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Rivals UD and Xavier shake hands, get intense

By Doug Harris, Staff Writer Updated 9:37 PM Saturday, February 6, 2010

DAYTON — After blowing off the traditional pre-game handshake earlier this season in Cincinnati, UD and Xavier met for a greeting at halfcourt following the national anthem Saturday at UD Arena.

A referee, though, had to intervene during an exchange of words between UD’s Chris Johnson and Xavier’s Dante Jackson in the second half of the Flyers’ 90-65 victory. When Johnson kicked an attempted inbound pass by Jackson into the stands, the Xavier player clapped his hands at Johnson, and the two were quickly separated.

As the Flyers sophomore was running down the floor, another ref said: “Behave yourself. I’m not telling you again.”

“We were going back and forth,” Johnson said. “He was talking about the last game, and I told him, ‘That was last game. We’re talking about this game.’ He was getting frustrated because we were taking him out of his game.”

After winning the MVP trophy twice previously in the series, Jackson finished with nine points on 3 of 8 shooting from the field.

Early foul trouble

Xavier center Jason Love picked up two fouls in the first 64 seconds, and back-up Kenny Frease had two fouls in the opening 3:23. Each had one on the offensive end.

After Love was called for his second hack, Musketeers coach Chris Mack threw out his arms pleadingly while looking across the floor to Jim Satalin, the Atlantic 10 supervisor of officials, on press row.

Mack eventually was slapped with a technical foul with 4:43 left in the game, but he didn’t blame the refs for the 25-point defeat.

“I just thought we weren’t ready to play,” he said. “The foul trouble was tough, not having Jason in there, but that’s irrelevant in the grand scheme of things.”

Double dose

The Flyers were brutes on the boards again. They had a 42-24 advantage after out-rebounding the Musketeers by 17 in the first meeting.

“They did it to us in game one and surprised us a little bit,” Mack said. “We know they’re a very good offensive rebounding team, but we should have learned our lesson in game one.”

Chris Wright had a game-high nine rebounds, while sub Devin Searcy had eight.

“We want to be one of the best rebounding teams in the country, and we pretty much proved that,” Searcy said. “But it’s not done yet. We’ve still got a lot more games to play.”

‘Kav’ gets in

Freshman Matt Kavanaugh saw his first meaningful action since the Puerto Rico tournament in November, subbing in with 5:25 left in the first half. He picked up a defensive rebound with a solid box-out while playing one minute.

“He’s getting better. We love the kid. We think he’s going to be a great player here,” UD coach Brian Gregory said. “We had no hesitation. We needed another ‘big’ in there to do some good things, and one thing he can do is rebound.”

Luke Fabrizius was held out of action to give his aching back more rest, moving Kavanaugh higher in the pecking order.

“There was a lot of adrenaline running through my veins and a lot of excitement,” the Centerville grad said. “Every day in practice, I go against (senior) Kurt Huelsman, and going against him prepares me to go against any team.”

Free throws

• Xavier was holding Atlantic 10 opponents to just 20.3-percent shooting from 3-point range going into the game. UD finished 7-for-13.

• Chris Wright hit two outside jumpers to fuel a 17-3 start for the Flyers, including a 3-pointer. He was 4-for-21 on 3’s going into the game.

• The 90 points scored by the Flyers marked the eighth time that UD has reached that mark in seven years under Gregory. UD is 5-3 in those games.

Contact this reporter at (937) 225-2125 or dharris@DaytonDailyNews.com.

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