“Dyshawn made a great play on the ball,” then Dayton coach Archie Miller said. “Usually when you get a blocked shot like that at the end of the clock, it leads to some type of loose ball.”
That’s what happened Friday in Dayton’s latest visit to the Charles E. Smith Center. After Dayton took a 67-66 lead on two free throws by Amaël L’Etang with 17 seconds remaining, George Washington put the ball in the hands of Tyrone Marshall, a 6-foot-8, sixth-year forward who scored seven points in the previous three minutes.
Marshall beat L’Etang to score on a short jump shot for his previous basket. This time, he dribbled at Keonte Jones in the paint. Jones kept Marshall in front of him. Marshall did not get off a high-percentage attempt, throwing up a backward shot that Jones blocked.
“We couldn’t have asked for a better matchup for who they were going at,” Dayton coach Anthony Grant said. “Coach (Jermaine) Henderson did a great job telling the team what we thought they were going to do, and they were ready for it.”
George Washington’s best player, 6-10 senior forward Rafael Castro, grabbed the loose ball and quickly put up a one-handed shot as Jaiun Simon defended him. The shot hit the right side of the rim.
Four players jumped for the rebound this time. Dayton’s Javon Bennett knocked the ball back toward the paint. Then L’Etang got a piece of it just as George Washington’s Luke Hunger tried to grab it. Finally, Dayton’s De’Shayne Montgomery rushed in from the left side to grab the rebound with 0.4 seconds remaining.
Montgomery later described the play by Jones that started the final defensive stop as a “game-winning save” in the 68-66 victory.
Dayton made a number of game-winning plays during a five-game winning streak that started nine days after a 99-73 loss at Virginia Commonwealth.
The Flyers ranked last in the nation (No. 365) in the momentum metric on Haslametrics.com after that loss, its fifth in six games. Three weeks later, entering a game Tuesday at Richmond, they rank 56th.
“The Dayton Flyers have been a completely different basketball team,” Eric Haslam, of Haslametrics, wrote last week.
Here are five reasons that explain those differences:
1: Standout performances: Dayton’s two returning starters from last season, Bennett and L’Etang, combined to average 17.4 and and 17.2 points, respectively, in the last five games. Bennett scored 87 points. L’Etang had 86.
By comparison, in the six-game stretch prior to the winning streak, Bennett averaged 13.7 points and L’Etang averaged 9.3 points.
Bennett won the A-10 Player of the Week Award on Monday. L’Etang shared the award last week with Fordham’s Dejour Reaves.
Bennett made 6 of 9 3-pointers, scoring 25 points against George Washington. He was the team MVP, according to the KenPom.com box score. He also had that honor with 22 points in an 82-67 victory at George Mason on Feb. 18.
L’Etang earned the Pomeroy MVP honors with 17 points in a 78-66 victory against Duquesne at UD Arena on Feb. 21 and again in the next game with 26 points in a 77-62 victory against St. Louis on Feb. 24 in Dayton.
2: More free throws: Dayton made 96 of 126 free throws (76.2%) in the last five games. In its five A-10 losses, it made 79 of 112 (70.5). On the season, it’s shooting 75.4%. That’s three percentage points better than the national average and the program’s best average since the 2011-12 season (77.7).
Dayton scores 25.7% of its total points at the line. That ranks fifth in the nation. It continues to lead the nation in free-throw rate (48%), which is calculated by dividing free-throw attempts by field-goal attempts.
The last time Dayton ranked in the top 10 in free-throw rate was in the 2016-17 (10th) and 2014-15 (fourth) seasons when it had Kendall Pollard, who ranked among the national leaders in his ability to draw fouls and get to the line.
This year, Dayton has Jordan Derkack and L’Etang, who both rank in the top 150 in the nation in drawing fouls per 40 minutes.
Derkack averages 9.9 free throws per 40 minutes. Only DaRon Holmes II (10.8 in 2023-24) has put up a better number in Grant’s nine seasons.
3: Improved shooting: Dayton made 43 of 101 3-pointers in the last five games (42.6%). In its five A-10 losses, it made 33 of 102 (32.4).
4: Fewer turnovers: Until committing 16 turnovers at George Washington, Dayton had single digit-turnover numbers three games in a row for the first time since it did that in five straight games to start A-10 play.
Credit: David Jablonski
5: Better defense: George Mason posted its second-worst 2-point shooting percentage (42.1, 14 of 34) against Dayton.
Duquesne shot a season-worst 35.3% (12 of 34) in a 78-66 loss at Dayton.
Saint Louis shot a season-worst 23.8% from 3-point range against Dayton.
George Washington posted its fifth-worst offensive performance of the season, in terms of efficiency, against Dayton and scored 38 points fewer than it did in its previous game against La Salle.
Dayton leads the A-10 with 8.44 steals per game in conference play. It had 14 steals in both games against George Washington. Its pressure defense led to many of them.
“It was really good,” Grant said. “I thought the press was effective. It served its purpose for us. It gave us some extra possessions. It bothered them a little bit.”
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