No. 11 La Salle upsets Duquesne, 81-70, setting up an A-10 men’s quarterfinal date against Fordham

NEW YORK — It’s getting interesting.

La Salle will spend another day breathing Brooklyn air after an 81-70 upset of sixth-seeded Duquesne in second-round action of the Atlantic 10 men’s basketball tournament inside the Barclays Center Wednesday night.

It was a win fueled by a game-high 23-point effort from Jhamir Brickus and Khalil Brantley, who dropped 22 points, including six rebounds and six assists.

“It means a lot, being originally from New York, to see my grandmother in the crowd. So being able to see her face and her up and being happy and smiling at me while I’m playing, it brings joy that you can’t even explain,” said Brantley, who calls Brooklyn home.

The No. 11 Explorers will now face No. 3 seed Fordham in the quarterfinals on Friday (7:30 p.m., USA Network). La Salle hosted Fordham once during the regular season, on Jan. 14, with the Rams just getting past the Explorers, 66-64.

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It was a tightly fought contest from the opening tip. La Salle led by one for most of the first half, but the Dukes were right on the Explorers’ heels. An 11-0 run by Duquesne at the tail end of the first half, spurred by a rash of La Salle turnovers, became a six-point Explorer deficit at the break.

La Salle had 10 turnovers in the first half, leading to nine Duquesne points. In the second half, however — barring two early lapses that led to turnovers — the Explorers began to settle in and fought back to knot the score at 46 apiece.

“I thought we did really, really well in the second half, just about in every facet of the game. Our defense was very good,” La Salle head coach Fran Dunphy said.

La Salle began to pull away with just under eight minutes left thanks to huge buckets from Brickus and Brantley.

“[Brantley is] growing every game,” Dunphy said. “[Brickus] knows the game as well as anybody I’ve coached in a long, long time. And [Brantley] is getting better at that part of it, he knows when to get on somebody, but also knows when to pump them up as well.”

Additionally, the Explorers outrebounded Duquesne, 40-37. Senior forward Hassan Drame had nine of those boards, and graduate forward Mamadou Doucoure grabbed seven.

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The Rams are led by graduate-student guard Darius Quisenberry, who is scoring 17 points per game and grabbing 3.8 rebounds. Graduate-student forward Khalid Moore is the Rams’ second-leading scorer adding 15.3 per game and leads the Rams in rebounds with 6.5 per game.

“Our mindset [Thursday] is everything on the defensive end, so defense can lead to offense,” Brickus said. “So hopefully, we get out there earlier on our defense, and we get in there to help us early with our offense.”

Fordham finished the regular season with a 12-4 record in the A-10, its best finish ever. While the Explorers will be playing their third game in as many days on Thursday, the Rams earned a bye to the quarterfinals and the game will mark their first game of the tournament.

At the helm of the Rams is A-10 coach of the year, Keith Urgo.

“We obviously have a tough assignment tomorrow,” Dunphy said.

The last time the Explorers met the Rams, the game ended in a heartbreaking two-point loss for La Salle.

The Explorers led, but a 17-1 run by the Rams midway through the first half took the wind out of La Salle’s sails. The Explorers tied the game with 14 seconds left, thanks to a pair of free throws by Fousseyni Drame, but Fordham connected with the game-winning jumper as the clock expired.

Khalil Brantley led the Explorers with 19 points and Moore, an Indiana transfer, scored 11 points alongside 12 rebounds for Fordham.

“Fordham, we’ve got to get them back,” Brantley said. “It’s kind of a get-back game for us, because they beat us at the buzzer at our house earlier in the season, and we only got to play them one time. So this is like the comeback game for us.”

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Friday is a practice and press conference day, with no tournament games being played. The winner of Thursday’s game will meet the winner of the matchup between No. 2 Dayton and No. 10 Saint Joseph’s in the semifinals on Saturday afternoon (3:30 p.m., CBSSN).