As the Duquesne Dukes men’s basketball team enters the 2025-26 campaign, things look significantly different on the bluff. They return four starters from last year in David Dixon, Jakub Nečas, Cam Crawford and Maximus Edwards. While this is great for second-year Head Coach Dru Joyce III, it doesn’t exactly make things easier.
This is because there are 8 newcomers to this Dukes squad, including Brandon Hall and Alex Williams, transfers from last year who missed the entire season due to injury. When you put it all together, it makes for a ton of interesting storylines to see unfold throughout an important season of Dukes basketball.
Crowded Backcourt
The Dukes frontcourt is once again the most interesting part of their team. There are a boatload of guys who a lot of people can see making their impact early and often throughout the non-conference portion of the schedule. Jimmie Williams started his career off at the JUCO level, then played a year at South Florida, scoring over 7 points a game. Dukes fans might be reminded of Jimmy Clark III, a star on the 2023-24 A-10 Championship team who also went the JUCO route. Williams scored 20 in the exhibition game against Virginia Tech a couple weeks ago, so he is already making his case to Coach Joyce to receive playing time this year.
Another standout is Tarence Guinyard, a transfer from UTM (University of Tennessee at Martin). He started 28 of the 32 games last season and netted 16.3 PPG to go along with All-OVC First Team honors. The senior Guinyard should be able to make an immediate impact with the Dukes.
Returning pieces like Maximus Edwards and Cam Crawford also cannot be overlooked in the frontcourt. Edwards ended the 2024-25 season on a high note, scoring double digits in the A-10 Tournament loss to St. Bonaventure. Cam Crawford led the entire conference in three-point field goal percentage at a 43.1% clip.
Second Year of the Joyce Era
After one year of the Joyce Era, Duquesne suffered some losses early on in the transfer portal. They lost Kareem Rozier, Eli Wilborn and Tre Dinkins III. But, they snuck in towards the end of the portal and acquired pieces like Williams, Guinyard and the big fella Hugley IV.
Dukes fans will want to see an improvement in the consistency aspect of things, with some emphasis on avoiding a disastrous start to non-conference play like last year. They went 5-9 in non-conference play last season. Another trend they want to see turned around is their 2-8 record on the road.
Joyce saw the biggest issue of them all, though, and that was the lack of offense, which he did acknowledge at media day in September when discussing the outlook of his team this year.
“We’ll still carry the same defensive intensity,” Joyce noted. “But for all my Duquesne supporters and row of media here that turn up at every game and after every game, they know we’ve had our struggles offensively. And that was a huge thing for me to accept and also try to build a better version of.”
With the additions listed above, it is clear that he took that seriously in the portal.
Non-Conference Schedule Outlook
Duquesne’s non-conference schedule is relatively weak in comparison to years past. This can be a positive and negative though obviously. It is a positive in the sense that the Dukes can get off to a winning start easily and that always helps morale. But the negative is going forward, they might not be as battle tested as other teams in the A-10.
Their two biggest tests will undoubtedly be Boise State and Nevada on December 10th and 13th, respectively. Their average opponent KenPom ranking is 182.5, and that number is heavily carried by Nova and Boise State.
Nonetheless, the Dukes look set to get off to a hot start in the win column, here is how I see things shaking out in the next two months:
Non-Conf Prediction:
vs Niagara: W
vs Queens: W
@ Villanova: L
vs Loyola-Maryland: W
vs Northeastern: W
vs Central State: W
vs William & Mary: W
vs Stony Brook: W
@ Boise State: L
@ Nevada: L
vs Canisius: W
vs Cleary: W
