VCU players dumped bottles of water all over each other in the locker room after the 63-62 victory Friday, as the video shared by VCU’s official Twitter account showed.
In a season that had already seen Dayton blow a 23-point lead in a 79-75 overtime loss to Brigham Young and lose by 28 points at Virginia Tech, this loss rose to the top of most disappointing outcomes for a number of reasons.
1. Dayton had a four-point lead and possession with 30 seconds to play.
2. Dayton has a tortured history with VCU, which has now beaten Dayton by one point at UD Arena three times in the last five seasons — all with go-ahead shots in the final minute.
3. The Flyers had been playing like the team everyone expected it to be when the season began, winning seven straight games by double digits.
4. They had not lost at home in 373 days.
5. They sat all alone in first place in the Atlantic 10 Conference.
Everything pointed to a Dayton victory until two turnovers — one by Mike Sharavjamts, who had only one in his first 31 minutes, and one by Toumani Camara, who had nine in the game — led directly to five points by VCU in a 12-second span.
“As tough as this is,” Dayton coach Anthony Grant said, “I think the one thing I will say is the guys that we have in that locker room, they care a lot. It’s important to them. They work really hard and were trying to do the things we asked them to do today. We weren’t able to get that done, and they’re hurting for that so I hurt for them right now. I hurt for our group.”
Credit: David Jablonski
Dayton (12-6, 4-1) gets its first chance to put the loss behind them when it plays Davidson (9-9, 2-4) at 7 p.m. Tuesday at UD Arena. It will be the second game in 18 days between the teams. Dayton beat Davidson 69-55 in North Carolina behind 32 points from DaRon Holmes II on Dec. 31.
With 13 games remaining in the regular season, Dayton shares first place in the Atlantic 10 Conference with VCU (13-5. 4-1) and Saint Louis (12-6, 4-1).
Duquesne (13-5, 3-2), George Mason (11-7, 3-2), Richmond (10-8, 3-2) and St. Bonaventure (9-9, 3-2) are tied for fourth place.
Davidson, the defending regular-season champion, sits alone in 13th place, ahead of only Saint Joseph’s (7-10, 1-4) and Loyola Chicago (6-11, 0-5).
Davidson finished with a losing A-10 record only once (8-10 in 2016-17) in its first eight seasons in the league. It has never lost four games in a row since joining the conference — in non-conference or conference play — but takes a three-game losing streak into this game. After losing to Dayton, it beat Loyola 80-57 but then lost 89-72 at VCU, 61-57 at home to Richmond and 67-65 at George Mason on Saturday.
One year ago after losing 53-52 to VCU on a shot in the final seconds at UD Arena, Dayton routed George Washington 83-58 on the road. In 2019, after a similar loss at home to VCU, Dayton went on the road and beat Davidson 74-73. It’s rare for a disappointing loss to affect Dayton in the next game.
Grant expects to see the same Tuesday.
“I love the group that we have,” he said. “We will get better from it. They’re a strong, resilient group. They’ve been through a lot, and they’ll be better for it.”
TUESDAY’S GAME
Davidson at Dayton, 7 p.m., CBS Sports Network, 1290, 95.7
Credit: David Jablonski
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