The Flyer Faithful don’t even have to go back that long to find Pitino advocating for Dayton’s inclusion in the conference that shunned it 12 years ago.
“We can’t see that there’s a lot of money to be made down the road if we form a Super League,” Pitino said in February. “Because we all don’t have football, we’re basically all Catholic schools with the exception of UConn, the bottom line is there. They’re just thinking of today. I wish they would add Dayton, Memphis, combine with the ACC and just have a super basketball league.”
Responding to Pitino’s Sunday post, national college basketball writer Adam Zagoria wrote, “One Big East coach texted me: ‘Dayton is never getting in. Bring nothing to the TV market. Plus Xavier would always vote against it.’”
The sun may die before the Dayton-Big East argument. Dayton can’t change its market size. It can’t change its history with Xavier. The best thing it can do if it ever wants to climb into a higher-ranked conference — be it the Big East, if or when it ever expands, or something new, as Pitino envisions — is to win basketball games.
Dayton (6-2) has done a decent job of that this season. Its best two victories have come against Big East teams: 77-71 at Marquette on Nov. 19; and 84-79 in overtime against Georgetown on Thursday in the first round of the ESPN Events Invitational. Those teams were picked to finish fifth and sixth, out of 11 teams, in the Big East preseason poll.
Dayton’s 2-0 record against the Big East this season and 5-0 mark in coach Anthony Grant’s nine seasons likely had something to do with the timing of Pitino’s recent comments.
The Flyers won’t see another Big East team this season unless it’s in the NCAA tournament or NIT. There are plenty of challenging games ahead in December, though, starting with a 7 p.m. matchup Tuesday with East Tennessee State (6-1) at UD Arena.
Here are five things to know about the game:
1: Series history: The Flyers lead the series against ETSU 2-1. All the games have taken place at UD Arena.
Dayton won 78-74 in 2008. ETSU beat Dayton 73-68 in 2010. Dayton won 75-61 in 2016.
2: State of the program: ETSU finished 19-13 overall and 12-6 in the Southern Conference last season in coach Brooks Savage’s second season. It ranked 142nd in the NCAA Evaluation Tool last season.
ETSU last made the NCAA tournament in 2017 in the second season for coach Steve Forbes. He’s now in his sixth season at Wake Forest.
Dayton lost 87-72 at Chattanooga in March in the second round of the National Invitation Tournament in its last game against a member of the Southern Conference. That was its first game against a member of the conference since December 2016 when it beat the Virginia Military Institute and ETSU.
3: Scouting report: Brian Taylor, a 6-foot-4 senior, leads the Buccaneers in scoring (14.6). He started his career at Milwaukee and played the last two seasons at SIU Edwardsville. He scored four points against Dayton in a 63-47 loss at UD Arena in the 2023-24 season opener.
Taylor had a triple-double (14 points, 10 assists, and 10 rebounds) in ETSU’s last game, an 80-57 victory against Central Arkansas on Saturday.
• ETSU’s second-leading scorer is Cam Morris (14.4), a 6-8, sixth-year forward. He played two seasons of junior college basketball and then three seasons at UMass Lowell.
• Jaylen Smith, a 5-11 junior, is the team’s other double-digit scorer (11.4). He played the last two seasons at North Florida.
• ETSU ranks 30th in the country in 2-point field-goal percentage (60.3). Dayton ranks 97th (55.4).
4: Early results: ETSU’s best victory came in its third game of the season, 75-63 at home against Northern Kentucky, which is No. 192 in the Ken Pomeroy ratings.
Four of its victories are against teams ranked 270 and below. It also beat a lower-division team, Converse University.
ETSU lost 68-64 at No. 261 Presbyterian (5-5) in its second game.
5: Odds & Ends: KenPom.com gives Dayton an 81% chance of beating East Tennessee State and predicts a 77-67 score.
Dayton ranks 66th in the Ken Pomeroy ratings. ETSU is No. 123. It’s the highest-ranked opponent to play at UD Arena this season, though No. 82 Florida State and No. 105 Liberty come to Dayton later this month.
• Dayton has won 30 straight non-conference home games.
NEXT GAME
Who: East Tennessee State at Dayton
When: 7 p.m., Tuesday
Streaming: Fan Duel Sports Network
Radio: 95.7-FM, 1290-AM
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