Duquesne on quest to fulfill Keith Dambrot's vision of 20-victory season

When Keith Dambrot was convincing Marcus Weathers to transfer from Miami (Ohio) to Duquesne two years ago, his sales pitch did the trick.

“The deciding factor was coach Dambrot’s vision,” said Weathers, who turned down College of Charleston to enroll at Duquesne. “He had a real clear-cut vision for what he saw in this program. He saw this program winning 20 games numerous years.”

With six games remaining in the regular season, the Dukes (18-6, 8-4) will have a chance to reach the cusp of 20 victories when they meet George Washington (11-14, 5-7) on Wednesday night at PPG Paints Arena. A victory would give the Dukes 19 victories in consecutive seasons for the first time since 1972. When Dambrot was at Akron, his Zips teams averaged 23.5 victories per season over 13 years.

Duquesne has won three of four in February and sits in fifth place in the Atlantic 10.

After Duquesne lost three in a row to end January, Dambrot said the 59-54 victory Sunday at Fordham was a sign of maturity. The Dukes won while shooting less than 38% from the field.

“We grinded it out. We didn’t let poor shooting affect our mindset to how to win the game,” he said.

That was encouraging, but Dambrot prefers not putting his team’s mindset to the test.

“I hope the ball goes into the basket so we don’t have to put ourselves through that mental anguish,” he said.

An important ingredient will be junior guard Tavian Dunn-Martin’s 3-point shooting. He has hit 10 of 23 from beyond the arc in the past two games and stands seventh in the Atlantic 10 (2.4 per game) and 15th in shooting percentage (37.3).

“Tavian can go bang, bang, bang, bang,” Dambrot said. “If he goes bang, bang, bang three games, then we go bang, bang, bang.”

Dambrot likes the way his team has been practicing, giving him the sense it hasn’t played its best basketball.

“We have some good attributes,” he said. “We just haven’t put it all together yet. We just have to play a couple good games and then try to figure out how to play our best when the (Atlantic 10) tournament comes (March 11-15).”

The George Washington game will be the first of a doubleheader with the Duquesne women’s team (16-9, 6-6). The women’s game against Rhode Island starts at 5:30 p.m.