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A look back at UD’s road loss
PHILADELPHIA — Dayton didn’t do much of anything well against Saint Joseph’s tonight. Nothing, nada, zilch. But I can’t say the Flyers’ 77-63 defeat was a total surprise.
The Atlantic 10 is a very good league. Anyone who’s been paying attention has certainly figured that out by now.
The A-10 has nine teams in the top-100 in the RPI, and winning on the road the rest of the way is going to take a superior performance by the Flyers. Look who they have left away from home: Saint Louis (which just ended Xavier’s home-court winning streak), Fordham, Xavier, Duquesne and Richmond. Anyone see a gimme in the bunch?
The Flyers were smacked back to reality here tonight, getting waxed by 14. And I thought this was a bad match-up from the start. The Flyers aren’t athletic in the frontcourt without Josh Benson, and the Hawks are VERY athletic. That’s why I say the result wasn’t exactly a shock. If they can’t get anything going inside, the Flyers won’t be good enough from the outside to get the job done too often.
But they’re 14-6 and 4-2 in the league. I keep dividing the conference up into four-game chunks. If they can go 3-1 in each, they have a shot at a special season.
They went 3-1 in the first “quarter” and now are 1-1 after the two toughest games of the second “fourth.” With home games against Rhode Island and Duquesne next, another 3-1 record is attainable.
The Flyers weren’t going to go on a rampage and beat up the A-10. The league is too good. But looking at what’s left in four-game increments, it doesn’t seem quite so daunting.
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By THE NUTS
January 26, 2012 1:16 AM | Link to this
Without a legit power forward how can Dayton survive against teams with two athletic big men? The only answer is to play Matt and Alex as twin towers with 3 roving perimeter players.We’re bound to get some mismatches with those two floating between high and low post and to our favor both can hit a 17 foot jump shot.
By VD Flyer
January 26, 2012 4:16 AM | Link to this
The Flyers can only win at home, with their rude fans and homer refs. This is a well known fact. The Xavier game was nothing. It’s time to exit the A10 and move to a JUCO schedule.
By RayZ
January 26, 2012 7:48 AM | Link to this
It looks like Archie is beginning to get the same reputation that the other recent mediocre UD coaches have: Dayton can’t win on the road. The eastern media are all over it.
By xfan2
January 26, 2012 8:15 AM | Link to this
I agree with VD Flyer. Flyers can only win at home because the refs are all UD fans. And I was disgusted by the UD fans who told me to get my F’in Xavier a** out of their arena last year. Nice! And I am 55 years old!
By FaithfulFlyer65
January 26, 2012 8:20 AM | Link to this
They are not going to win every game. Anyone notice that Murray State is the only team that has done that so far? They are still ahead of where I thought they would be at this point of the season. There will be games like this, especially on the road, within a well balanced league. That said, I believe that the team that made the better halftime adjustments won last night. Chalk one up and give some credit to Coach Martelli.
By Bubba
January 26, 2012 9:32 AM | Link to this
Even though Ohio St. has lost games they continue to be ranked as one of the best teams in the country. Does anyone really believe that the teams that beat them were better teams than Ohio St. is? It happens. Why do so many get so worked up when the flyers lose a game? I doubt than anyone expected them to play as well as they have this season. Get over it folks!
By GrownArseMan
January 26, 2012 9:35 AM | Link to this
xfan2 - while you are 55 years of age, it sounds like you have the feelings of a 5 year old. Do you think this is the only venue where the opposing fans take some heat from the home fans, and even use big-boy swear words??? I forgot that the Cintas Center is like a chapel on Sunday, filled with warm and friendly welcoming fans that never use profanity. If you can’t take the heat, don’t go into the kitchen.
By Dayton $ucks!!!!
January 26, 2012 9:40 AM | Link to this
Dayton $ucks!!!
By Mr. Sports
January 26, 2012 11:21 AM | Link to this
VD Flyer has VD of the mouth. He talks crap and gets people like me to respond.
By NIT or Bust?
January 26, 2012 1:15 PM | Link to this
If nobody rises to the top of the A10 and everyone finishes with a near .500 conference record, there won’t be any at-large bids coming from this conference. The good news is, it looks like anyone can win the A10 tournament at this point.
By A-10 Expert
January 26, 2012 4:03 PM | Link to this
Did anyone remember that Temple was playing most of the season with 40% of their starters out. Now that they have Michael Eric back, watch out. Look what happened last night at Charlotte.
By sec 312
January 26, 2012 8:55 PM | Link to this
65 and bubba have it right really we are not that good we are just playing good
By Stonemiller
January 26, 2012 11:10 PM | Link to this
Marrtellis on the hot seat and he did a nice job last night. My opinion , Dayton should have played Kav and Gav in the post to create some space in the block. Kav alone was no match for their two bigs. Any thoughts ?
