“Last night was a big one,” Green said Thursday at the Cronin Center on campus. “Anytime you can go on the road in our conference and get a road win, you take it. UMass is a really good team, obviously. They have a really good record this year and a high NET (NCAA Evaluation Tool), so it was a big one for us.”
UMass (14-4, 2-2) ranks 49th in the NET. Even after the loss to Dayton, it’s the highest-ranked Atlantic 10 Conference team. It’s one spot ahead of Rhode Island (14-3, 4-0), which shares first place with Dayton.
Dayton ranks 57th. Its next opponent, Fordham (12-4, 3-1), ranks 59th. Dayton and Fordham play at noon Sunday at UD Arena. The game will be televised nationally on ESPNU.
Dayton and Fordham did not play last season. Both games were postponed because of COVID-19 reasons and were not made up. The teams split two games in 2019 and again in 2020 with the home team winning each time.
This season, Fordham has beaten Seton Hall, Michigan State and Houston in non-conference play and has won three straight A-10 games against George Mason, Virginia Commonwealth and George Washington since losing at home to La Salle.
“They’re always good,” Green said, “and they want it to be a low-scoring game. They want it to be a very slow-paced game. If we can score 65 against Fordham, usually we’ve had success. We want to play at our pace. For us, it’s always about our defense and our rebounding. That was really a huge key last night in our win at UMass. We did a great job on the boards.”
One key to Dayton’s recent success is the scoring of sophomore center Tenin Magassa. She has scored 80 points in 16 games, and more than half of them (44) have come in the last three games. She had a career-high 18 points in a 65-57 victory at La Salle, then nine in a 77-59 victory against Saint Louis and 17 against UMass. She has made 20 of 30 shots (66.7%) from the field in that stretch.
“She’s getting more confident and feeling healthy,” Green said. “You can just see her getting into a rhythm of the game and a feel for the game. She’s been huge for us.”
SUNDAY’S GAME
Fordham at Dayton, Noon, ESPNU
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