Duquesne G Kailon Nicholls Set to Transfer From Program

Duquesne basketball will lose their first player from the program on transfer this offseason, as freshman guard Kailon Nicholls entered his name into the portal on Thursday.

Nicholls played one season for the Dukes, playing in nine games, starting none in a reserve role, averaging 1.0 points, 0.9 assists and 0.6 rebounds per game, respectively. He saw the most game action in the win against NAIA side Cleary on Dec. 30 with 16 minutes, while his season high in points came in the A-10 opener loss to UMass on Jan. 3, as he made a 3-pointer.

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Nicholls is Canadian and hails from Toronto, but played high school basketball for Hargrave Military Academy, a private, all-male boarding school in Chatham, Va. in the southern part of the state.

The 6-foot guard averaged 16.9 points, 4.5 rebounds, 5.9 assists and 2.3 steals per game in his senior season, leading his school to a 44-2 record. He also shot 58.2% from the field and 39.8% from 3-point range to earn Second Team All-American honors from Next Up Recruits. Nicholls also played AAU travel basketball for Toronto NuStep Ballers.

Fellow freshman Jake DiMichele emerged as a starter for Duquesne throughout the season, even as a walk-on. He started 22 games of the 31 throughout the season, shooting 45.3% from the field, 29.3% from behind the arc and 62.1% from the foul line, respectively. DiMichele also averaged 6.4 points, 2.5 rebounds and 0.9 rebounds per game, respectively, along with 23.1 minutes played per game as well.

DiMichele receiving close to starter minutes for Duquesne and moving ahead of the depth chart of a scholarship player, make two reasons for Nicholls choosing to leave the program.

Duquesne head coach Keith Dambrot also retired at the end of this season after spending seven at the helm. He capped off his coaching career by winning the A-10 Tournament, just the second in program history and first since 1977, along with a win in the NCAA Tournament over No. 6 BYU in the First Round, the first win in the Tournament for Duquesne since 1969.

Dukes associate head coach Dru Joyce III is now the new head coach of the program, his first head coaching job. With so many players graduating in guards like Dae Dae Grant and Jimmy Clark III, along with forwards in Tre Williams, Dusan Mahorcic, Andrei Savrasov and both Hasan and Fousseyni Drame, Joyce will have to replace a lot of production from last season over this offseason.

The remaining scholarship guards on the roster for Duquesne from last season include rising junior Kareem Rozier and DiMichele. The freshman trio of Ethan Anish, Lucas Perusek and Seamus McDermott are all walk-ons. 

The Dukes do have an incoming freshman guard in Dom Aekins, who stands at 5-foot-8 and hails from Columbus, Ohio. They also have a junior college transfer guard in Brandon Hall, but he tore his ACL earlier this year and there is no time for his return yet.