NEXT GAME
Boston University at Dayton, 7 p.m. Saturday, TWC SportsChannel, SportsNet New York, 95.7, 1290
Arkansas coach Mike Anderson referred to Dayton as Xavier in his postgame press conference and then quickly corrected himself. Nothing else went right for the Flyers on Saturday, so this shouldn’t have surprised anyone.
The Razorbacks dominated from start to finish and handed Dayton its second loss of the season, 69-55 on Saturday at Bud Walton Arena.
Dayton had never played a game in Arkansas. The Flyers have never signed a player from Arkansas. After the most disappointing performance of this young season, they may never want to return to the Natural State.
“I thought that coming in here, we had to be really organized, particularly early in the game offensively to give ourselves a chance and some confidence,” Dayton coach Archie Miller said, “and it’s the one thing that really backfired. Just our organization and our inability to take care of the ball for much of the first half really kind of took it out of us. The second half, we only turned it over five times and played a much better game.”
Arkansas (7-2) ended a two-game winning streak. Dayton (7-2) saw its five-game winning streak end.
The Razorbacks won this game in the first half by shooting 58 percent from the field. They hit numerous mid-range jumpers and also shot 4-of-7 from 3-point range.
Arkansas star Bobby Portis, in particular, proved hard to defend. The 6-foot-11 forward hit 7-of-9 shots in the first half and scored 14 of his 18 points.
“He was terrific,” Miller said. “With the way they run their motion, it’s very difficult for front-court players to deal with him when he’s making jump shots. When he’s making jump shots, they become really almost like a different team, in terms of who’s guarding them and how you’re guarding him, because they move so well. That’s one of the best passing and movement teams I’ve seen in a long time.”
The Flyers trailed 40-23 at halftime. They hadn’t faced a bigger halftime deficit since they trailed 39-20 at St. Joseph’s last February. They committed 10 turnovers in the first half against Arkansas’ full-court pressure defense.
“Them speeding us up kind of challenged us, pressing all game and in the half court jumping a lot of ball screens and playing aggressive,” Dayton guard Jordan Sibert said. “You know we can handle it. It was just a rough game. We have a great, great team, and we’re going to keep building from it.”
Dayton never got closer than 11 points in the second half.
“You know that’s one thing that we take pride on,” Sibert said. “We never give up on ourselves and we never give up until the game’s over. Credit to Arkansas. They did a great job of sticking to their game plan and playing hard the entire game.”
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