Duquesne drops 9th straight game, losing at home to Fordham

File this one away in the stinker category — as in someone had to win.

Fordham took the honors, despite playing without its leading scorer.

Duquesne continued to reel, falling for the ninth time in a row.

“I’m not used to this. It’s super hard,” Duquesne coach Keith Dambrot said Saturday after the Dukes’ 65-54 loss to Fordham at UPMC Cooper Fieldhouse.

Chuba Ohams had 18 points and 14 rebounds to lead the Rams, who sent the last-place Dukes into further disarray in the Atlantic 10.

Fordham shot 41% but had little difficulty with Duquesne, which made just 19 of 53 shots (35.8%). The Dukes converted 4 of 17 3-pointers and were crushed on the boards (48-25).

Tre Williams led Duquesne with 14 points and a game-high five blocks. Leon Ayers III added 12 points and led the Dukes with six rebounds.

“It’s obvious we’re just not a very good team right now,” Dambrot said. “We took our body blows, and we haven’t recovered. They’ve been damaged emotionally. In fairness to them, losing all those close games, losing (injured Austin) Rotroff, losing nine games in a row in the league, they don’t really believe they can win right now. It’s pretty obvious.”

Fordham (11-12, 4-6 A-10) led from the opening tip in sweeping the season series with Duquesne (6-16, 1-9), which hasn’t enjoyed a victory since beating Massachusetts on the road Jan. 8, their only A-10 win.

The Dukes haven’t won at home since a two-point victory over New Hampshire on Dec. 11.

Perhaps Dambrot, too, is suffering some emotional distress.

“I want to crawl into a hole. I’m not happy,” he said. “I’m miserable. I can’t stand it, but what am I going to do? I’m still going to work my behind off to try to get Duquesne to the NCAA Tournament.”

Fordham seized the first game in the series against the Dukes, 72-71, on Jan. 12 at Fordham on a last-second shot by Antonio Daye Jr., who promptly left the team the next day and entered the transfer portal.

That gut-wrenching loss ignited Duquesne’s current losing streak, which is the longest since a 12-game skid in 2012-13. The Dukes have scored 60 points or more in just two games during that period.

Josh Colon-Navarro, starting in place of injured Darius Quisenberry (leg), added 15 points, Antrell Charlton 11 and Kyle Rose 10 for Fordham.

Quisenberry, a 6-foot-2 guard who transferred to Fordham from Youngstown State this season, ranks third in the A-10 in scoring (17.3 ppg.).

Graduate transfer Davis Larson, who played nearly 15 minutes, scored his 1,000th career point at the college level. He came to Duquesne having scored 991 at Division II Hillsdale.

When asked what kept Larson on the floor, Dambrot said: “He just played better than all those guys. He just played more the right way.”

Dambrot credited Larson for setting a good example of how the game should be played.

“He’s not great, but he’s got good toughness,” Dambrot said. “He guards, he boxes out, he moves the ball.

“I told them, ‘I don’t care what the results are. I’m not watching anymore. I’m not watching bad basketball … not getting on the floor for a loose ball, not making the extra pass. We aren’t going to win like that, so why watch it. I’ll just play the guys that do it.

“How can you possibly have seven assists every night?”

Duquesne managed just one assist in the first half and averages 9.8 per game.

“That’s ridiculous,” Dambrot said. “We’re one of the worst in the country at that. We can’t be that bad at passing the ball. We just refuse to.”

Duquesne, which ranks near the bottom of the A-10 in scoring, went without a field goal for the final 8 1/2 minutes in the first half before Tre Williams scored with 22 seconds left before intermission.

Williams’ driving layup 14 seconds into the second half wasn’t enough to ignite Duquesne’s offense as Fordham held the lead throughout.

The Dukes trailed by double digits for most of the evening but clawed within five points with 3 minutes, 14 seconds left on Jackie Johnson III’s basket to make it 57-52.

An 8-0 Fordham run — all the points were scored by Colon-Navarro — gave the Rams a 13-point cushion and an insurmountable lead.

After a day off, Duquesne heads to league-leading Davidson (20-4, 10-2) for a Monday night game. The Wildcats were upset Saturday by Rhode Island, 72-65, ending their four-game winning streak.