Dayton ranked No. 21 in Week 11 of the Associated Press poll after earning the 26th-most votes last week. It first received one vote in the Dec. 11 poll and then received two votes in the following two polls on Dec. 18 and Dec. 25. The Flyers received three votes on Jan. 1. Last week, they ranked as high as No. 17 on one ballot and appeared on 30 of the 63 ballots.
Fifteen of the top-25 teams, including eight teams in the top 10, suffered at least one loss last week. Dayton passed Colorado State, San Diego State, Clemson, Gonzaga and Texas, all of which fell out of the top 25, plus No. 23 Florida Atlantic.
The Flyers (13-2, 3-0) reached the halfway point of the regular season with a 72-62 victory at Duquesne on Friday. They take a 10-game winning streak into an 8 p.m. game Tuesday against Saint Louis (8-8, 1-2) at UD Arena and stay at home for a 1 p.m. Saturday game against Rhode Island (9-7, 3-0).
In other rankings, Dayton is No. 17 in the NCAA Evaluation Tool, No. 19 on Haslametrics.com, No. 23 in the USA Today Coaches Poll, No. 24 on BartTorvik.com, No. 29 on KenPom.com and No. 31 in ESPN’s Basketball Power Index.
A season ago, Dayton ranked No. 24 in the preseason poll and moved to No. 21 after the first week of the regular season. It fell out of the top 25 after losing 60-52 at UNLV in its third game.
Four seasons ago, Dayton entered the top 25 at No. 19 on Dec. 2 after a runner-up finish in the Maui Invitational. It climbed into the top 10 on Jan. 20. That was the program’s first top-10 ranking since it was No. 6 in December 1967.
The Flyers won their final 20 regular-season games to climbing to No. 3. That was Dayton’s highest ranking since it ranked third in the final poll of the 1955-56 season. It climbed as high as No. 2 that season. It has never ranked No. 1.
Holmes honored: Dayton forward DaRon Holmes II was named Atlantic 10 Conference Co-Player of the Week on Monday after scoring a season-high 33 points against Duquesne. It’s his second weekly award of the season.
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