Duquesne’s Keith Dambrot Approaching 500-Win Milestone in Coaching Career

Duquesne head coach Keith Dambrot is on the verge of reaching a huge college basketball coaching milestone, but he has not given a single thought to it just yet.

The Akron native has won 498 games in his college basketball head coaching career that began back in 1984 when he took over the Tiffin University basketball program.

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“When I retire, I’ll think about it,” Dambrot told Pittsburgh Sports Now on Thursday. “All that says is, I’ve coached a long time, a lot of years.”

Dambrot has served as head coach at Tiffin (1984-86), Ashland University (1989-91), Central Michigan (1991-93), Akron (2004-17), and now Duquesne (2017-present) in his career. He has led his teams to 16 20-win seasons, including a dominant run at Akron from 2005-2017 in which his Zips teams had 20+ wins every single year.

Dambrot was hired by Duquesne in March of 2017, and has since garnered an 85-79 record while leading the Dukes. His best season so far came in 2019-20, in which the Dukes went 21-9 behind Marcus Weathers, Sincere Carry, and others.

This year, he currently has the Dukes sitting at 14-8 on the season and 4-5 in Atlantic 10 play. Losing three of their last four, the Dukes have a chance to turn things around against George Washington this upcoming Saturday, Feb. 4.

“It’s all just mental outlook,” Dambrot said about the keys to finishing the season strong. “Making sure that we understand the importance of every day. I think everybody goes through the grind in late January, February, so, whoever decides to embrace the grind is going to be the winning teams, and the teams that improve from now until the postseason.”

The Dukes will tip off from Washington D.C. at 2 p.m. est on Saturday, Feb. 4 looking to get back in the win column. That game can be found on ESPN+.