The basket inside Hilton Coliseum felt five times wider. Dayton had a little magic touch, too, and the 3-point celebrations were aplenty.
Dayton saw the shots fall from deep early and never looked back. A first-quarter surge in which Dayton made 7-of-9 shots sparked a barrage and an eventual rout. The lead only grew against fellow No. 11 seed DePaul, and the Flyers (26-5) waltzed away with a 88-57 win in a First Four game of the NCAA tournament Wednesday night.
“I thought that was our best 40 minutes of basketball,” Dayton head coach Shauna Green said. “We put it all together, but for us it starts with our defense and just what an unbelievable defensive effort and execution of a game plan by these guys.”
Dayton felt motivated to respond from its loss to UMass in the A-10 tournament title game. Dayton only lost five games in the entire season, after all, so it wanted to return to its form against DePaul.
“We’re not coming here just to play, we’re here to compete,” Whalen said. “I think we were able to prove that tonight.”
Dayton buried DePaul by way of its three-headed attack. Makira Cook, Erin Whalen and Jenna Giacone have led the Flyers all season, and that didn’t change under the postseason lights. It only elevated to another level. Whalen paced Dayton with 25 points, but Giacone didn’t fall far behind with 21 — all due to her near-perfect night from beyond the arc. Cook, who had a scoring run to open the game, topped her season average with 16.
“I’m a bigger guard and I like to create a versatile game of mine,” Giacone said of her performance. “I was playing my game out there and able to provide for my team.”
Dayton shot 13-of-23 from 3-point range. At one point, the Flyers were 12-of-14 from beyond the arc.
“It’s fun, no feeling can describe it,” Whalen said. “A big part of this game is keeping your composure, but that gets the energy going.”
Dayton led in every quarter and saw its lead swell to as many as 33 points. The Flyers were strong defensively, too, and held a Blue Demons team that averages 88.3 points per game to 57.
While it didn’t factor much into the result, freshman phenom Aneesah Morrow led DePaul with a double-double, 28 points and 17 rebounds. She accounted for 49 percent of the team’s points. Green said she thought the Flyers did a solid job of defending Morrow as nine of her points came from the free-throw line, and the freshman shot 9-of-25 from the field.
Dayton advances to play sixth-seeded Georgia on Friday at Hilton Coliseum at 7:30 p.m. Georgia enters tournament play with a 20-9 record and early-season wins over NC State and Notre Dame. Dayton and Georgia played in the same early-season tournament as the Flyers in Daytona Beach, but did not square off.
Georgia and Dayton will meet for the first time in school history on Friday.
“I watched some of them down in Florida when we played in that tournament,” Green said. “I know a couple of their players just from watching, and so I don’t know a lot. I haven’t obviously started prep. But we’ll be ready to go, and we’ll regroup and get prepared very quickly. I’m excited.”
FRIDAY’S GAME
Dayton vs. Georgia, 7:30 p.m., ESPN News
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