It’s been an interesting offseason for Duquesne Basketball regarding roster transactions. In the backcourt, the team lost leading scoring guard Tre Dinkins to George Washington, while three-year rotation guard and leader Kareem Rozier left for Winthrop this offseason. Plus, Maximus Edwards, who was second on the team in scoring at 8.3 ppg, opted to enter the portal.
The Dukes added two guards to replace the lost firepower, including landing Tarence Guinyard (16.3 ppg at UT-Martin) and Jimmie Williams, who produced 7.5 ppg on 40% shooting from deep at South Florida this past season. The team has plenty of capable scorers with Cam Crawford back and Jake DiMichele returning from injury.
Yet, it turns out that one more guard is back for Duquesne.
There’s no better way to explain the first year of the Edwards era at Duquesne than “up and down”. After coming over from GW as a double-digit scorer, the belief was that he’d be a key part of the Dukes' offseason. But he had as rough an opening month to the year as possible, shooting under 20% from the field and ultimately getting benched and nearly out of the rotation before the start of Atlantic 10 play.
Yet Edwards was able to carve a needed role on the team off the bench, giving them instant offense. When facing his old team at GW, the junior guard scored a season-high 22 points, followed by 17 against St. Bonaventure.
The rest of the year included those same ups and downs, though Edwards did end the season averaging 16.3 ppg in the final four games, making 10/25 (40%) from three-point range. One of the things that separates Edwards from the rest of the Dukes’ backcourt is his high ceiling of production, with five games of at least 17 points.
Edwards return gives them depth on the perimeter, and the 6’5 guard can allow returning wing Jakub Necas to slide to the four-spot, the current biggest question mark among the positions. If you remove the first month of last season, Edwards had a solid campaign with the Dukes. If the last few games were an indication of what he can do going forward, Duquesne’s biggest offseason “get” could be getting him back.