach or not, if your talent level isn't where it needs to be or you have injuries, it can happen to anybody. And you don't think it can happen to you, but it can.
"It just teaches you to go back to your roots. I wasn't a high-major assistant. I came up the hard way, like I was an NAIA coach where there was no gym, we played at the YMCA, we had one building. I was a Division II coach. ... But I had to do it pretty much on my own. So like, I'm gonna do it on my own again. If we lose, it's on me, and if we win, it's on me."
That's when Dambrot was asked if he feels reinvigorated to succeed after last year's dropoff.
And the coach had a flat out awesome, comical answer.
"Look, you're prideful," he said. "I'm the worst male athlete in my family. My dad (Sid) was a starter on Duquesne's national runner-up team. My uncle (Irwin) was a No. 1 draft pick of the Knicks and was MVP of the NCAA Tournament. My son's a professional soccer player. I got all my mom's genes, you know, which are good genes, but they're pretty bad for sports. I had to let 19 balls hit me to even be able to play baseball at Akron. Probably I coach now because one of them hit me in the head."
As humorous as Dambrot can be, the bottom line is last year wasn't anywhere near good enough. For anyone. It was a miserable year for the coach, but also for Duquesne fans and anyone associated with the program.
So, the big question is: How will the Dukes bounce back this year?
Not very well, based on where they were picked in the preseason A10 poll.
Still, Dambrot talked about the the strategy of trying to make the roster better, and believes the program has done just that.
Of course, he laid that part out in a comical way, as well.
"I have a business background, I don't know if you guys knew that," he said. "I actually sold stocks and bonds. I have a master's in business. So, at some point when you analyze your business and it didn't go very well, we had to make some changes. We knew about at least two-thirds of the way through (last season) that we weren't very good. So, we we went out and we told our assistant coaches, 'Don't come to any games'" and just go recruit instead.
"We tried to get a jump on things and really tried to fix it three-fold.
"First, we wanted to get older in the backcourt because we played with those freshman guards last year. And then we wanted to have better depth in the frontcourt because we had the injuries in the frontcourt last year, and we we couldn't survive it. And then the third thing was we we wanted to get better passing the ball because our assist totals were, you can't get any worse. And then we wanted to shoot the ball better. So, we've pretty much fixed all of those problems."
The Dukes lost leading scorer Primo Spears and some others to the transfer portal, but they also added several quality players from the portal. Here's a look at four key newcomers via the transfer portal, with information from various school releases.
Tevin Brewer, a 5-8 grad transfer, started all 66 games in which he played in three seasons at FIU. He led the Panthers in scoring (15.2 ppg.), 3-pointers made (66-of-166, .398) and assists (169, 5.6 apg.) in a team-high 32.1 minutes per game in 2022. His 5.6 assists per game led Conference USA and ranked 15th nationally last season. His 2.01 assist-to-turnover ratio also led the conference. He played two years of junior college ball prior to enrolling at FIU.
"Tevin was a must for us," Dambrot said. "He has shown outstanding scoring ability, not only at FIU, but also in junior college. He plays with a chip on his shoulder because of his size, but he can bench press 265 pounds. In addition to his scoring, he has consistently posted good assist and efficiency numbers. We are looking for him to step in a provide leadership to our team."
Tre Clark III, who played in 33 games at VCU in 2019-20 and 2020-21, helped lead 31-5 Northwest Florida to the NJCAA National Championship last season. The 6-3 Georgia native led the Raiders in scoring (12.3 ppg.) and steals (74, 2.1/g.) and was second on the team in assists (118, 3.4/g.) and blocks (21).
"Tre has shown that he can play at a high level in the Atlantic 10," Dambrot said. "He's won a National Championship in junior college where he continued to improve. He's a defensive-minded guard with a diversified game. He should help our toughness level immensely."
Dae Dae Grant, a 6-guard who started every game (87 of a possible 87) in his three seasons at Miami, Ohio, scored 1,171 points (13.5 ppg.), made 165 3-pointers and handed out 247 assists (2.8 apg.) as a RedHawk. His 561 points in 2022 -- which included 11 20-point games -- was the tenth-highest single-season total in school history.
"Dae Dae played in a lot of games, and put up some very good numbers, in a very good league," said Dambrot. "We recruited him out of high school and we are very fortunate to have him join us this season. Guys from Northeast Ohio are usually pretty tough kids, and we anticipate he'll bring some of that toughness, to go along with his obvious skills, to our program."
Joe Reece (6-8), who played three seasons at Old Dominion before transferring to Bowling Green in 2021-22, is expected to provide veteran depth in a DU frontcourt that was riddled with injuries last season. The St. Louis native, who will be classified as a senior, brings 631 points and 358 rebounds in 83 career Division I games to the Dukes' roster.
"I expect Joe to be a real asset in the frontcourt," Dambrot said. "He's a talented, athletic forward with a very solid all-around game who can score, rebound and defend."
Brewer is out for a while after undergoing an appendectomy, but Dambrot said he hopes to have him back for the start of the season.
As for the transfers' potential impact, the coach said this Thursday:
"We got really old in the backcourt with Tevin Brewer and Dae Dae Grant, and then we also got Tre Clark who had been at VCU, so we feel like we really fixed a lot of those problems and also fixed our systems because Grant and Brewer combined had more assists than our whole team did last year.
"And then in the frontcourt, we got guys back No. 1 in (Austin) Rotroff and RJ Gunn. But we also got Joe Reece, who had played a million games at Old Dominion and Bowling Green. And then we we signed two big young ones, too. So, we have seven guys over 6-7, so we're much bigger and stronger."
