After winning the Atlantic 10 Tournament and ending the NCAA Tournament drought, Duquesne Basketball will have more attention to them this time around. It starts on Monday, hosting ASUN preseason favorite, Lipscomb.
Here's a look at three keys to the matchup on the Duke's side.
1. Who will start for the Dukes?
What makes opening night so interesting for Duquesne is that we have no clue what the lineups and rotations are going to look like for them. They return six rotation pieces from last season, while also adding six transfers. Five of them were starters at their previous teams. Center Dixon and George Washington transfer Maxmius Edwards are the safest bets to start but the other spots are up for grabs. Could this team play 10+ guys on opening night?
2. Defending Will Pruitt
Lipscomb has a few new pieces of its own, but they return one of the better mid-major players in the country in Will Pruitt, a 6’2 guard who averaged 15.1 ppg, 6.0 rpg, and 3.1 apg, on very efficient shooting numbers of 50% FG and 43% from three-point range. Duquesne was one of the top defensive units in the A-10 last season, thanks to guards Tre Clark and Dae Dae Grant. With them gone, will the Dukes be able to stop quality players such as Pruitt from going off?
3. Offensive growth
The defensive efforts and winning the A-10 Tournament masked that Duquesne Basketball was quietly a bad offensive unit, ranking in the bottom 2 in most offensive categories. If the defense slips, the offense needs to improve, or else things can get dicey in Coach Dru Joyce’s first season.
You don’t want to have shootouts every night, either, so a nice balance is needed. Will that depend on certain lineups to make it work? It’s a major storyline to see how different this group looks compared to the Coach Keith Dambrot era.