If you are looking for the best basketball team right now in the city of Pittsburgh, you might not have to look any further than the Duquesne women.
Under head coach Dan Burt’s guidance, the Dukes are sitting at 18-8, 10-3 in the Atlantic-10, which is good for third place right now.
Even more impressive is that following a 58-51 victory over Richmond on Wednesday night at the Palumbo Center, the Dukes are riding a seven-game win streak.
Prior to the season, Burt told me he had some goals in mind for this current team.
“We’ve played in the postseason for six consecutive years, but we have never made the NCAA Tournament,” said Burt. “That’s always the goal right there. We have been squarely on the bubble the past few years and we want to be a tournament team and compete for a championship. There are other goals like continuing the 20-win streak, finding pro opportunities for our seniors and keeping our staff intact.”
Most of those goals are within reach for the Dukes, especially winning 20-plus games for a seventh consecutive season.
The Dukes have also made the postseason six consecutive years, a streak that will without a doubt reach seven this March.
The only question is weather or not Duquesne will make their first ever NCAA Tournament.
That is something that is realistically within reach for Burt’s team, although they likely have a little bit of work left to do.
Currently ESPN’s Bracketology has the Dukes among the nation’s first eight teams left out of of the “Big Dance” but with a strong finish to the regular season it will be hard to keep Duquesne out.
If the Dukes finish up by beating Rhode Island at home on Saturday, where Duquesne has won nine consecutive games, and defeat both St. Joes and St. Bonaventure to finish the season, one has to believe that a Duquesne team that could finish 13-3 in the conference would be NCAA Tournament worthy.
If anything, Duquesne should be in position to only need a win or two in the A-10 Tournament to get in.
This is the third straight year Duquesne has won 10-or-more Atlantic 10 Conference games. Hopefully that will be enough to hear there names called when the brackets are released in March.
Photo Credit: Duquesne University
