“According to reports from Cincinnati, the Saints won strictly on their merits,” the Herald reported. “Matusoff, at forward, was the star for the Saints with six field goals. Manchester and Summers also played a good game.”
Those names didn’t live on quite as long in Dayton basketball lore as Uhl, Paxson, Chapman, Knight, Roberts, Toppin, Holmes, etc., but they were there at the beginning of Dayton’s biggest rivalry.
Even with a nine-year gap between meetings, Dayton and Xavier still remain attached in the record book. Dayton has played no opponent more than Xavier — and vice versa. They have played 159 or 163 times, depending on the source, over the years.
The former longtime rivals, Dayton and Xavier, will add to that history when they play a charity exhibition game at 5 p.m. Sunday at UD Arena. The game is sold out and will be televised on Bally Sports Ohio and ESPN+.
This game won’t count in the record book but will mean more to Dayton fans than any exhibition game Dayton has played in recent years — even more than the preseason game last season against Ohio State — because of the history of the rivalry.
Dayton and Xavier announced in July they would play this exhibition game, which will raise money for Jay’s Light and other suicide prevention charities, resuming a rivalry that has been largely dormant since Xavier left the Atlantic 10 Conference after the 2012-13 season.
Here’s a look back at the series:
Who has the edge: According to the Dayton media guide, UD leads the series 84-75. Xavier’s media guide gives Dayton an 86-77 edge.
By the numbers: While Cincinnati long ago surpassed Dayton as Xavier’s biggest rival, Xavier stood alone as Dayton’s biggest rival for decades.
Miami is the only other school Dayton has played more than 100 times. There have been 132 games in that series but none since 2015.
Dayton has played Cincinnati 92 times, and that number will reach 93 in December.
The program with the best chance of passing Xavier in the record book with most games played against Dayton is Duquesne. The Flyers and Dukes have played 88 times and face each other twice most seasons in the Atlantic 10 Conference. Duquesne could surpass Xavier in the 2060s if the A-10 survives that long.
First meeting: Dayton and Xavier first played on Feb. 20, 1920, at the St. Xavier Gym. Dayton won 24-18. This was the first season in Xavier basketball history and the program’s second game, according to the Xavier media guide.
Dayton and Xavier played again two weeks after the first game, and Dayton won 21-18. That was the third and last game of Xavier’s first season. lt finished 0-3. The other loss was to St. John’s, of Toledo.
Last meeting: Xavier beat Dayton 90-65 in the AdvoCare Invitational championship game at the HP Field House in Orlando, Fla., on Nov. 29, 2015.
It was the most lopsided game in the series since Dayton beat Xavier 86-55 on Feb. 23, 1974, at UD Arena and the most lopsided Dayton loss since a 46-12 loss at Xavier in 1931-32.
“We were weak inside,” Dayton coach Archie Miller said after the game. “We’re young inside. This is something you can really go to school with and teach some guys things. These were the same mistakes we made against Iowa and Monmouth. Today we got exposed because (Xavier) was terrific. We weren’t able to overcome those flaws early in the game because they were so sharp.”
Streaks: Dayton won 10 straight games against Xavier from 1973-77. Xavier won nine straight games against Dayton from 1991-94.
Dayton overcame a 12-point deficit in the final 3 minutes, 21 seconds to end its nine-game losing streak with a 61-55 victory at UD Arena in 1996.
Credit: David Jablonski - Staff Writer
Credit: David Jablonski - Staff Writer
Best UD victory: Dayton beat Xavier 98-89 in the MCC championship game in 1990 to earn a NCAA tournament berth in coach Jim O’Brien’s first season.
“Ever since coach O’Brien set foot on this campus, he told us this was the game we wanted to be playing in,” guard Ray Springer said. We got here, and just getting here wasn’t what mattered. It was to win it. We won it, and we’re going to enjoy it.”
Best Xavier victory: One year after Dayton won its first (and still only) A-10 tournament championship on its home court by beating Temple in the title game, Dayton lost 58-49 to Xavier at UD Arena in the A-10 final in 2004.
