The George Washington mascot, who shares a name with the founding father, dances harmlessly during timeouts. The GW band sits high above the court, not enough to affect a visiting team. With the school on winter break Saturday, George’s Army, the section where students sit, had little impact on the result.
Dayton, in fact, likely had as many fans at the game Saturday as George Washington — only they had little reason to cheer for most of the game. Dayton gave up an 8-0 run to start the game and a 13-0 run to end the game and lost 82-62 to the Revolutionaries. Since entering the Atlantic 10 Conference in the 1995-96 season, Dayton is 6-15 at the Smith Center. That’s its worst record at any current A-10 arena.
Dayton suffered its first loss by 20 or more points since a 77-49 defeat at Virginia Tech on Dec. 7, 2022. This was its first loss by 20 or more points in A-10 play since a 66-43 loss at Virginia Commonwealth on Jan. 23, 2021.
“We just didn’t come out ready with any energy,” Dayton forward Zed Key said. “They jumped on us and kept the lead throughout the whole game.”
Credit: David Jablonski
Credit: David Jablonski
Here are three takeaways from Dayton’s first true road game:
1. Dayton coach Anthony Grant said he saw signs leading to this type of performance: Dayton (11-3, 1-1) managed to beat La Salle and UNLV despite sub-part outside shooting performances. It couldn’t avoid that fate in a 66-59 loss to Cincinnati.
For much of the season, falling into deep holes has been a pattern for Dayton. It rallied from double-digit deficits to beat Northwestern, Western Michigan and Marquette. This time, it trailed 23-7 seven minutes into the game and faced the same deficit at halftime.
The Flyers once again rallied, opening the second half with a 9-0 run and getting as close as three points, 54-51 with 12 minutes, 38 seconds to play, but they couldn’t complete the comeback.
“Give them credit,” Grant said in his postgame interview on WHIO. “Their coaching staff, their players did a better job, and I take responsibility. Obviously, my job is to make sure our guys come out ready to play. We didn’t. They obviously made shots. They played with a lot of energy. The understanding of life on the road, when you come into somebody else’s home, we’ve talked about it ad nauseam. We’ve tried to make sure that we were prepared, but we obviously didn’t do a good enough job.
“We built a hole for ourselves. I thought the guys fought in the second half. In the first five minutes, we came out and we played with energy and passion that we needed to play with to start the game. We’ve got to be able to do it for a longer stretch of time.”
Credit: David Jablonski
Credit: David Jablonski
2. Dayton’s shooting slump continued: George Washington shot a season-best 48.4% (15 of 31) from 3-point range.
Dayton shot below 30% (4 of 15, 26.7) for the fifth straight game. Nate Santos, who led Dayton with 23 points, made 2 of 7. Javon Bennett made 1 of 3. Malachi Smith and Enoch Cheeks both missed their two attempts. Cheeks has made 1 of 15 3s in the last five games after a five-game stretch in which he made 16 of 30.
“We shoot every day,” Key said. “I have trust in my guys that they’re going to make shots. We’re a good-shooting team. We’re just in a little slump.”
George Washington freshman guard Christian Jones, who was averaging 7.4 points, made 5 of 8 3-pointers and scored 23 points. He scored 13 of his 15 first-half points in the first five minutes.
Jones started the game in place of George Washington’s leading scorer, sophomore guard Darren Buchanan (15.1 points per game), who suffered an injury in practice Friday.
Gerald Drumgoole Jr. also had a big game for the Revs. He made 5 of 12 3s and scored 21 points.
Jones, Drumgoole and Trey Autry all made 3s in the last two minutes as GW ended the game on a 13-0 run.
This was Dayton’s most lopsided loss in the series since an 81-61 defeat at George Washington in 1998.
George Washington (14-3, 1-1) bounced back from a 66-61 loss at Richmond on Tuesday, improving to 9-0 at home this season.
“Great day for us,” George Washington coach Chris Caputo said. “Coaches usually have miserable days, even when you win, but we played very well against a very good team. That’s rare. It’s hard to play as well as we did today against a team that’s that good. It’s kind of what you strive for. You strive for consistency. We’ve been pretty consistent on the defensive end, which has given us the chance in almost every game we’ve played.”
Credit: David Jablonski
Credit: David Jablonski
3. Dayton fell to 0-1 in true road games: Dayton had never gone this deep into a season without playing on an opponents’ home court, though it didn’t play its first true road game in the 2019-20 season until the 14th game of the season at La Salle.
Entering the weekend, Dayton was one of only three other programs that had yet to play a true road game this season. The others were Texas Tech, Colorado and Oklahoma, who also played their first road games Saturday.
Dayton is now 37-27 in A-10 road games in Grant’s eight seasons and 52-10 at UD Arena, where it has won 26 straight games.
This loss dealt a blow to UD’s NCAA tournament resume. It was 3-0 in Quadrant 3 of the NCAA Evaluation Tool and 3-0 in Quadrant 4 last season. This goes down as a Quadrant 3 loss unless George Washington, which entered the game at No. 151, climbs above No. 136.
“We’re two games into the conference play,” Grant said. “We’ve dug ourselves a hole here with the Quad 3 loss on the road. Now it becomes, ‘How do we respond?’”
STAR OF THE GAME
Christian Jones, a three-star recruit from the same high school as Dayton guard Posh Alexander, Our Saviour Lutheran in the Bronx, N.Y., topped his previous career high of 17 points with 23 against Dayton.
STAT OF THE GAME
Dayton shot a season-worst 37.8% (17 of 45) from 3-point range. It is 0-3 when it shoots under 50%.
LOOKING AHEAD
Dayton plays Massachusetts (5-10, 0-2) at 7 p.m. Wednesday at the Mullins Center in Amherst, Mass.
Dayton has won eight straight games in the series, including three straight at UMass, since an 86-82 loss in double overtime in Amherst in 2018. UD is 8-11 in games at UMass since entering the A-10 in the 1995-96 season.
UMass lost 72-64 at home to Richmond (7-8, 2-0) on Saturday.
WEDNESDAY’S GAME
Dayton at Massachusetts, 7 p.m., Peacock, 1290, 95.7
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