The website also reports that “Our patented glass flooring technology combines the durability of traditional sports floors with the elegance and adaptability of glass, creating a surface that surpasses conventional expectations.”
In other words, Dayton was able to project an image of its own court at UD Arena onto the surface at the Athletes Lab. It had the same thing done with the State Farm Field House court.
Did that have any effect on Dayton’s play in an 84-79 overtime victory against Georgetown or in an 83-79 loss to Brigham Young a day later? Probably not. But it was a unique experience.
Often in neutral-site games, as is the case with the Atlantic 10 Conference tournament, for example, Dayton doesn’t get to experience the court or arena until just before tipoff. That will be the case again when Dayton (7-2) plays Virginia (7-1) at noon Saturday at the Spectrum Center in Charlotte, N.C.
The country music band Alabama will play at the arena on Friday night. Neither team will get on the court until arriving for the game on Saturday.
Neither team will have an advantage in that area, but Virginia should have a strong edge in fan support. Its football team will play Duke in the Atlantic Coast Conference championship game Saturday night in Charlotte.
Virginia fans might not have flocked south to Charlotte for one basketball game against Dayton. Many likely will take in the doubleheader, though, with the Cavaliers football team enjoying its best season in decades and the basketball team coming off its best victory, 88-69 Wednesday at Texas.
“We’ve a great opportunity and a great challenge in front of us going on the road here,” said Dayton coach Anthony Grant on Tuesday after a 74-55 victory against East Tennessee State at UD Arena. “I keep saying it’s on the road. It’s a neutral (game), but I think we all know that their football team just made it to the conference championship, and I think they’ll have a pretty good crowd at the game at noon on Saturday before the 8 p.m. championship game. So it’ll be a road game.”
Here are five things to know about the game:
Credit: DaytonDailyNews
1: Series history: Virginia leads the series 3-0.
The Cavaliers won 74-67 on Feb. 16, 1987, at UD Arena, 69-50 on Dec. 9, 1987, in Charlottesville, Va., and 66-59 on Nov. 22, 2018, in the semifinals of the Battle 4 Atlantis in the Bahamas. The Cavaliers won the national championship in the same season they last played Dayton.
Credit: David Jablonski
Credit: David Jablonski
2: State of the program: Virginia finished 15-17 last season under interim coach Ron Sanchez, who took over the program when Tony Bennett retired in October 2024. That ended a streak of 14 straight winning seasons.
Virginia hired Ryan Odom, who spent the previous two seasons at Virginia Commonwealth, in March. Odom was 2-2 against Dayton during his time at VCU.
Virginia lost most of its 2024-25 roster to the transfer portal. Its top six scorers transferred.
Virginia was picked to finish fifth out of 18 teams in the Atlantic Coast Conference this season.
3: Scouting report: Thijs De Ridder, a 22-year-old, 6-foot-9 freshman forward from Belgium, leads Virginia in scoring (17.6 points per game).
• Malik Thomas, a 6-4 fifth-year guard, ranks second in scoring (13.1). He played two seasons at Southern California and two at San Francisco before transferring to Virginia.
• Chance Mallory, a 5-10 freshman guard, averages 11.9 points per game. He was the No. 55 recruit in the 2025 class, according to 247Sports.com.
• Sam Lewis, a 6-7 junior guard, is the team’s fourth-leading scorer (9.6). He played at Toledo the last two seasons.
Credit: AP
Credit: AP
4: Season summary: Virginia and Dayton have one common opponent and beat that opponent by the same margin. Virginia beat North Carolina Central 81-62 on Nov. 7. Dayton beat North Carolina Central 74-55 on Nov. 22.
Virginia has played three top-100 opponents.
• The Cavaliers beat Northwestern 83-79 on Nov. 21 on a neutral court at the Greenbrier Tip-Off in White Sulphur Springs, W.Va.
• At the same event two days later, Virginia lost 80-73 to Butler, which is off to a 7-1 start.
• At Texas on Wednesday, Virginia handed the Longhorns (6-3) their first home loss. The Cavaliers made 12 of 24 3-pointers and led by as many as 28 points.
There were six games played in the ACC/SEC Challenge on Tuesday. Virginia was the only ACC team to win.
“We played our ‘A’ game today,” Odom said in the postgame press conference. “We had a really good effort all around from the preparation all the way through the game. I thought our guys did a really nice job against a really good team of imposing their will and doing the best they could on each possession. We have not played that way defensively so far this year. Offensively, I thought our guys shared the ball. They did a nice job of moving it and trusting each other.”
5: Odds & Ends: KenPom.com gives Dayton a 33% chance of winning and predicts a 76-72 score. Dayton is No. 62 in the Pomeroy ratings. Virginia is No. 24.
• Virginia is No. 15 in the NCAA Evaluation Tool. Dayton is No. 69. This is a Quadrant 1 game for Dayton and a Quad 2 game for Virginia.
• In Grant’s nine seasons, Dayton is 4-3 in regular-season, non-conference games on neutral courts outside the November tournaments. It has victories against Saint Mary’s (2019), Mississippi State (2020), Wyoming (2022) and Cincinnati (2023) and losses to Tulsa (2018), Colorado (2019) and Cincinnati (2024).
NEXT GAME
Who: Dayton vs. Virginia
Where: Spectrum Center in Charlotte, N.C.
When: Noon, Saturday
Streaming: ESPN2
Radio: 95.7-FM, 1290-AM
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