Dayton will be down one player for Maui Invitational

Conner turned his left ankle in the final seconds of the first half Wednesday during a 74-53 victory against New Mexico State at UD Arena. He was not on the bench in the second half. In a team photo taken Saturday at the Lahaina Civic Center, Conner had a protective boot on the ankle.

A junior forward in his first season at Dayton after two seasons at Marshall, Conner averaged 5.6 points and 2.4 rebounds in the first four games. Grant said there was no timetable for his return.

Dayton (4-0) plays North Carolina (3-1) at 11:30 p.m. Monday. The game starts at 6:30 p.m. in Maui.

“Just watching them on film, they’re obviously really, really talented,” Grant said, “and one of the most storied programs in college basketball. They’ve got a great roster, a very talented roster. Coach (Hubert) Davis does a great job coaching his group. They’re really explosive, really fast, really athletic. We’ll have to do a great job in a lot of areas on both sides of the ball.”

North Carolina beat Hawaii 87-69 on Friday night in Honolulu. Grant said he didn’t know if that game will give the Tar Heels an advantage Monday.

“It’s a five-hour time change,” Grant said. “From a physical standpoint, the guys have to get acclimated to being in a new time zone and obviously the heat and all that stuff. So we’ll see.”

While North Carolina has played two of its first four games on the road and also played Memphis in an exhibition game on the road. Dayton did not play away from home in the first weeks of the season.

“Hawaii was a terrific team,” Davis said. “It gave us an opportunity to get out here and get acclimated to the time change, and it put us in a position to be able to play on the road. All of us have talked about finding out about our team and the things that we need to improve on, and including the exhibition games, we’ve played three road games. We played Penny (Hardaway) on the road. We played at Kansas and then at Hawaii. One of the things that we talk to the players all the time about is, ‘How do you react? How do you respond?’ I was really proud of how they reacted and how they responded at Hawaii on Friday.”

North Carolina and Dayton will play for the first time since the NIT championship game in 2010.

“They’re a terrific basketball team,” Davis said. “Obviously, they’re undefeated. They have terrific guard play. From a defensive standpoint, they’re physical. They’re tough. They create turnovers. They try to dictate and decide how efficient you are on the offensive end. We can’t let that happen. They’re an extremely well-coached team. They’ll be ready to play, but we’ll be ready to play as well.”