“Right now we’re thinking more of the present game than anything else,” Dayton coach Brian Gregory said. “It was a big game, a goal we set. It’s why you coach, why you play — to win a championship. We’ll have a bad 24 hours and then we’ll figure out that first (NCAA tournament) game and how to advance.”
Turning point: Dayton won 58 of 69 games in the series from 1950-81. From that point forward, Xavier was 47-17 against Dayton.
Tom Blackburn was 25-11 in his career as Dayton head coach against Xavier. Blackburn’s successor, Don Donoher, had even more success with a 34-9 edge.
Then four straight Xavier coaches — Pete Gillen, Skip Prosser, Thad Matta, Sean Miller and Chris Mack — turned the tide for Xavier.
In a 1994 column, Ritter Collett, then sports editor emeritus of the Dayton Daily News, tied Dayton’s failure to keep pace with Xavier to Dayton’s decision not to join Xavier in the Midwestern Collegiate Conference in the 1979-80 season.
“At that time, it did not look like a circuit that would have been good for Dayton,” Collett wrote. “For one thing, it would be five seasons before the MCC would have an automatic qualification into the NCAA Tournament.”
But Xavier’s move to the MCC paid dividends when it won the MCC tournament six seasons in a row under Gillen, who took over the program in the 1985-86 season. Dayton didn’t join the MCC until the 1988-89 season.
Gillen guided Xavier to the NCAA tournament seven times in nine seasons. Prosser kept up the momentum with four appearances in seven seasons. Matta, Miller and Mack turned Xavier into a perennial NCAA tournament team.
Dayton, on the other hand, hit rock bottom in the mid-1990s, left the MCC for the Great Midwest, only to last two seasons there before joining Xavier in the A-10.
“Where you really began to see the flip is when they stayed in the MCC and Dayton went to the Great Midwest,” said then UD Athletic Director Tim Wabler in 2011. ”They have this upward trajectory, and it doesn’t take long to go into a hole. … For every bad year you have, it takes one if not two to get out of it. If you have a number of them, it takes a while to get out. It took coach (Oliver) Purnell to get it to the level he got it to. Meanwhile, they never really missed a beat.”
Sad streak: Dayton has lost 28 straight games to Xavier in Cincinnati. The streak includes 13 losses at the Cintas Center and 15 losses at Cincinnati Gardens.
Xavier students often teased Dayton by holding up photos of Jimmy Carter in the stands because he was President the last time Dayton beat Xavier in Cincinnati.
Dayton’s last victory against Xavier in Cincinnati came on Jan 10, 1981, at Riverfront Coliseum, which is now known as the Heritage Bank Center. Dayton won 74-72. Roosevelt Chapman scored 18 points. Mike Kanieski hit the game-winning shot with three seconds left .
Dayton’s last victory against Xavier at an arena located on Xavier’s campus came on Feb. 10, 1979. Dayton won 75-54 at the Schmidt Fieldhouse, where Xavier played from 1928 through 1983.
Gregory tried to downplay the losing streak after a 74-65 loss at Xavier in 2005.
“I know it’s all part of the rivalry thing,” Gregory said, “but if you really want to do that kind of stuff, look at the total history. We have something like 50 more wins than they do in this thing.”
In the same stretch it was winless at Xavier, Dayton was 19-11 in the series at UD Arena and 2-8 in conference tournament games.
Draft advantage: Xavier’s dominance in the series from the 1980s into the 2010s shows up in its success in sending players to the NBA. While Dayton didn’t have a player drafted between 1990 Negele Knight) and 2018 (Kostas Antetokounmpo), Xavier had 11 players drafted in the same span.
“We were lucky,” Gillen said in 2011. “Tyrone (Hill) was an under-the-radar guy from right up the road at (Cincinnati) Withrow. Aaron Williams wasn’t even the best player on his team. Derek Strong was a Prop 48 guy. Brian Grant, no one knew about. They were sleepers. We wouldn’t have been able to get those kids now because of all the recruiting coverage. There was some back then, but nothing like it is now.”
Since 2020, however, Dayton has seen three players drafted (Obi Toppin, Toumani Camara and DaRon Holmes II), and Xavier has had one (Colby Jones).
SUNDAY’S GAME
Xavier at Dayton, 5 p.m., Bally Sports Ohio, 1290, 95.7
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