Darrell Davis stars on Senior Day for Dayton Flyers

Guard scores 22 points and nearly reaches 1,000-point milestone

Darrell Davis took a seat on the bench in the second half, having already scored 22 points. Freshman Obadiah Toppin looked at him and held up eight fingers, letting Davis know how many points he needed to hit the 1,000-point mark.

A perfect Senior Day would have ended with Davis reaching that mark, but he fell six points short. He couldn't complain, though. The Dayton Flyers sent Davis and walk-on Joey Gruden out the right way with an 88-78 defeat of George Washington in the regular-season finale Saturday at UD Arena.

» PHOTOS: Dayton vs. GW

Davis made 8 of 12 shots, including 5 of 8 3-pointers, and scored 22 points. He has 994 points and should reach 1,000 in the Atlantic 10 tournament.

“I’m going to get there,” Davis said. “It’s God’s plan. It’s God’s will. Maybe I’ll get it the next game.”

Dayton (14-16, 8-10) will finish the regular season in ninth place or tied for ninth with Richmond or Duquesne or both. Those teams played in late Saturday games. The Flyers will open the A-10 tournament in the second round Thursday at Capital One Arena in Washington, D.C.

The performance by Davis raises hopes that Dayton could make a run in the conference tournament. He slumped in the previous three games, making 6 of 21 shots from the field and scoring 19 points. The Flyers need him to play as he did Saturday to have any chance in Washington.

Davis scored nine points in the first 5:01 as Dayton built a 16-5 lead.

“I thought Darrell was really aggressive from the jump,” coach Anthony Grant said. “His assignment for the night was not only to provide scoring for us but to take the defensive assignment of guarding (Yuta) Watanabe. I thought he did a great job of making it difficult for him.”

Josh Cunningham and Trey Landers each scored 17 points. Kostas Antetokounmpo added a career-high 14 points. He had 10 points in the first half, helping Dayton build a 37-32 lead.

» NOTES: Jay Gruden proud of Joey’s career

George Washington (14-17, 7-11) didn’t go away and grabbed the lead briefly early in the second half. A dunk by Cunningham at the 16:09 mark put Dayton ahead for good. That was the start of a 10-0 run by Dayton.

George Washington got no closer than seven points in the final minutes as Dayton won its fifth straight home game and bounced back from back-to-back, double-digit losses on the road.

“Down the stretch here, it’s been difficult,” Grant said. “I’ve asked a lot of (Davis) and our guys. Coming off the last game, we wanted to see him and all of our team respond, and I thought tonight, they rallied around each other.”

Note: Junior forward Xeyrius Williams was not on the bench. Dayton announced Wednesday he is out indefinitely with a back issue. Grant was asked why he wasn't at the game and said, "There's been some academic stuff. There's been some medical stuff. Xeyrius made a decision academically to take care of some business in the classroom and then medically he had some back issues earlier in the season, and he decided at this time he wanted to go and address those issues. Him not being there today was just a decision we felt was appropriate at this time with our team moving forward. That's pretty much it."


THURSDAY’S GAME

Dayton at Atlantic 10 tournament, opponent and time TBA, NBC Sports Network, FM 95.7, AM 1290

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