The first month featured three Dayton losses in a row at home followed by three victories in a row, one against No. 4 Kansas, at the ESPN Events Invitational in Florida. The second month saw the Flyers beat Virginia Tech 62-57 four days before the Hokies beat Atlantic 10 Conference favorite St. Bonaventure 86-49. More recently, December saw Dayton lose 76-68 at Mississippi three days before the Rebels lost 75-73 at home to Samford, a team picked to finish eighth out of 10 teams in the Southern Conference.
Dayton’s latest victory, its eighth in 13 tries, showed just as much inconsistency and followed a familiar pattern. The home team built a big lead. The visiting team made a late comeback. The home team hung on despite a rash of turnovers. That’s how Dayton beat Virginia Tech in its previous home game. That’s how it beat Southern (6-7) in its final non-conference game.
Coach Anthony Grant didn’t want his team thinking about basketball over the Christmas break, but the last six minutes, in which team almost blew a 20-point lead, will stick with him.
“Are you able to appreciate the progress you’ve made from the beginning of the year?” Grant was asked in the postgame press conference.
“Not tonight,” Grant said. “I think we’ve gotten better. I don’t think we’ve reached our ceiling. I think we got a lot of room for growth. It’s that time where I think as a team we have to decide, are we going to hit this thing full speed as a group and take advantage of the opportunity that’s in front of us? On a lot of different fronts, I think it’s a choice that individually and collectively we have to make in order to put ourselves in a position where we can accomplish the goals that we set at the beginning of the year regardless of circumstances, whether it’s team circumstances or individual circumstances. Can you be committed to what you said you were committed to regardless of the circumstances? That’s where we can really make a big push. It’s a choice.”
Dayton’s decision-making on offense continues to keep it from reaching that ceiling. It committed a season-high 21 turnovers against Southern after committing 19 against Ole Miss. It is turning the ball over on 22 percent of its possessions this season. That ranks 308th out of the country out of 358 teams.
Against Southern, Dayton turned the ball over on 31.3 percent of its possessions. That’s the worst number of the season and the sixth worst of Grant’s five seasons.
Five players had multiple turnovers Tuesday, including point guard Malachi Smith, who had four after committing a total of five turnovers in the previous five games. However, no one on the team has come close to matching the turnover issues of forward Toumani Camara, who has led the Flyers in turnovers in three straight games. He had six against Virginia Tech, eight against Ole Miss and six against Southern.
Other than the turnovers, Camara had good numbers Tuesday. He had 13 points on 4-of-5 shooting and made 5 of 6 free throws. He led the team with 12 rebounds.
“Turnovers were a big problem today and especially with me,” Camara said. “It’s something we have to work on. We have to stay true to the process and believe what coach says and stick to what we do and finish the game to the end. It’s a 40-minute game.”
Camara has 43 turnovers in 13 games. No one else has more than 25.
“The turnovers are a major problem right now for him and for our team,” Grant said. “It’s what’s preventing us from becoming what we’re capable of becoming. You see it. I see it. They know it. We have to be better if we’re going to have a chance as we head into conference play to try to compete for a championship. We’re going to have to be a lot better.”
Dayton overcame the turnovers against Southern by winning the rebounding battle 43-25 and continuing to do what it does best, which is score inside at an efficient rate. Dayton made 18 of 28 2-point shots (64.2 percent). It ranks 13th in the country in 2-point field-goal percentage (57.1), an area that has been a strength throughout the Grant era. It ranked second, second, first and 16th in Grant’s first four seasons.
Camara made all four of his shots inside the arc in the first half and attempted only one shot, a 3-pointer, in the second half. Kobe Elvis was also 4-of-4 from the field in the first half. Two of those were 3-pointers. He finished with a team-high 15 points on 5-of-8 shooting.
DaRon Holmes II filled the stat sheet with 10 points, six rebounds, four assists and four blocks. Mustapha Amzil made the most of 12 minutes, finishing with seven points and seven rebounds.
In summary, this was a strong Dayton performance until the final six minutes when Southern, which trailed by as many as 22 points in the second half and faced a 61-41 deficit with 6:06 to play, turned on a full-court pressure defense. That ignited a 14-0 run. It took an acrobatic layup by Elvis with 1:26 to play and then five free throws in the final 65 seconds by Lynn Greer III, Smith and Elvis to clinch the victory.
In the end, the victory was all that mattered. The turnovers didn’t mar the celebration for the players, who get an extended break for Christmas before returning to campus early next week.
“I don’t think it takes away from the victory,” Elvis said. “We wanted to get one before the holiday. Everyone wanted to go back and see their families. Maybe our minds were there a little bit, but I feel we locked in, focused and got the win.”
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