Duquesne men’s basketball coach Keith Dambrot announces intent to retire at end of season

PITTSBURGH — One day after possibly the biggest win in his career at Duquesne, head basketball coach Keith Dambrot announced he’s retiring at the end of the year.

Duquesne won the Athletic 10 Conference Sunday as a 6th seed with a 57-51 win over VCU. That earned the Dukes an automatic bid to the NCAA Tournament. They’ll face BYU on Thursday at 12:40 p.m. in Omaha, Nebraska. It’s Duquesne’s first NCAA bid since 1977.

Dambrot took the head coaching job at Duquesne in 2017. In his second year, he led the Dukes to its first winning season in nearly a decade.

Dambrot’s relationship with Duquesne runs deep. His late father played there from 1952 to 1954 when the Dukes were number one in the country.

He’s also had coaching jobs at several other colleges and spent three years coaching St. Vincent-St. Mary High School in Akron. One of the stars on that team was NBA legend LeBron James, who congratulated his former coach on X after the A-10 win.

Dambrot’s record at Duquesne in seven seasons is 115-96, but he’s hoping to add more to the win column in the NCAA Tournament.

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