Duquesne MBB Gets Road Win Highlighted By Dinkins III’s Career Night

As per its tradition since the John E. Glaser Arena, La Salle fans remain standing until its Explorers make a basket, something which the Duquesne Men’s Basketball Team ensured took until nearly the first media timeout.

Duquesne put a damper on the celebration for La Salle coach Fran Dunphy who was coaching in his 1,000th career contest and announced his intention to retire at season’s end. It was the Dukes who led wire-to-wire and outlasted the Explorers 67-62 Wednesday night.

“In order to be a team, you’ve got to be able to celebrate your brothers, even when things aren’t going right for you yourself,” Duquesne coach Dru Joyce III explained after the win. “We’ve always got to remember to celebrate each other. If your teammate went out and played his butt off, give him joy, give him love because you’re going to want the same thing in return. Tonight was an occasion where Eli (Wilborn) stepped up, usually Dave (Dixon) closes games out for us and he has all season, but Eli had it rolling. Dave was there to support him and that’s all you can ask for. Guys staying bought in and locked into the game and being willing to even when they don’t have it going, to make sure they give the right type of joy to their teammate.”

Tre Dinkins III might have had the best game of his career as he recorded 12 points and a career-high 10 points, good for his first-ever double-double.

“I challenged Tre before the game a lot defensively too,” revealed Joyce. “I hadn’t liked his defensive effort in the past few games, I thought it was spotty at times. It wasn’t that he didn’t decide to play, I thought he was choosing his spots. I put some numbers in front of him and told him ‘you’ve got to meet these numbers defensively tonight.’ I won’t share the categories, but I love his purpose and intent to that side of the ball. It really set the tone for us and offensively he’s paced us all season and tonight another good floor game from him.”

Duquesne (12-16/7-8 Atlantic 10) was led by Cam Crawford’s 15 points, which came on six shots. Both Eli Wilborn and a returning Jakub Necas each recorded 10 points.

As a team, the Dukes had 18 assists on 24 made baskets. La Salle made 17 baskets as a team.

La Salle (12-16/4-11 A-10) was led by both Deuce Jones and Corey McKeithan, each of whom scored 14 points, Daeshon Shepherd chimed in with 12 points. The Explorers shot 82.1% from the free throw line.

Early on, Duquesne set the tone as Wilborn exposed a crack in La Salle’s defense. An aware Dinkins lobbed and alley-oop his way and the finish opened a 12-0 run.

The run was bookended by Matus Hronsky finding Crawford for a similar result, although this dunk included a foul. Crawford completed the three-point play at the line.

Crawford welcomed the return to play from the under-16 media timeout with a basket, but Duquesne would fail to score for a 4:27 stretch, during which time La Salle scored six points to get back into the game.

Dinkins would find Kareem Rozier for an open corner three which snapped the drought.

La Salle cut its deficit to one point in the later stretches of the first quarter, before Dinkins buried a long-distance three pointer as the shot clock was set to expire.

The Explorers beat the buzzer, but it was Duquesne on top 28-25 at halftime.

An early La Salle basket again placed the teams a point apart once again before the Dukes created some separation with post scores in consecutive possessions.

In total, a 10-2 Duquesne run once again restored the lead to double digits.

The Dukes led by 12 points with 6:19 remaining when La Salle scored seven in a row. The Explorers would twice cut the contest to a single point, the second time being with 1:40 left, but a Wilborn dunk created enough separation for the stretch run.

Duquesne returns to the UPMC Cooper Fieldhouse for a 2 p.m. contest Saturday against George Mason, in a game carried by both ESPN+ and SportsNet Pittsburgh.