“It’s one of my top-five favorite places to play in the country,” English said. “We lost a heartbreaker. Just great basketball fans and a great place to play.”
Nine years later, English has a good memory of UD Arena to go with his heartbreaking one. The second-year George Mason coach guided his team to a 74-69 victory against the Dayton Flyers on Saturday. The Patriots became the first Atlantic 10 team other than Virginia Commonwealth to win at UD Arena since the 2020-21 season. The Flyers had won 20 straight home games against the rest of the league in the past three seasons.
English improved to 2-0 against Dayton coach Anthony Grant. The Flyers lost 50-49 at George Mason last season. George Mason ended a four-game Dayton winning streak a year ago and did the same on Saturday.
“Dayton is a team and a program we have so much respect for,” English said, “and it’s a program we want to emulate. They did it with young guys. That’s the way we’re building for the future. This was a very good college basketball game. Obviously, it’s disappointing for (Dayton) not to win it, but I’m very proud of our group.”
Here are three takeaways from Dayton’s 29th game:
1. The victory hands the A-10 regular-season championship to VCU: Dayton (19-10, 11-5) will fall short of one of its main goals unless VCU loses its last two regular-season games and Dayton wins its last two games.
VCU (22-7, 13-3) clinched a share of the championship with Dayton’s loss as the Flyers slipped into a three-way tie for second place with Saint Louis (19-10, 11-5) and Fordham (23-6, 11-5).
Dayton still needs to win one of its last two games — Tuesday at home against La Salle or Friday at Saint Louis — to clinch a top-four seed, though one loss by fifth-place Duquesne (19-9, 9-6) would also give the Flyers a top-four seed and a double bye in the A-10 tournament.
“To be able to potentially play only three games in the A-10 tournament, I think that’s huge for us,” Dayton forward Toumani Camara said, “so we’ve really got to lock in and move past this one.”
George Mason (17-12, 9-7) has won four straight games and is tied for sixth place with George Washington (15-14, 9-7).
2. Dayton’s defense let it down in this game: The Flyers had won four straight games against VCU, Saint Louis, Loyola Chicago and Massachusetts by holding each opponent to fewer than 60 points.
George Mason shot 60% (18 of 30) from 2-point range. Dayton is 0-4 when opponents hit that number.
The Patriots shot 53.8% (7 of 13) from 3-point range. That’s the best any opponent has shot against Dayton, which ranks ninth in the nation in 3-point percentage defense (28.7).
“You have to give credit to to George Mason,” Grant said. “They played well. They had a week to prepare for the game. I think it showed. They came out aggressive. I didn’t think that we started the game the way I would have liked. We recovered, and then late in the first half, they were able to get a run. I think we had some breakdowns there on the defensive end. Our guys battled. It was a hard-fought game, a hotly-contested game. At the end of the day, I think what the numbers show us is defensively we weren’t able to get the stops.”
3. George Mason made more plays at the end: George Mason scored on nine straight possessions at one point in the final 10 minutes, overcoming a 51-45 deficit. Dayton kept pace with the Patriots until the final minute when Devon Cooper broke a tie with go-ahead basket with 43 seconds to play.
DaRon Holmes II missed two free throws with 23 seconds left that would have tied the game. Dayton got another chance after a missed free throw by Cooper, but Malachi Smith tried to wrap a pass around a defender under the basket to Holmes, and it was intercepted with 10 seconds left.
Ronald Politte III made 1 of 2 free throws at the other end, giving Dayton a chance to tie the game with a 3-pointer. However, with 4.3 seconds remaining, Holmes overthrew a pass to Camara past half court. The ball sailed out of bounds.
“We were trying to go to Toumani,” Grant said. “We felt like if we could get it to Toumani, our wings would be able to make a play there. Unfortunately, the ball sailed a little long. It’s something that we’ve tried to work on in practice. We weren’t able to succeed with the play.”
STAR OF THE GAME
Holmes scored a career-high 34 points on 11-of-17 shooting. He made 12 of 18 free throws. He has scored 30 or more points three times this season.
STAT OF THE GAME
Dayton shot 59.3% (16 of 27) at the free-throw line. It’s the fourth-worst percentage of the season. Dayton had shot 60% or better in 16 straight games. George Mason made 17 of 23 (73.9%).
LOOKING AHEAD
Dayton plays La Salle (13-16, 7-9) at 7 p.m. Tuesday at UD Arena in the final home game of the season. La Salle lost 92-85 at George Washington on Saturday. It has lost three games in a row.
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