Dayton basketball: Flyers beat Duquesne despite missing three key players

What it means: Dayton (13-4, 4-0) won its fourth straight game this season and its fourth straight game at Duquesne since a 69-64 loss in 2021.

Duquesne (9-8, 1-3) suffered its third straight loss.

Star of the game: Keonte Jones led Dayton with 15 points on 4-of-6 shooting. He made 6 of 8 free throws.

Stat of the game: Dayton made 8 of 20 3-pointers (40%). Duquesne made 7 of 25 (28%).

Turning point: Duquesne opened the second half with a 13-3 run, erasing a nine-point halftime deficit and taking a 37-36 lead with 16 minutes, 32 seconds to play.

Dayton scored the next six points and didn’t trail again.

Big shots: Duquesne cut Dayton’s lead to 51-50 with seven minutes to play. Javon Bennett, who missed his first five 3s, then made back-to-back 3s in transition to push the lead back to seven points.

Later in the second half, Jaiun Simon scored six straight points for Dayton on 3s.

Bennett made another big shot, a jumper with 1:33 to play, after Duquense had cut the deficit to two points. He scored 14 points.

Clutch free throws: Dayton made 6 of 6 free throws in the final 30 seconds to clinch the victory. The Flyers shot 82% (23 of 28) at the line.

Injury news: Malcolm Thomas and Amaël L’Etang missed their fourth straight game with injuries. Jordan Derkack was also listed as “Out” on the availability report. He missed his first game of the season.

Lineup news: Jaiun Simon and Bryce Heard each made their first career start.

Looking ahead: Dayton plays Loyola Chicago (5-13, 1-4) at 8:30 p.m. Friday at UD Arena. The Flyers beat Loyola 70-68 on Jan. 3 in Chicago.

Loyola lost 82-74 at home to George Mason on Tuesday.

HALFTIME RECAP

De’Shayne Montgomery made a 3-pointer from the corner in the final seconds of the first half to give Dayton a 33-24 halftime lead

Here’s a quick recap of the first half:

Key player: Jones scored 11 points on 4-of-6 shooting.

Key stat: Dayton made 4 of 11 3-pointers (36.4%). Duquesne made 1 of 14 (7.1%).

Biggest lead: Dayton led 22-11 after a layup by Jones at the 7:41 mark.

Rotation news: Freshman forward Damon Friery, who did not play in the last two games, played six minutes in the first half and made his second 3-pointer of the season.