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Friday, November 20, 2009
UD fans in Puerto Rico need to exchange tickets
SAN JUAN — The UD staff is trying to get the word out to Flyer fans here about a ticket mix-up at the Puerto Rico Tip-off Classic.
Fans were issued tickets for the wrong session. Those tickets can be exchanged for the right ones at the Coliseo de Puerto Rico at 5 p.m. Sunday.
The Flyers play for third place in the tournament at 5:30 p.m. Sunday.
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Near upset not satisfying for Flyers
Dayton staged an entertaining but ultimately unfulfilling comeback in the Puerto Rico Tip-off Classic semifinals, falling to Villanova, 71-65.
The Flyers (2-1) trailed by 18 with 14:05 to go and cut it to two with 2:23 left on two London Warren free throws.
Corey Fisher made a pair of freebies for ‘Nova, but UD answered with a Chris Wright dunk off a Chris Johnson assist with 1:37 to go.
The 18th-ranked Flyers, though, didn’t score again until there were 15 seconds left as the fifth-ranked Wildcats closed it out at the free throw line, making 14-of-15 in the second half.
Post-game reaction:
“We lost to a really good team that’s only going to get better during the year,” UD coach Brian Gregory said. “They’re well-coached and well-schooled.
“I was hoping the 40 minutes would be like the last 10. We had two really good teams going after it, making plays. Unfortunately, it wasn’t that way. Give them credit. They did a lot of things against us to throw us out of sorts.
“Credit our guys for fighting back and weathering the storm and continuing to fight. I’m proud of our guys for that. But we’re at a point right now where we feel we could at least compete with these teams. I wish we would have done it a little more than just the last 10 minutes or so.”
“They’re very, very court-savvy both defensively and offensively. They may not be the quickest team or the most physical team, but they have a really high basketball IQ, and I think (coach Jay Wright) has done a great job of using that to his advantage.”
They sped us up some. We’ve never had any problems with any type of press — ever. But we had some today. Two or three casual turnovers. They lull you to sleep and all of a sudden slip a quick guard in there. They know how to play, and that’s why they’re so good. You watch them on film, and you’re not like, “Whoa.” But they know how to play. That’s the mark of a well-coached team.”
• “This is a young season, but that’s obviously the best we’ve played in four games,” Jay Wright said. “We played a helluva team. Dayton is a helluva team. They kept coming at us. They have a lot of weapons. They’re smart. They execute well.
Luke Fabrizius had a team-high 16 points on 5-of-9 three-point shooting. Fellow subs Chris Johnson (13) and Mickey Perry also had strong outings.
UD’s bench had 39 of the team’s 65 points and out-scored the Wildcats’ reserves by 14.
“Fabrizius was incredible,” Wright said. “We were trying to stay with him. They run really good sets and confused us a couple times, and we lost him a little bit. Our upperclassmen … really gutted it out.” “We were just trying to grind it out. We knew it woudl be a tough 40 minute ball game.
• Corey Fisher was unflappable for the preseason Big East favorites. He had a game-high 18 points, making 10 of 12 foul shots.
“You have to give a lot of credit to Dayuton,” he said. “They’re a good team. We knew it would come down to the last buzzer, and we had to get the win. That’s what we do. That’s Villanova basketball.”
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UD comeback falls short against Villanova
SAN JUAN — Dayton suffered its first loss of the season in the semifinals of the Puerto Rico Tip-Off Classic today, but not before staging a rousing comeback, not before earning some respect from mighty Villanova and not before giving about 500 UD fans one tremendous show.
Luke Fabrizius had 16 points, Chris Wright 15, Chris Johnson 13 and Mickey Perry 10 for the Flyers (2-1), who dropped a 71-65 decision. They’ll play the loser of the Mississippi-Kansas State game at 5:30 p.m. Sunday on ESPNU. Those two teams battle at 8:30 p.m. today on ESPNU.
Trailing 54-36 with 14:05 to go, the Flyers went on a 15-2 run to cut the deficit to five with 6:50 left. Johnson and Perry had five points each in the surge.
A 3-pointer by Fabrizius made it 58-54 with six minutes to go. But Antonio Pena nailed a banker, and Scottie Reynolds hit a jumper for an eight-point lead. The Flyers, though, wouldn’t go away.
A Wright free throw and a Fabrizius 3-pointer cut the margin to 62-58 with 2:38 to go. And a Wright dunk off a Johnson assist cut it to two with 1:37 left.
But Pena made two free throws with 1:17 to go. And when Johnson’s inside shot went in, rolled around and came out, the Flyers fouled Taylor King on an attempted dunk with 46.7 seconds to go.
He made both for a 68-62 lead. The Flyers, finally spent, suffered a turnover on their next possession.
Fifth-ranked Villanova (4-0), the preseason Big East favorite, was 14-for-15 on free throws in the second half.
The Flyers trailed, 27-25, after a Marcus Johnson free throw with 4:34 left in the first half, but the Wildcats, who reached the Final Four last year, ran off eight straight points and took a 37-29 lead at halftime.
UD scored the first point of the second half on a Johnson free throw, but Villanova ripped off nine points in a row for a 46-30 lead.
