Santos built momentum for returning to that level with his performance last week in Dayton’s two preseason exhibition games. He made 2 of 6 3s and scored 13 points in a 98-74 loss to Xavier on Oct. 20. He made 6 of 8 3s and scored 20 points Saturday in a 65-56 victory against Ashland University.
Santos led Dayton in scoring in both games. That’s more than likely the same role he’ll play this season. Dayton needs a number of players to increase their offensive output after DaRon Holmes II (20.4 points per game) departed for the NBA.
“When you lose a guy like DaRon, everybody else needs to step up,” Santos said Saturday. “I think that’s also what we need to figure out with our team. How are we going to pick up the slack? How are we going to play this year?”
The performance of Santos eased any concerns fans may have had about his ability to bounce back after hip surgery in April. He missed the spring and summer practice periods but was healthy by the time preseason practices started. He looked like the player who ranked second on the team in scoring (11.7) last season.
“Nate’s a really good player,” Grant said. “He’s worked really hard. Nate’s another guy that’s coming off of basically missing the entire summer, so it was good to see him be able to find a rhythm today and see some shots go in. I thought he did a good job for us. You look across the board, and not a lot of guys had good shooting nights for us today, and he was one of the guys that had a good shooting night.”
Dayton raised more questions than it answered with its play in the two exhibition games. Here’s a quick glance at two other takeaways from the two games.
1. Grant is concerned about the team’s rebounding ability: In both postgame press conferences, Grant mentioned rebounding as being a potential problem for the Flyers. Xavier had a 35-27 rebounding advantage against Dayton, but Dayton had a 42-36 rebounding edge against Ashland.
“We’ve talked about it,” Grant said. “We recognize it. It’s an issue for our team. We’ve got to figure out the best way to help us be better in that area. We have to be better there.”
Dayton returned two of its top three rebounders: Santos (6.3 rebounds per game); and Cheeks (4.7). The Flyers ranked third in the Atlantic 10 Conference in rebounding margin (plus 2.8) last season but ranked 272nd in the country in offensive rebounding percentage.
New starting forward Zed Key averaged 4.5 rebounds in his most productive season (2022-23) at Ohio State.
Credit: David Jablonski
2. Outside shooting is another area of concern: Dayton made 6 of 28 3s against Xavier and 10 of 31 against Ashland. It shot 27.1% (16 of 59) in the two games.
Take away Santos, and the rest of the team made 8 of 44 3s (18.2%). Dayton’s three starting guards — Malachi Smith, Javon Bennett and Cheeks — combined to make 2 of 13 (15.4%) in each game.
Smith shot 39.2% from 3-point range in his first two seasons before missing last season with an injury. Bennett improved his 3-point shooting percentage from 27.9 as a freshman at Merrimack to 31.6% last season at Dayton. Cheeks shot 35% in three seasons at Robert Morris but 30.4% last season at Dayton.
Dayton will need all three to shoot better than they did in the preseason. They should benefit from more consistent rotations than Grant played in the exhibition games. He experimented with different looks and spread the minutes more than he will Monday when Dayton opens the season against St. Francis University (Pa.).
“We really haven’t had a chance to get some of those lineups together in practice,” Grant said. “So today was the first time some of those guys got a chance to play together. Some of it kind of got us disjointed because guys weren’t familiar with their role in those lineups.”
Credit: David Jablonski
Credit: David Jablonski
3. The two freshmen look capable of contributing: In most seasons of the Grant era, Dayton has depended on at least one true freshman to play a significant role in the rotation.
• Jalen Crutcher, Jordan Davis and Matej Svoboda averaged double-figure minutes in the 2017-18 season.
• Dwayne Cohill was the top freshman in the 2018-19 season.
• No freshmen played in the 29-2 season of 2019-20.
• Mustapha Amzil started 15 games as a freshman in the 2020-21 season, and R.J. Blakney and Koby Brea both averaged double-figure minutes off the bench.
• Three years ago, DaRon Holmes II and Malachi Smith started as freshmen.
• In the 2022-23 season, Mike Sharavjamts started 20 games.
• Last year, Petras Padegimas averaged 8.0 minutes in 20 appearances.
This year, Amaël L’Etang, a 7-foot-1 center from France, and Hamad Mousa, a 6-8 guard/forward from Qatar, are the candidates. L’Etang averaged 7 points and 3.5 rebounds in the two exhibition games, averaging about 12 minutes per game. Mousa averaged 6.5 points and 2.5 rebounds in about 13 minutes per game.
The freshmen will compete for playing time with more experienced players, specifically junior forwards Jacob Conner and Isaac Jack.
Grant used the exhibition games to get a look at those players and everyone else. Posh Alexander and Zed Key both played fewer than 20 minutes against Ashland, and it’s unlikely the two fifth-year transfers will see that little action when the games count.
“I’m trying to figure our team out,” Grant said. “I never go into these games trying to say, ‘OK, I’m looking at playing a fixed rotation.’ I want to see what groups work well together. I want to see what combinations look good, what guys can do, who plays well together, who impacts winning. I would say off of these two games, that’s still a work in progress for us to figure that out.”
MONDAY’S GAME
St. Francis at Dayton, 7 p.m., Spectrum News 1, ESPN+, 1290, 95.7
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