What Duquesne head coach Dan Burt’s contract extension means for the Dukes

“It had been in the works for pretty much the whole season, and it was nice to finally kind of dot the I’s and cross the T’s,” Burt told The Next. “It allows my staff, my family and everyone to clearly understand that I’ll be at Duquesne for the remainder of my career. This really solidifies finishing my career at Duquesne, and I’m really excited to say that.” 

The 54-year-old coach added that he expects to stay past the end of this extension, noting, “We feel like we have everything in place to be very successful for the long term at Duquesne, from the coaching staff to the players that we currently have to the new system that we’re playing. And so we’ll see what it looks like in four years, but at this time, I look to coach until I’m probably 70.”

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After Burt’s playing career at West Liberty State College, his coaching career began at Shepherd College with the men’s basketball team (1994-95 season) while he was working as an admissions counselor. In addition, Burt coached at West Virginia (1998-01), UNC Wilmington (2001-04) and Bucknell (2004-07) before coming to Duquesne in 2007. 

Burt is the winningest coach in program history, recording a 209-132 record overall and a 107-66 record against Atlantic 10 opponents. He’s led the team to six postseason appearances, including last season’s trip to the WNIT Super 16 in Duquesne’s first postseason appearance since 2018. In addition, he led Duquesne to 21 wins last season.

“Over the course of the next four or five years, I’d certainly like to get over the 300[-win] landmark professionally, win 20-plus games every year [and] get back to the NCAA Tournament. And … really be just a good human being to the people that I’m coaching,” he said. 

Burt said that just over 70% of his seniors go on to sign professional basketball contracts and that his alumnae are working at companies ranging from PwC to small biotech firms and everything in between.

“I’m just as happy about the wins and the professional basketball opportunities the kids have as I am about the human beings that they are and the success they’ve had in the workforce. And also building their families as they get older,” he said.

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Heading into the 2024-25 season, the team returns 35.9% of its points and 37.0% of its minutes from last season. That includes just one of the six career 1,000-point scorers from last year’s roster, senior Megan McConnell. McConnell led Division I in minutes per game (38.5) and led Duquesne in points, rebounds, assists and steals per game as a 5’7 guard. 

“Meg is a kid that has shown great faith in me, in our staff and in our program,” Burt said. “She’s a future Hall of Famer for us. I think that she’s the best player in the Atlantic 10. When you look at her stats, she impacts winning, and in the day of the transfer portal, where a lot of the Atlantic 10 had players leave — and Meg had many opportunities to leave — she stayed. And so it begins with her, but it certainly doesn’t end with her.”

Burt named returning forward Kiandra Browne, incoming transfer forward Gabby Hutcherson and incoming transfer guard Andjela Matic as players he expects to be impactful around McConnell. Then he added, “But probably the player who finished the season on the highest note and needs to play significant minutes for us is Jerni Kiaku.

“Jerni was the Rookie of the Year in the MEAC two years ago and had a little bit of an up-and-down year this past season, basically because of me. I had to learn how to coach her, and could have done a better job with that. … There’s not a faster, more explosive athlete in the Atlantic 10. There’s probably very few as explosive athletes in all of Division I basketball, and I’m very confident in saying that. And so she’s a lot of fun to watch. We expect really great things out of Jerni this year.”

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Burt also talked about the importance of reinventing yourself to avoid getting stale. In November, the team will debut a new style of play, one that he said very few teams in the country deploy. 

“It’s fast and it’s chaotic, and it’s very fast and it’s very chaotic,” Burt said. “And so as a coach … you have to let the players play, and you have to have great trust in your players. And certainly, with Meg McConnell leading the way, I have great faith in our players being able to execute, simply the concepts of what we’re trying to do. From there, it really becomes their decision-making and their IQ.

“And so it really kind of lends itself to being more of a collaborative approach with the players and giving them a lot of trust that they’re going to win us basketball games playing within the concepts that we have.”

Duquesne will open the season on Nov. 4 at home against Princeton.