Perry smiles brightest in win

By Doug Harris, Staff Writer Updated 12:46 AM Sunday, February 28, 2010

DAYTON — The passes were crisp. The 3-pointers went in. The defense was assertive. And maybe most noteworthy of all, University of Dayton basketball players might have set a season high in smiles.

Playing loose and confidently, the Flyers rolled to a 96-68 win over Massachusetts on Saturday, Feb. 27. And no one had more fun than beleaguered shooting guard Mickey Perry, whose minutes had been dwindling of late.

The senior from Maywood, Ill., tied his career high with 15 points while knocking down 5-of-7 3s. Asked when he last had a hot streak like that, Perry said, “I can’t remember. It’s been a long time.”

The sellout crowd of 13,425 was mostly supportive despite three losses in four games for the Flyers, but fans did boo after a flurry of poor possessions in the second half. UD went from a 54-35 lead to a 54-43 advantage with 15:17 to go, forcing coach Brian Gregory to burn a timeout.

The Minutemen cut the deficit to eight with 12 minutes to go. But the Flyers scored on 12 of their next 14 possessions — with Perry burying four 3-pointers — to push their lead to 26 with just under five minutes to go.

“Mickey is a shooter,” teammate Rob Lowery said. “He’s the best pure shooter on the team, him and Luke (Fabrizius). When he gets it going and is not thinking about it too much, I’d bet the house on Mick.”

Chris Wright was happy to see everyone get into the act.

“We worked on our chemistry in practice,” Wright said. “We got back to being a band of brothers out there. We shared the ball and had a lot of fun.”

Harris subdued

UMass’ Ricky Harris, who was averaging 19.3 points, was held to nine on 3-of-15 shooting by UD’s point guard rotation led by London Warren.

“London Warren is one of the best defenders in the A-10, if not one-on-one THE best,” Gregory said. “An argument could be made that he’s the defensive player of the year. But our team defense has gotten better, too.”

UD’s defensive field-goal percentage has gone down during the season, which Gregory said hasn’t happened in his previous six seasons. It’s now 39.3 percent.

Tidbits

• Three NCAA tournament teams and former players from the UD Arena era were recognized at halftime. All-time leading scorer Roosevelt Chapman was among those receiving a rousing ovation.

• UD assistant Billy Schmidt was called for a technical with 16:32 to go, but the refs waved it off when Gregory pointed out Schmidt was yelling instructions to a player on the floor.

• The Flyers’ 43 points in the first half were more than they scored in 40 minutes during their 49-41 loss to Temple in their last outing.

• The UD-Richmond game will be a national broadcast on CBS College Sports, but the network is available only on the sports-tier package on Time Warner or on satellite dishes.

Share this article