Saint Louis (21-1, 9-0) has partied for 15 straight games. It didn’t lose a game in December or January.
The Dayton Flyers (14-8, 5-4) have had the opposite experience in the last two weeks, suffering four straight losses and falling into a familiar spot in the season. In the next five weeks, they will play to secure a top-four seed in the Atlantic 10 Conference tournament in hopes of improving their odds of winning an event they haven’t won in 23 years.
This is the second season in a row and fifth time in coach Anthony Grant’s nine seasons Dayton has entered February with three or more A-10 losses.
“Nobody likes where we are,” Grant said Friday. “Nobody wants to be where we are, but now you’ve got an opportunity to respond, so we’ll see how we respond.”
Dayton plays five games against teams in the top six of the standings in its last eight games, but first it plays a team trying to stay out of last place. The Flyers play St. Bonaventure (13-7, 2-9) at 7 p.m. Tuesday at UD Arena. Dayton will try to avoid its first five-game losing streak since the 2005-06 season when it suffered seven straight defeats.
Credit: David Jablonski
Credit: David Jablonski
Here are five things to know about Dayton’s 23rd game:
1: Series history: Dayton leads the series 29-12. It has won eight of the last 10 matchups.
Last season, Dayton lost 75-53 at St. Bonaventure. Only one of the eight players who saw action in that game for the Bonnies remains on the roster. Six of the players transferred.
Dayton beat St. Bonaventure 76-71 in 2024 in the last matchup at UD Arena. The Bonnies have lost five straight games at UD Arena since a 79-72 victory in 2016.
2: State of the program: St. Bonaventure finished 22-12 overall last season. It has posted 9-9 records in the A-10 in two straight seasons. After finishing above .500 in league play eight straight seasons, it is on pace for its fourth straight season under .500 in the A-10.
St. Bonaventure last played in the NCAA tournament in 2021 when it made its second appearance in four seasons.
This is the 19th season for coach Mark Schmidt, who is 337-247. Only Richmond’s Chris Mooney, who’s in his 21st season, has a longer current tenure in the A-10.
Credit: AP
Credit: AP
3: Scouting report: Daryl Simmons II, a 5-10 junior guard, leads the Bonnies with 16.2 points per game. He’s also the team’s best 3-point shooter (56 of 133, 42.1%). He played the last two seasons at Gardner-Webb.
• Frank Mitchell, a 6-8 junior forward, averages 16.0 points per game. He leads the A-10 in rebounding (9.9). He played his first season at Canisius and spent last season at Minnesota.
• Cayden Charles, a 6-3 senior guard, averages 12.5 points per game. He scored 972 points in the last three seasons at North Georgia, a Division II school.
4: Season summary: St. Bonaventure finished 11-2 in non-conference play with losses to North Carolina and Ohio and victories against Florida Atlantic, Bradley and Buffalo among others.
The Bonnies opened A-10 play with five straight losses. The worst of those was an 81-77 loss at home to Fordham (12-10, 3-6). It has gone 2-2 in its last four games with victories against last-place Loyola Chicago (5-18, 1-9) and Duquesne (11-10, 3-5) and losses to Saint Louis and second-place George Mason (20-2, 8-1)
In a 77-73 loss at home to George Mason on Saturday, St. Bonaventure led by as many as 14 points in the first half. It lost when Jahari Long made two tie-breaking free throws with four seconds to play in the game.
“I don’t think we could have played any harder,” Schmidt said in his postgame press conference. “I just thought we made some mistakes, and every time this season we’ve made a mistake, they’ve made us pay. We don’t have a block out. We should have kept the ball (in the last five seconds of the first half), and we throw it ahead and get a turnover. That stuff can’t happen. We’re right there, but we’re just not executing. Some of it’s mental mistakes.”
Credit: David Jablonski
5: Odds & Ends: KenPom.com gives Dayton a 78% chance of winning and predicts a 78-70 score. Dayton fell from No. 72 to No. 89 in the Pomeroy ratings with four straight losses. St. Bonaventure is No. 149.
• Dayton ranks 92nd in the NET. St. Bonaventure is No. 148.
This is a Quadrant 3 game for Dayton, which is 0-3 in Quad 1, 2-2 in Quad 2, 4-3 in Quad 3 and 8-0 in Quad 4.
This is a Quad 2 game for St. Bonaventure, which is 0-3 in Quad 1, 1-1 in Quad 2, 3-3 in Quad 3 and 8-2 in Quad 4.
• Dayton guard Javon Bennett needs five points to hit the 1,000-point milestone in his three seasons at Dayton. He has 1,322 points in his career, including one season at Merrimack.
NEXT GAME
Who: St. Bonaventure (13-8, 2-6) at Dayton (14-7, 5-4)
When: 7 p.m., Tuesday
TV: CBS Sports Network
Radio: 95.7-FM, 1290-AM
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