If not for an 82-62 victory against Duquesne, the ride would have felt much longer.
Dayton turned in its most dominant performance since an 86-62 victory against Lehigh on Dec. 7 and recorded its first 20-point victory in A-10 play since an 82-58 victory at Fordham on Jan. 10, 2023.
Dayton is back on track for now with two straight victories after three straight losses, but is it back? Has the team found the form that led it to victories against Connecticut and Marquette and a 10-2 start? Can it stay consistent?
“I wouldn’t say we’re fully back yet,” Dayton guard Javon Bennett said. “We’ve still got to win more games, but I would say this is a step in the right direction for sure.”
Dayton (13-6, 3-3) moved from 14th-place in the 15-team A-10 to tied for fifth with victories against Loyola Chicago and Duquesne. Dayton will play seven games against teams in the top four of the standings in its final 12 regular-season games, twice facing Virginia Commonwealth (15-4, 5-1) and Saint Louis (11-7, 4-1) and playing Duquesne (9-10, 4-2) one more time on Feb. 15 at UD Arena.
The performance at Duquesne, where Dayton owned its biggest halftime lead of the season, 44-25, and pushed its advantage to 30 points midway through the second half, raised hopes Dayton could continue to climb the A-10 standings.
“It was a fun game,” freshman forward Amaël L’Etang said. “That was our first road win of the season. Everybody played good defense.”
“On both sides of the ball, we took it up another notch,” point guard Malachi Smith said. “That’s what we usually do. That’s how we play. We’re going to get back to it. Hopefully, those three games, we took them as a lesson.”
Credit: David Jablonski
In addition to the improved defensive performance Tuesday, Dayton showed better ball movement on offense.
Dayton had 25 assists on 32 made field goals. A week earlier, it had nine assists on 22 field goals in a 67-59 loss to George Mason. There were few possessions when the Flyers had to force a shot late in the clock.
“It’s been something we’ve really been talking about,” Cheeks said. “Getting paint touches and distributing the ball to the perimeter, getting extra shots for guys. It’s contagious, and when we do that, we’re really hard to beat.”
On Dayton’s first possession, Nate Santos dribbled to the baseline and passed the ball back to Smith behind the 3-point line. Smith took one dribble to his right and then whipped the ball to his left to Javon Bennett, who shot a 3-pointer that hit the front of the rim, bounced off the backboard and then rolled around the rim before dropping.
On Dayton’s second possession, Bennett dribbled to the baseline, drawing two defenders, jumped and threw a one-handed pass through the paint to Santos behind the 3-point line. The shot by Santos hit the front side of the rim, bounced high off the backboard and fell through the net.
The fortunate bounces helped Dayton on its first two shots. It didn’t need much luck the rest of the way. It shot 69.2% (9 of 12) from 3-point range in the first half and improved its percentage to 76.5 (13 of 17) through the first five minutes of the second half. It cooled off in the final minutes but still shot 56.5% (13 of 23), its second-best mark of the season.
“We played well,” Dayton coach Anthony Grant said. “I thought defensively we kind of set the tone. They’re such a good 3-point shooting team. The emphasis was on trying to take away the 3. Their first three baskets were 3. But I thought overall the guys did a really good job of understanding that and taking some things away from them.
“Offensively, we were able to flow. I thought the ball movement tonight was really, really good. We had a lot of different guys who were able to take advantage of that.”
Cheeks followed a career-high 26-point performance Saturday in an 83-81 overtime victory against Loyola Chicago with 23 points on 9-of-14 shooting. He made 4 of 6 3-pointers and has made 13 of 20 in the last three games.
Javon Bennett added 16 points and made 4 of 5 3-pointers. L’Etang, who scored the game-winning basket at the buzzer in the previous game, scored a career-high 16 points on 7-of-11 shooting.
Smith scored only three points, all on free throws after being fouled on a 3-point attempt at the halftime buzzer, but tallied nine assists. He has 17 assists in the last two games after recording 13 in the three-game losing streak.
“We were just making the right reads,” Bennett said. “Coach said we were playing better when we were moving the ball more and were a high-assist team. We came into the game focusing on that, and it worked out.”
Credit: David Jablonski
Credit: David Jablonski
Duquesne entered the game with three straight victories against Saint Joseph’s, George Washington and St. Bonaventure. Its worst defensive performance of the season doomed it in its first A-10 loss at home this season.
“Everything went wrong tonight, didn’t it?” first-year Duquesne coach Dru Joyce III said. “There wasn’t too much that went right tonight. We turned the ball over 16 times. We gave up probably the worst 3-point percentage of the year. It felt like they were shooting close to 80, and I think they were at one point. We just weren’t very good tonight.
“I think we didn’t match their intensity from the outset. I thought we were chasing, especially defensively. We didn’t move the ball the way we are capable of. We tried to do too much and refused the simple play on the plays that were right in front of us.”
Dayton won despite missing two key players. Zed Key was in uniform but did not play after hurting his back Saturday in the first half of an 83-81 overtime victory against Loyola Chicago.
“He wasn’t able to practice the last couple of days and was still experiencing some soreness,” Grant said, “so I felt like it was best to let him continue that process of healing.”
Posh Alexander missed his third straight game with a foot injury.
“It’s always a next-man-up mentality,” Grant said. “We hope to have both of those guys back soon.”
FRIDAY’S GAME
Saint Joseph’s at Dayton, 7:30 p.m., ESPN2, 1290, 95.7
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