Flyer Connection newsletter: Dayton bounces back with two victories in four days

Until Sunday, Chase had only seen the Dayton men’s basketball team play on the road: once at Saint Joseph’s when he was 16 months old; and once in the Bahamas when he was 4. He has attended other UD basketball media sessions with me at the Cronin Center and the arena, however.

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Chase has a phobia about loud places. We lasted about 30 seconds at Monster Jam, the monster truck extravaganza, a couple years ago in Columbus. I didn’t know how he would fare at the UD Arena. It’s noisy because of the sound system even when the fans aren’t adding much to the decibel level, which has been the case a few times this season.

Fortunately, Chase survived and thrived at the game. He wore his full Cristiano Ronaldo jersey. He drank an orange Fanta and ate Skittles. He had multiple plates of pizza from the media room. He sat with my dad, so like me in 1990, he watched his first game at the arena with his grandpa.

I took photos with my camera from a distance to check that they were still in their seats after the pregame introductions because that’s the loudest time and I knew they would flee to the media room if he couldn’t handle it. But Chase watched the whole game. He even took his own out-of-focus photos of the court with his new crash-resistant Panasonic Lumix.

On the day of the game, walking down our stairs at home, Chase passed the photo of Obi Toppin holding him at that game at Hagan Arena six years ago and asked, “Is he going to be there?”

Toppin was not there, and entering that game Sunday, the Toppin years had never been further away — literally and figuratively. Dayton had lost five of its last six games and faced deficits of 20 or more points in the first half in three of the losses.

Dayton basketball was in a bad place, as I wrote in this newsletter last week. The Flyers showed improvement Sunday in a 70-59 victory against Davidson, securing the victory with a late 7-0 run. They didn’t play well enough, though, to convince anyone that they had turned a corner.

It was a different story Wednesday. Dayton led George Mason from start to finish in an 82-67 victory. The Flyers delivered their best offensive performance since the opening weeks of the season and their best performance period, considering the location and opponent, a team that owned a four-game winning streak in the series.

Before the game, according to a video shared by the official Dayton basketball social media accounts, this is what coach Anthony Grant told the team:

“You have to keep one thing in the forefront of your mind,” he said. “Winning is never easy. Don’t expect it to be easy. You’ve got to go battle. You’ve got to do hard stuff. You’ve got to do what it takes today. You are the better team.”

Credit: David Jablonski

Credit: David Jablonski

The magnitude of the victory showed in the players’ reactions as they left the court. Amaël L’Etang, who played the best game of two seasons with a career-best offensive rating of 159, according to KenPom.com, was especially jubilant.

The players jumped up and down with Grant in the locker room after the victory.

This was my seventh trip to George Mason’s EagleBank Arena and the first time since 2020, after losses in 2022 and 2024, I talked to a winning coach in the hallway outside the locker room.

“We just battled,” Grant said. “It was a really good game. They’re a really good team. They’ve won 15 games at home here, so we knew we’d have to battle all game.”

The A-10’s last undefeated team can exhale

Credit: David Jablonski

Credit: David Jablonski

The game Wednesday at George Mason was my third in six days. I also traveled to Oxford on Friday to help with our coverage of the undefeated Miami RedHawks, who played my alma mater, Ohio, in a 9 p.m. game.

Dayton assistant coach Jermaine Henderson sat behind one basket at Millett Hall with former Miami teammate Devin Davis. They created a VIP section for fans behind the basket. Henderson and Davis had their own table and a great view of Miami’s 90-74 victory, its 25th straight.

Ohio Gov. Mike DeWine attended the game with his wife Fran. ESPN analyst Mark Adams, the former host of Flyer Feedback on WHIO, stripped down to swim shorts before the game to pose for a photo with Miami swimmers wearing Speedos.

Credit: David Jablonski

Credit: David Jablonski

It was quite the scene in Oxford. I’ve covered a number of games at Millett over the years but had never seen it packed like that. I snagged one of the free T-shirts left behind by a fan for my brother Adam, the biggest sports fan of my three siblings who all went to Miami.

While Miami’s undefeated season continued with an 86-77 victory at Massachusetts on Tuesday, the last A-10 team without a conference loss, Saint Louis, could not keep the momentum rolling. The Billikens lost 81-76 at Rhode Island on Tuesday.

The loss by Saint Louis after a 12-0 start in A-10 play means the 2019-20 Dayton Flyers remain the last A-10 team to go undefeated in conference play.

Dayton is the only program to finish 18-0 in A-10 play since the league schedule expanded to 18 games in 2015. Every other A-10 champion since 2015 has suffered at least two losses in the regular season.

Saint Louis (24-2, 12-1) plays second-place Virginia Commonwealth (21-6, 12-2) on Friday night in St. Louis before traveling to Dayton on Tuesday.

Dayton plays Duquesne at 2 p.m. Saturday in a rematch of a game Dayton won 71-65 in January.

Dayton’s two-game winning streak and its best performance of the non-conference season Wednesday offers hope that it can build momentum for the A-10 tournament. The best it can hope for is a No. 3 seed in an event it hasn’t won in 23 years.

Fast Break

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