Fans who saw a video of the players running onto the court marveled at how much had changed.
“Man that just looks and sounds so weird,” UD fan Matt Hager wrote.
“Well, this is depressing as hell,” wrote another fan, Matt Allaire.
“This is sad to watch,” wrote Steven Wright, who covered the team for the Flyer News when he was a student.
Weird, depressing and sad describe a lot of things in 2020, and it will take some time for everyone to get used to the sight of basketball at UD Arena with so few fans. That’s true for the players, too. They escaped with a 66-63 victory against Eastern Illinois in the season opener, learning they will have to create their own energy when they return to action at 2 p.m. Saturday against Southern Methodist (3-0) at UD Arena.
“It’s definitely a huge adjustment for us because we’re used to having 13,000-plus in the stands every night,” Dayton forward Chase Johnson said, “To just to go out there and see kind of just our family — I mean it’s still motivating to see our family and that they’re able to come watch us play — it’s definitely a huge difference.”
SMU, ranked 56th in the Ken Pomeroy ratings, 103 above Eastern Illinois, presents the first big test of the season for Dayton, which ranks 60th. Here are four things to know about the game:
1. Dominant start: SMU has won three games by an average of 31.4 points, beating three teams ranked in the bottom 50 of the 357 Division I teams: Sam Houston State, Texas A&M Corpus Christi and Houston Baptist.
2. Missing starter: SMU’s leading returning scorer, senior guard Tyson Jolly (14.5 points per game), has not played this season. Coach Tim Jankovich said Nov. 30 Jolly was out because of personal reasons.
3. Hot shooters: The Mustangs shot 40.8 percent from 3-point range in the first three games. That’s a big improvement from last season when they ranked 218th in the country in 3-point shooting percentage (32.3).
4. Big opportunity: This is an important game for each team’s non-conference schedule in a season with limited opportunities. Both teams had games cancelled Dec. 8 because of COVID-19 issues with their opponents. SMU was supposed to play Vanderbilt. Dayton was supposed to play Purdue Fort Wayne.
SMU is the second-highest ranked team on Dayton’s non-conference schedule, while Dayton is the highest-ranked opponent SMU will play outside the American Athletic Conference. The AAC is playing a 20-game schedule, so this will be SMU’s last non-conference game unless it finds a replacement for Vanderbilt or schedules a game at another time.
4. Problem areas: Dayton committed four of its 15 turnovers in the final five minutes Tuesday. Eastern Illinois scored 11 straight points to cut a 12-point deficit to 64-63 in the final minute. Two free throws by Jalen Crutcher with seven seconds to play helped the Flyers escape with the victory.
Crutcher and Rodney Chatman, two senior starters on the perimeter, each had four turnovers.
“Really just based off that game and what we’ve seen in practice, we’ve got to get a lot better in terms of our ability to take care of the basketball,” Dayton coach Anthony Grant said. “The number of turnovers we had the other day and the results of those turnovers, it’s not something that’s sustainable if we’re going to get the results we want.”
The other area of concern was rebounding, Grant said. That was a weak point last season for a team that finished 29-2. Dayton found plenty of other ways to win even when they were giving up too many offensive rebounds.
Eastern Illinois grabbed 13 offensive rebounds to Dayton’s six and outscored Dayton 10-5 in second-chance points.
“We can not do that and win the way we expect to and want to win,” Grant said.
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