Knowing how superstitious baseball players and managers are, Stammen may watch future games from different seats. Dayton’s loss in its last game before the holiday break — its first loss at home in a non-conference game in four years — raised doubts about Dayton’s chances to achieve its goals in March.
Credit: David Jablonski
Credit: David Jablonski
A 10-3 record in non-conference play might have been good enough for Dayton if it performed well in Atlantic 10 Conference play. Instead, it settled for a 9-4 record that puts it on the wrong side of the NCAA tournament bubble.
The season will depend on what Dayton can do in A-10 play, which starts at 2 p.m. Wednesday with a game against Fordham (9-4) at UD Arena.
Here are five things to know about the game:
Credit: David Jablonski
1: Series history: Dayton leads the series 37-6. The Flyers have won five straight games against Fordham since a 55-54 loss at Rose Hill Gym in 2021. Prior to that loss, Dayton had won 16 straight games in the series since a loss at Fordham in 2006.
Last season, Dayton pulled away from Fordham in the final 11 minutes for a 93-76 victory at Rose Hill Gym in the Bronx, N.Y. No one who played in that game for Fordham remains on the roster this season.
2: State of the program: Fordham finished 12-20 overall and 3-15 in the A-10 last season. Coach Keith Urgo, the A-10 coach of the year in 2023, lost his job after the season and was replaced by Mike Magpayo, who was 89-63 the last five seasons at UC Riverside.
“There’s no rebuilding year,” Magpayo told the Blue Ribbon College Basketball Yearbook before the season. “You can’t do that in today’s world. My predecessor had a 25-win season just three years ago. That’s never going to be the mindset of our program. Our goal is to get to the top half of the league and see what kind of noise we can make.”
Fordham last appeared in the NCAA tournament in 1992 when it was a member of the Patriot League. Since joining the A-10 in the 1995-96 season, Fordham has enjoyed three winning seasons.
3: Scouting report: Dejour Reaves, a 6-foot-3, fifth-year guard, leads Fordham in scoring (16.3). He played at Iona last season, where he was a teammate of Dayton guard Adam Njie Jr., who remains sidelined by a “potential eligibility issue.” Earlier in his career, Reaves played at Northern Colorado. He also spent two years at Trinidad State College, a junior college.
• Christian Henry, a 6-3 senior guard who played at Eastern Michigan last season, leads the A-10 in assists (5.5 per game) and averages 12.2 points.
• Rikus Schulte, a 6-9 junior forward, is the team’s other double-digit scorer (12.2). He started his career at Davidson and played last season at UC Riverside.
4: Season summary: Fordham has the worst non-conference strength of schedule in the country, ranking 365th out of 365 teams, according to KenPom.com.
Fordham owns one victory against a team ranked in the top 200 of the NET. It beat No. 193 Long Island 69-53 on Nov. 23.
Fordham has four victories against teams ranked below 300 and three victories against lower-division opponents.
Fordham has two of the worst losses in the A-10: 70-69 to No. 312 Holy Cross on Dec. 6; and 72-61 to No. 343 New Jersey Institute of Technology on Nov. 4.
5: Odds and ends: KenPom.com gives Dayton an 89% chance of winning and predicts a 75-62 score. Dayton is No. 65 in the Ken Pom ratings. Fordham is No. 192.
• Dayton ranks 90th in the NCAA Evaluation Tool. Fordham is No. 204. This is a Quadrant 4 game for Dayton and a Quad 2 game for Fordham.
Dayton is 0-2 in Quad 1, 0-1 in Quad 2, 4-1 in Quad 3 and 5-0 in Quad 4.
NEXT GAME
Who: Fordham at Dayton
When: 2 p.m., Wednesday
TV: Spectrum News 1
Radio: 95.7-FM, 1290-AM
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