Everyone in the crowd of 13,407, meanwhile, breathed a sigh of relief. Dayton had sweated much in the final minutes of games since a 65-63 victory at Southern Methodist on Nov. 29. This game proved the 18-game Atlantic 10 Conference schedule will include as many nervous moments as joyful moments, and even the A-10 favorite, one of the hottest teams in the country, ranked No. 19 in the NCAA Evaluation Tool entering the game, will struggle at times.
“That’s definitely one of the better teams in the A-10,” Holmes said. “They did a good job on the defensive end, especially in the second half. We struggled a little bit figuring it out, but we got the win, and that’s what matters most. We’ve just got to look back and reflect on what we can fix and go from there.”
Dayton (12-2, 2-0) won its ninth straight game, its longest streak in four years, and eighth straight in the series against UMass (10-4, 1-1). The Flyers didn’t trail for the second straight game. However, unlike Wednesday when Dayton won 72-57 at Davidson, the Flyers were unable to protect a double-digit lead in the second half.
Dayton led 38-29 at halftime and by as many as 13 points in the second half. It had a 57-47 lead with 4:55 to play. Then UMass scored eighth straight points in a 69-second span, trimming Dayton’s lead to 57-55 at the 3:26 mark.
At that point, Dayton’s offense had gone stagnant with shots coming late in the shot clock and few shots falling. In a nine-minute stretch, Dayton had seven points on a 3-point play by Zimi Nwokeji, two free throws by Nate Santos and a layup by Holmes.
UMass coach Frank Martin said a switch to a zone defense in the second half slowed Dayton and put his team in the position to rally.
“I’m not real smart, and I’m a man-to-man guy,” Martin said, “but I’ve got little saying that I live by, ‘Don’t let stubborn make me stupid.’ And that zone was working.”
UMass had a chance to take the lead at the 2:51 mark with Dayton leading 57-55, but Josh Cohen missed a 3-pointer. It had a chance to tie the game with 33 seconds left as Dayton clung to a 59-57 lead, but Cohen missed a jump shot.
Dayton struggled to keep UMass off the offensive boards throughout the game. The Minutemen took advantage of Dayton’s big weakness and turned 20 offensive rebounds into 18 second-chance points. The Flyers did get key rebounds by Holmes and Isaac Jack in the final minute to secure the lead.
Javon Bennett made 4 of 4 free throws in the final 30 seconds, and Jack made 1 of 2 as Dayton clinched the victory.
Holmes led Dayton with 18 points on 7-of-14 shooting. He scored 14 of his points in the first half, making 3 of 4 3-pointers. Enoch Cheeks added 11 points.
Nwokeji scored nine points, his highest total in more than a year, and made back-to-back 3-pointers in the first half. He played 14 minutes in part because freshman forward Petras Padegimas missed his second straight game with an illness and guard Kobe Elvis suffered a lower-body injury on the third play of the game.
Elvis left the game and headed to the locker room but returned to play another three-minute stretch before leaving the game for good. After the game, Grant said, “We don’t have any answers in terms of Elvis’s status moving forward.”
Elvis averaged 17.7 points in the last six games, and Dayton missed his presence in the second half as the offense went cold.
“Obviously, today we faced some adversity with Elvis going down early,” Grant said, “and then in the second half, some of the adversity was self inflicted and some was a result of UMass doing a really good job from a defensive standpoint. They were able to impact us on the offensive end with the press and with the zone, so we struggled from an offensive standpoint. And they’re a terrific rebounding team. They were able to get back almost half of their misses and were able to make it a two-point game going into the last four minutes. I thought our guys did a really good job of being able to stay together, and we had guys step up and make plays when they needed to make plays.”
FRIDAY’S GAME
Dayton at Duquesne, 1 p.m., ESPN2, 1290, 95.7
Credit: David Jablonski
Credit: David Jablonski
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