OMAHA, Neb. -- History was realized Sunday when Duquesne locked in its first NCAA Tournament bid for the first time in 47 seasons.
The area surrounding UPMC Cooper Fieldhouse Tuesday was packed with red and blue as the Dukes were sent off to Omaha for a taste of March Madness, a task that at one point felt unachievable. The program endured records at or below .500 in 31 of the 40 seasons in between that NCAA Tournament run in 1977 and the end of the 2017 season, and half of the eight coaches who succeeded John Cinicola never experienced a winning record during that stretch.
That's when Keith Dambrot brought a proven philosophy to the program. It took some time to build -- and, later, rebuild -- but Dambrot ultimately achieved what he set out to give this program, just as he did three times at Akron. This will be his final run with it, but his players are content with allowing for more history to come by with this NCAA Tournament run. It begins Thursday when the 11th-seeded Dukes oppose sixth-seeded BYU at 12:40 p.m. at the CHI Center in Omaha.
"I don't think the emotions have sunken in for me all the way yet on the history aspect of us accomplishing that goal, winning that (A-10) championship," Dae Dae Grant said Wednesday at the CHI Health Center. "But I'm sure it will hit later on down the line when we just look back onto the moment and just elaborate on it."
Added backcourt mate Jimmy Clark III: "Yeah, I'll say the same. For the sendoff, it was definitely emotional for everybody, being able to be a part of something and be a part of history. So, that was good for us."
The last time the Dukes reached the NCAA Tournament, on March 12, 1977, the world was a different place. "Evergreen" by Barbra Streisand was at the top of the music charts in the United States. "Rocky" was the top hit in the box office. Jumpsuits were set to explode in the fashion world. "Star Wars" was still two months away from being released. Elvis Presley and John Lennon were still alive and making music.
A different world. A different time. A different tone for the Dukes' program.
Dambrot changed all of it. Years of this program toiling to get nowhere has been undone, just as Dambrot set out to do. His time at Akron was spent doing the same, as he took the Zips from 15 years of mediocrity and turned them into one of the most respected and power-house mid-major programs in the nation.
There is more meaning to this turnaround for Dambrot, though. The importance of this run is not lost on the big picture for a program where his dad, the late Sid Dambrot, played for three seasons and was a major part of some of Duquesne's all-time teams.
"I have a little different perspective," Dambrot said. "I'm just happy for the city, for Duquesne and their donors and the alumni and the school and the board of trustees, and especially the president and the athletic director because Duquesne has been investing in basketball for a while now and hasn't had any results. At some point that gets old and discouraging and self-fulfilling. You want to quit or drop basketball or you want to get out of the A-10 or the A-10 doesn't want you. Thank God (A-10 Commissioner) Bernadette (McGlade) wasn't like that.
"It's just nice to know that when they invested in the gutting the arena and all the money they put into the program that they got some results out of it. I didn't really view it as much for me or even for the players, although it's an unbelievable deal for both of us, but just for all the ghosts of not being able to play in the NCAA Tournament for 5,000 years."
Or, for 47 years. But Dambrot's point stands.
There is a bigger picture to associate with this benchmark, and especially since Dambrot is retiring following the conclusion of this run. The players are all-in on extending Dambrot's line of work.
"In terms of Coach D retiring, I think it kind of gives us another incentive to win this game because we want to send him out in the right way," McKees Rocks native and Dukes walk-on Jake DiMichele said. "He's never won an NCAA Division I tournament game. So we want to get that for him.
Added Clark: "Definitely, I'll say the same, honestly. Being able to be a part of this winning culture and be able to do something that we never have done, especially with coach, it's good, especially being on this level at the Division I level being able to win."
Regardless of who Dambrot's successor is, they will inherit a program that is in a far better position than it was in when Dambrot inherited it. In a college basketball world where NIL and the transfer portal are giving the players more say than ever, Dambrot stuck to what works. He built a team that is fundamentally sound on defense and played the game in a calculated way on offense. He found players using these new tools to fit his way, like All-A-10 players Grant and Clark, and rounded out the roster with quality depth.
The Dukes won 21 games in the 2019-'20 season and was positioned to do damage in that A-10 Tournament before the COVID-19 pandemic canceled the remainder of it. Then, the Dukes put together a 9-9 record in a shortened 2020-'21 season before an exodus came. One of the biggest losses was Sincere Carry, who became a Mid-American Conference Player of the Year at Kent State. Dambrot also lost his four top scorers from that team. The Dukes went 6-24 in a forgettable 2021-'22 season.
That's when Grant and Clark arrived from the transfer portal and David Dixon and Kareem Rozier arrived as true freshmen. That core helped the Dukes to a 20-13 record last season, and that core along with DiMichele and La Salle transfer Fousseyni Drame continued to keep things rolling this season.
"I would say this is definitely the pay-out that we deserve. I feel like this is what we deserve," Clark said. "This is what we came here for as well. Just being able to come here and with different styles of play and being able to connect with these guys coming from different schools, and a lot of us were much older. So sometimes that can be a bad thing, but sometimes it can be a good thing as well with the maturity. So I feel like the maturity part played out to our favor and helped us get to this point."
Added Grant: "We do deserve this moment, although the process of getting here was the -- I feel like the process of us accomplishing that championship and just getting here is not the end, but it is what built us and our program, our team throughout these two years to just become what we are right now. We're just living in the moment, but we're not finished in the mindset as well."
