“We couldn’t make shots because they don’t make mistakes,” Martin said. “Judge teams on who they are defensively. Offense is real simple. It’s an indication of your talent. If you’ve got bad talent, you can run great offense and you’re not scoring. Defense is an indication of who your team is and what your coach is all about. Pay attention to his teams. His teams don’t make mistakes, and they play together. They play for each other.”
Offense is Dayton’s strength, not defense, but it held UMass to a season-low points total and held Davidson to its second-lowest output in the previous game, a 72-57 victory on the road on Jan 3.
Now Dayton (12-2, 2-0) puts its nine-game winning streak, tied for the fourth-longest active streak in the country, on the line against Duquesne (9-5, 0-2) at 7 p.m. Friday at the UMPC Cooper Fieldhouse in Pittsburgh.
The game is sold out. It’s Duquesne’s first sellout since it spent 22 months and $45 million upgrading the arena formerly known as the Palumbo Center from 2019-21. Duquesne ranks 12th out of 15 teams in the A-10 in attendance, averaging 1,980 fans. The arena seats 3,500 fans. The previous high crowd of 3,333 watched Duquesne beat St. Bonaventure last February.
Duquesne Keith Dambrot talked to reporters in Pittsburgh about the Flyers on Wednesday.
“They shoot the ball,” Dambrot said. “They’ve got the best big player in the league and a good understanding of what they’re trying to accomplish defensively. They’re well coached. It’s just a typical Dayton team. I would say if they have a weakness, they don’t have unbelievable depth because they’ve had some injuries, but their top seven, eight, nine guys are pretty good.”
With DaRon Holmes II scoring 22 points, Dayton beat Duquesne 69-57 at UD Arena in its A-10 opener last season. In the last matchup at Cooper Fieldhouse in 2022, Dayton won 72-52. Holmes had 18 points in that game. The Flyers have won nine of the last 10 games in the series and are 9-2 against Duquesne in Grant’s tenure.
Asked how they will handle Holmes, Dambrot said, “VCU beat them last year and didn’t double him at all and they took their lumps in the first half. If you double him, they’ll throw it out and beat you on the 3 line, so you’ve got to pick your poison a little bit. I think everything starts and finishes with him, so if you can get him in trouble or get him a little out of his game, I think it changes the game. The other guy is (Kobe) Elvis, who’s coming off a little injury, but I think he’ll play. He’s another one that can break you down. Then they shoot it with (Koby) Brea and (Nate) Santos and those guys. It’s a difficult cover because they can spread it out, and they have the post presence. That makes it really hard.”
Dayton is No. 20 in the NCAA Evaluation Tool, and Duquesne ranks 86th. The Dukes suffered their only Quad 1 losses in non-conference play, losing to No. 26 Princeton (11-1) and No. 46 Nebraska (13-3). Its best victory was against No. 80 Bradley (10-5).
In A-10 play, the Dukes opened with two road losses: 80-61 at No. 79 UMass (11-4, 2-1) on Wednesday; and 72-67 at No. 136 Loyola Chicago (10-6, 2-1) on Saturday. In those games, Duquense shot 27.9% (12 of 43) from 3-point range. At the same time, the Duquesne defense held its two opponents to 23.1% shooting (6 of 26) from 3-point range.
“We’ve had these spurts where we just haven’t played very good,” Dambrot said, “and we haven’t been as cohesive and as connected as we would have liked.”
Duquesne was one of the most improved teams in the A-10 a season ago. It was 6-24 overall and 1-16 in the A-10 in the 2021-22 season and 20-13 and 10-8 last season. This season, it returned its leading scorers, guards Dae Dae Grant and Jimmy Clark. They combined to average 27.7 points last season and are averaging 34.8 this season.
Four players average between 6.0 and 8.0 points per game: sophomore guard Kareem Rozier; fifth-year forward Andrei Savrasov, who played the last three seasons at Georgia Southern after starting his career at Texas Tech; fifth-year forward Fousseyni Drame, who played last season at La Salle after playing three seasons at St. Peter’s; and sophomore forward David Dixon.
Dayton seeks its second straight 3-0 start in A-10 play and its fourth in Grant’s seven seasons. It enters the game tied with Richmond (10-5, 2-0) and Rhode Island (8-7, 2-0) for first place. The other 12 teams all have at least one loss.
After six straight victories by nine points or more, Dayton faced a tense final stretch against UMass. It got late stops and hit its free throws to preserve the victory.
“We’re always talking about opportunities to learn,,” Grant said, “and I much prefer to learn through winning than to learn through losing. Hopefully, this is an opportunity for us to learn.”
FRIDAY’S GAME
Dayton at Duquesne, 7 p.m., ESPN2, 1290, 95.7
Credit: David Jablonski
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