Duquesne Basketball: 5 takeaways from first 10 games of 2021-22 season

Lack of depth is apparent in most games

When it comes to the overall rotation for Duquesne, they’ve played around 7-8 guys a night. There are three players (Kevin Easley, Tre Williams, and Primo Spears) that have started all 10 games and leads them in minutes. Leon Ayers had a rough stretch to start the season, prompting him to come off the bench for a bit. But since he’s re-established himself as a key offensive option in the past couple of weeks, including an A-10 Player of the Week Award.

The rest of the players that gets minutes aren’t nearly the offensive threats. Both Tyson Acuff and Tobi Okani have been in and out of the lineup, largely depending on the size of the opposing linueps. Both provide around 4-8 points in a given night but are more known for their defense at this stage.

Freshman guard Jackie Johnson has the season-high for anyone on Duquesne with 27 points against Weber State off the bench. But he’s averaging just 5.6 ppg in the other nine games and has struggled with turning the ball over. There have been lineups with him and Spears on the court together but at 5’10, there are some potential size issues in the backcourt.

There are three others that get sporadic minutes in grad assistant turned player Davis Larson, defensive specialist Mike Bekelja and big man Austin Rotroff. None of these three provides much offensively and the 6’11 Rotroff has been battling injuries since the preseason. But he’s the only rotation player bigger than 6’8 and when he’s off the court, the team is relying on 6’7 forwards to get rebounds in crunch time, which has proved disastrous when it matters.

Not only is Rotroff not 100% but 6’7 forward Rodney Gunn has played just four minutes all season, battling an ankle injury. He would’ve added size and shooting in the frontcourt to give Williams and Easley a break and if nothing else, added more spacing. But there’s a chance he may be out for the season if the ankle doesn’t get better.

There just isn’t an ideal lineup for the Dukes that either has offensively-challenged players or is too small to avoid getting crushed on the boards. It’s almost “pick your poison” for Coach Dambrot when picking a lineup that has a clear weakness. But they aren’t getting any bigger going forward so they’ll have to figure something out that works.