Then, just before Dayton in-bounded the ball with 10 seconds to play, the video feed stopped working all together, and fans did not see Koby Brea miss a 3-pointer in the final seconds.
“We’ll get this fixed ASAP,” the screen read.
The video came back, and ESPN replayed the final possession, but all in all, the experience added to the frustration of fans. Of course, the Flyers themselves felt worse as all the momentum they built during a five-game winning streak vanished with a loss to the second-worst team in the Atlantic 10 Conference.
“You can’t underestimate anybody,” Dayton forward DaRon Holmes II said. “Anybody can play on any given night. This proves it.”
Dayton (20-9, 12-4) could have wrapped up a top-four seed and a double bye in the A-10 tournament by beating La Salle (8-18, 3-13). Instead, it slipped to third place and is one of four teams fighting for two spots. Fourth-place St. Bonaventure (19-7, 11-4) and two teams tied for fifth, Richmond and Saint Louis, (both 19-10, 10-6), will compete for top-four finishes in the last week of the regular season.
First-place Davidson (24-4, 14-2) and second-place Virginia Commonwealth (20-7, 13-3) have already clinched spots in the top four.
Dayton plays Richmond at 6:30 p.m. Tuesday at the Robins Center in Richmond, Va. A victory there or at home at 12:30 p.m. Saturday against Davidson would clinch a top-four seed for Dayton, though it could lose both and still get a top-four seed depending on what happens in other games.
The last week is full of meaningful games in regards to the A-10 tournament, which starts March 9 at Capital One Arena in Washington, D.C. St. Bonaventure plays at VCU on Tuesday and hosts Richmond on Saturday. Saint Louis plays at Rhode Island on Wednesday and hosts VCU on Saturday.
Dayton lost to La Salle on its Senior Day but won’t have to deal with the same situation at Richmond, which celebrated its Senior Night on Friday before a victory against Saint Louis. Richmond had a busy Senior Night with six graduate students and three seniors honored.
The Spiders have the 19th-most experienced roster in the country, according to KenPom.com, with graduate students Nathan Cayo, Jacob Gilyard and Grant Golden and senior Andre Gustavson in the starting lineup and graduate student Nick Sherod playing the most minutes of the reserves.
At the start of the season, Richmond’s five starters were an average age of 23.4 years old. Dayton, by comparison, has one fourth-year player, Elijah Weaver, and he will miss the rest of the season with a wrist injury.
Richmond’s roster also includes four 1,000-point scorers: Cayo (1,301); Gilyard (1,914); Golden (2,159); and Sherod (1,393). The numbers are skewed somewhat because those players have gotten an extra year of college basketball because of the pandemic year of 2020-21. However, you look at it, though, Richmond has a big edge in experience over Dayton.
What Richmond’s veteran group has never experienced is a victory over Dayton. The Flyers have won eight straight games in the series.
Picked to finish second in the A-10 preseason poll, Richmond has played better since a 1-3 start in the conference but, like Dayton, will have to win the A-10 tournament to play in the NCAA tournament. Both teams want to improve their seed this week so they have to play three games in three days instead of four games in four days.
In the past 10 A-10 tournaments, only No. 6 seed Saint Louis in 2019 and No. 5 seed VCU in 2015 have won the tournament without a top-four seed and by winning four games in four days.
“We’ve got two games this upcoming week to put ourselves in a position where we can get a top-four seed,” Dayton coach Anthony Grant said Saturday after the loss to La Salle. “Hopefully, we won’t let this game (affect us) next week. We’ve got to be able to move on and with a quick turnaround for Tuesday’s game be ready to go.”
TUESDAY’S GAME
Dayton at Richmond, 6:30 p.m., CBS Sports Network, 1290, 95.7
About the Author
