Duquesne Dukes

From Hoopedia

Duquesne University of the Holy Spirit is a private Catholic university located in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, US. Founded by members of the Congregation of the Holy Spirit, Duquesne (IPA: /dukˈeɪn/) first opened its doors as the Pittsburgh Catholic College of the Holy Ghost in October 1878 with an enrollment of 40 students and a faculty of six. The university has since expanded to over 10,000 students, and is located on a self-contained 50-acre hilltop campus on the "bluff" neighborhood of downtown Pittsburgh.

Men's Basketball

The Dukes men's basketball team has had great success in the past, playing twice in national championship games in the 1950s, winning the National Invitation Tournament championship in 1955. (At the time, the NIT was the premier collegiate basketball tournament in the country.)

Duquesne also won the 1976–77 Eastern Collegiate Basketball League championship (the forerunner to the Eastern Athletic Association—now known as the Atlantic 10 Conference) and 1979–80 and 1980–81 Eastern Athletic Association regular season co-championships.

Duquesne is the only school to have back-to-back first overall picks in the National Basketball Association Draft (Dick Ricketts by the Saint Louis Hawks in 1955 and Si Green by the Rochester Royals in 1956). The Dukes men's basketball program can also claim the first African-American player selected in an NBA draft (Chuck Cooper by the Boston Celtics in 1950).

The 1939–40 Dukes basketball team finished with a 20-3 record and appeared in the Final Four of both the NIT and NCAA Tournaments.

No team has had as many Atlantic 10 men's basketball scoring champions as Duquesne.

The men's basketball Dukes annually play their cross-town rival University of Pittsburgh Panthers in Pittsburgh's much anticipated and highly attended City Game. The Dukes women's basketball team also plays the University of Pittsburgh every year in the women's version of the City Game.