Dayton Flyers seek first win at Saint Joseph’s in 20 years

A La Salle defender clobbered Watson, though no foul was called. Time may have expired anyway. The ball clanged off the rim.

“That would have been a really good dunk,” said Dayton forward and noted dunk expert Obi Toppin. “Really good, for sure.”

It was an ambitious attempt, but this is an ambitious team. Toppin and point guard Jalen Crutcher were not shy last summer about discussing the ultimate goal: winning a national championship.

It seemed as if they were daydreaming at the time. After all, this is a program that hasn’t won the Atlantic 10 Conference tournament since 2003 or a November holiday tournament since 2011. Winning six games in three weeks, that’s a lot to ask.

However, in the first week of 2020, Dayton (12-2) ranks 20th in the Associated Press poll, eighth in the Ken Pomeroy ratings and ninth in the NCAA Evaluation Tool and the ESPN Basketball Power Index. By almost every measure, it stands among the best teams in the country.

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Dayton's most recent performance reinforced that idea. It wasn't impressive that Dayton beat La Salle, which ranks 124th in the NET, but it won the game by 26 points (84-58) and led by as many as 31.

That has been Dayton's story all season. It has two Quadrant 1 victories, having beaten No. 27 Saint Mary's and No. 42 Virginia Tech on neutral courts. The strongest part of Dayton's resume, though, has been its dominance. It's outscoring opponents by an average of 18.2 points per game.

Dayton has 11 double-digit victories, the same number it had all of last season, and only three short of the total it had in 2016-17, the last season it made the NCAA tournament.

Keeping that going is the goal now as Dayton continues a string of games in which it will be heavy favorites. It won at La Salle’s Tom Gola Arena for the first time since 2009. At 1 p.m. Sunday, it will try to win at Saint Joseph’s Hagan Arena, where it has lost nine games in a row since a 66-62 victory on Jan. 29, 2000.

» AWARDS WATCH: Could Toppin win national player of year award?

On paper, it’s a mismatch. The Hawks (3-10) rank 221st in the NET and 258th in the NET. They beat Connecticut 96-87 on Nov. 13 but then lost eight straight games, six of them by double digits. They shot 20 percent from 3-point range (6 of 30) on Thursday in their A-10 0pener, losing 84-52 at Richmond.

Nothing about the way Saint Joseph’s is playing or the way Dayton is playing suggest anything other than a UD victory on Sunday, but that’s going to be little comfort for Dayton coach Anthony Grant.

“For me, it’s one game at a time,” Grant said Thursday. “I try to live in reality. We have to approach every game with an understanding that anything can happen on any given night. We are by no means where I think we can be as a team. We have a chance to continue to get better. I like where we are, but the next challenge is coming really fast. We’ve got Saint Joseph’s. We haven’t won there in a long time. We have to try to stay locked in and understand this is a long journey. We’ve got a 10-week journey here to try to accomplish the things we want to accomplish. We’re nowhere near there yet. I wouldn’t start throwing a lot of accolades around here with 17 games left in the conference.”

SUNDAY’S GAME

Dayton at Saint Joseph’s, 1 p.m., ESPN+, 1290 and 95.7 WHIO