Nine days earlier, Dayton experienced a similar ending — but from the opposite perspective. Virginia Commonwealth took a shot-clock violation in the final seconds of a 99-73 victory at the Siegel Center in Richmond, Va., instead of adding one basket to a lopsided margin.
Dayton’s victory against Davidson was its 11th straight in the series. Each of those games has taken place during Grant’s tenure. He was 5-0 against Bob McKillop in McKillop’s last five seasons, and he’s 6-0 against Bob’s son Matt in the last four seasons.
Davidson lost 69-63 at UD Arena in 2025 in part because of a technical foul in the final minute. It trailed for the last 34 minutes Sunday but had a chance to beat Dayton for the first time since 2017 until a 7-0 run by the Flyers in the final minutes.
“I hate saying it, but we’re inches away,“ McKillop said in a postgame radio interview. ”If we make our free throws. If we make our layups. If we don’t have that one spurt. Maybe we get that rebound. If any one of those things goes the other way, we win this game on the road in a great environment. We know what they put into their roster and their environment. We were good enough to beat these guys, but we’re tired of being good enough to beat teams and not getting it done.”
Dayton’s winning streak against Davidson is hard to explain. It’s the only A-10 program that hasn’t beaten Dayton in Grant’s nine seasons. Other than Davidson and Fordham, which is 1-9 against Dayton since the 2017-18 season, every team has beaten Grant’s program at least twice.
Dayton’s record against its next opponent, George Mason, during Grant’s tenure is also hard to fathom. Dayton is 3-6 against the Patriots in the last nine seasons and has lost four games in a row.
Dayton’s .333 winning percentage against George Mason in Grant’s tenure is its worst against an A-10 school. It even has a better winning percentage (.350, 7-13) against the best program in the conference, Virginia Commonwealth.
To end its skid in the series and start building momentum for a strong finish to the regular season, Dayton (16-9, 7-5) will have to beat George Mason (21-5, 9-4) at 7 p.m. Wednesday at EagleBank Arena in Fairfax, Va.
George Mason sits alone in third place in the A-10 behind Saint Louis (24-1, 12-0) and VCU (20-6, 11-2). Dayton, Duquesne (15-10, 7-5) and Saint Joseph’s (15-10, 7-5) share fourth place.
Here are five things to know about Dayton’s 26th game:
Credit: David Jablonski
1. Series history: Dayton leads the series 10-7 despite four losses in a row to George Mason.
Last season, George Mason led from start to finish and beat Dayton 67-59 at UD Arena, ending Dayton’s 26-game home winning streak. The Patriots led by as many as 20 points in the second half. Dayton used a 13-0 run in the final four minutes to cut the deficit to 65-59 with 13 seconds left.
In 2024, Dayton was ranked 16th in the Associated Press top-25 poll when it lost 71-67 at George Mason. George Mason celebrated the program’s first victory against a ranked team at home.
In 2023 at UD Arena, George Mason won 74-69 at UD Arena. It scored on nine straight possessions at one point in the final 10 minutes, overcoming a 51-45 deficit. Dayton kept pace with the Patriots until the final minute when Devon Cooper broke a tie with a go-ahead basket with 43 seconds to play.
In 2022, Dayton lost 50-49 at George Mason by shooting a season-worst 31% (18 of 58) from the field. Dayton’s Mustapha Amzil missed a 3-pointer that would have won the game as time expired.
2: State of the program: George Mason finished 27-9 overall and 15-3 in the A-10 last season in coach Tony Skinn’s second season. Skinn is now 68-26 in three seasons.
Skinn is George Mason’s fourth coach since George Mason last made the NCAA tournament in Jim Larranaga’s final season in 2011.
This is George Mason’s 13th season in the A-10. It did not finish higher than fifth in its first 11 seasons but tied VCU for the regular-season championship last season. The Patriots were picked to finish sixth in the A-10 this season.
3: Scouting report: Kory Mincy, a 6-foot-1 junior guard, leads George Mason with 15.2 points per game. He’s the team’s best 3-point shooter (57 of 140, 40.7%). He played at Presbyterian the last two seasons.
• Riley Allenspach, a 6-11 junior center, averages 13.1 points per game and leads the team with 6.0 rebounds per game. He played at Samford the last two seasons.
• Jahari Long, a 6-5 fifth-year guard, averages 11.6 points. He spent two seasons at Seton Hall and two seasons at Maryland before transferring to George Mason for his final season of eligibility.
• Fatt Hill, a 6-5 senior guard, averages 10.8 points. He averaged 15.8 points last season at Ball State.
• George Mason leads the A-10 in scoring defense in conference play (67.5 points per game) but ranks 11th out of 14 teams in scoring offense (68.8). Dayton ranks seventh in scoring defense (72.6) and eighth in scoring offense (71.8).
4: Season summary: George Mason finished 12-1 in non-conference play, losing only to Virginia Tech. Its schedule ranked 340th in the country out of 365 teams in difficulty.
In A-10 play, George Mason started 6-0 with an 85-80 victory at home against VCU. Saint Louis is the only other A-10 team to beat VCU.
The Patriots have slumped in recent weeks losing two games in a row and four of their last seven. One of those losses was at home: 71-65 to Duquesne on Feb. 4. It lost its last two games on the road: 82-70 at Richmond on Feb. 10; and 72-53 at George Washington on Friday.
“This was not a good week for George Mason basketball,” Skinn said Friday in a story on the George Mason website. “It’s unfortunate, but this is league play. I thought we did a pretty decent job in the first half, but they came out with the intensity level and toughness in the second half that we didn’t match. This is the same team that’s won a lot of games this season, and we just have to stick together down the stretch and regroup against Dayton at home.”
5: Odds & Ends: KenPom.com gives Dayton a 39% chance of winning and predicts a 70-67 score. Dayton ranks 91st in the Pomeroy ratings. George Mason is No. 95.
• Dayton ranks 89th in the NCAA Evaluation. George Mason is No. 91.
This is a Quadrant 2 game for Dayton, which is 0-5 in Quad 1, 3-1 in Quad 2, 5-2 in Quad 3 and 8-1 in Quad 4.
This is a Quad 3 game for George Mason, which is 0-1 in Quad 1, 1-1 in Quad 2, 9-3 in Quad 3 and 10-0 in Quad 4.
NEXT GAME
Who: Dayton (16-9, 7-5) at George Mason (21-5, 9-4)
When: 7 p.m., Wednesday
TV: CBS Sports Network
Radio: 95.7-FM, 1290-AM
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