PITTSBURGH— There was a call to duty — and Jason Duty answered.

The Cranberry Township resident and 1,000-point basketball scorer at Vincentian Academy, entered Duquesne University as a sports management major in September 2006, a few weeks before a campus shooting wounded five Dukes basketball players.

"I was done with basketball,"Duty said. "I never even thought about playing in college. I figured that part of my life was over."

Duquesne coach Ron Everhart figured otherwise — at the urging of then-Dukes women's basketball coach Dan Durkin.

Durkin's daughter, Diane, was a senior at Vincentian while Duty was there. Coach Durkin had seen Duty play high school basketball.

"We had a need for players, and Dan told me one of the best basketball players at the school wasn't on the team,"Everhart said. "He piqued my interest.

"I called Jason up and asked him if he wanted to try out. He wasn't very interested at first. He said he didn't want to be an end-of-the-bench guy who never got in a game. I respected that."

So Everhart offered Duty a three-day tryout.

"Let him get on the court with the guys and see where he stood. Then he could decide,"Everhart said.

"Jason came out and kicked everyone's tail at practice. After three days, I asked him if he thought he could help us. He said yes. And I agreed with him."

Duty had to file an array of paperwork to become eligible as a walk-on and was cleared to play Nov. 13, 2006, the day of Duquesne's season opener.

"It was tough getting ready for the season because until I was cleared, I was only eligible to participate in a couple of drills at practice,"Duty said. "I couldn't work out with the team on a full-time basis."

He wound up seeing action in 20 games as a freshman — six as a starter — and sank 14 3-pointers. Including this season, all but 17 of his 109 career field goal attempts have come from beyond the arc.

Duty wears No. 13 for the Dukes, but has been anything but unlucky.

"I've been very lucky the way things worked out for me here,"he said. "When we switched to a 1040 system last year, I began getting a lot of minutes."

Duquesne's 1040 system consists of two groups of five players who sub in for each other every two minutes. The Dukes went to that mode of attack when Everhart decided to play an up-tempo game.

The Dukes finished 10-19 last year and are 14-7 so far this season, coming off a 102-88 upset of Atlantic 10 kingpin St. Joseph Wednesday.

The 14-7 start marks Duquesne's best since its 1980-81 NIT team opened the year at 14-6. Duquesne had not won 14 games in a season since the 1993-94 campaign.

"There's a lot of talent here and our game is so fast,"Duty said. "I did a lot of things in high school, but my role here is mainly as a 3-point shooter. I don't see it changing too much down the road."

Duty, one of four walk-ons, is the only one to start a game for the Dukes. Duty has started eight games this season. He has 12 3-pointers

"It's extremely rare for a walk-on to wind up starting for a Division I team so quickly,"Everhart said. "Jason Duty is a high-energy kid. He's one of our two or three hardest working players in practice every day.

"He's become a real leader that way. Scholarship players see a kid like him busting his butt ... he raises the intensity level every practice."

Three of the five players injured in that shooting two years ago, Shawn James, Aaron Jackson and Kojo Mensah, have returned as major contributors to the Dukes' new-found success.

James and Jackson are starters while Mensah is one of the first players off the bench. James recorded 17 points, 11 rebounds and 10 blocked shots — the first triple-double in Duquesne history — in the win over St. Joseph.

But Duty's roster spot is secure.

"What he gives us in leadership and work ethic, even as a sophomore. ... No scholarship player could replace that,"Everhart said.

Duty is part of a group of Duquesne guards that have the Dukes leading the Atlantic 10 in assists (18.65) and steals (9.80) per game.

Duquesne freshman David Theis, a teammate of Duty's at Vincentian and a lifelong friend, isn't surprised at his college success.

"I was excited for him when he told me he was trying out,"Theis said. "I know what kind of player he is. He was the heart and soul of our team at Vincentian."

Vincentian reached the WPIALplayoffs each of the three years Theis and Duty were teammates there. Duty scored 1,170 points in high school, hit six 3-pointers in a game and scored a career-high 31 points against Leechburg.

He scored 13 points against the University of Dayton as a freshman last year and doesn't expect to surpass that total.

"My goal is to be part of an Atlantic 10 championship team,"Duty said. "I think there's a good chance that will happen."