One of the topics of the interview was the play of Dayton sophomore forward Amaël L’Etang. He scored a career-high 26 points on 6-of-11 shooting while making 12 of 15 free throws.
Credit: David Jablonski
Credit: David Jablonski
“(Dayton) got the ball inside relentlessly,“ Schertz said. ”We didn’t do a great job keeping it out when it got in there. We didn’t do a great job of walling up and making L’Etang miss."
Saint Louis made it too easy for L’Etang and other Flyers inside, Schertz said.
“They just kicked our tails in the paint,” Schertz said. “We couldn’t handle them.”
L’Etang grabbed 10 rebounds for the second straight game and recorded his second straight double-double, leading Dayton to its fourth straight victory. He averaged 19 points per game, while making 8 of 14 3-pointers, in the stretch. Two games prior to Tuesday, he hit his previous career high of 21 points in an 82-67 victory at George Mason.
L’Etang has improved his season averages to 12.5 points and 6.0 rebounds.
“He’s been awesome for us,” Dayton guard Jordan Derkack said. “More important than the points and the rebounds and the assists is when he plays tough, when he’s going at people. You could feel it on the court. It just gives us a really big boost.”
L’Etang has benefited from an adjustment to Dayton’s offense, which Schertz mentioned after the game.
“They’re playing out of a ball-screen motion, which they were not doing before,” Schertz said, “which obviously we prepared for, but we didn’t handle well. We had a lot of breakdowns in communication, giving up cuts and wide-open 3s.”
Dayton (19-9, 10-5) will try to continue its upward trajectory at 7 p.m. Friday against George Washington (16-12, 7-8) at the Charles E. Smith Center in Washington, D.C.
Dayton shares third place with Saint Joseph’s (18-10, 10-5) with three games to play. Fifth-place George Mason (21-7, 9-6) sits a game back.
Credit: David Jablonski
Credit: David Jablonski
Here are five things to know about Dayton’s 29th game:
1: Series history: Dayton leads the series 24-14.
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. The Flyers shot a season-best 90% (27 of 30) at the free-throw line and made 9 of 10 free throws in the final two minutes to clinch the victory.
Last season, in the second A-10 game, George Washington ended the game on a 13-0 run to beat Dayton 82-62 at the Smith Center.
That was Dayton’s second straight loss at the Smith Center. In 2023, UD lost 76-69 and never held the lead or got closer than six points in the second half.
Overall, Dayton is 6-15 at the Smith Center since joining the A-10 in the 1995-96 season and 3-2 in Grant’s nine seasons.
2: State of the season: George Washington has won three of its last four games after losing four games in a row and six of seven.
During the four-game losing streak, it lost three games by three points or fewer. In a 79-76 loss at Saint Louis, it blew a 15-point first-half lead and a seven-point lead in the last six minutes, losing on a last-second 3-pointer by Robbie Avila.
The Revolutionaries won 104-77 at La Salle (8-20, 4-11) on Tuesday, setting a school record for most points scored in a non-overtime A-10 game. They shot a season-best 80.6% (29 of 36) from 2-point range and also shot 45.5% (10 of 22) from 3-point range.
3: Scouting report: Rafael Castro, a 6-foot-11 senior center, returned to action Tuesday after missing six games with a foot injury. He scored 16 points on 6-of-8 shooting in 24 minutes.
“It’s really been a month since he’s played,” George Washington coach Chris Caputo told reporters after the game. “We did a good job of being very conservative, putting that cast on his foot, really keeping him off the foot, and then he got the cast off maybe 2½ weeks ago. We still gave him another 10 days.“
Castro leads George Washington in scoring (15.9) and rebounding (8.9). He had eight points in 30 minutes in the first game against Dayton.
Credit: David Jablonski
Credit: David Jablonski
• Luke Hunger, a 6-10 center who played the last three seasons at Northwestern, has averaged 24.0 points in the last four games. He’s averaging 8.9 points and didn’t score 20 points in any game until this stretch.
Hunger, who had five points in 10 minutes in the first game against Dayton. started receiving more playing time when Castro was sidelined.
“It definitely took some time to adjust,” he told the GW Hatchet, “but once I kind of got settled in and realized that I wasn’t going to come out of the game too much, it helped me get in a rhythm and helped me be able to make shots and get my teammates open.”
• George Washington ranks third in the conference in scoring (80.2) in A-10 games, trailing only first-place Saint Louis (84.5) and second-place Virginia Commonwealth (80.6).
4: Injury news: Dayton sophomore guard Bryce Heard, who averages 7.0 points per game, missed a game for the first time this season Tuesday. Grant said in the postgame press conference Heard has a lower-body injury.
“We hope that we’ll have him back soon,” Grant said.
5: Odds & Ends: Dayton has a 39% chance of winning, according to KenPom.com, which predicts a 79-76 score.
Dayton climbed from No. 85 to No. 79 in the Pomeroy ratings after beating Saint Louis. George Washington is No. 74.
• Dayton is No. 83 in the NET. George Washington is No. 86.
This is a Quadrant 2 game for Dayton, which is 1-5 in Quad 1, 4-0 in Quad 2, 6-4 in Quad 3 and 8-0 in Quad 4.
This is a Quad 3 game for George Washington, which is 0-4 in Quad 1, 1-3 in Quad 2, 7-3 in Quad 3 and 7-2 in Quad 4.
NEXT GAME
Who: Dayton at George Washington
When: 7 p.m., Friday
TV: ESPN2
Radio: 95.7-FM, 1290-AM
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