• Virginia Commonwealth, which took a one-game lead into the final four-game stretch, lost 61-58 at home to St. Bonaventure on Jan. 28.
• Saint Louis started the A-10 schedule with a 7-1 record and then lost 75-65 at Fordham on Jan. 31.
Massachusetts’ 69-45 victory at Rhode Island on Saturday might top them all for a few reasons.
• The Minutemen played without three of their top scorers: Noah Fernandes (13.4 points per game); Matt Cross (12.9); and Dyondre Dominguez (9.0).
• UMass had lost five straight games and had not won a road game in A-10 play in seven previous attempts.
• Rhode Island would have upset first-place VCU on the same court three days earlier if not for a buzzer-beater by Zeb Jackson.
• Rhode Island also had the extra motivation of playing on the same day it retired the numbers of Tom Garrick, Kenny Green, and Silk Owens, while inducting those players and the 1987-88 and 1997-98 teams into the program’s first Ring of Honor class.
Despite those factors, UMass (14-13, 5-10) recorded its most lopsided A-10 road victory since 1996.
“An apology should be issued by myself to anybody who loves Rhode Island basketball,” Rhode Island coach Archie Miller said after the game. “Those two former teams, those two players, you want that arena to feel good. Today wasn’t a good feeling.”
UMass will take that momentum into a 7 p.m. Wednesday game against the Dayton Flyers (18-9, 10-4) at the Mullins Center in Amherst, Mass., where Dayton hasn’t played since 2020.
Dayton and coach Anthony Grant didn’t need another reminder that on any given night any team in the A-10 can beat any other but got one. Grant also has the experience of playing against his close friend Frank Martin, the first-year UMass coach, many times.
“Frank and I have known each other since we were about 14 years old,” Grant told Larry Hansgen on Monday on WHIO Radio’s Flyer Insider show. “Our relationship is much deeper than Xs and Os and the basketball games. I know they’re going through some adversity with the wins and losses and injuries. When I watch his team play, they compete a high level. Frank has always been a guy who brings out the best in his players game to game and throughout the course of the season. This will be a great challenge for us.”
Martin is 4-2 against Grant. When Grant coached at Alabama and Martin at Kansas State, No. 17 Kansas State beat Alabama 87-74 on Dec. 19, 2009, in Mobile, Ala. Two years later, No. 23 Alabama lost 71-58 to Kansas State in Kansas City, Mo.
Martin moved from Kansas State to South Carolina in the 2012-13 season. Over the next three seasons, South Carolina and Alabama split four games. The matchup Wednesday will come two days short of eight years after Martin and Grant last coached against each other. Alabama beat Kansas State 59-51 on Feb. 24, 2015, in Tuscaloosa, Ala. Grant lost his job at Alabama 19 days later.
UMass hired Martin in March to replace Matt McCall, another coach close to Grant. McCall was 61-82 in five seasons. Martin got off to a good start with a 9-3 record in non-conference games. The team has struggled since A-10 play began and has strung two victories together only once.
Injuries have hurt. Fernandes has missed the last 11 games with an ankle injury. Cross suffered a knee injury on Feb. 14 during a game against Loyola Chicago, and Martin said last week he was out indefinitely.
Without Fernandes, who scored 26 points against Dayton in the A-10 tournament quarterfinals last season, and Cross and also Dominguez (illness), UMass shot 56.8% from 2-point range against Rhode Island. That was its second-best performance of the season. Freshmen Keon Thompson and R.J. Luis combined for 29 points. Rhode Island played its worst offensive game of the season, posting an effective field-goal percentage of 27.7%.
“I’m happy for the guys,” Martin said after the game, according to a report by Michael Bergman, of A10Talk.com. “Losing sucks. The guys answered the bell. I told (the media) after the game the other day some guys have been asking for guidance as to how they can help us and play. They had their numbers called today. Every one of them helped us win today with attention to detail and competitiveness. Really proud of the guys.”
Dayton takes a three-game winning streak into Wednesday’s game and would take another step toward clinching a top-four seed in the A-10 tournament with a victory. It has a two-game lead, plus a tiebreaker, over the fifth-place team Duquesne (18-9, 8-6). The Flyers have played better on the road with victories at VCU and Loyola Chicago since losing three straight road games to George Washington, Rhode Island and St. Bonaventure.
“Our defense has been elite,” Dayton assistant coach James Kane told Hansgen on Monday. “You have to play your best ball in March. We’ve had adversity throughout this whole year. It’s made us stronger in my opinion. I’m excited for the next two weeks. Bring it on.”
WEDNESDAY’S GAME
Dayton at Massachusetts, 7 p.m., CBS Sports Network, 1290, 95.7
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