Duquesne’s last game against Dayton knocked the Dukes men’s basketball team off track.

The Dukes (10-14, 5-6 Atlantic 10) see Saturday’s rematch as an opportunity to finally stay on track.

“They beat us so bad at home the last time, I am taking that personally,” forward Jakub Necas said Thursday on Fox Sports Pittsburgh 970. “I feel like if we beat Dayton, that will be the step in the right direction.”

There is no debating the nature of Dayton’s sound defeat of Duquesne in the first showdown. The Flyers won 82-62. They shot 58% from the floor and 56% from the 3-point arc. They outrebounded Duquesne, 32-25.

“We caught them at the wrong time,” coach Dru Joyce III said. “They came into our game, and they didn’t miss. I thought we contested some shots really well. But it didn’t matter. Everything went in.”

From that point, the Dukes lost their next four Atlantic 10 games as well, falling to 4-6 in conference play and 9-14 overall before last Saturday’s win against Loyola-Chicago.

Now that the Dukes have stopped the bleeding, they are hoping a second crack against the Flyers (17-8, 7-5) this weekend will result in some extended momentum.

“We have made some adjustments,” Joyce said. “In large part, it is still being able to attack the basket. We don’t shoot a lot of free throws. We don’t necessarily score a lot of points in the paint. Teams are playing to that tendency. We have to make sure we still attack the basket because it is going to open up other parts of our game.”

The season has been streaky for the Dukes. They were 0-6 to start the year. They won 4 of 5 to start A-10 play, then they endured that recent five-game slide.

After the win over the Ramblers on Saturday, guard Cam Crawford said the Dukes got back to some of the things they had been doing well before losing to Dayton the first time.

“We did do a good job of finishing the game down the stretch,” Crawford said. “Getting a stop and then going down and scoring at the other end. And playing the game without fouling. I thought we did a good job of that.”

At the very least, even if the Dukes can’t pull off the upset in Ohio, they at least want to avoid getting into any bad habits that may lead to an extended lull again. The next three games are winnable contests against Fordham, St. Bonaventure and La Salle. All three of those teams are behind Duquesne in the Atlantic 10 standings.

However, after that, Joyce’s team ends the regular season with a brutal stretch against George Mason, VCU and Saint Louis. Along with Dayton, those are the top four teams in the conference.

Everybody remembers last year’s magical run through the Atlantic 10 Tournament for the Dukes. However, that momentum actually started to build right about this time on the calendar.

The Dukes won six of their last seven games in the regular season to close out conference play before heading to Brooklyn.

It all started after a 75-59 loss at Dayton on Feb. 13 to drop them to 4-7 in A-10 action.

Joyce and his players would like to replicate that result in 2025.

Just … maybe starting it one game earlier.

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