“I thought Nate (Santos) was open,” Smith said. “(Rozier) came out of nowhere. I did not see him. I’m not going to lie.”
An even more shocking moment followed. Smith caught the in-bounds pass again, now with the score tied at 76. This time, Crawford fouled him, stopping the clock with six seconds to play. It would have been the right time to foul if Duquesne was trailing.
“I think he didn’t know the score,” Smith said. “I think he must have thought they were down one. He came out of nowhere and fouled me.”
The reactions of the Duquesne coaches, one of whom jumped in the air in disbelief, showed that had to have been the case. Duquesne guard Maximus Edwards watched several other teammates console Crawford while exhibiting the same “Surrender Cobra” pose the UD students had shown seconds earlier.
“I’ll take as much blame as (Crawford),” Duquesne coach Dru Joyce III said after the game, according to a report by Zachary Weiss, of Pittsburgh Sports Now. “He made a decision, but it’s always a reflection. We can’t have that mistake. We don’t let anyone just take one mistake; we look at it in the mirror from a team standpoint. What could we have done better? Why did he think he was supposed to foul in that circumstance? But we’ll move on, I’m not disappointed with him.”
Smith missed the first free throw after the foul but made the second to give Dayton the lead. Dinkins then missed a 3-pointer at the buzzer.
“Luckily, I made the second one, and we got the stop,” Smith said. “The most important thing is we got the W. But my turnover, that’s really unlike me, especially in the clutch moment.”
Dayton (18-8, 8-5) celebrated a 77-76 victory that kept it in third place in the Atlantic 10 Conference with five games to play. It is four games behind George Mason (21-5, 12-1) and 2½ behind Virginia Commonwealth (20-5, 10-2). Dayton leads fourth-place Loyola Chicago (16-9, 7-5), its next opponent at 7 p.m. Friday in Chicago, by a half game.
Enoch Cheeks led Dayton with 19 points. Zed Key scored a season-high 18. The Flyers shot 23.1% from 3-point range, attempting a season-low 13 and making three. They won by shooting 61.1% (22 of 36) from 2-point range. That’s their best number in A-10 play.
Credit: David Jablonski
Duquesne (10-15, 5-7) suffered its sixth loss in the last seven games. The stretch started with an 82-62 loss to Dayton in Pittsburgh on Jan 21. Dayton led Duquesne by as many as 30 points in that game and used the lopsided score as motivation in the rematch.
“They beat us so bad at home the last time, I am taking that personally,” Duquesne forward Jakub Necas said Thursday on Fox Sports Pittsburgh 970.
The second game went the opposite way. Duquesne made 7 of 13 3-pointers (53.8%) in the first half and led by as many as 12 points. Dayton cut the deficit to 44-40 at halftime.
Neither team could gain much of an edge in the second half. Duquesne owned its largest lead, 65-59 with 6 minutes, 59 seconds to play. Dayton tied the game with back-to-back 3-point plays by Zed Key and Enoch Cheeks.
Dayton trailed 69-66 when it started an 8-0 run at the 3:24 mark. The offense found a rhythm at the right moment.
• An alley-oop pass from Smith to Key, who dunked over the head of Necas, started the spurt.
• Smith scored a layup against Necas on the next possession to give Dayton a 70-69 lead with 2:37 to play.
• Javon Bennett followed with a mid-range jumper.
• Then Smith made two free throws after driving into the paint and getting fouled by Necas with 52 seconds to play.
Dayton led 74-69. It had done what it had failed to do in its last two home games, asserting control at the crucial moment in the game. Against Davidson, it gave up an 8-0 run in the final minutes and won that game in part because of a technical foul against Davidson that shifted momentum in the final minute. VCU beat Dayton thanks to a late 12-0 run.
Yet the five-point lead wasn’t enough. After the teams traded free throws, Dayton led 76-71 with 20 seconds to play. Dinkins then made a 3-pointer in front of Bennett with 13 seconds remaining. That set up the in-bounds pass, the turnover by Smith and the final sequence.
Dinkins shoved Bennett in the chest before taking the 3-pointer at the buzzer, causing Dayton coach Anthony Grant to seek out the officials after the final buzzer. He walked from the Dayton bench toward the other end of Tom Blackburn Court as the officials headed to the exit. He didn’t get too close to them. UD forward Zed Key slowed Grant a bit by putting up an arm to stop him. A security guard put up a hand as well.
“I had an issue with a non-call at the end of the game,” Grant said. “For me, I’ve got to reflect on Proverbs 29:11: ‘A fool gets pulled into his anger, but a wise man keeps himself under control.’ I struggled with that in that moment because the outcome could have been completely different with that non-call. We all have an obligation to do our jobs, and I had a problem with that.”
FRIDAY’S GAME
Dayton at Loyola Chicago, 7 p.m., ESPN2, 95.7, 1290
Credit: David Jablonski
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