Nine days later, Grant was in no hurry to leave Tom Blackburn Court. He blew a kiss to his wife Chris in the stands behind the UD bench and then gave her the thumbs-up sign. Then he waited at the end of the court to greet every member of his staff and all the players after an 87-57 victory against Saint Francis University on Monday.
Grant slapped hands or hugged the players and reserved the longest embrace for his son Makai, a sophomore guard who entered the game with the other walk-ons in the final minute.
Grant’s postgame hugs have punctuated many great Dayton victories over the years. He had a group hug with his assistants after a 63-60 victory against Nevada in the NCAA tournament last March. This victory won’t rank anywhere close to that one in importance, but it did boost optimism about the potential of the 2024-25 Flyers after two disappointing preseason performances.
“It was great to see our guys go out and play with energy and effort,” Grant said. “It’s a good start. I think there’s a great opportunity for us to be able to teach and learn from this game on both sides of the ball, and I think we will continue to get better as a team as we move forward.”
Dayton won despite shooting 25% (8 of 32) from 3-point range. That was still better than it shot in the opener a year earlier (5 of 23, 21.7%) in a 63-47 victory against Southern Illinois University Edwardsville. The Flyers haven’t shot better than 30% from long range in the last six openers.
Dayton countered its outside shooting struggles by making 23 of 36 shots (63.9%) from 2-point range. It scored 21 fast-break points.
Three dunks in the final five minutes of the first half — two by Enoch Cheeks and one by Zed Key — came after two turnovers and a block on the defensive end. The Flyers took control of the game with a 17-8 run in the last eight minutes of the first half and led 40-28 at halftime.
“I thought tonight the story of the game was really our defense creating offense for us,” Grant said. “I thought the guys did a really good job being locked in defensively, and I thought we were able to build a convincing win over the course of 40 minutes. It’s great to see guys being able to put together sustained efforts like that on the defensive end. When we subbed, we had different combinations and guys understood what we needed to do. I thought we got really good efforts tonight from a variety of people.”
Key, a fifth-year forward who spent the last four seasons at Ohio State, was one of those people. He led Dayton with 14 points, making all four of his field-goal attempts and 6 of 8 free throws. He was one of five players in double figures, along with Cheeks (13), Javon Bennett (13), Malachi Smith (11) and Jacob Conner (10)
Key was similarly efficient in the two preseason games, combining to make 6 of 9 shots and scoring 15 points in a 98-74 loss to Xavier and the victory against Ashland.
“Those two exhibition games were basically tune-up games,” Key said. “We saw what we needed to work on and went back to practice and continued to work on it. We harped on the stuff that we did wrong in the scrimmages and corrected it, and we’re playing a lot better now. Tonight we showed we’re a really good team.”
Dayton extended three streaks with the victory:
• The Flyers won their season opener for the 20th straight season. They still have not dropped their first game since a 2004 loss to Eastern Kentucky.
This was Dayton’s most lopsided victory in the opener since an 84-53 victory against Southeast Missouri State in 2015. It’s the second largest margin of victory in the 20-game winning streak on opening night. This was Dayton’s highest score in the opener since a 96-68 victory against Austin Peay in 2016.
• This was also Dayton’s 17th straight victory at UD Arena. It won its final home game in 2023 and was 15-0 at home last season.
• Dayton has won five straight games in the series with Saint Francis. The Red Flash have lost their opener 14 times in the last 15 years.
“It was a challenging first game, first opponent for our guys, especially from the physicality standpoint,” Saint Francis coach Rob Krimmel said in a story posted to the school’s website. “We did a good job in the first half, weathering those jitters to start the game. We were getting good shots that didn’t fall in the first half, and in the second half, they willed their style. It’s something to build on to be better next time out. The important thing for us when those teams shoot those shots is that we get in there and rebound.”
Saint Francis is the lowest-ranked Division I team on Dayton’s schedule. It ranks 351st out of 364 teams in the Ken Pomeroy ratings. The next opponent, Northwestern, which plays at UD Arena at 7:30 p.m. Saturday, is No. 38 after a season-opening 90-46 victory against Lehigh on Monday. Dayton is 30th.
Dayton did not fall into the trap of looking forward to the Northwestern game, the first of seven big tests on the 13-game non-conference schedule.
“I think the staff did a great job of making sure we focused on the task at hand,” Conner said. “You’ve got to take it one game at a time. If you start looking too far ahead, that’s how you slip up, especially during a long season.”
Along with the strong defensive performance, Dayton showed improvement in rebounding from the preseason. They had a 50-29 edge on the boards and turned 17 offensive rebounds into 24 second-chance points.
Grant lamented the team’s rebounding issues after both preseason games but said players accepted the challenge of improving.
“We knew this team was a really good offensive rebounding team,” Grant said. “You just look at the numbers that they put up last year from an offensive rebounding standpoint. Our coaches did a great job of emphasizing that. It was going to be a huge factor tonight, being able to keep them off the glass, being able to control them from the 3-point line.”
SATURDAY’S GAME
Northwestern at Dayton, 7:30 p.m., WHIO-TV, 1290, 95.7
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