Dayton survives test at La Salle; first-place showdown at Richmond up next

At one point in the second half Tuesday, the entire group posed for a photo in the stands behind the UD bench at Tom Gola Arena. Stephan Brea, Koby’s dad, gave two thumbs up in the middle. Asked before the game to explain how his son could overcome offseason leg surgeries to become one of the nation’s most accurate 3-point shooters, Stephan said simply, “Blessed.”

No. 16 Dayton (16-2, 6-0), which beat La Salle 66-54 for its 13th straight victory, is similarly blessed. The Flyers are winning games no matter the circumstances or the atmosphere. They have won nine games at UD Arena in front of sold-out crowds of 13,407 every time. On opponents’ courts or neutral courts, they had not played in front of a crowd smaller than 3,500 until traveling to La Salle.

La Salle (10-9, 1-5) ranks second to last in the A-10 in average attendance (1,578). Despite some help from Dayton fans, it drew only 1,571 fans to the game Tuesday. They didn’t have much to cheer for as Dayton led for all but nine seconds and survived La Salle’s comeback in the second half to earn a victory in an arena full of bad memories for the program.

“It means everything,” Dayton forward DaRon Holmes II said. “Like we always preach, no game’s easy. Every game’s going to have its own challenges.”

Holmes, who won the Atlantic 10 Conference Player of the Week Award on Monday for the third time in January, took another step toward the player of the year award with his fourth straight 20-point performance. He scored 22 on 8-of-13 shooting and added eight rebounds, four assists, two blocks and two steals.

“DaRon has done what we expect him to do,” Dayton coach Anthony Grant said. “He’s a guy that is a veteran now. He’s seen a lot of different looks. He’s put the work in. He’s doing what we know he’s capable of doing.”

Holmes is averaging 19.6 points this season and 23.5 points in six conference games. He now has 1,426 points in his career. He passed Brooks Hall (1,404) and Dyshawn Pierre (1,423) to move into 24th place on the all-time scoring list.

Holmes had help in this game from Javon Bennett and Nate Santos, who each scored 13. Bennett made three straight 3s in the second half after Dayton missed its first seven attempts of the half.

“Holmes was terrific in the first half,” La Salle coach Fran Dunphy said, “and then when he needed to be great in the second half, he made a couple of nice plays inside. You take your chances on doubling down on him, and Bennett made huge three huge jumpers in the second half.”

The victory keeps Dayton on course in what is shaping up to be a historic season. Here’s what it means:

• Dayton climbed from No. 15 to a season-best No. 14 in the NCAA Evaluation Tool and to No. 23 in the Ken Pomeroy ratings.

• The 13-game winning streak is Dayton’s third longest in the last 50 years. It also won 13 in a row in the 2007-08 season. This is the Flyers’ longest winning streak since a 20-game run to end their 29-2 season in 2020.

• Those 2020 Flyers also started 16-2 and finished 29-2. Prior to 2020, the last Dayton team to start 16-2 was the 2008-09 team, which won 21 games before losing its third and finished 27-8.

• Dayton is one of 11 teams in the country with two or fewer losses. Princeton (15-1) is the only team with one loss.

• Dayton has the second-longest active winning streak in the country behind Samford, which has won 17 games in a row.

• The Flyers moved into first place by a half game over Richmond (13-5, 5-0). Dayton plays Richmond at 6 p.m. Saturday at the Robins Center in Richmond, Va. Richmond has won eight games in a row and plays Wednesday at home against George Washington (14-4, 3-2).

Dayton keeps finding ways to win when its shots aren’t falling. It made 5 of 19 3-pointers (26.3%) against La Salle. That’s the second time in three games it has shot worse than 30%. It made 8 of 28 (28.6%) in a 70-65 victory against Saint Louis last week at UD Arena. In between, it made 16 of 27 (59.3%) in a 96-62 victory against Rhode Island.

Brea missed both of his 3-point attempts. It was the first time since Dayton’s last loss, on Nov. 19 against Houston, he didn’t make a 3-pointer. Santos missed all four of his 3s but made 6 of 8 2-pointers.

“The zone kind of stagnated us a little bit,” Grant said. “We stood around. Then we got some good looks that didn’t go in. Sometimes it just wasn’t good offense. We made an adjustment there. The guys responded. Javon made some really big ones for us. And we made enough plays on the defensive end to be able to extend the lead and come up with the win.”

In the first half, Dayton led 20-17 and then started an 8-0 run with five straight points by Holmes and a 3-pointer by Kobe Elvis. It built a 36-23 halftime lead.

Dayton kept the lead in double digits until a 9-0 run in a two-minute stretch by La Salle trimmed a 45-33 Dayton lead to 45-42. Then Bennett then hit two straight 3-pointers, and Holmes scored on back-to-back layups, backing down his defender and converting after a spin move at the rim both times, as Dayton pushed the lead to 55-45 at the 6:33 mark.

“We got it to 45-42, and we had a couple of chances at the rim,” Dunphy said. “We just couldn’t finish. We just rushed ourselves on a couple of plays. We needed better poise down there, and we weren’t poised enough.”

Dayton avenged a 62-60 loss at La Salle in 2022 and improved to 9-7 at Tom Gola Arena, which opened in 1998.

“(Dayton’s) a very good basketball team — on both ends,” Dunphy said.

SATURDAY’S GAME

Dayton at Richmond, 6 p.m., CBS Sports Network, 1290, 95.7