PHILADELPHIA — Duquesne coach Ron Everhart is never one to shy away from the truth.

He knows where his Dukes rank in the sports landscape of Pittsburgh, the school’s home. He knows that despite a hefty winning streak, and some gaudy statistics, that they’re not going to steal many headlines from the Steelers, Penguins or Panthers, especially in January.

But that doesn’t mean the Dukes are going to stop trying.

Bill Clark had 21 points and eight rebounds, and Damian Saunders had 16 and six as Duquesne rallied past La Salle 88-71 on Wednesday night in front of 1,806 fans.

The win was Duquesne’s seventh consecutive and gave the Dukes (12-5) their first 4-0 start in Atlantic 10 Conference play. All of the victories during the streak have been by double digits, and the win over the Explorers (8-11, 0-4) gave Duquesne a clean 3-0 sweep of the league’s Philadelphia schools. Duquesne had five players reach double figures in scoring.

Duquesne and Xavier (12-5, 4-0) are the lone schools left with unbeaten conference records.

“We have to do a lot more in our town for people to notice, and our kids know that,” Everhart said. “It’s tough where we’re from. But that’s OK. We have to keep playing. We have to stay focused.”

Focus wasn’t a problem in the second half against La Salle. After rallying from an 11-point deficit to pull into a 47-47 halftime tie, the Dukes took off in the second. Clark’s two free throws with 14:14 left gave Duquesne a lead it would never relinquish.

T.J. McConnell and B.J. Monteiro each had 13 points for the Dukes, who defeated Temple 78-66 last Saturday, and St. Joseph’s 75-63 Jan. 5.

“Our confidence is there,” Clark said. “But you can never take anyone lightly in the Atlantic 10. For us, we just have to keep attacking, keep running. We have to keep playing our own way.”

It’s worked so far.

“It’s tough to lose anytime, but with some of our losses early on, we really learned from the mistakes,” Saunders said of defeats to Robert Morris and West Virginia, games in which the Dukes led by double digits. “Those losses, looking back, definitely helped us. We’re doing the things now that we need to do to finish games.”

Ruben Guillandeaux had 24 points and Jerrell Williams had 17 to go with 10 rebounds for La Salle, which led 41-30 with 7:23 left in the first half.

“We expected their best punch, and our team saw that in the first 20 minutes,” Everhart said. “But in the second half, we really got after the basketball, we challenged. It worked well.”

La Salle coach John Giannini concurred. In fact, as Giannini walked toward the postgame news conference room, he stopped to congratulate Everhart in the hallway. He put his arm on Everhart’s shoulder, flashed a smile, and said:

“I love your team.”

Now, if only the city of Pittsburgh would follow suit.