“Playing here, it’s a different feeling,” Bennett said Wednesday. “I feel like the fans and the community just make us play hard.”
Bennett has told the younger players and the newcomers, “That’s just how we’ve got to play.”
Dayton has leaned on transfers for years. For one seven-year stretch (2012-18), a transfer led the Flyers in scoring every season. Obi Toppin (2019-20), Jalen Crutcher (2021) and DaRon Holmes II (2022-24), three players who began and ended their college careers at Dayton, ended that streak in the last six seasons.
The 2024-25 roster includes three new transfers: Posh Alexander (Butler and St. John’s); Zed Key (Ohio State); and Jacob Conner (Marshall). All three experienced two exhibition games at UD Arena in the preseason and will see another sold out crowd in the regular-season opener at 7 p.m. Monday against Saint Francis University.
The Flyer Faithful hope the 2023 and 2024 transfers mesh this season. The process continued in the opener. Dayton was picked to finish second in the Atlantic 10 Conference and earned its second-highest preseason ranking ever, No. 27, in the Ken Pomeroy ratings. Yet the Flyers still know they have something to prove after losing the star player who led them to 71 victories in the last three seasons: DaRon Holmes II.
“I feel like people are kind of doubting us this year,” Bennett said, “and feeling like we don’t have the same team. I feel like we kind of have a chip on our shoulder this year to prove them wrong.”
Beating Saint Francis, which has suffered four straight losing seasons and posted single-digit victories in three of those seasons, won’t do that, but it’ll be the first step. Here are seven things know about Dayton’s first game:
1. Roster turnover: Saint Francis lost its three leading scorers to the transfer portal:
• Cam Gregory (13.4 points per game) is now at Campbell.
• Eli Wilborn (10.4) transferred to Duquesne.
• Carlos Lopez Jr. (9.4) now plays for Hofstra.
2. Key players: The team’s top returning players are: 6-foot-5 sophomore guard Bobby Rosenberger (9.0); 6-0 sophomore guard Ace Talbert (8.3); and 6-7 sophomore forward Aidan Harris (4.0).
3. Local connection: The Saint Francis roster has one Dayton-area player. Freshman Juan Cranford Jr. led Wayne High School in scoring (16.5) last season.
4. Program history: Saint Francis made its only NCAA tournament appearance in 1991 when Jim Baron was the coach. The 24-8 record that season remains the best in school history. Baron coached one more season before moving to the Atlantic 10 Conference for the next 20 seasons (nine with St. Bonaventure and 11 with Rhode Island).
The current coach, Rob Krimmel, has a record of 155-210 entering his 13th season.
5. Series history: Dayton leads the series 6-1. Dayton last played Saint Francis in the second game of the 2013-14 season. It used a 16-2 run in the final four minutes to win 70-56 four days after beating Purdue University Fort Wayne 81-80 on a last-second 3-pointer by Jordan Sibert.
Prior to that, Dayton and Saint Francis had not played in almost 50 years. They played six times between 1955 and 1966 with Dayton winning the first matchup 79-73 in overtime in the NIT semifinals at Madison Square Garden.
In the NIT game, Dayton guard Carmen Riazzi made a shot with three seconds remaining to send the game to overtime. Maurice Stokes, the first Saint Francis player to make it to the NBA, scored a then school-record 43 points in his second-to-last college game.
6. Recent history: This is the third time in four years St. Francis has opened the season on the road against an A-10 team. It lost 75-72 at George Washington in 2021 and 71-58 at St. Bonaventure in 2022. Last season, it started with a 75-44 loss at UCLA and then suffered two more lopsided losses on the west coast to San Francisco and Santa Clara.
7. Streak on the line: Dayton will seek its 20th straight victory on opening night. It has beaten 18 different opponents since a 2004 loss to Eastern Kentucky. There have been a number of close calls along the way, most memorably last-second victories against Purdue University Fort Wayne (IPFW) in 2013 and Ball State in 2017.
Even the best Dayton team of his century, the 2019-20 team that won 29 games, survived two 3-point attempts by Indiana State in the final seconds before escaping with a victory.
MONDAY’S GAME
St. Francis at Dayton, 7 p.m., 1290, 95.7, ESPN+
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