Twice in Week 1, Dayton enjoyed the advantages of playing in front of sellout crowds at home. It’s all the players know. Dayton has sold out 79 straight games. The streak will reach 94 in March.
The players didn’t need much support to beat Canisius 88-48 on the opening night of the season but did need a boost in the second half Saturday in a 77-71 victory against Maryland, Baltimore County.
Now, for the first time this season, Dayton leaves its comfortable confines on Edwin C. Moses Boulevard for a road game 49 miles south at the University of Cincinnati’s Fifth Third Arena.
Dayton (2-0) plays Cincinnati (2-0) at 7 p.m. Tuesday. It’s the first game between the two schools at an on-campus arena since 2010 when the Flyers beat the Bearcats 81-66 in the second round of the NIT.
“I think it’s great for both schools,” Dayton coach Anthony Grant said Saturday. “I can remember the day we would do that on a regular basis. This is the next rendition of the game. I’m really grateful that they’re willing to continue the series. They’ve got a really good team. I think our guys will be excited to play. I think their guys will be excited to play. It should be a great atmosphere.”
Dayton and Cincinnati split games on a neutral court, the Heritage Bank Center in downtown Cincinnati, the last two seasons. The Bearcats will play at UD Arena next season.
“I think you just want to play against the best teams and the best programs,” Cincinnati coach Wes Miller said Friday in a postgame press conference after a 74-64 victory against Georgia State, “and you want to have the opportunity to really build your team throughout your non-conference schedule. Dayton is one of the best programs. We don’t think of it as a non-Power Four game. It’s a Power Four game to us. I think anybody that watches basketball thinks that.
“There’s so many good basketball programs within driving radius of Cincinnati. We should all be playing each other. That’s more fun for the fans. The environments are better. We’re so excited to get this going with Dayton, but it’ll be a real dang challenge here on Tuesday. If we play (the way they did Friday) on Tuesday night, it’s not going to be a fun night.”
Credit: David Jablonski
Here are five things to know about the game:
1: Series history: Cincinnati leads the series 61-32. Twenty one of Dayton’s victories in the series came before 1960. Since the 1957-58 season, Cincinnati has a record of 43-11 against Dayton.
The Flyers and Bearcats played every season and sometimes twice a season from 1954 to 1995. When the Great Midwest Conference disbanded after the 1994-95 season, UC joined Conference USA while UD moved to the Atlantic 10 Conference. They didn’t play again until 1998 when No. 3 Cincinnati beat Dayton 53-51 at Gund Arena in Cleveland.
2: Recent matchups: Dayton lost 66-59 to Cincinnati last December. The Flyers trailed by 18-points with under eight minutes to play and cut the deficit to four points on a 3-pointer by Malachi Smith with 2 minutes, 1 second remaining. They then nearly made it a one possession game, but a reverse layup attempt by Nate Santos rolled off the rim with 1:22 left.
“They were able to kind of dictate the terms of the fight, so to speak, the majority of the game last year,” Grant said. “Their physicality, their ability to rebound the ball, I thought they kind of overwhelmed us at times.”
A year earlier, Dayton beat Cincinnati 82-68 in the first meeting between the programs in 13 years. DaRon Holmes II led Dayton with 28 points on 10-of-17 shooting. Dayton led by double figures throughout the second half and stretched its lead to as many as 18 points.
Credit: David Jablonski
Credit: David Jablonski
3: State of the program: Cincinnati is mired in its longest NCAA tournament drought in decades. It last made the tournament in 2019, which was its ninth straight appearance under coach Mick Cronin.
John Brannen didn’t make the tournament in his two seasons. Miller fell short in his first five seasons.
Cincinnati finished 19-13 last season and 7-13 in the Big 12. It was picked to finish eighth out of 16 teams in the Big 12 preseason poll this season.
4: Scouting report: Baba Miller, a 6-foot-11 senior forward, scored 18 in Cincinnati’s 94-63 victory against Western Carolina and 24 against Georgia State. Miller played two seasons at Florida State and then spent last season at Florida Atlantic. He scored 16 points in an 86-79 loss to Dayton in the first round of the NIT.
Cincinnati’s other top scorers are:
• Moustapha Thiam (14.0 points per game), a 7-2 sophomore center who played at Central Florida last season.
• Shon Abaev (11.0), a 6-8 freshman guard who visited Dayton during the recruiting process.
• And Day Day Thomas (10.0), a 6-0 senior guard who is the only player on the UC roster who played against Dayton last season.
Cincinnati struggled from 3-point range (7 of 31) and with turnovers (16) against Georgia State but was never in danger of losing as Dayton was Saturday against UMBC.
“We were very careless with the ball,” Miller said. “Fifteen assists is OK, but we had 16 (turnovers) and multiple guys with multiple turnovers, I didn’t like our pop tonight. I thought we played with great pop on Monday night. I thought we had better pop in practice two days ago than we did today. Certainly, you’re going to have nights when you don’t shoot it as well as you want.”
5: Odds and ends: Dayton fell from No. 45 to No. 60 after its narrow victory against No. 265 UMBC. Cincinnati ranks 40th.
KenPom.com gives Dayton a 29% chance of beating Cincinnati and predicts a 74-68 score.
• Cincinnati has won 22 straight non-conference home games since an 80-77 loss to Xavier on Dec. 10, 2022.
TUESDAY’S GAME
Dayton at Cincinnati, 7 p.m., ESPN+, WHIO Radio.
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