The Dayton Flyers coach embraced four players who experienced a roller coaster season. Grant likes to say, “It’s a game of runs,” and this was a season of runs.
The Flyers were 14-4 on Jan. 21 and then lost five of their next six games, ending their dreams of capturing the program’s first Atlantic 10 Conference regular-season championship since 2020 and derailing any hopes of earning an NCAA tournament at-large bid.
Six victories in the last seven games didn’t save the season but did put it on a more promising path, one that could lead to success in the A-10 tournament this week at PPG Paints Arena in Pittsburgh.
“This team has been through a lot,” Grant said last Friday after a 68-62 loss to Virginia Commonwealth in the final game of the regular season, “and those guys have worked really hard to make sure we kept moving forward when it was bleak and we were going through a lot of adversity. Those guys never wavered.”
Few of Grant’s nine seasons have gone smoothly.
This season, the loss of sophomore point guard Adam Njie Jr., who never played in a game and left the program after dealing with “potential eligibility issues,” hurt the team’s depth. Freshman guard Jaron McKie might have helped in that area, but he missed the season after undergoing shoulder surgery.
In January, injuries cost Dayton. Sophomore forward Amaël L’Etang missed four games. Derkack and redshirt freshman forward Malcolm Thomas each missed five.
In February, Dayton’s second-leading scorer, De’Shayne Montgomery, sat out the first game against VCU with an illness. The Flyers lost 99-73.
In the end, Dayton finished where it was predicted to finish in the A-10 preseason poll — in third place, though tied with Saint Joseph’s, which earned the No. 3 seed by beating Dayton 81-74 on Jan. 24 in Philadelphia.
Grant acknowledged after the final game of the regular season that the expectation at Dayton is to win championships and his team fell short of that. That has been the story eight times in nine seasons.
The Flyers have finished 12-6 in the A-10 in three of the last four seasons. That has been good enough for a top-four finish, but they finished three games out of first place in each of those 12-6 seasons. Even the 2023-24 team that earned a NCAA tournament at-large berth had to settle for third place. After a 6-0 start in A-10 play, it lost four of its last six road games.
The A-10 tournament offers one more opportunity for Dayton to achieve its main goal: making the NCAA tournament.
The No. 4 seed Flyers (21-10) play in the quarterfinals at 2 p.m. Friday against No. 12 seed La Salle (9-22), No. 13 seed St. Bonaventure (15-6) or No. 5 seed George Mason (23-8).
Dayton will try to end a three-game losing streak in the A-10 tournament.
• In 2023 at the Barclays Center in Brooklyn, N.Y., No. 2 seed Dayton lost 68-56 to No. 1 seed VCU in the A-10 championship game. The Rams ended the game on an 8-0 run. The Flyers didn’t make a field goal in the last 10 minutes.
• In 2024 in Brooklyn, No. 3 seed Dayton lost 65-57 to No. 6 Duquesne in the quarterfinals. The Flyers led 52-48 at the 7:15 mark and were outscored 10-0 over the next three-plus minutes.
• In 2025 at Capital One Arena in Washington, D.C., No. 2 seed Dayton lost 73-68 to No. 6 Saint Joseph’s in overtime. The Flyers flew a four-point lead in the last 18 seconds of the second half. In overtime, Saint Joseph’s scored the first four points and led the rest of the way.
The likely quarterfinal opponent this season is George Mason, which Dayton has never played in the A-10 tournament. The Patriots joined the conference in the 2013-14 season.
George Mason will play La Salle or St. Bonaventure in the second round at 2 p.m. Thursday. La Salle and St. Bonaventure play at 11:30 a.m. Wednesday in the first game of the tournament.
George Mason swept La Salle and St. Bonaventure in the regular season, but it won the two games by a total of eight points, so there’s no guarantee the Patriots will advance to the quarterfinals.
George Mason is 8-11 in 12 A-10 tournament appearances. That includes a victory in the 2020 tournament, which was cancelled after the first round.
George Mason is 2-5 in the quarterfinals. It enjoyed its longest tournament run last season as the No. 2 seed, beating No. 7 seed George Washington and No. 6 Saint Joseph’s before losing in the championship game to No. 1 VCU.
Credit: David Jablonski
Dayton beat George Mason 82-67 on Feb. 18 in Fairfax, Va. Bennett scored 22 points on 7-of-11 shooting for Dayton, and Amaël L’Etang scored a career-high 21 points on 9-of-11 shooting.
Dayton shot 52% (11 of 21) from 3-point range.
George Mason cut a seven-point halftime deficit to 43-38 with the first basket of the second half. Dayton answered with back-to-back 3-point possessions. L’Etang made a 3-pointer. De’Shayne Montgomery followed with a 3-point play.
Dayton soon pushed its lead to double digits and coasted the rest of the way.
The loss to Dayton was the third of four straight for George Mason. It ended the season with a 71-58 victory at home against St. Bonaventure, a 70-65 loss at VCU and an 86-57 victory at home against Saint Louis.
“This was the game we needed,” second-year coach Tony Skinn said in a story on the George Mason website after beating Saint Louis. “It’s been a long season with a lot of ups and downs. There were some very early ups that I think set us up for a bad February. We needed to get punched in the mouth, and I think we’ve found our way the last couple games. These guys had the sense of urgency we needed, against a really good team, to get our swagger back before heading to Pittsburgh.”
For Dayton, which hasn’t won the A-10 tournament since 2003 and has never won a conference tournament outside UD Arena, one of the keys will be limiting turnovers.
“We’ve got to continue to get better on the offensive end with taking care of the ball and decision making and things like that,” Grant said Friday. “Tonight, one of the two keys for us was ball security. We had eight turnovers in the first half. We left some things on the table and gave them some opportunities in transition. In the second half, we had one. We needed to do a great job of rebounding the basketball, and they ended up with five offensive rebounds tonight. I think the last time we played them, they had their way on the glass.”
NEXT GAME
Who: Dayton vs. George Mason, La Salle or St. Bonaventure in A-10 tournament
When: 2 p.m., Friday
Where: PPG Paints Arena in Pittsburgh
TV: USA Network
Radio: 95.7-FM, 1290-AM
About the Author
