Holmes continues to follow a path similar to Toppin’s at Dayton. They were both Atlantic 10 Conference Rookies of the Year in their first seasons. Toppin won the A-10 Player of the Year Award in his second season, and Holmes is an early favorite this season as a sophomore.
There’s another major similarity emerging this season. Toppin led the nation with 107 dunks in 31 games in the 2019-20 season. Holmes is not matching Toppin’s average of 3.5 dunks per game but leads the nation with 41 dunks in 15 games this season. He has a four-dunk lead on Rutgers junior Clifford Omoruyi.
“It must be something with the program,” Holmes said Saturday.
“Is it something with the offense?” he was asked.
“It has to be the offense,” Holmes said. “We have a lot of guys that know how to post feed.”
Holmes scored a career-high 32 points on 10-of-13 shooting in a 69-55 victory at Davidson. The offense keeps finding ways to get him the ball. He had single-digit shot attempts four times in the first five games and has taken at least 11 shots in the last 10 games.
By beating Davidson, the Flyers (10-5, 2-0) bolstered their role as the early favorite in the Atlantic 10 Conference entering a 7 p.m. game Wednesday against Saint Joseph’s (6-7, 0-1) at UD Arena.
The Hawks were picked to finish 13th in the 15-team league and have, for the most part, lived up to that billing. Their best victory came on the road against Penn, which ranks 192nd in the NCAA Evaluation Tool. They had the worst non-conference loss among A-10 schools: 97-80 at home to No. 310 Farleigh Dickinson.
Saint Joseph’s hung with Saint Louis, which is expected to be the other top contender in the A-10 with Dayton, for most of the game Saturday in their league opener. The Billikens led throughout the second half but didn’t have a comfortable cushion until the final minutes. Saint Louis won 83-78.
Dayton has won five straight games by double digits for the first time since the 2019-20 season when the first six games in its season-ending 20-game winning streak were by 10 points or more. A 69-57 victory against Duquesne at UD Arena preceded the game at Davidson. Dayton did not trail in either game, though coach Anthony Grant did not see either game as an easy victory.
“I think no matter what league you’re in, you understand every game is going to be hard fought and competitive,” Grant said Monday on WHIO’s Flyer Insider show. “I don’t think we expected anything different from either opponent. Duquesne had an outstanding non-conference season, and we knew that they’d come in with a lot of confidence, a lot of fight, and we’d have to be able to defend and be able to take care of the ball, and I thought we did a pretty good job of that. And then obviously with Davidson and going on the road against the defending champs — I think that three starters back from last year’s team — we knew it was going to be a hard fought game, and I think our guys handled that pretty well.”
WEDNESDAY’S GAME
Saint Joseph’s at Dayton, 7 p.m., Spectrum News 1, 1290, 95.7
Credit: David Jablonski
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