Simon’s emergence as an important and dependable piece of Dayton’s rotation in his third season with the program has been one of the most interesting subplots of the 2025-26 season. His larger role led him to being asked, along with sophomore forward Amaël L’Etang, to speak at a press conference after the latest disappointing loss for the Flyers.
Dayton blew an early 15-point lead in an 81-76 loss Tuesday to Rhode Island at UD Arena.
Needless to say, there was no dancing after this game — only a quick and quiet walk to the locker room.
“We just lost the energy and the effort that we had in the first half,” Simon said. “I don’t know what happened, to be honest.”
In a seven-day stretch, Dayton lost to La Salle, Saint Joseph’s and Rhode Island, destroying any hopes of earning a NCAA tournament berth as an at-large team and likely ensuring it won’t win the Atlantic 10 Conference regular-season championship for the eighth time in coach Anthony Grant’s nine seasons.
Dayton (14-7, 5-3) is now projected to finish 10-8 in the A-10 by KenPom.com — six games back of Saint Louis, which is projected to finish 16-2. To have any chance of winning the A-10 or at least contending, the Flyers will have to turn their season around fast. That starts with an 8 p.m. game against one of the hottest teams in the nation, No. 21 Saint Louis (20-1, 8-0).
“I know we’ve got a lot of talent,” Simon said. “There’s a lot of basketball left to be played. We’re trying to find a way to figure it out.”
Dayton plays Saint Louis at 8 p.m. Friday at Chaifetz Arena. The Billikens have won 14 games in a row. The game is sold out.
“Saint Louis has been outstanding all year long,” Grant said. “They’ve separated themselves a little bit from the pack. They’re obviously playing the best basketball of anybody right now in the league, based on the scores and what they’re doing. We’ll have another quick turnaround with a Friday game and not a lot of time to reset.”
Dayton will try to avoid its first four-game losing streak since January 2014 when it lost to Richmond, Virginia Commonwealth, Rhode Island and Saint Joseph’s before winning nine of its last 10 regular-season games.
Here are five things to know about the game:
Credit: David Jablonski
1: Series history: Dayton leads the series 44-30 and has won four in a row with two-game sweeps in each of the past two seasons.
Last season, Dayton won 71-63 on Jan. 31 at Saint Louis and 75-67 on March 4 at UD Arena.
In Grant’s first eight seasons, Dayton was 14-5 against Saint Louis with four losses at Chaifetz Arena and one in the A-10 tournament.
Credit: David Jablonski
Credit: David Jablonski
2: State of the program: Saint Louis finished 19-15 overall and 11-7 in the A-10 last season, which was the first for coach Josh Schertz.
Schertz previously coached at Indiana State. He was 66-40 in three seasons. He led the team to a 32-7 record in his final season.
Schertz replaced Travis Ford, who was fired after the 2024-25 season. He was 146-109 in eight seasons with one A-10 tournament championship and NCAA tournament berth in 2019.
Credit: David Jablonski
Credit: David Jablonski
3: Scouting report: Robbie Avila, a 6-foot-10 senior center, leads Saint Louis with 13.1 points and 4.0 assists per game. He leads the A-10 in 3-point field-goal percentage (41 of 87, 47.1%). This is his second season at Saint Louis. He played his first two seasons at Indiana State.
• Trey Green, a 6-0 junior guard, averages 11.8 points per game. He ranks second in the A-10 in 3-point shooting percentage (61 of 131, 46.6). He played at Xavier the last two seasons.
• Dion Brown, a 6-3 senior guard, averages 10.9 points. He played at Maryland-Baltimore County for two seasons before spending last season at Boston College.
• Kellen Thames, a 6-5 redshirt junior guard, averages 10.6 points. He has played his whole career at Saint Louis.
• Amari McCottry, a 6-6 sophomore guard, averages 10.5 points.
• Saint Louis ranks ninth in the nation in scoring offense (91.4), fifth in 3-point shooting (40.1) and ninth in 2-point shooting percentage (60.2).
Credit: AP
Credit: AP
4: Season summary: Saint Louis sits alone in first place in the A-10 with 10 games to play. It would be undefeated if not for a 78-77 loss to Stanford on Nov. 28. Stanford won that game by making a free throw, intentionally missing the second free throw, getting the offensive rebound and then making a 3-pointer at the buzzer.
Saint Louis played a non-conference schedule that ranked 316th in the country in difficulty. Its best victory came against Santa Clara, which is No. 45 in the NCAA Evaluation Tool.
In its most recent game Tuesday, Saint Louis rallied from a 15-point deficit — its first double-digit deficit of the season — to beat George Washington 79-76 at Chaifetz Arena. Avila made a tie-breaking 3-pointer with three seconds to play.
“We didn’t play great, but we competed great,” Schertz said. “There’s a difference. We could play much better. Obviously, we missed a ton of free throws. We were a little sloppy at times, but you couldn’t compete better than we did. And for us to get punched in the mouth for the first time all year, to kind of taste your own blood and then respond like we did. I was super, super proud of the fight and resolve.”
Credit: AP
Credit: AP
5: Odds & Ends: KenPom.com gives Dayton a 12% chance of winning and predicts a 81-68 score. Dayton is No. 84 in the Pomeroy ratings. Saint Louis is No. 25.
• Dayton ranks 93rd in the NET. Saint Louis is No. 18.
This is a Quadrant 1 game for Dayton, which is 0-2 in Quad 1, 2-1 in Quad 2, 4-4 in Quad 3 and 8-0 in Quad 4.
This is a Quad 3 game for Saint Louis, which is 2-0 in Quad 1, 2-1 in Quad 2, 6-0 in Quad 3 and 9-0 in Quad 4.
• Rhode Island made 28 of 36 free throws against Dayton. That’s the highest number of made free throws against Dayton since Richmond made 32 of 35 on Jan. 14, 2014, at the Robins Center.
• Dayton guard Javon Bennett needs five points to hit the 1,000-point milestone in his three seasons at Dayton. He has 1,322 points in his career, including one season at Merrimack.
NEXT GAME
Who: Dayton (14-7, 5-3) at Saint Louis (20-1, 8-0)
When: 8 p.m., Friday
TV: CBS Sports Network
Radio: 95.7-FM, 1290-AM
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