“I can tell you it’s not going to bother me,” Martin said. “I’ve been in some crazy arenas in my career. It’s one of the great home-court advantages in the country.”
Martin started his coaching career at Northeastern University and recruited a player Dayton was also pursuing at one point. The player chose UD.
“Anthony Grant was my closest friend and played at Dayton, but I’d never been there,” Martin said. “I’m like, ‘Why would he go to Dayton? Northeastern is a better fit.’ When I walked out of that tunnel for that game, I saw why he went to Dayton, and I was like, ‘Holy cow. This place is nuts.’”
Martin won’t talk to his players about the atmosphere they’ll experience at UD Arena. The focus will be on preparing to stop one of the hottest teams in the country.
Dayton (11-2, 1-0) brings an eight-game winning streak into the game and has climbed to No. 22 in the NCAA Evaluation Tool. That’s 33 spots higher than No. 55 St. Bonaventure (10-3), the second highest-ranked A-10 team, and 61 spots above No. 83 UMass (10-3).
“Conference play is brutal,” Martin said after the Duquesne game. “Now everybody enjoys this moment, and I go home and I get to watch DaRon Holmes and Dayton on film. So I can be miserable with no sleep tomorrow morning.”
Martin and Grant have been friends since their high school days in Miami, Fla. That has been well documented over the years. Martin is 3-4 against Grant. All but the most recent meeting — a 72-54 victory by Dayton at UMass last season — took place when when Grant was at Alabama and Martin was at Kansas State and South Carolina.
Holmes led Dayton with 22 points on 9-of-14 shooting last season against UMass, which finished 15-16 in Martin’s first season and 6-12 in the A-10. Dayton won its seventh straight game in the series since an 86-82 double-overtime loss at UMass in 2018.
“We’re not ready to win against a program like that,” Martin said after the game last year. “We’re in two different places as a program. They’ve got winning pedigree. They’ve got connectivity. They’ve got leadership. There are no breakdowns, and when there is, somebody has the guy’s back.”
Credit: David Jablonski
UMass has a much different roster this season. Nine players started nine games or more last season. Three returned this season: senior forward Matt Cross (16.5 points per game); junior guard Rahsool Diggins (11.8); and sophomore guard Keon Thompson (6.0).
The top newcomer for UMass, senior forward Josh Cohen, leads it in scoring (16.8). He played the last three seasons at St. Francis (Pa.).
UMass shoots the ball well inside, ranking 56th in the country in 2-point field-goal percentage (54.6) and defends well inside and out, holding opponents to below the national average in 3-point accuracy (31.2) and 2-point accuracy (46.3).
Diggins scored 16 against Duquesne, and four others scored in double figures. UMass won its fourth straight game. The Minutemen, picked to finish 13th out of 15 teams in the A-10 preseason poll, beat a team picked to finish fourth.
The game against Dayton will be the toughest test of the season for UMass and its first Quad 1 game. Dayton will be a Quad 1 game for everyone in the A-10, home or away, as long as it stays in the top 30 of the NET. UMass has not played a Quad 2 game. It has three Quad 3 losses to No. 123 Georgia Tech, No. 152 Harvard and No. 197 Towson. It picked up its best victory of the season by beating No. 87 Duquesne, its first top-100 opponent.
Dayton beat Davidson 72-59 on Wednesday in North Carolina thanks in part to one of its strongest defensive efforts of the season.
“We had a season-high nine kills,” Dayton forward Nate Santos said. “That really shows our improvement.”
A “kill,” Santos said, is three defensive stops in a row. Dayton showed active hands all night, recording a season-high 12 steals, its highest total in a game since the 2019-20 season when it hit that number twice.
“I think that’s what we’re capable of,” Grant said. “Our team, when we lock in defensively, we’re going to be hard to beat. We have to buy into that and understand that’s we’re capable of doing on a consistent basis.”
Someone who enjoyed the show was Brian Roberts, the fourth-leading scorer in Dayton Flyers history. He played about half of his NBA career in Charlotte and has called the area home for many years. He often sees UD play at Davidson, which is 21 miles north of the city.
Roberts was at Belk Arena in 2015, the last time the Flyers lost at Davidson. He was there on New Year’s Eve a season ago when the Flyers won 69-55. He was there Wednesday when Dayton led Davidson from start to finish.
“I like what I saw, for sure,” Roberts said after the game. “I watch every game pretty much — ESPN and all that stuff. I’m familiar with everything. They play well together. They play the right way. They move the ball. ... .They’ve just got different different guys who can take over the game on different nights, so it’s been fun to watch them, for sure.”
SUNDAY’S GAME
Dayton vs. Massachusetts, 1 p.m., ESPN2, 1290, 95.7
Credit: David Jablonski
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