Maceo Austin leaves Duquesne's basketball team
Maceo Austin, who came to Duquesne in 2019 after leading Kennedy Catholic to four consecutive PIAA championships and then started 29 games as a freshman, has left the Dukes for the second time.
Austin, a 6-foot-5 guard, did not play for six weeks from Jan. 9 until Feb. 20 last season after taking a leave of absence for personal reasons. During that time, he remained in school, did well academically and practiced with the team.
Austin’s mother and sister have died in recent years.
“The big thing for me is I like Maceo,” Duquesne coach Keith Dambrot said, “and I want to make sure we support him academically and help him have a good life.”
Austin, 20, was one of the most highly recruited players to join Duquesne men’s basketball in recent seasons.
In 2019-20, he was only the second player under Dambrot to start the first game of his freshman season. He averaged seven points and four rebounds as a freshman, but played in only nine games last season, scoring a total of 26 points.
At Kennedy Catholic, he scored 1,971 career points — second in school history — and was named Class 6A first-team all-state in 2018-19. He was nationally ranked by 247Sports as the No. 43 shooting guard in the nation.
He chose Duquesne over scholarship offers from Northwestern, Penn State and VCU.
Jerry DiPaola is a TribLive reporter covering Pitt athletics since 2011. A Pittsburgh native, he joined the Trib in 1993, first as a copy editor and page designer in the sports department and later as the Pittsburgh Steelers reporter from 1994-2004. He can be reached at jdipaola@triblive.com.
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