Clark comes up big in finale
Dukes will enter A-10 tournament as the sixth seed
The Duquesne men’s basketball team closed out the regular season with everyone on the edge of their seats on Saturday. After trading leads with George Washington all game, it came down to two freethrows.
Jimmy Clark III showed out all game, but his shots from the charity stripe to win 67-65 will go down in the history books — literally. The first free throw marked his 1,000th career point; he made these con done for good measure, giving the Revolutionaries just 2.9 seconds to score.
“I knew how many points I needed, but I didn’t even look at the scoreboard,” Clark said. “I was just locked in on making those free throws. But God works in mysterious ways. It’s crazy.”
Clark led the team from start to finish, scoring 12 points in the first half alone. He made two 3-pointers back to back and had an accidental alley-oop after missing a layup. David Dixon was there to finish it with a dunk. But the Dukes never got higher than an eight-point lead in the first half and settled for a 34-30 lead at the break at UPMC Cooper-Field house.
George Washington (15-16, 4-14 Atlantic 10) came out in the second half hot with Jacoi Hutchinson hitting a 3- pointer to make it a one-point game. Babatunde Akingbola followed that up with a dunk to take the lead for the Revolutionaries. The two teams traded leads for the rest of the game with neither getting an advantage larger than five points.
“They were making shots,” Dixon said. “They were guarding really well on defense. We’re used to that type of thing. ... So we’re doing the things that we’re usually doing — working hard, playing hardand defending. We’re not really worried about if a team’s making shots because we know that at the end of the day, we’re going to stick to our principles.”
The Dukes (20-11, 10-8) had just a two-point lead when
George Washington’s James Bishop IV made a layup with 45 seconds remaining. Dae Dae Grant missed a layup to take the lead, but after a video review, the ball stayed with Duquesne. With 11 seconds left, Clark drove toward the bucket and was fouled. He made the free throws to give Duquesne its 20th win of the season.
“I’m not going to apologize for winning games like this because they’re tough games,” Duquesne coach Keith Dambrot said. ”I’m certainly not going to diminish a 20-win season because people think it’s easy to get 20 wins, but it isn’t. It’s hard to get 20 wins, and we played a difficult schedule. I’m proud of our guys’ resiliency and their toughness.”
Key stat
Despite not making a field goal in the second half until there was 3:49 left, Clark had 10 points in the second half — six of which came from the free-throw line. He finished with 22 points on 7-for-18 shooting. He also added four steals, three assists and two rebounds.
“I thought he was a little disjointed early, especially defensively,” Dambrot said. “I thought he settled in pretty good. We took him out early just to try to get his feet back on the ground. But Jimmy is a competitor.He’s been through a lot, too. He’s had to battle to getto this point.”
Quotable
Duquesne started the conference season 0-5 but went 103 to close out Atlantic 10 play. The win against George Washington marked back-toback 20-win seasons for the Dukes.
“Everything hard is good for you,” Dambrot said. “Anything easy usually isn’t good for you. And that goes all the way into life, basketball. Anything you have to work for, that you earn is always good foryou.”
Up next
The Dukes head to Brooklyn, N.Y., for the Atlantic 10 tournament. The first round begins Tuesday, with the championship game on March 17. Duquesne will be a No. 6 seed and will start in the second round on Wednesday. They’ll play the winner of Saint Louis vs. Rhode Island.