The Dayton Flyers don’t know that feeling. They’ve experienced bad luck at the Barclays — the Langston Galloway push-off on Kyle Davis in 2014, the Obi Toppin injury in 2019 and the Malachi Smith injury in 2022 — but they’ve also underperformed more often than not and their latest appearance in Brooklyn falls into that category.
With a door to the program’s first A-10 tournament championship since 2003 wide open after three of the top-four seeds lost earlier in the day, No. 3 seed Dayton couldn’t take advantage, fading in the final minutes for the second straight year in a 65-57 loss to No. 6 seed Duquesne.
With the defeat, No. 24 Dayton (24-7) prepared for a long wait for Selection Sunday — only three days but much longer for a disappointed team ready to get a fresh life in the NCAA tournament. All the experts expect Dayton to receive an at-large berth. The Flyers dropped from a No. 8 to No. 9 seed on ESPN’s Joe Lunardi’s bracket after the loss and fell from No. 21 to No. 22 in the NCAA Evaluation Tool.
“There’s no guarantees for anything,” Dayton coach Anthony Grant said. “We hope that we get an opportunity to continue the season. We expect to based on the body of work that we’ve had all year. Played 31 games. We’ve been victorious 24 times. We’ve played a pretty challenging schedule. So we hope to be able to play. Right now, the feeling is disappointment in losing and not having an opportunity for this team to win a championship in our conference, whether it was regular season or postseason.
“So there’s disappointment right now. And so we’ll have to deal with that individually and collectively. And then once the selection show happens and everybody knows what they’re doing — whether you won a championship in the postseason, whether you won a regular-season championship — all that is flushed. Everybody’s got the same record. Everybody’s excited to play. Everybody’s looking forward to getting chance to play in the tournament. And we’ll be one of those teams.”
Maybe a couple extra days of rest will help Dayton in the NCAA tournament. The early exit will not help them a year from now when they again have to answer questions about not having won the past 20 A-10 tournaments. This was the third time in the last seven tournaments Dayton opened play in the quarterfinals and lost to a lower seed.
“Offensively, tonight, we couldn’t get a rhythm,” Grant said. “We couldn’t get it going. For whatever reason — first night, tournament atmosphere, whatever it was.”
Grant then referenced the long wait both teams had to get on the court. The previous game between No. 7 seed St. Bonaventure and No. 2 Loyola Chicago ended in double overtime. Instead of starting at 7:30 p.m., Dayton and Duquesne tipped off around 8:25.
That didn’t affect Duquesne, which beat No. 14 Saint Louis 83-73 on Wednesday in the second round, but may have played a part in Dayton’s slow start. Coaches have long pondered how much of an advantage lower seeds that have played the day before have in the quarterfinals. All four of those teams fell Thursday: No. 1 seed Richmond lost 66-61 to No. 9 Saint Joseph’s; No. 4 Massachusetts lost 73-59 to No. 5 Virginia Commonwealth; and Loyola lost 75-74 to St. Bonaventure.
“Eight o’clock something tonight was the first time our guys touched the court and shot on those rims,” Grant said. “I don’t know. Maybe that’s part of the reason why the top four seeds are no longer playing in the tournament. Be nice to have some time where you could get a feel for the gym.”
“I think it’s harder than people realize because you can’t simulate game activity,” Duquesne coach Keith Dambrot said. “And then the other teams have been on the court and they’ve shot on the court. It’s difficult.”
On the other hand, slow starts have hurt Dayton often in recent weeks, no matter where it’s playing. It fell behind 14-4 to Duquesne and trailed VCU 26-9 in its previous game before winning 91-86 in overtime. Three weeks ago against Duquense, Dayton faced a 22-11 deficit halfway through the first half but won the game 75-59 thanks to a 22-0 run in the final six minutes.
Neither team played well in the first half in this game. Dayton shot 30.6% (8 of 26). Duquesne shot better (52%, 13 of 25) but committed 11 turnovers to Dayton’s four.
The Flyers had to feel fortunate to face a 30-28 halftime deficit after a 5-0 run, including a 3-pointer by Javon Bennett, in the last 65 seconds. With only one loss in the last 12 meetings with Duquesne, including five victories in the last three seasons, Dayton also had to feel confident it would find a way to win in the second half.
Dayton looked to be on its way to victory when it took its first lead with 15 minutes, 51 seconds left in the game on a 3-pointer by DaRon Holmes II, who led Dayton with 24 points and 13 rebounds. The Flyers maintained that lead for the next four-plus minutes as neither team scored.
Dayton twice took a four-point lead — 50-46 and 52-48 — but couldn’t stretch the advantage. Then the momentum shifted fast. Duquesne regained the lead with a 10-0 run from the 5:32 mark to the 3:56 mark.
The key plays were these:
• Dayton’s Enoch Cheeks missed the front end of a 1-and-1 with 6:04 to play.
• Duquesne grabbed two offensive rebounds after missed 3-pointers and then scored on a dunk by David Dixon.
• Dae Dae Grant picked off a pass by Cheeks.
• Dixon missed a layup, but Duquesne again grabbed an offensive rebound. Jake DiMichele then made a go-ahead 3-pointer at the 5:06 mark.
• Dayton’s Nate Santos missed the front end of a 1-and-1.
• Grant answered with two free throws.
• Dayton’s Koby Brea missed a wide-open 3.
• Grant then made a 3-pointer to give Duquesne a 58-52 lead with 3:56 to play.
“We couldn’t get any stops, and they made some shots,” Dayton point guard Javon Bennett said. “We weren’t really scoring. That hurt us in the stretch.”
Dayton trailed the rest of the way as Duquesne (22-11) beat a ranked team for the first time in 10 years. Duquesne plays St. Bonaventure (20-12) in the second semifinal at 3:30 p.m. Saturday. No. 9 seed Saint Joseph’s (21-12) plays No. 5 seed VCU (21-12) at 1 p.m.
Duquesne finished with 12 offensive rebounds. Its offensive rebounding percentage (37.5) was its seventh-best number of the season. The Flyers fell to 4-4 in games where opponents grab more than 37% of the offensive rebounding chances.
“They were able to offensively kind of get in a rhythm there the last seven minutes,” Anthony Grant said. “It was just a couple plays there in the post. They got free for some open 3s. I thought the offensive rebounding down the stretch really kind of changed the game for them. They were able to build the lead off of some that stuff. For us, offensively, I don’t remember the sequences, but we just didn’t finish plays. We just could not finish plays tonight, whether it was shots at the rim, whether it was open threes. We just had a tough time offensively tonight. We had a tough time from an execution standpoint tonight.”
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