Dayton ‘fortunate to get the win’ against Davidson after technical foul in final minute

“We were told we were shooting two with the ball,” Grant said.

Neither Amaël L’Etang or Javon Bennett, the two players who represented Dayton at the postgame press conference, saw or heard what Davidson’s Hunter Adam, the redshirt sophomore guard from New Zealand, said to Dayton forward Nate Santos during a break in action in the final minute.

Everyone in the crowd of 13,407 at UD Arena was shocked to hear the technical announced. Suddenly, Dayton had a chance to tie the game at the free-throw line after a disastrous 3½-minute stretch by the Flyers. On the Spectrum News 1 broadcast, the broadcasting team of Alex Mikos and former Flyer Brooks Hall shared that disbelief.

“Hold on, man, I think Davidson just got a technical,” Hall said.

“Wait a second,” Mikos said. “Was a technical foul just called on the Wildcats?”

“That’s wild,” Hall said. “That’s rare to see. Usually Davidson is that disciplined, under-control squad, but I think there was some excessive taunting, excessive celebration that the referee caught.”

That’s what happened. The TV broadcast showed the brief moment Adam turned toward Santos and later showed Adam apologizing to the official, who gave him a pat on the back.

Javon Bennett made two free throws after the technical and then converted a 3-point play on the possession after the free throws. Dayton led 64-61 with 46 seconds to play and hit 5 of 6 free throws in the final 40 seconds to seal a 69-63 victory at UD Arena. The Flyers ended the game with a 10-2 run.

“We felt very fortunate to get the win today,” Grant said.

Davidson (13-9, 3-6) suffered its fifth loss in the last six games, while Dayton (16-7, 6-4) won for the fifth time in the last six games. With Massachusetts (10-13, 5-5) losing 73-71 at home to Saint Louis (14-9, 7-3) on Tuesday, Dayton sits alone in fourth place with eight games to play.

Dayton continued its domination of the Davidson series. The Flyers have won 10 straight games — all during Grant’s eight seasons — against the Wildcats since a 73-67 loss in the Atlantic 10 Conference tournament quarterfinals in 2017. That’s Dayton’s fourth-longest winning streak against an A-10 program.

Davidson’s losing streak to Dayton started with one-point losses in 2018 and 2019, but it lost twice to Dayton last season by a combined 27 points. This was its best chance to beat Dayton since 2022 when Koby Brea’s go-ahead 3-pointer in the final minute helped lift Dayton to an 82-76 victory at UD Arena.

“I’m absolutely freaking devastated,” Davidson coach Matt McKillop said on the Davidson postgame radio interview. “This is a really tough loss. We fought our tails off. We put ourselves in position to win, and we didn’t get it.”

Davidson fell to 0-7 at UD Arena since joining the A-10 in the 2014-15 season.

“It’s tough because we were good enough to win a game against a team like this on the road in the toughest environment that this league has,” McKillop said. “We’ve never won here, and we did not do what was necessary to finish this off.”

Dayton won despite shooting 23.1% (6 of 26) from 3-point range. That number ended a streak of six straight games in which it shot 33% or better. Davidson shot even worse: 20.8% (5 of 24), its second-worst percentage of the season.

Dayton won the game in part because it had an 11-point edge at the foul line. It made 21 of 24 free throws, while Davidson made 10 of 11.

Dayton won despite the absence of starting point guard Malachi Smith, who was not at the game because of an illness.

“He’s getting better,” Grant said. “He’s got a viral infection that kept him out today. He’s on medication. Hopefully, we’ll get more information tomorrow.”

Posh Alexander started in Smith’s place and scored 10 points on 3-of-7 shooting while recording 10 assists. Four other Flyers scored in double figures. Amaël L’Etang, Nate Santos and Bennett each scored 13 points. Enoch Cheeks also had 10 points. L’Etang also recorded a career-high 13 rebounds.

Dayton led 28-26 at halftime only to see Davidson take the lead with a 4-0 run to start the second half. Dayton answered with a 14-2 run, building its largest lead, 42-32, with 14 minutes, 32 seconds remaining.

Dayton stayed on top until the final minutes. Until the 10-2 run by Dayton in the last 48 seconds, Davidson had outscored Dayton 8-0 in a 3½-minute stretch, turning a 59-53 deficit at the 4:23 mark into a 61-59 lead with 51 seconds to play.

Dayton missed three straight shots during the stretch and then committed two straight turnovers. On the second turnover, Santos lost the ball while trying to make a pass to L’Etang. Davidson recovered the loose ball. Kochera scored in transition to give the Wildcats a 61-59 lead with 51 seconds to play. Davidson owned its first lead since the opening minute of the second half.

Davidson made 9 of 14 2-point shots in the second half. It shot 61.3% from 2-point range in the game. That’s the fourth-highest percentage Dayton has allowed and the fifth-best percentage Davidson has shot.

“Our emphasis was try to take away the 3-point line — we felt like that’s where they were the most dangerous — and to try to make them make tough 2s,” Grant said. “Credit to them. They give you a lot of movement. They give you a lot of different types of screening action. And they were able to have success today at the rim. That’s something we’ve been pretty good at, protecting the basket or making people have to take tough twos. Tonight they had a lot of success with that.”

FRIDAY’S GAME

VCU at Dayton, 7 p.m., ESPN2, 95.7, 1290