Although his team was disjointed offensively in the first half, Dayton coach Archie Miller was in a positive frame of mind as the Flyers hit the locker room for their halftime break against Northern Illinois on Saturday.

They held the Huskies to a mere five points over 20 minutes, setting a program defensive record for fewest points in a half and tying the NCAA mark for low total in a first half in the shot clock era (since 1986).

But UD lost its edge after intermission while winning, 60-43, and Miller probably wasn’t lobbing compliments in his players’ direction during his noticeably long post-game address.

“We tried to approach the second half as 0-0, and we lost,” Miller said. “If you look at the numbers — 59 percent shooting and 60 percent from 3… They scored 38 points in a half after they scored five. How responsible are we? How into it are we? Are our veteran guys attacking for 40 minutes?

“We have a bad, disturbing trend right now. We’re a first-half basketball team. I’m not sure where or when it’s going to change. But I know this, it’s going to bite us multiple times throughout the season if we continue to demonstrate the inconsistencies on the defensive end from the first half to the second half.”

The Flyers (5-2) have held leads at halftime in all seven games. But they were outscored 44-30 and 42-36 by Colorado and Weber State, respectively, in the second half of their two losses. Northern Illinois, a team with seven freshmen in its 11-player rotation, had a 38-34 edge after the break.

“A lot of that is leadership,” said Miller, whose team visits mighty Alabama on Wednesday and then hosts Miami on Saturday. “I think a lot of that is an attacking mentality from those older guys — sustaining it, demonstrating it to the younger guys that it’s unacceptable (to play that way). And we don’t have that yet.”

Senior point guard Kevin Dillard hasn’t looked comfortable while adjusting to becoming a primary scorer instead of a facilitator this season. He’s averaging 13.9 points, slightly more than last year, but he has a modest 28 assists with 21 turnovers.

He had three of each against Northern Illinois’ full-court pressure. He was second in the Atlantic 10 in assist-turnover ratio last season at 2.1-1.0.

“I’m not sure why we were so passive, Kevin in particular,” Miller said. “I’ve seen him pressed 1,000 times, and usually there’s a bucket on the other end coming if you press us. Right now, that’s not the case.

“We’ll have to look at some things. We’re going to get pressed all week at Alabama and against Miami. We have to get some things cleaned up.”