Brian Roberts helped. Dayton’s fourth all-time leading scorer sat in the front row of the stands opposite the Saint Louis bench. Damon Goodwin, a 1,000-point scorer from a different era, did his part, sitting several rows back of the Dayton Flyers bench. Zed Key, who finished his career at Dayton last season, sat in the first row behind the UD bench.
Roberts, Goodwin and Key were three of 13,407 fans who watched Dayton play its best game of the season. The Flyers led by as many as 25 points in the first half, maintained a double-digit lead for the last 30 minutes and upset No. 23 Saint Louis 77-62 for their fourth straight victory.
“The crowd was great,” said Dayton forward Amaël L’Etang, who scored a career-high 26 points and grabbed 10 rebounds. “The team played great. I love it. Every part.”
“The big crowd was awesome for us,” said Dayton guard Jordan Derkack, who scored 14 points. “I think it kept us going.”
Dayton avenged a 102-71 defeat at Saint Louis on Jan. 30. That was the program’s most lopsided loss in 16 years.
This isn’t the first time Dayton has lost to Saint Louis by 30-plus points and beaten the Billikens in the same season. In the six-win season of 1993-94, Dayton beat Saint Louis 82-77 in overtime on Feb. 13 at UD Arena and then lost 80-46 on March 10 in the Great Midwest tournament.
“Every game is different,“ Derkack said. ”First of all, they’ve got a great environment over there, and they’ve got some good guys. But I think we’ve got a great environment, too. We’ve got some good guys."
Here are three takeaways from Dayton’s 28th game:
Credit: David Jablonski
1: Dayton dominated the first half: Dayton trailed 4-3 and then scored 10 straight points to take a 13-4 lead on a 3 by L’Etang with 12 minutes, 47 seconds remaining.
The lead kept growing. Dayton pushed its advantage to 40-15 at the 3:42 mark. That lead was one point bigger than the largest lead Saint Louis had in the first half 25 days earlier.
At that point, Dayton had made 7 of 8 3-pointers and Saint Louis, the second-best 3-point shooting team in the nation, had missed all 11 of its attempts.
“I’m really proud of the effort and the preparation our guys put forth,” Dayton coach Anthony Grant said. “Knowing what Saint Louis was capable of, I thought our guys did a great job of locking in scouting report-wise and understanding the level that we’d have to compete at to put ourselves in position to win. In the first half. I thought our guys really did a good job. We knew the importance of being able to run good offense against their defense. As prolific as their offense has been all year, their defense has been really good and maybe doesn’t get the credit that it deserves.”
Credit: David Jablonski
2: Dayton withstood every comeback attempt by Saint Louis: The Billikens scored nine straight points in two minutes after falling behind by 25. They trailed 44-28 at halftime. Dayton faced a similar deficit, 46-29, in the first matchup.
While Dayton cut the Saint Louis lead to 10 points in the second half at Saint Louis, the Billikens never got closer than 11 points at Dayton.
L’Etang made 10 of 10 free throws in the second half to help seal the victory. He topped the career high he reached two games earlier at George Mason by five points one day after being named A-10 Co-Player of the Week.
The Flyers hung onto the lead despite making 1 of 9 3-pointers in the second half. They finished at 40% (8 of 20). Javon Bennett, who scored 17 points, led the Flyers by making 3 of 7.
Saint Louis never got on track from 3-point range. It shot a season-worst 23.8% (5 of 21) after shooting a season-best 60.7% (17 of 28) in the first game.
Second-year Saint Louis coach Josh Schertz pointed to his team’s lack of physicality as a reason for the loss.
“We don’t get to the point we’re at by being soft, but we’ve certainly been trending in that way,” he said. “You look at the last three games. We’ve maybe led for 10 minutes of the last three games. We probably trailed 110 of 120 minutes. The two things that I’ve noticed are really the physicality piece and then the turnovers. I think 18, 16, 15 the last three games. We’re lacking some force and physicality on both ends of the floor.”
Credit: David Jablonski
Credit: David Jablonski
3: Dayton improved its chances of earning a top-four seed in the A-10 tournament: Dayton (19-9, 10-5) has compiled its third winning streak of four or more games, and this one comes after five losses in six games. All the victories — against Davidson, George Mason, Duquesne and now Saint Louis — have been decided by double digits. The Flyers did not trail in the second half in any of the games.
Dayton moved into third place by itself in the A-10. It has a half-game lead over George Mason (21-6, 9-5) and Saint Joseph’s (17-10, 9-5).
Saint Louis (25-3, 13-2) suffered its second loss in three games after a 12-0 start in A-10 play.
Saint Louis suffered its 12th straight loss at UD Arena. It hasn’t won at Dayton since 2014.
“Dayton was really good,” Schertz said. “They came out really sharp and with great energy. Their crowd was great. They made shots early. We got some good looks early that didn’t go. They got some looks that maybe weren’t great but did go. Every time we broke down, they made us pay.”
NEXT GAME
Who: Dayton at George Washington
When: 7 p.m., Friday
TV: ESPN2
Radio: 95.7-FM, 1290-AM
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