Adam Lindner | Staff Writer
August 22, 2019
On Aug. 15, Duquesne revealed its 2019-20 men’s basketball non-conference slate, complete with trips to the Bahamas, St. Petersburg, Fla. and Cleveland, among others. In all, the Dukes will play 12 non-league contests prior to the start of Atlantic 10 play.
With the team’s on-campus arena undergoing extensive renovations, the Dukes will play the majority of their home contests at La Roche University’s Kerr Fitness Center this season. While the team’s first game of the season will be played at PPG Paints Arena on Nov. 5, four other games will be played at La Roche’s McCandless Township campus.
Duquesne opens the new season against Ivy League member Princeton on Tuesday, Nov. 5. The game will be played as part of a double-header alongside the Duquesne women’s basketball team at PPG Paints Arena.
Following a week-long turnaround, the Dukes will welcome the Lamar Cardinals to Kerr Fitness Center on Nov. 12, followed by a Nov. 15 date with 2019 NIT runner-up Lipscomb.
The team will then travel to Bimini, Bahamas, to compete in the Junkanoo Jam. Duquesne will face off against Indiana State (Nov. 21), Air Force (Nov. 22) and Loyola Marymount (Nov. 24) in the tournament.
The mid-season trip to the Bahamas will be the second visit to the island for the Dukes in a matter of months. In early August, the team embarked on a preseason tour of the Bahamas, playing games in Nassau against Raw Talent Elite on Aug. 7 and Abaco Elite on Aug. 9.
Once the Dukes return from the Bahamas, they’ll host VMI at Kerr Fitness Center on Dec. 4, followed by Columbia on Dec. 9. Duquesne topped VMI 77-61 on Nov. 14, 2017, and has never faced Columbia before.
For the second season in a row, Duquesne will face the Radford Highlanders in Akron, Ohio, with this season’s contest falling on Dec. 14 at Firestone High School. Last year, DU bested Radford 69-64 on Nov. 17 at Akron’s St. Vincent-St. Mary High School.
During the weekend of Dec. 21, the Dukes will face UAB and Austin Peay at the St. Pete Shootout in St. Petersburg, Fla., at Eckerd College.
To cap off the non-conference portion of its schedule, Duquesne will play Marshall at Cleveland’s Rocket Mortgage Fieldhouse on Dec. 29 in the Cleveland Classic. The game serves as the second of two games at the Fieldhouse that day, with the Ohio State Buckeyes playing against the West Virginia Mountaineers at 12 p.m. The Duquesne-Marshall game is set for a 2:30 p.m. tip-off time.
The Dukes beat Marshall, the 2019 CIT champion, at Palumbo Center on Dec. 5, 2018, by a score of 93-82. Michael Hughes led Duquesne in scoring with 20 points that evening.
In all, Duquesne will face seven non-conference opponents coming off of 20-win seasons in 2019-20. Notably, Lipscomb won 29 games en route to an NIT Championship appearance in 2019. Lipscomb fell to Texas in the title game.
