Duquesne guard Jason Duty's college basketball career will end on a high note.

Duty, a three-sport athlete from Vincentian Academy who gave up his gig as a guitar player and vocalist in the rock band "Mark This Day," in order to join the Dukes' program as a freshman walk-on in 2006, was rewarded with a scholarship yesterday.

He has played in 79 career games, with 49 starts, and will be the lone senior on the team this fall.

"Nobody out there has ever deserved a scholarship more than this kid," coach Ron Everhart said yesterday. "He probably deserved one last year, and I felt bad that didn't happen."

Duty, 6 feet 1, 175 pounds, finished fourth in the Atlantic 10 Conference in 3-point shooting (41.4 percent) last season, making 55 of 133 attempts. He started all 34 games and helped the Dukes finish 21-13, reach the A-10 championship game and earn a berth in the National Invitation Tournament.

Duty averaged 7.4 points per game, shot a team-high 82.9 percent (34 of 41) from the free-throw line and dished out 45 assists. An accounting major with a 3.75 grade-point average, he also earned spots on both the ESPN The Magazine Academic All-District 2 basketball team and the A-10 all-academic team.

"It's a good feeling to get a scholarship, but it wasn't something I was expecting or concerned about," Duty said. "If I didn't get one, nothing was going to change."

When Duty enrolled at Duquesne, playing basketball was not on his mind. He planned to concentrate on academics and play in the band with his high school buddies on weekends.

"Playing in the band wasn't anything serious, but it was a lot of fun," Duty said. "We played around here and we did a little traveling here and there. We played at Penn State and at Clarion."

Shortly after five Duquesne players were shot after a dance on campus in September 2006, Everhart's team was short-handed. He needed to add a few practice players. Former Duquesne women's basketball coach Dan Durkin, whose daughter attended Vincentian, recommended Duty, who had scored more than 1,000 points as a three-year starter in high school.

"Dan told me the best athlete at Duquesne wasn't even on the team, and he was talking about Jason, so I went and sought him out," Everhart said.

Seldom-used freshmen forwards Shawntez Patterson and Aleksandar Milovic were released from their scholarships earlier this week so they could transfer.

Duquesne announced yesterday that 6-2 guard Sean Johnson from Christ the King High School in Queens, N.Y., had officially signed his letter of intent. He joins 6-6 forward Andre Marhold, a Pittsburgh native from North Mecklenburg High School in Charlotte, N.C., as the two recruits in the class of 2009.