Davidson at Dayton: What to know about Tuesday’s game

The guys that took the court at that moment and the guys they replaced combined to lead Dayton to its best road victory of the season. The Flyers built a 17-point lead in the first half and then held off Saint Louis in the second half for a 71-63 victory.

Once again, Dayton raised hopes that it will be doing more than playing out the string in the second half of the Atlantic 10 Conference schedule. Dayton spoiled its strong non-conference performance with three straight A-10 losses in early January, boosted confidence with three straight victories and then pushed many fans into a pit of despair with a 75-53 loss at St. Bonaventure last Tuesday.

Dayton (15-7, 5-4) has almost no margin for error the rest of the way if it wants to win the A-10 regular-season championship and play its way back onto the bubble in regards to a NCAA tournament at-large berth.

The players can’t look at the big picture, of course. “One game at a time” has to be the mantra.

“It was definitely good to end a long road trip like this with a win,” forward Nate Santos said Friday. “With everything that happened on Tuesday, bouncing back feels really good.”

After five days on the road last week, Dayton plays two 7 p.m. home games this week, facing Davidson (13-8, 3-5) on Tuesday and Virginia Commonwealth (17-5, 7-2) on Friday.

Here are 10 things to know about Dayton’s 23rd game:

1. Series history: Dayton leads the series 11-5. It has won nine straight games against Davidson since a 73-67 loss in the quarterfinals of the A-10 tournament in 2017.

Last season, Dayton swept two games from Davidson in the regular-season, winning 72-59 at Davidson and 80-66 at UD Arena.

The nine-game winning streak is Dayton’s longest active streak against a current A-10 program and is tied for the third longest streak against an A-10 opponent. The other winning streaks of nine or more games are:

• Fordham: 20 games from 2007-20.

• Duquesne: 16 games from 1997-2004.

• Richmond: Nine games from 2014-22.

• St. Bonaventure: Nine games from 2004-11.

2. State of the program: Davidson coach Matt McKillop is 44-41 in his third season. The Wildcats are on pace for their third straight losing season in A-10 play after finishing under .500 once in their first eight seasons in the league. They last made the NCAA tournament in 2021-22, which was Bob McKillop’s final season as head coach.

3. Season summary: Davidson finished 10-3 in non-conference play against a schedule that ranked 297th in the country in difficulty. It beat Providence, which is No. 83 in the NCAA Evaluation Tool, for its best victory.

In A-10 play, Davidson is 1-3 on the road with the only victory coming at last-place Richmond (7-15, 2-7). In its last game, Davidson lost 64-60 at home to first-place George Mason (17-5, 8-1) on Saturday. George Mason led by 16 points midway through the second half. Davidson cut the deficit to two points in the final 10 seconds.

4. Standings update: George Mason leads VCU by one game and Saint Louis (13-9, 6-3) by two games at the halfway point. Dayton and Massachusetts (10-12, 5-4) are tied for fourth. A group of seven teams trails Dayton and UMass by a half game or one game.

5. Hot and not: Dayton forward Nate Santos is shooting 53.6% (22 of 41) from the field in the last four games. He has made 12 of 22 3-pointers (54.5%) during that stretch, raising his season percentage to 42.7, which ranks 119th in the country.

• Dayton guard Malachi Smith made 1 of 10 field goals at Saint Louis after making 1 of 4 at St. Bonaventure. He did not play in the last seven minutes after missing five shots in a four-minute stretch.

6. Transfer portal loss: David Skogman, a 6-foot-10 forward, led Davidson in scoring last season (13.3) and now ranks seventh (6.6) at DePaul.

7. Top returner: Reed Bailey, a 6-11 junior forward, ranked fourth in scoring (12.7) last season and leads the team this season (19.9).

8. Top newcomer: Zach Laput, a 6-4 fifth-year guard, ranks fourth in scoring (8.2). He played the last four seasons at Division II Bentley University.

9. Strengths and weaknesses: Davidson ranks fourth in A-10 play in 3-point shooting percentage (34.6). Dayton ranks first (37.6).

• Davidson ranks 13th in opponents’ 3-point shooting percentage (36.0). Dayton ranks last (38.7).

10. Odds & Ends: KenPom.com gives Dayton an 77% chance of winning and predicts a 78-69 score. Dayton climbed from No. 74 to No. 73 in the Pomeroy ratings after beating Saint Louis. Davidson is No. 122.

• Dayton ranks 73rd in the NCAA Evaluation Tool. It is the third highest-ranked A-10 team behind No. 43 VCU and No. 70 George Mason. No. 128 Saint Louis is the eighth highest-ranked A-10 team.

This is a Quadrant 23 game for Dayton and a Quad 1 game for Davidson. Dayton is 2-2 in Quad 1 games, 2-4 in Quad 2, 4-1 in Quad 3 and 6-0 in Quad 4. Davidson is 0-3 in Quad 1, 1-3 in Quad 2, 1-2 in Quad 3 and 10-0 in Quad 4.

TUESDAY’S GAME

Davidson at Dayton, 7 p.m., Spectrum News 1, ESPN+, 1290, 95.7