ALTOONA, Pa. -- The Atlantic 10 Tournament kicks off Thursday for Duquesne and the Dukes will be seeing a familiar foe in their second round match-up against Richmond.
An 11:00 am tip on NBCSN lies ahead of Duquesne and as many know with March now here, anything can happen and it's already led to the first surprise for Dukes head coach Keith Dambrot who wasn't quite expecting to play the Spiders.
"I was a little bit surprised. I really didn't think about Richmond during this whole process," Dambrot said Tuesday while meeting with the media. "I was really thinking it was going to be Dayton or maybe St. Louis, but I'd never thought in a million years it would be Richmond."
For Dambrot and Duquesne, the opponent isn't something that matters especially at this time of the season. In fact, getting here was far from easy with two pauses due to Covid during conference play.
"It really doesn't matter," Dambrot said. "I just kind of go one opponent at a time. At this point of the year, usually you've played so many games that anything they throw at you, you can handle."
The No. 9 seeded Dukes are no stranger to the No. 8 seeded Spiders as the teams recently played Feb. 20 at Richmond. In that game, Duquesne overcame a 14-point second half deficit only to fall 79-72 in their first game after a 17-day layoff.
It was Michael Hughes who paced the Dukes in that game scoring 16 of his game-high 20 points in the second half. Marcus Weathers and Chad Baker also added 12 points a piece in a game that was sloppy at times and featured the Dukes getting away from their typically top-notch three point defense against the Spiders.
"When you play Richmond, you can't give up layups, and you can't give up threes," Dambrot said. "What I mean by that is their action gets them layups, the back door, the lack of concentration and then the three balls are generally transition or kickouts out of the post, or getting beat one on one."
The familiarity between the two is both a blessing and a curse this time of year with both teams knowing what each team will do and when. With that said, it's going to come down to discipline and which team outworks the other to come out on top, something the Dukes were not very good at in their previous meeting.
"We've worked hard against what they've done for most of the year so it's just a matter of executing," Dambrot said. "We know what they're going to do, they know what we're going to do. Who's going to play better now? We just have to have the right mindset, the right discipline, play the right way."
Since returning to action, the defensive end of the court where Duquesne was once strong has now become a source of weakness for the Dukes. That typically doesn't bode well for success this time of the year and it's shown in Duquesne's 1-2 record since returning to the court.
"We have to play better defensively than we had the last three games in order to win the game," Dambrot said. "You have to care about that end. If you don't care about that end, then certainly you're not going to play very good defensively."
The Dukes are going to have to bring it much earlier than usual with an 11:00 am start time, something Duquesne is used to for practices which Dambrot thinks will be a strength to start the tournament.
"The good thing for us is we practice in the mornings so we're used to playing early," Dambrot said. "The only thing I don't like is you don't get that extra walk-through. You have to to your walk-through the night before, I don't really like that. Other than that, we're more used to playing at that time than probably anybody in the country. We're just finishing up usually at that time."
When playing at its best Duquesne is one of the better teams in the Atlantic 10 despite a record that might say otherwise. The Dukes managed to play 14 conference games as a result of their stoppages and the inconsistencies in playing resulted in their up and down performance during the regular season. Now with the stoppages behind the program, can Duquesne make a run in the tournament and potentially earn a berth in the NCAA Tournament for the first time in school history? It's not entirely out of the realm of possibility.
"I think it's been such a weird year. It's hard to judge," Dambrot said. "I think we'll compete hard, I do. Now, when we get hit in the mouth will we compete hard? That's going to be the biggest thing. Generally, when we play good teams in good environments, for the four years I've been here, for the most part have played as hard they could play."
It's going to take four of the best games in program history for the Dukes to make their run and to do so it's going to take something Duquesne hasn't been the best at recently: discipline.
"Do we have enough discipline to play four good games?" Dambrot said. "Do you have enough endurance to play four good games?"
The first step starts Thursday, where the Dukes end up after tomorrow is up to them.
