Grant takes blame for Dayton’s loss at Fordham

Those same words would serve the Flyers well in 2021, though the Brooklyn native Chapman now lives in South Dakota and, obviously, was not in attendance Tuesday in the Bronx — no one was because of attendance restrictions at Fordham during the coronavirus pandemic.

Dayton’s 55-54 loss to Fordham, coming six days after a 67-65 loss to La Salle, means it has lost to the two teams picked to finish last and second-to-last in the 14-team conference. In between those games, Dayton struggled to beat George Mason 74-65. George Mason was picked 10th.

When Dayton lost to Fordham in 2006, it was Fordham’s first victory in six years in the series. That was a stronger Fordham program, through. The Rams finished 16-16 in 2016 and 18-12 the next season.

Recent years have seen Fordham struggle to compete in the A-10. With its victory Tuesday, it has won 17 A-10 regular-season games in the last five seasons — or one fewer than Dayton won during its 18-0 run through the league last season. From 2013-20, Fordham beat every current A-10 team except Dayton at least once, though its only three victories last season were all against George Washington: twice in the regular season and once in the A-10 tournament.

By the measure of the Ken Pomeroy rankings, the loss to No. 243 Fordham (1-2, 1-2) is the worst of Anthony Grant’s four seasons and the worst since Dayton lost 61-57 to No. 267 La Salle on Jan. 9, 2016.

While these type of losses have happened before and will happen again, the fact that this one comes 10 months after Dayton completed a 29-2 season as the nation’s third-ranked team makes the low moment seem that much harder to take. Dayton (5-3, 1-2) has already lost more games than it lost all of last season.

“It’s a game we should have won,” center Jordy Tshimanga said. “It is what it is. It’s a loss. We’ve got to come back and regroup.”

Fordham celebrated the end of its 16-game losing streak to Dayton by dancing in the locker room. The school’s official men’s basketball Twitter account shared a video of coach Jeff Neubauer racing to the locker room through the hallways of Rose Hill Gym and jumping straight into the dance party. He was bouncing up and down like his players.

It was an emotional moment for Fordham for many reasons, including the fact that it had six non-conference games cancelled because of COVID-19 reasons and spent 45 days in quarantine on campus.

“From where we were, to beat a team like Dayton, it totally changes everything,” Neubauer told the Fordham Observer after the game. “We’ve just been trying to figure out who we are, and in this game, we ran a lot fewer plays, and that allowed guys just to play.”

Dayton also is still trying to figure things out — not that it excuses a loss to Fordham. Dayton had three players on the court — Jalen Crutcher, Ibi Watson and Tshimanga — who played Fordham last season. Of the other five players in an eight-man rotation, three didn’t play in Dayton’s first four games: Elijah Weaver; Koby Brea; and Mustapha Amzil. One didn’t score and played limited minutes in the first six games this season: Zimi Nwokeji.

Those are all reasons Dayton has struggled since losing two starters, Chase Johnson (who left the program for health reasons) and Rodney Chatman (who has missed two games with a hand injury), but not excuses for losing to Fordham. Coach Anthony Grant took the blame after the loss in a phone interview with the Dayton Daily News.

While Dayton’s at-large NCAA tournament hopes are dead, if they weren’t already non-existent after the loss to La Salle, it has 15 A-10 games remaining to build momentum for the conference tournament.

“My job as a coach to make sure they’re prepared,” Dayton coach Anthony Grant said. “The fault right now is mine. I’ve got to figure out how I can fix it. Right now, this is extremely disappointing for my team to come out and play the way we did today. I’ve got to look at what I’m doing.”

This was the sixth Dayton game decided by three points or fewer and the sixth decided by a made or missed shot in the final seconds. After Fordham’s Chris Austin made a go-ahead 3-pointer with 24 seconds remaining, Ibi Watson missed a rushed jump shot from the baseline that would have won the game.

As good as Dayton point guard Jalen Crutcher has been throughout this career in late-game situations, he had 18.5 seconds to set up this play and took a long time getting things moving, dribbling around the perimeter as the seconds ticked away. He passed the ball to Zimi Nwokeji with six seconds left, and Nwokeji passed the ball right back with five seconds to go. Crutcher then passed the ball to Watson, who dribbled to the corner, where there were three Fordham defenders. He was fortunate to get a shot off before the buzzer thanks to a shot fake, though it was well defended.

Dayton expected Fordham to be playing man-to-man defense on the final play, Grant said, but they were in zone. The plan was for Crutcher to take the ball to the basket, and if there were two defenders on him, there would be an opportunity on the side for an open shooter.

“They did a good job of staying in front and took away our options,” Grant said.