Fans witnessed one of the program’s great victories in that game 11 years ago. On Wednesday at UD Arena, they saw one of the worst performances of the season from a team that had been on a roll for two months. That didn’t stop them from cheering until the final minutes.
Dayton fell into a 13-0 hole, faced a 19-point deficit in the second half and saw a late comeback fall short in a 61-55 loss to Illinois State in the NIT quarterfinals.
“Congratulations to the Illinois State players and the coaches,” Dayton coach Anthony Grant said. “Those guys did a great job. They had a really good year. Congratulations to them for being able to make it to the Final Four of the NIT. Big thank you to Flyer Nation — great turnout — for the support and for sticking by the players, our staff and everybody through the thick and thin that you go through over the course of the season."
The Flyers (25-12) finished a season with a home loss for the first time since 2002 when they fell 68-59 to Tennessee Tech in the second round of the NIT.
Illinois State (23-12), coached by Ohio native Ryan Pedon, who grew up in Bexley, advanced to the NIT semifinals for the first time. The Redbirds became the first team besides Virginia Commonwealth to beat the Flyers since the end of January.
Dayton won 11 of its last 15 games but lost three games to VCU in that stretch.
“Obviously, this is a tough environment,” Pedon said. “I’ve been here many times. Grew up as a kid coming here, watching my high school team and saw many UD games here. I coached in a handful of them when I was at Miami. Just really proud of our guys. There’s composure that’s required when you come in here. It’s a very difficult place to win.”
Credit: David Jablonski
Credit: David Jablonski
Here are three takeaways from Dayton’s 37th game:
1: The start doomed Dayton: Illinois State made five of its first six shots and outscored Dayton 13-0 in the first five minutes. The Flyers missed their first seven shots before De’Shayne Montgomery scored at the 14:50 mark.
“It’s tough,” Dayton guard Jordan Derkack said. “They’re a great team. They’re well coached. I think, looking back, you always want to say you can do better in your prep, but I feel like we should have done better. I think the coaches told us what it was. I felt like we just didn’t come with the right mindset these last two days, and it kind of bit us in the butt early. We winded up fighting back a little bit. But when that happens against a good team, it’s really tough to fight back.”
Dayton cut the deficit to 19-14 but then gave up a 12-0 run. There was still hope at halftime because Illinois State didn’t score in the last 4½ minutes after taking a 33-16 lead. Dayton ended the half on a 7-0 run and trailed 33-23 at the break.
In the second half, Dayton trailed 40-30 with 14 minutes, 51 seconds to play. Illinois State outscored Dayton 9-0 in the next two-plus minutes to take its biggest lead, 49-30 at the 12:30 mark.
The Flyers trailed 53-34 with 8:41 to play and then began a 14-0 run that lasted nearly eight minutes. A basket by Ty’Reek Coleman at the 1:53 mark ended Dayton’s run and gave the Redbirds a 55-48 lead.
Dayton twice missed layups in the final 90 seconds that would have cut the deficit to three points.
In the end, Dayton never escaped that early hole and trailed from start to finish.
“I did feel that the first eight minutes of the game were going to be vitally important for us,” Pedon said. “We’ve never played in front of this many people as a program. We’re building up our program here in year four. Most of these guys have been with us for two or three years, but we’ve never played in an environment like this. I knew what it would be like. I wanted to prepare them, but I didn’t want to alarm them. I didn’t want to overplay it.”
Credit: David Jablonski
2: Javon Bennett’s college career ended with an injury: Dayton’s leading scorer tallied one assist and missed his only shot attempt in eight-plus minutes. He suffered what Grant thought could be an oblique injury with Dayton trailing 17-10 at the 11:29 mark. Bennett didn’t return to the game.
Bennett finished his career with 1,238 points in three seasons. He ranks 33rd in school history between Mike Sylvester (1,248) and Erv Giddings (1,227).
Bennett played in 102 games at Dayton. This was the only time he didn’t score.
“It was extremely tough,” said Dayton guard Bryce Heard, who led the team with 12 points off the bench. “Javon is the leader of this team. He does a lot for us out there on the court. Having somebody like that go down, especially early in the game, when we’re already in a hole, it was tough for sure.”
Credit: David Jablonski
Credit: David Jablonski
3: Dayton posted its worst 3-point percentage of the season at home: Dayton shot 12% (3 of 25). It was the second-worst mark of the season and worst since it shot 7.7% (2 of 26) in a 74-62 loss at Cincinnati in the third game of the season.
“I think we got a lot of good looks,” Heard said. “Sometimes it just doesn’t go your way. And I felt like that was us tonight. A lot of shots went in for them. It was just one of those nights.”
This was the worst 3-point percentage Dayton has posted at home since it made 1 of 15 in a 56-52 victory against Bowling Green on Dec. 9, 2014.
Amaël L’Etang made 2 of 6. Heard made 1 of 3. The rest of the players combined to miss all 16 of their attempts. Jacob Conner shot 0 of 5 from 3-point range.
Asked about the slow start — Dayton missed its first 12 3s — and whether the shots were rushed, Grant said he would have to look at the tape.
“I just didn’t think we had the mental focus,” Grant said. “When you deal with young people, you get a feel for it.”
Grant said the coaches tried to deliver messages to the players about the importance of the moment, but the messages didn’t get through.
“We weren’t able to overcome that today,” he said.
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