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Flyers trail by eight at halftime
SAN JUAN — Observations from the Dayton-Villanova game:
The Flyers trail, 37-29, at halftime. Do they have a run in them? UD sent out a Twitter from coach Brian Gregory at the break: “Need to pressure their guards, stop penetration and knock down some open looks.”
The problem is, they’re not getting many uncontested shots.
• The Flyers wasted no time getting super soph Chris Johnson into the game, subbing him for Devin Searcy at 18:20 of the first half. Luke Fabrizius was the next sub for Chris Wright at 17:30. Johnson had 19 points and Fabrizius 12 against Georgia Tech.
• The Flyers hit their first 3-pointer (Wright) but missed their next six until Mickey Perry buried one with 9:36 left in the period. Perry, who is one of UD’s better shooters, connected on his first outside shot of the season a little earlier, an 18-footer near the top of the key.
UD is just 4-for-13 on threes.
• The Wildcats scored 13 points on their first eight possessions and made it look easy. The Flyers tightened up on defense after that, though.
• Villanova is good — real good — but the Flyers aren’t going away. After falling behind by seven, UD cut the deficit to 18-17 on an emphatic put-back dunk by Wright with 8:30 to go.
• UD coach Brian Gregory is still tinkering with his front-line rotation. Josh Benson played in the season opener while Matt Kavanaugh didn’t. Kavanaugh played against Georgia Tech while Benson sat. And Benson is the first of the two off the bench today.
• Fabrizius, a 3-point shooter extraordinaire, clanked his first two before hitting a deep one with 6:25 to go and another from the corner about 75 seconds later to cut Villanova’s lead to 25-24.
• The Flyers can’t get over the hump. Each time they pull within one, the Wildcats respond. Guard Corey Fisher has had two driving three-point plays.
• Both UD point guards have two fouls, and there’s still 3:53 to go in the half. Not good.
• Wright is the player the Flyers can least afford to have in foul trouble, and he picked up his second (both on charges) with 7:49 to go. UD players normally sit out the half with two, but when the Flyers fell behind by 10, Wright returned.
• Marcus Johnson had the play of the half. Picking up a loose ball near midcourt, he raced to the other end and had a thunderous slam while drawing a foul. But he still can’t get going offensively. That was his only bucket, and he didn’t convert the three-point play.
He’s 1-for-7 from the field after going 0-for-5 against Georgia Tech.
• Villanova’s defense is tremendous. Guess that’s why they made the Final Four last year. The Flyers shot just 35 percent in the first half.
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Flyer game to start at 3:40 p.m.
SAN JUAN — Because the Georgia Tech-George Mason game ran late, Dayton’s meeting with Villanova won’t tip off until about 3:40 p.m.
Georgia Tech coasted to a 70-62 victory over GM.
Lots of red in the stands. The crowd is about 1,000, and roughly half of them are UD fans. Some are for Villanova, and the rest are from other teams just wanting to catch the game between two Top-20 teams.
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Flyers will play three power conference teams
SAN JUAN — By beating Georgia Tech, Dayton is guaranteed to play three BCS teams in the Puerto Rico Tip-off Classic this week — a boon for the program.
The Flyers face fifth-ranked Villanova in about an hour in the tourney semifinals. The winner of that game will play the winner of the Mississippi-Kansas State game for the championship at 8 p.m. Sunday on ESPN2, and the semifinal losers play at 5:30 p.m. Sunday on ESPNU.
The Ole Miss-Kansas State game tips off at 8:30 p.m. today on ESPNU.
The Flyers are 7-2 against BCS teams the last three seasons and 4-0 against the Big East. Villanova is the preseason Big East favorite.
• The Flyers’ Matt Kavanaugh, who got his first action of the season against Georgia Tech on Thursday, will see a familiar face playing for Villanova.
Freshman Isaiah Armwood, who hit the game-winning 3-pointer in a 69-68 first-round victory over George Mason, played for Montrose Christian along with another ‘Nova freshman, Mouphtaou Yarou, in the local Flyin’ to the Hoop event last year.
Kavanaugh scored 30 against them in a 63-53 loss for Centerville. Armwood had 12 and Yarou 11.
The 6-10 Yarou started the first two games for Villanova, averaging 5.0 points and 4.0 rebounds, but he was sent home from the tourney Thursday because of a viral infection. Armood played four minutes against GM and made his only shot of the night a monumental one.
• The Flyers probably can’t count on the Villanova veteran guards to play as poorly as they did in the first round. Scottie Reynolds had 18 points but eight turnovers. Corey Fisher was 1-for-12 from the field.
The Wildcats won only because GM missed eight free throws in the final 1:16.
• Final score alert: Georgia Tech 70, George Mason 62.
• Correction: I reported in a story the Flyers hadn’t played a top-5 non-conference team since Duke in 2002-03. Actually, they played No. 2 North Carolina in 2006-07, losing by 30.
In conference games, they played No. 3 Saint Joseph’s in 2003-04, falling 81-67.
They haven’t beaten a top-5 team since upsetting No. 3 DePaul in 1984, but they’ve knocked off a pair of No. 6 teams this decade, beating Maryland, 77-71, in the Maui Invitational in 2000 and Pittsburgh, 80-55, at home in 2007-08.
