“It helps the team spirit just to have him around,” Dayton guard Koby Brea said. “For me, just because of what we experienced together last summer, seeing him in that position makes me go little bit harder and makes me appreciate things a little more. I understand what it is to be in his position. It’s super unfortunate, but I think he’s done a great job handling it and when he comes back, he’s going to be a monster.”
Dayton (4-2) will play its sixth game without Smith at 8 p.m. Wednesday, facing Southern Methodist (5-2) at Moody Coliseum in Dallas, Texas. Dayton will try to win a non-conference regular-season road game for the first time in seven years.
“We have to keep the same mindset for every game,” Dayton forward Isaac Jack said. “Whether it’s home or away, we have to get the next one. Winning these games will just lead us to better opportunities in the future.”
Dayton has lost these eight regular-season non-conference games on opponents’ home courts since winning 77-72 at Alabama on Nov. 15, 2016.
• Dec. 3, 2017: Dayton rallied from a 21-point second-half deficit only to lose 61-59 to Mississippi State. Dayton had a chance to take the last shot, but Darrell Davis turned the ball over with 8 seconds to play. Quinndary Weatherspoon took the ball the other way and scored on a layup with 0.8 seconds to play.
• Dec. 19, 2017: Saint Mary’s scored 14 straight points in a four-minute span in the final seven minutes, pulling away for a 69-54 victory.
• Dec. 8, 2018: Dayton made a run at No. 8 Auburn in the second half, cutting a 19-point deficit to six but lost 82-72.
• Dec. 8, 2021: Playing at SMU, Dayton trailed by as many as 15 points in the second but cut the SMU lead to 70-67 on a 3-pointer by Mustapha Amzil with 44 seconds to play. The Flyers couldn’t complete the comeback and lost 77-69.
• Dec. 18, 2021: In a 76-68 loss at Mississippi, Dayton got no closer than seven points in the final minutes after falling behind by as many as 15 points.
• Nov. 15, 2022: UNLV outscored No. 21 Dayton 38-20 in the second half and 16-8 in the final eight minutes to win 60-52.
• Dec. 7, 2022: In a 77-49 loss at Virginia Tech, Dayton suffered its worst defeat since a 90-61 loss to Xavier in the championship game of the Advocare Invitational in 2015.
• Nov. 10, 2023: Northwestern clinched a 71-66 victory with nine points at the free-throw line in the last 90 seconds.
Dayton is 12-11 in non-conference games on neutral courts in coach Anthony Grant’s seven seasons. In true road games in the NIT, it is 1-2 in the same span with a victory at Toledo in 2022 and losses at Colorado in 2021 and at Vanderbilt in 2022.
This game will be a Quad 1 game for Dayton if SMU can climb into the top 75 in the NCAA Evaluation Tool rankings, or it will be a Quad 2 game if SMU ranks between 76 and 135. The first NET rankings come out in early December. SMU ranks 84th in the Ken Pomeroy ratings, while Dayton is No. 69.
This will be the fourth matchup in four seasons between the Flyers and Mustangs. In addition the 2021 game at Moody, there were two games at UD Arena.
* Behind 20 points by DaRon Holmes II, the Flyers beat the Mustangs 74-62 at UD Arena in the second game of last season.
* In 2020 at UD Arena, Emmanuel Bandoumel got the bounce on a jump shot with 0.2 seconds to play as SMU won 66-64, ending a 21-game Dayton winning streak that included 20 victories at the end of 2019-20 season.
SMU enters this game with two losses to teams ranked in the top 25 of the Pomeroy ratings: 77-69 at home to Texas A&M on Nov. 14; and 69-61 to Wisconsin on Nov. 22 in the Fort Myers Tip-Off. The Mustangs beat West Virginia 70-58 in Fort Myers two days before losing to Wisconsin.
Zhuric Phelps, a 6-5 guard, leads SMU with 15.9 points per game. He scored 12 points against Dayton last season and had 13 points in the 2021 game.
Chuck Harris, a 6-4 guard who played the last three seasons at Butler, ranks second on the team with 13.9 points per game.
Coach Rob Lanier was 10-22 in his first season. It was SMU’s worst record since 2008-09 (9-21). Like Dayton, SMU hasn’t played in the NCAA tournament since 2017. This is SMU’s last season in the American Athletic Conference. It will join the Atlantic Coast Conference in 2024.
After a 70-57 victory Sunday against Louisiana Monroe, Lanier was asked about playing Dayton.
“I don’t look at it like a measuring stick,” he said. “This is opportunity to win a game and, and get better at taking care of our home court. It’s a game we should expect to come out and win. We know it’s going to be a hard game. I know the staff intimately, and I have the utmost respect for them. I know what we’re up against.”
WEDNESDAY’S GAME
Dayton at SMU, 8 p.m., ESPN+, 1290, 95.7
Credit: David Jablonski
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