“You don’t need a pep talk, do you?” Lunardi joked. “Because four other coaches called me today.”
”No, I’m all right,” Miller said with a laugh.
“Relax,” Lunardi said, “and don’t listen to what I say.”
Miller’s Flyers were safely in the NCAA tournament field even after that loss in 2016. Coach Anthony Grant’s Flyers, who have been a longshot since three early losses to UMass Lowell, Lipscomb and Austin Peay, still have a chance — but little margin for error — because of a 74-62 victory Saturday at Hagan Arena.
Working for Dayton, Lunardi said, are its victories over Kansas and Virginia Tech, and if the Flyers can win the Atlantic 10 Conference regular-season championship or at least tie for the title, that would count for something, too.
“I’m not as hung up on the three Quad 4 losses because that was four months ago,” Lunardi said, “and they have a very young team.”
Asked if the NCAA will consider Dayton’s whole body of work or factor in how they’ve played in the last three months, Lunardi said, “They can look at whatever they want. If they want to say we want short Italian bracketologists better represented, they could do that.”
Credit: David Jablonski
Credit: David Jablonski
In summary, Lunardi said Dayton “absolutely” has a chance to earn an at-large berth, but this message to the Dayton fans is, “This team has overachieved. This program is a half a year minimally ahead of schedule. Let’s celebrate that.”
Dayton (19-8, 11-3), which has now won four games in a row, began the day as the highest-ranked A-10 team in the NCAA Evaluation Tool. At No. 52, it was three spots ahead of Saint Louis and six spots ahead of first-place Davidson. Lunardi listed Dayton as the last team among the “Next Four Out” of the NCAA tournament picture before the game Saturday, meaning there were seven teams ahead of it in the at-large discussion, and all of those teams were on the wrong side of the bubble. Later Saturday, he bumped the Flyers up two spots.
There’s little doubt Dayton has to win its remaining four regular-season games against Massachusetts, La Salle, Richmond and Davidson to keep its hopes alive entering the A-10 tournament. This victory, its third in 13 games at Hagan Arena this century, showed Dayton has the potential to win its remaining games.
The Flyers shot 54.2% (26 of 48) from the field and 45.5% (5 of 12) from 3-point range and led for the last 33 minutes. They twice stretched their advantage to as many as 17 points in the second half.
Considering the location, this goes down as one of Dayton’s best victories of the season. Even the best Dayton teams — the 2014 team that reached the Elite Eight and the 2016 team that reached the NCAA tournament for the third season in a row — lost at Hagan Arena. The 2019-20 team that won 29 games wasn’t nearly as strong at Hagan Arena in an 80-67 victory as this Dayton team was Saturday. A year ago, Dayton played one of its worst games of the season at Saint Joseph’s, losing 97-84.
“We just knew we had to come in and play hard,” Dayton forward Toumani Camara said. “We saw what happened in that game last season. We had to hit back.”
Camara had one of the best plays of the game, an emphatic dunk in the first half that was answered by an equally resounding slam by DaRon Holmes II in the second half. Camara had 12 points on 5-of-7 shooting. Holmes led the Flyers with 18 points, while making 6 of 10 shots.
Malachi Smith (16 points), Kobe Elvis (13 points) and Koby Brea (10) also scored in double figures.
“It was a team effort,” Dayton coach Anthony Grant said. “I thought the guys understood the opportunity and understood the scouting report. St. Joe’s is prolific 3-point shooting team. We understood that we had to have a sense of urgency. I think they made eight (of 22) today, but several of those were late in the game when it was kind of in hand.”
WEDNESDAY’S GAME
UMass at Dayton, 7 p.m., Spectrum News 1, 1290, 95.7
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