Flyer Connection newsletter: Dayton builds momentum with two last-minute victories

“You guys are cooked,” he said.

He wasn’t wrong. We won one game in 2025 and tied a couple of others. The truth hurts.

Better days lie ahead, though. We beat the first-place team in our indoor league in our last game. It was such a great moment I wrote a game story, interviewing my teammates and publishing it in the group chat.

***

Fortunes change fast in the sports world — for old-man soccer teams and for teams that people actually care about. The Dayton Flyers have won six games in a row since losing five out of six games, raising hope that they can win the Atlantic 10 Conference championship in the postseason that eluded them in the regular season.

In the last week, Dayton won two games in similar fashion.

• The Flyers beat George Washington 68-66 in Washington, D.C., on Feb. 27 thanks to a game-ending 4-0 run in the last 21 seconds.

• Then on Tuesday in Virginia, Dayton (Jordan Derkack, specifically) outscored Richmond 5-0 in the last 39 seconds to win 65-60.

With those victories, Dayton secured a top-four seed and a double bye in the A-10 tournament for the fifth straight season.

In all likelihood, Dayton will be the No. 4 seed at PPG Paints Arena in Pittsburgh. Its path to a championship — at the moment, according to the bracket shared on X by Michael Bergman, of A10Talk.com — if the top seeds advance would go through No. 5 seed George Mason, No. 1 seed Saint Louis and No. 2 seed Virginia Commonwealth.

Of course, the Flyer Faithful know Dayton’s history in the A-10 tournament well. It lost to Davidson in its first game in the quarterfinals the last time the event was held in Pittsburgh. That was one of two first-game exits for coach Archie Miller in six seasons.

Anthony Grant’s program lost its first A-10 tournament game in his first two seasons and also in the last two seasons. He’s 4-7 in the A-10 tournament.

Miller was 5-6 in the A-10 tournament. His predecessor, Brian Gregory, was 10-8 in eight seasons.

What Grant, Miller and Gregory have in common is zero A-10 tournament championships. Dayton won its only A-10 tournament title in 2003 in Oliver Purnell’s last season.

Dayton’s most important goal every season is earning a NCAA tournament berth. Relying on at-large berths every season makes achieving that goal much more difficult.

Even if it beats VCU on Friday at UD Arena, Dayton will once again fall short of having a resume worthy of an-large berth. Quadrant 3 losses to Liberty, Rhode Island and La Salle put Dayton on the wrong side of the bubble.

However, the beauty of college basketball is the opportunity presented by conference tournaments. There’s always hope a team finds find magic in March. Imagine being a Pittsburgh Pirates fan who knows their team is cooked every April. There’s no hope for them — just a long march full of meaningless baseball games.

Grant talks about his future

Credit: David Jablonski

Credit: David Jablonski

You know things are going well for Dayton when Anthony Grant agrees to an extended interview with a national college basketball writer. He did one of those Monday, talking to Jeff Goodman, of the Field of 68. You can watch it on YouTube.com.

Grant and Goodman talked for 21 minutes. Goodman first asked Grant about Dayton’s improved play in recent weeks.

“First, I think we had to get healthy,” Grant said, “and then we had to get back into the rhythm of playing with each other. Guys were getting back to their own individual rhythms. We were playing every third day while trying to re-acclimate guys back. We just really didn’t have the time that they needed to get ready for what we needed to do. We had a break in there during our bye week where we had a chance to have some continuity with practices, and we switched some things up in terms of lineups, in terms of the rotation, in terms of some things we were doing on both sides of the ball. I think it’s helped us.”

Goodman closed the interview by asking Grant about the annual speculation that he may retire after the season.

ESPN’s Jeff Borzello was the latest to report on that possibility.

“Dayton’s Anthony Grant is also rumored to be mulling a potential retirement,“ Borzello wrote in February. ”The Flyers entered the week tied for third in the Atlantic 10, but they have gone to only one NCAA tournament since he took over in 2017. It should be noted that the Flyers were tracking for a 1-seed in 2020 before the NCAA tournament was canceled. Grant was also recently named the head coach of the USA Basketball men’s U18 national team for this summer; does that make him more likely to stay?”

Goodman told Grant that if Grant were considering stepping down only three people would know: Grant himself; his wife Chris and Billy Donovan, the coach Grant worked for at Florida before he became a head coach.