By FaithfulFlyer65
January 27, 2012 8:37 AM | Link to this
Regarding Stonemiller’s comment, I think when what you’re doing isn’t working, it’s worth trying something else. I also thought playing a zone defense could have slowed down St. Joe’s inside game in the 2nd half, but who knows. I wasn’t there and didn’t see how it was unfolding. All I knew is what Larry and Bucky were saying on the radio.
By Smegma
January 27, 2012 9:02 AM | Link to this
Can we get 4 stories from the DDN about Jon Gruden’s absence is the reason the Flyers lost?
By PAFlyer
January 27, 2012 10:58 AM | Link to this
I was at the game, and was disappointed by what I saw. I thought I had time-warped back to the last couple years. Players were standing around on D, making lazy passes on O, looking to the bench repeatedly for play calls, etc. Kavanaugh got beat repeatedly on D. I lost track of how many times he got back-doored. And the scoring was all KD and CJ, just like the past when the team would look at Chris Wright and hope he’d score all the points. Worst of all, UD looked rattled by the small gym atmosphere. Except for X, UD,and Temple, most of the A10 plays in glorified high school gyms where the opposing students are literally at court’s edge. You get the sense even the refs are influenced by the crowd (being kind here-the refs were very one-sided for SJU). UD must learn to deal with that or else it’ll be the same old story in A10 play.
By Bobby G
January 27, 2012 1:19 PM | Link to this
This has been a vastly over-achieving team all season, picked to finish 6th in the A10, and justifiably so. Road losses are the norm in this league, even among the top tier teams, so no surprise here, except that our guys not only couldn’t shoot or play very good D, but they looked visibly rattled all over the court. I hope coach can get them to forget this one and move on. Get a few more home wins and then reload for the home stretch and the rematch at the Cintas, aka Gangsta Central.
By Duke
January 27, 2012 1:32 PM | Link to this
xfan2 I went to a UD-Xavier game two years ago in Cincinnati and I will never go back again. It was the single worst basketball experience I have ever been in. Obscenities yelled at me and my 12 year old son all game long. Beer poured all over me and my nephew. Why? Because we were Dayton fans! Thug mentalilty exists on the court and in the stands. I lost all respect I had for Xavier. It is unfortunate that UD fans swore at you, but we are not all like that, but it is possible they got much worse visting the Cintas Center. Xavier can’t lose enough for me. I am a 50 year old man and I can take losing, but do you all have to act like cruds in winning? I have a feeling it is this mentality that will keep Xavier from any NCAA championship. Go Flyers!
By Smegma
January 27, 2012 2:59 PM | Link to this
Yes we’ve been “overachieving” this year, but we’re two losses from 6th place in the A10, which is very mediocre this year. You can call it “beating up” on each other if you want, but the conference really isn’t as talented as past years, 2 teams in the only tournament that matters, at most this year.
By Bubba
January 27, 2012 3:11 PM | Link to this
Have to disagree with you Smegma. I think it’s exactly the opposite. The conference has a bunch of good teams (just look at what they did during their non-conference schedule), and with such parity, they keep knocking each other off. That’s the price to pay in a conference that probably has at least 5 teams that could finish first.
By Smegma
January 27, 2012 3:28 PM | Link to this
Many of these A10 teams played great ball earlier in the season, but have lost significant parts of their teams for the start of the conference schedule. Of the 5 teams right now that “could” finish first, only 2 or 3 would be in the tournament if it started tomorrow, that won’t go up as the continue to play one another.
By Bubba
January 27, 2012 7:25 PM | Link to this
I agree with you Smegma that the A-10 will probably only get 2 teams, and 3 if they are very lucky, into the big dance. But it’s not because they don’t have good teams. It’s because the selection committee has a poor view of what it calls mid-majors. Every year the mid-majors show in the tourney that they can play with the big boys, but they still keep getting ignored by the selection committee. I wonder how much the distribution of all that TV money has to do with it?
By Smegma
January 28, 2012 11:40 AM | Link to this
Selections are not made by name, the 68 chosen teams are picked with the names covered, the locations and seedings afterward are selected after the 68 are chosen. Smaller conferences don’t benefit because their RPIs are generally lower.
By Bubba
January 28, 2012 12:58 PM | Link to this
Wow! I didn’t know that. Very interesting. I learned something today.
By RPI
January 28, 2012 6:26 PM | Link to this
The reason smaller conferences have lower RPI’s is because the larger conferences won’t play them. When they do play them, it’s on the home court of the larger school or occasionally in a tournament on a neutral court. It’s a situation where the rich get richer, and the poorer have no hope.