FRIDAY’S GAME
Dayton vs. TBA, A-10 tournament quarterfinals, 6:30 p.m. Friday, NBC Sports Network, 95.7, 1290
A Dayton Flyers fan ran behind the bench several times and hoisted a sign during the second half Saturday at La Salle.
“Dayton Flyers > Philadelphia Flyers,” read the sign, which sported the logos of each team.
That will be hard to prove, unless the Philadelphia Flyers start playing basketball or Dayton starts a hockey team. The only thing that mattered Saturday was: “Explorers > Flyers.”
La Salle ruined Dayton’s fairy-tale ending to the regular season, pulling off a 55-53 upset at Tom Gola Arena. La Salle won by dominating the boards (40-27) and forcing 14 turnovers.
Dayton (23-7, 13-5) lost its chance to win a share of the Atlantic 10 Conference regular-season title. Davidson (23-6, 14-4) routed Duquesne 107-78 on Saturday night in Pittsburgh to win the title outright.
Dayton (23-7, 14-4) gets the No. 2 seed in the conference tournament and will play No. 7 seed St. Bonaventure or No. 10 seed St. Joseph’s in the quarterfinals at 6:30 p.m. Friday at the Barclays Center in Brooklyn, N.Y. La Salle (16-15, 8-10) earned the No. 9 seed.
“No one hurts more than us right now,” Dayton coach Archie Miller said. “But take a deep breath. There’s a second season upon us. I’m not going to apologize for these guys at all. They should be proud of what they’ve been able to accomplish. We have a lot to play for.”
Entering the game, the Flyers were not considered a bubble team. Many experts consider them a lock for the NCAA tournament field after back-to-back victories over Virginia Commonwealth and Rhode Island.
The Flyers began the day ranked 28th in the RPI. La Salle was 108th. From that standpoint, this goes down as Dayton’s second-worst loss of the season.
“If you ask me if we’re in the tournament regardless of what happens from this point forward, I would say yes, based on what we’ve done,” Miller said, “but we’re not really thinking about that. We’ve got an opportunity to win a couple more games here and figure out if we can play for another championship. That’s the first step.”
The Flyers have not lost two games in a row since January 2014, a fact that bodes well for their hopes in Brooklyn. First they’ll have to put this disappointment behind them.
The Flyers didn’t score in the first 4:57 against La Salle and trailed 6-0 early. They trailed 21-9 with four minutes left in the first half but ended the half on a 10-2 run.
Dayton seized the lead for the first time eight minutes into the second half. The game was tied at 39-39 with 6:31 to go when the Explorers began a 7-0 run.
The turning point came when Dayton’s Jordan Sibert, needing two free throws to tie the game, missed the front end of a 1-and-1 with 6:02 remaining. La Salle’s Jordan Price, who scored 21 points, then hit a 3-pointer at the other end.
“Our guys hung tough,” Miller said. “We played hard. We did not play particularly well. When you want to win a championship or do special things — it’s all we’ve talked about all year — we’ve got to take care of the ball and rebound. We didn’t really do either.”
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