Here’s how Grant answered Goodman’s question:

“I can’t control other people’s speculation,” he said. “I look at it like a broke clock is right twice a day, right? So, all of us as coaches, we have three options. We get fired, we retire or we die on the job. I’m not the Heavenly Father that gets to decide what it is.

“I’m very fortunate to do what I do and where I get to do it at my alma mater. I’m blessed and favored to have this opportunity, and I enjoy what I’m doing. I’ve also lived long enough, Jeff — and you know this — and been through enough in my life where I understand man plans and God lasts. I don’t know what God has in store for me moving forward. So I try to do the best I can with what I’ve got today because I don’t know what tomorrow’s bringing. I don’t know why people want to speculate about that. I think you know me well enough that I’m not out there saying it. I don’t know where they draw this stuff from."

Goodman told Grant he thinks people speculate because Grant “is not out there a lot,” meaning he doesn’t do many interviews outside of postgame media sessions. Grant is not on social media. We don’t know what he’s thinking.

“That’s just who I am,” Grant said. “I can’t control other people’s opinions one way or the other. I guess I hope at some point they’re right (about him retiring) because the other two options aren’t very good.”

One more night at UD Arena

I’m always looking for something interesting to lead my stories, a scene or a quote or moment to grab the reader’s interest. I found that last week when Dayton played George Washington at the Charles E. Smith Center.

There were two Dayton fans sitting behind one basket in the upper deck. George Washington shot free throws at that basket in the second half. The fans, especially the young girl waving PomPoms, did their best to distract the free-throw shooters.

In the story, I said maybe the fans deserved credit for the victory because George Washington, which shoots right at the national average (72.5%) on the season, made 9 of 17 free throws in the second half and finished with its second-worst percentage (55.2).

Two late misses by Rafael Castro allowed Dayton to escape with the victory.

A couple days later, Matthew Trick wrote to thank me for the mention and the photo and video of him and his daughter, Matilda.

“It brought me so much joy reading those first few lines, watching the video and sharing it with our family back home,” he wrote. “It’s my hope that she’ll look back on that night and nights in the future as fondly as I remember going to the Arena (in the cold from Parking Lot D!) with my family. Thank you for this. Truly.”

No matter where Dayton plays, it has fans. The program leads the A-10 in attendance every season at UD Arena. There’s no official figure for how many fans see the team play on the road, but there’s little doubt Dayton would lead that category, too.

At 7 p.m. Friday against VCU, Dayton plays its final home game of the 2025-26 season. It will be the 94th straight sellout.

Dayton has won 14 straight games on Senior Night or Senior Day. The last senior class to not win its final home game included Chris Wright and Devin Searcy in 2011 when the Flyers lost 69-51 to Saint Louis. Those seniors were trying to set a school record for victories by a senior class.

“You hope that things work out perfectly on Senior Night,” then coach Brian Gregory said. “You get the win, you get to send the seniors off the right way, you get the win that sets them apart in career wins. Unfortunately, in real life, sometimes it doesn’t happen that way.”

In the last 14 seasons, some of Dayton’s most memorable home victories have come in the last game:

• In 2016, a layup by Kyle Davis with 16 seconds left in overtime lifted the Flyers to a 68-67 win over VCU. Dayton clinched a share of the A-10 title with VCU and St. Bonaventure.

• In 2017, Dayton cut down the nets after beating VCU 79-72 to clinch the A-10 title outright. Charles Cooke and Scoochie Smith scored 20 points apiece in their final home games.

• In 2020, Dayton beat George Washington 76-51 to finish 18-10 in the A-10.

• In 2024, Dayton rallied from a 17-point deficit to beat VCU 91-86 in overtime.

• In 2025, Dayton rallied from a 14-point deficit to beat Saint Louis 75-67.

There could be another memorable game Friday, though there’s more on the line for VCU than Dayton.

VCU still has hopes of getting to the NCAA tournament as an at-large team. A victory on the road against Dayton would help.

Dayton likely will still be the No. 4 seed in the A-10 tournament even if it beats VCU because there’s little chance Saint Joseph’s loses at home to La Salle on Saturday.

For Dayton, this game is about avenging a 99-73 loss at VCU in February, spoiling VCU’s NCAA hopes and continuing to build momentum for the A-10 tournament with a seventh straight victory. The 2020 team is the only Dayton team to win its last seven regular-season games since Dayton entered the A-10 in the 1995-96 season.

Fast Break

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