Dayton basketball: Flyers upset No. 23 Saint Louis, avenge 31-point loss

Here’s a quick recap of the game:

What it means: Dayton (19-9, 10-5) won its fourth straight game after five losses in six games.

Dayton moved into third place by itself in the Atlantic 10 Conference. It has a half-game lead over George Mason and Saint Joseph’s (both 9-5 in league play).

Saint Louis (25-3, 13-2) suffered its second loss in three games after a 12-0 start in A-10 play. It leads second-place Virginia Commonwealth (21-7, 12-3) by one game with three to play.

Saint Louis suffered its 12th straight loss at UD Arena. It hasn’t won at Dayton since 2014.

Saint Louis was the first ranked A-10 team to play Dayton at UD Arena since No. 14 Butler in 2013. This is Dayton’s first victory at home against a ranked A-10 team since it beat No. 14 Xavier in 2009.

Star of the game: Amaël L’Etang scored a career-high 26 points. He made 6 of 11 field goals and 12 of 15 free throws.

Stat of the game: Dayton shot 47% (25 of 51) from the field. Saint Louis shot 40% (22 of 55).

Key moment: Dayton led by double digits throughout the second half. Saint Louis cut the deficit to 11 points twice in the last four minutes. Each time, L’Etang made two free throws on the next possession.

Rotation news: Dayton sophomore guard Bryce Heard, who averages 7.0 points per game, was listed as “Out” on the Atlantic 10 Conference availability report Tuesday. He missed a game for the first time this season.

Looking ahead: Dayton plays George Washington at 7 p.m. Friday at the Charles E. Smith Center in Washington, D.C.

This will be the second meeting of the season between the two teams. Dayton beat George Washington 79-72 on Jan. 6 at UD Arena.

Dayton lost 82-62 at George Washington last season. The Flyers have lost two straight games at the Smith Center.

HALFTIME RECAP

Dayton led by as many as 25 points in the first half and took a 44-28 lead into halftime Tuesday at UD Arena.

The first half went the opposite way of the first matchup. Dayton trailed Saint Louis by as many as 24 points in the first half in a 102-71 loss on Jan. 30 in St. Louis.

Here’s a quick recap of the first half:

Key player: L’Etang scored 16 points on 6-of-8 shooting for Dayton.

Key stat: Dayton shot 64% (7 of 11) from 3-point range. L’Etang, Javon Bennett and Jordan Derkack all made two 3s.

Saint Louis shot 8% (1 of 12). It missed its first 11 attempts before Dion Brown made a 3 with 3 minutes, 25 seconds remaining.

Big run: Dayton trailed 4-3 and then scored 10 straight points to take a 13-4 lead on a 3 by L’Etang at the 12:47 mark.

Comeback: Saint Louis trailed 40-15 at the 3:42 mark. It then scored nine straight points to cut Dayton’s lead to 40-24 at the 1:43 mark.