The No. 5 Duquesne Dukes face the No. 9 seed No. 12 Rice Owls at 1 p.m. EDT on Sunday in the College Basketball Invitational at Ocean Center in Daytona Beach, Florida. Duquesne is 20-12 and went 10-8 in the Atlantic 10. Rice is 18-15 but finished below .500 in Conference USA at 8-12
Some of the Duquesne’s bigger wins this season came against VCU, DePaul, Rhode Island, George Mason, Saint Joseph's and CBI No. 1 seed Indiana State. The Dukes beat the Sycamores, 92-86, at home in December. Duquesne opened the season by going 10-3 against nonconference opponents but started 4-5 in conference play. The Dukes then won four games in a row before losing four of their last six to end the season.
Dae Dae Grant is Duquesne’s top scorer with 15.1 points per game. He makes 37.7% of his three-point attempts, of which takes an average of 6.9 a game. Grant also averages 4.6 rebounds, 2.5 assists and 1.2 steals a game. Jimmy Clark III has scored 12.2 ppg along with averaging 4.0 rebounds, 2.5 assists and 2.4 steals per contest. Austin Rotroff leads the team in rebounding with 5.0 per game, and Tevin Brewer is tops with 3.3 assists per game.
Rice was 15-5 after a 65-63 win over Charlotte on Jan. 19, but would get just three more victories over the final 13 games of the season. The top teams the Owls lost to during that stretch were Alabama-Birmingham, North Text and Florida Atlantic.
Quincy Olivari leads Rice in scoring with 18.8 points per game. He makes 37.2% of his three-point attempts and launches 7.3 from beyond the arc a game. Olivari also averages 5.9 rebounds, 2.3 assists and 1.1 steals per game. Max Fiedler is the Owls’ to rebounder with 7.4 an outing. He also leads the team with 5.1 assists and 1.1 blocks per game. Fiedler is third on the team in scoring at 10.7 ppg while making 72.8% of his shots.
