Duquesne Surprises Everyone Winning the Atlantic 10 Conference Tournament
Yesterday afternoon the Duquesne Dukes shocked the college basketball world as they defeated the VCU Rams 57-51 to win the Atlantic 10 Conference Championship at Barclays Center in Brooklyn, NY. The Dukes' appearance in this year’s NCAA tournament will break their 47-year tournament drought as it will be their first time going to the tournament since they last won the Atlantic 10 Conference Championship way back in 1977 when they beat Villanova 57-54 and their sixth NCAA tournament appearance in school history (1940, 1952, 1969, 1971, 1977, 2024). Duquesne’s last NCAA tournament win happened when they won two games in 1969 when they defeated Saint Joseph’s 74-52 in the first round and St. Johns 75-72 in the regional third-place game, so they will without a doubt be doing everything they can this year to bring home the school’s long-awaited fifth-ever NCAA tournament win. Let’s take a look at how the Dukes won the Atlantic 10 Conference Championship!
From the opening top of this one, the game seemed to all be going Duquesne’s way as by the halfway mark of the first half they were up on the Rams 15-7. By the end of the first half, the Dukes had taken an even more commanding lead on VCU as they went into the locker room up fourteen points 36-22. By the halfway mark of the second half the Rams had trimmed Duquesne’s lead down to eight points 40-32. With nearly a minute and a half left in this one, VCU was one point away from completing a full comeback as they were only down 49-48 but unfortunately for them, a made bucket for the Dukes and two missed ones for the Rams would swing the momentum back in Duquesne’s favor as they held on to win this game. The Dukes impressively won this conference championship matchup shooting only 29.8% from the field and only having one player in double figures, Dae Dae Grant, with ten points.
As Duquesne heads into the 2024 NCAA tournament, it was announced last night they will be an eleven-seed and face off against six-seed BYU on Thursday afternoon in CHI Health Center Omaha in Omaha, NE. While the Dukes may have trouble keeping up with the Cougars being that they are statistically speaking a much better offensive team, Duquesne will have to have hope in the fact they are a better defensive team than BYU. The Dukes on average as a team this season have recorded 7.6 steals and 4.3 blocks a game. They are going to need to keep up this defensive intensity and get a big game from senior guard Dae Dae Grant, their best player who averages close to 17 points a night, if they want to win this one. Can the Dukes upset BYU and bring home an NCAA tournament win for the first time since 1969?
