Dayton basketball: Flyers beat Duquesne for third victory in seven days

What it means: Dayton (18-9, 9-5) followed a 70-59 victory against Davidson on Sunday at UD Arena and an 82-67 victory at George Mason on Wednesday with its third double-digit victory of the week.

Dayton moved into a tie for third place in the Atlantic 10 Conference with George Mason (21-6, 9-5) and Saint Joseph’s (17-10, 9-5), which beat Loyola Chicago 75-61 on Saturday in Philadelphia.

Duquesne (16-11, 8-6) saw a five-game winning streak end. It sits alone in sixth place with four games remaining.

Duquesne suffered its 13th straight loss at UD Arena since an 83-73 victory in 2012. The Flyers have won nine straight regular-season games in the series.

Star of the game: Amaël L’Etang led Dayton with 17 points. He made 5 of 7 field goals, including 3 of 4 3-pointers. He has scored in double figures in seven straight games, improving his season scoring average to 11.9.

Stat of the game: Dayton outscored Duquesne 15-3 in points off turnovers. Duquesne had 13 turnovers. Dayton had eight turnovers for the second straight game.

Turning point: Dayton had the lead for the last 21 minutes. It pushed its lead to double digits for the first time on back-to-back baskets by De’Shayne Montgomery and Jordan Derkack eight minutes into the second half. Derkack’s 3-point play gave Dayton a 58-47 lead with 11 minutes, 49 seconds to play.

Looking ahead: Dayton plays first-place Saint Louis (25-2, 13-1) at 7 p.m. Tuesday at UD Arena. Saint Louis won the first matchup 102-71 on Jan. 30 in St. Louis.

Saint Louis beat second-place Virginia Commonwealth (21-7, 12-3) 88-75 on Friday in St. Louis, bouncing back from an 81-76 loss at Rhode Island on Tuesday.

HALFTIME RECAP

Dayton led by as many as eight points in the first half and took a 42-39 lead into halftime.

Here’s a quick recap of the first half:

Key players: Javon Bennett scored 11 points on 4-of-7 shooting for Dayton.

Taren Guinyard scored 14 points on 4-of-7 shooting for Duquesne. He made 3 of 5 3-pointers.

Key stat: Duquesne made 7 of 10 3-pointers (70%). Dayton made 5 of 14 (35.7%).

Big shots: L’Etang, who scored eight points in the half on 3-of-3 shooting, made a 3-pointer with 43 seconds to play to give Dayton a 42-36 lead.

On the next possession, Duquesne took advantage of an offensive rebound and scored on a 3 by Guinyard with six seconds remaining.