By the time, Fordham was ready for its pregame dunk, Dayton had started to line up for the national anthem. For a few tense moments, neither team budged. Then the officials got involved and convinced the Flyers to clear a path for Fordham to finish its routine. All the Flyers watched with somewhat annoyed looks as a Fordham player dunked.
“We took that personally,” Dayton guard Javon Bennett said.
Fordham almost added insult to insult by handing No. 16 Dayton its first loss on Tom Blackburn Court this season. Instead, Dayton (21-4, 11-2) pulled away in the final minutes for a 78-70 victory, improving to 13-0 at home this season and 17-0 at home in the series against Fordham.
“We’re going to face some type of adversity every game,” Dayton forward DaRon Holmes II said. “In this game, the adversity came in the second half mostly. We just had to find ways to pull out the win. I think we did a good job with doing that.”
Here are three takeaways from Dayton’s 25th game:
1. The victory keeps Dayton in first place: With five games remaining, Dayton stands alone in first place in the Atlantic 10 Conference. The Flyers have a half-game lead over Richmond (18-7, 10-2), which won 90-74 at George Washington on Saturday. Loyola Chicago (18-7, 10-2), which plays at Rhode island on Sunday, shares second place with Richmond.
Dayton seeks its first A-10 regular-season championship since 2020 and its second in coach Anthony Grant’s seven seasons. KenPom.com projects Dayton to finish 15-3 and win the title by a game over Richmond.
“It would mean everything,” Holmes said. “It’d be great just to show how hard we work. We have full confidence that we’re going to get it, but if we don’t, it’s not the end of the world for us. We’ve got bigger goals as well.”
2. Dayton moved closer to wrapping up a NCAA tournament at-large berth: The NCAA aired its bracket preview show Saturday morning and announced the top 16 seeds if the tournament was starting next week. Dayton nearly made the list.
“The last team revealed was Wisconsin,” a NCAA press release read, “which has a 6-5 record in quadrant one games, something only a handful of other teams can match and what gave the Badgers an edge over such teams as Creighton, Dayton and Clemson, which were also considered for the fourth line.”
Dayton remains in strong position to play in the NCAA tournament for the first time since 2017 even if it doesn’t win the A-10 tournament.
Dayton ranked 19th in the NCAA Evaluation Tool entering this game. It does not have a bad loss on its resume. Its record in Quadrants 3 and 4 is 12-0 after this Quad 4 victory.
ESPN listed Dayton as one of 21 locks for the field in its most recent Bubble Watch story.
3. Fordham delivered another strong road performance: Fordham entered this game with an 0-6 record at at Rose Hill Gym in conference play and a 4-1 mark on the road with victories at George Washington, St. Bonaventure, Rhode Island and Saint Louis. The Rams and Flyers were tied at 66 with six minutes to play, but the Flyers pulled away in the final minutes.
“There are no moral victories, right,” said second-year Fordham coach Keith Urgo, who was the A-10 Coach of the Year last season, “but for us to be able to hang toe to toe with what I think is definitely a top-20 team in the country, against who I think might be the national player of the year, I’m really encouraged. If we can continue to fight like that last 20 and turn that into 25, 30, 40 minutes of what we call Fordham basketball, we’re going to be really hard to beat come Brooklyn, and that’s always the goal. Be the best team we can be by the end of the year.”
STAR OF THE GAME
Dayton forward DaRon Holmes II scored seven of his 29 points in the last four minutes. He made 10 of 13 field goals and 8 of 12 free throws. He also grabbed 10 rebounds to record his eighth double-double of the season. He passed Johnny Davis (1,562) to move into 17th place on Dayton’s all-time scoring list with 1,572 points.
STAT OF THE GAME
Dayton made 20 of 27 two-point field goal attempts (74.1%). That’s its best percentage of the season. Dayton topped 70% twice last season — both times against Fordham.
LOOKING AHEAD
Dayton plays George Mason (17-8, 6-6) at 7 p.m. Wednesday in Fairfax, Va. George Mason will enter the game after an eight-day break. It beat George Washington and Davidson in its last two games after losing three straight to Saint Joseph’s, Massachusetts and Loyola Chicago.
George Mason has won two straight games in the series. It won 74-69 at Dayton last season and won 50-49 at home in 2022.
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