On the first road trip of the season for the band, Morris and the band members lined the court and chanted the players’ name during pregame warmups at the United Center. Then Morris added a few more inspiring words.
“This is our house tonight,” Morris said. “Take it to ‘em.”
The Flyers did just that in a 66-49 victory against Wyoming. Technically, this was a game played on a neutral court, but it was far from a neutral atmosphere because of the presence of the band and thousands of Dayton fans, including former Flyers such as Matt Kavanaugh, Luke Fabrizius, Bobby Wehrli, Kendall Pollard, Kevin Conrad, Sedric Toney and Johnny Davis.
“Walking out there and hearing that roar,” Dayton coach Anthony Grant said, “and then their impact on the game today, it was awesome.”
In a roller-coaster of a season, there were only high points for Grant on Saturday.
Grant started the day in Dayton. He stayed behind when the team traveled to Chicago on Friday because his son Preston was graduating from UD with a degree in philosophy on Saturday. The Flyers played at 8 p.m. in Chicago. The ceremony started at 9:45 a.m. at UD Arena.
Grant had plenty of time to get to Chicago because he had his own flight. He opened his postgame press conference by thanking Athletic Director Neil Sullivan and the university.
“Thanks to Neil and some very generous Flyer Faithful, it was able to happen,” Grant said.
The travel plan worked out. So did the game plan. Dayton (7-5) earned its highest-profile victory on its non-conference schedule and its first victory away from home after losses to UNLV, Wisconsin, North Carolina State, Brigham Young and Virginia Tech.
DaRon Holmes II and Toumani Camara were again the stars for Dayton. They each scored eight points in the first nine minutes as Dayton built a 25-8 lead. Holmes scored all of Dayton’s six points in the first eight minutes of the second half as Wyoming (5-6) cut a 14-point halftime deficit to two points.
Holmes made 10 of 15 shots, including his third career 3-pointer, and scored 24 points one week after scoring 27 points on 11-of-18 shooting in a 79-56 victory against UNC Asheville.
Holmes dominated against a Wyoming team playing without its best big man, Graham Ike, who has not played this season because of a lower-leg injury. The Cowboys are 5-6 after finishing 11-2 in non-conference play last season.
“For them to be able to pump it down to Holmes, it’s hard,” Wyoming coach Jeff Linder told the Casper Star-Tribune. “When you schedule a game like this, you’ve got a Graham Ike who can equalize and be able to kind of neutralize that threat. And (Ike) also allows the game to slow down for us to where we’re not having to rely on dribble penetration, and we can play inside-out.”
Camara scored 17 points on 6-of-10 shooting and led the team with nine rebounds. He earned extra praise from Grant for his defense.
“I’ve felt this way for a while, but I don’t think he gets enough credit,” Grant said. “He’s got to be one of the most versatile elite defenders in the country. When you can guard any position on the floor with the versatility that he does, I’ve got a lot of a lot of respect for that, and I’ve seen a lot of really good guys in 30-plus years in this business at every level.”
Dayton held Wyoming to 29.2% shooting (7 of 24), its fourth-worst performance of the season, from 3-point range, and 38.7% shooting (12 of 31) from 2-point range, its second-worst effort.
“I love to play defense,” Camara said. “I feel to be good at it, you have to love it. It’s something I take a lot of pride in. When I was young, I was never really good at it, so I think it’s something I’ve tried to work on my whole life. Now I’m able to show that I can guard one through five.”
Dayton also showed its outside shooting touch, making 7 of 16 3-pointers. It has topped 40% three times in the last four games after not hitting that mark once in the first eight games.
Koby Brea made 2 of 5 3-pointers and scored 10 points after a breakout shooting performance (3-of-5 shooting from 3-point range) a week earlier against UNC Asheville.
“I’ve said all along I felt like we have a good 3-point shooting team,” Grant said. “We’ve talked a lot about just going together and understanding who we are as a team and where our strengths are and playing to our strengths. That’s all we try to do. Every game is different. Some games you look at it and say, ‘Oh, they made a lot of 3s today. That must have been the game plan.’ But it’s a lot deeper than that for us. I don’t know what we shot today from 3, but I thought they executed the game plan. I thought we played to our strengths. I thought we were really effective doing that. I think the guys are understanding who we are as a team.”
TUESDAY’S GAME
Alcorn State at Dayton, 7 p.m., Spectrum News 1, ESPN+, 1290, 95.7
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