“That’s what college basketball should be,” Donahue said. “Students going crazy. Our guys being motivated and inspired by the fans. That’s what it feels like to be on Hawk Hill. That’s how I envisioned it. The guys played 40 minutes of really good basketball.”
Donahue, who took over the program when Billy Lange departed in September, led his new Philadelphia team to a victory against coach Anthony Grant and Dayton a little more than eight years after he led another Philadelphia team, Penn, to a victory against the Flyers in Grant’s first season.
That 2017 loss stung Dayton because it doesn’t lose non-conference games often at home and had never loss to an Ivy League team. This 2026 loss hurts because it came three days after a 67-64 loss across town at La Salle.
An 0-2 performance in the City of Brotherly Love put Dayton (14-6, 5-2) on a new trajectory, where a top-four A-10 finish might be the best it can hope for, especially with Saint Louis (19-1, 7-0) looking more and more like the best A-10 team since the 2020 Flyers.
“Obviously, we didn’t play well today,” Dayton coach Anthony Grant said. “Give Saint Joe’s credit. They had some guys step up that played really well today — different than what we’ve seen on film. To their credit, they were ready to go. I think to be honest with you for our team, just watching the game, we looked mentally and physically tired today. We didn’t have it mentally or physically on either side of the ball, and they were able to take us out of some things. We weren’t able to finish some plays. We made a lot of mental mistakes on both sides of the ball, and it cost us.“
Here are three takeaways from Dayton’s 20th game:
Credit: David Jablonski
Credit: David Jablonski
1: The Flyers played well in the opening minutes: After falling behind 33-8 and making 3 of 23 3-pointers at La Salle on Wednesday, Dayton made 3 of 4 3s in the first five minutes and built a 13-5 lead.
Dayton maintained the lead for the first 14 minutes. Then Saint Joseph’s grabbed the advantage with an 8-1 run.
Dayton trailed 35-29 with two minutes to play but regained the lead with a 7-0 run. In the final seconds of the first half, the Hawks grabbed two offensive rebounds after misses before Desear Haskins made a 3-pointer from the corner at the buzzer to give them a 40-38 halftime lead.
Credit: David Jablonski
Credit: David Jablonski
2: Saint Joseph’s dominated the second half: Dayton tied the game on its first possession of the second half with a dunk by Keonte Jones. Saint Joseph’s followed with a 9-0 run and led the rest of the game, stretching its lead to as many as 16 points.
Dayton cut the deficit to seven points three times and then six points with 17 seconds left, but never got close enough to make anyone in the crowd of 3,047 nervous.
“I think that they thrive on live-ball turnovers and getting to the foul line,” Donahue said. “They were playing well early and put us on our heels, but it was all jump shots. They weren’t marching to the foul line, which is what they do. We didn’t turn it over in the first half. ... I thought our man defense was terrific. We made them make shots over us all night.”
Dasear Haskins, Jaiden Glover-Toscano and Derek Simpson all scored 20 for Saint Joseph’s.
De’Shayne Montgomery led Dayton with 19 points on 8-of-13 shooting. Javon Bennett scored 18 on 7-of-18 shooting.
Credit: David Jablonski
Credit: David Jablonski
3: Dayton is banged up but not using that as an excuse: Dayton guard Jordan Derkack missed his fourth straight game with a lower-body injury.
This was Dayton’s second straight game with Malcolm Thomas back from injury. He scored 12 points on 4-of-6 shooting in 15 minutes.
This was the third game back from injury for Amaël L’Etang ,who returned to the starting lineup, replacing Jaiun Simon. He missed all five of his 3-point attempts and is 0-of-7 from 3-point range in the last three games.
Even with the injured players returning, Dayton is not healthy.
“We’ve got to get healthy,” Grant said. “We had some guys out there today, who honestly I didn’t know yesterday whether or not they would be able to go today. It is what it is."
Simon, who’s dealing with back pain, said he’s one of those players with a nagging injury.
"We’ve just got to find a way to push through and find a way to win,“ he said. ”There are no excuses."
NEXT GAME
Who: Rhode Island (12-8, 3-4) at Dayton (14-6, 5-2)
When: 7 p.m., Tuesday
TV: Spectrum News 1
Radio: 95.7-FM, 1290-AM
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