Three takeaways from Dayton’s victory vs. Cincinnati

For most of the evening, it was hard to tell exactly how much of an edge in fan support the Dayton Flyers had over the Cincinnati Bearcats four miles from the UC campus. Then a dominant second half by UD caused Bearcat fans to flee for the exits before the final whistle, leaving many empty seats on the UC side of an arena that was known as Riverfront Coliseum in the days when the teams played every season.

A crowd of 12,547 — maybe 60% of them members of the Flyer Faithful — watched Dayton beat Cincinnati 82-68 in the first matchup between the former Great Midwest Conference members since 2010.

“I’m just really proud of our guys and the effort that they gave us this week in preparation for the game,” Dayton coach Anthony Grant said. “I thought we did all the things that we talked about needing to do. They showed great maturity and a great level of toughness and togetherness to be able to come out with the win. It was great to see the crowd that showed up today. Obviously, the Flyer Faithful were awesome. We’re proud of that. It was just overall a great team effort. I’m really proud of our group.”

Here are three takeways from Dayton’s fifth straight victory:

1. Dayton took control of the game late in the first half and stayed in control the rest of the game: Dayton (8-2) outscored Cincinnati 11-4 in the last five minutes of the first half to build a 35-29 halftime lead.

Cincinnati scored the first basket of the second half to cut Dayton’s lead to four points, but then two free throws by Kobe Elvis, a layup by DaRon Holmes II and a 3-pointer by Elvis gave Dayton its first double-digit lead, 42-31 at the 17:32 mark.

Dayton led by double figures throughout the second half and stretched its lead to as many as 18 points. Cincinnati got as close as nine points in the final five minutes. Holmes made a dagger of a 3-pointer at the 1:55 mark to put the game away for good, giving Dayton a 14-point lead.

Cincinnati (8-2) never made a serious run despite grabbing 20 offensive rebounds and outscoring Dayton 20-2 in second-chance points. The Flyers just didn’t have an offensive lull in the second half in part because they kept attacking the basket and getting to the free-throw line. They made 22 of 23 free throws in the second half and 28 of 30 in the game.

“It’s a very big win,” Holmes said. “It’s great to be able to play those types of opponents you know, but nowadays every team can play. We’ve got another tough opponent coming up. We can’t take any team for granted.”

2. The future of the matchup is up in the air: The Flyers have now won three of the last five games in the series and four of the last eight. That qualifies as one of the best runs Dayton has had against Cincinnati since the 1980s.

Cincinnati leads the series 60-32. Twenty one of Dayton’s victories in the series came before 1960. Since the 1957-58 season, Cincinnati has a record of 42-11 against Dayton.

Third-year Cincinnati coach Wes Miller was asked after the game about the chances of the series continuing. He doesn’t know if it will be possible with the Big 12 going to 20 league games, but he said if the game doesn’t happen in the future, it won’t be because of this result.

“Sometimes coaches say, ‘Don’t play local games because if you lose everybody’s (upset),’” Miller said. “I think that’s a bunch of BS. These games get you ready for league play. The fact that people get all charged up for them, that’s good. That’s good for our growth. I hate that we lost two of them (Dayton and Xavier). That stinks and it feels terrible, but I’m not afraid of that. We’re not going to not want to play good teams locally because we’re worried about what the hell people think. That’s a good game for Cincinnati. So I’m not opposed to the game moving forward. But the reasons why we could or couldn’t sometimes are hard to figure out with all the changes in college basketball right now.”

3. The Flyers added to their NCAA tournament resume: Judging by the NCAA Evaluation Tool rankings, this is Dayton’s best victory. UC (8-2) ranked 24th in the NET. For now, it’s a Quad 1 victory for the Flyers because it came against a top-50 team on a neutral court. UD added to a NCAA tournament resume that also includes victories against LSU, St. John’s and Southern Methodist.

Dayton jumped from No. 57 to No. 42 in the Ken Pomeroy ratings.

“Congratulations to Anthony and his group,” Miller said. “They were really good tonight. They got us out of sync. We were struggling to get stops. When you can’t get stops and you can’t defend, it puts a lot of pressure on everything else in the game. And not only couldn’t we get stops, every time there at the rim, we’re fouling. You look down and they’re 28 for 30 from the free-throw line. We’re really struggling with interior defense, which is frustrating given the length, athleticism and size that we have.”

STARS OF THE GAME

DaRon Holmes II led Dayton with a season-high 28 points on 10-of-17 shooting. He also had seven rebounds and five blocked shots.

Kobe Elvis scored a career-high 27 points, passing the 24 points he scored in the previous game against Troy, in part by making 14 of 14 free throws. That’s the third-best performance in UD history.

Edwin Young set the UD free-throw percentage single-game record by making 18 of 18 in 1997. Henry Finkel ranks second with a 15-of-15 performance in 1965.

STAT OF THE GAME

Dayton made 28 of 30 free throws (93.3%), improving its season average to 75.9. The last time Dayton made more than 28 free throws in a game it made 31 of 45 in an overtime victory at Davidson in 2017. This is the first time Dayton has shot at least 30 free throws and made more than 90% of them since at least the 2010-11 season.

LOOKING AHEAD

Dayton plays Oakland (6-5) at 7 p.m. Wednesday at UD Arena. Oakland won 78-76 at Xavier on Nov. 27. It has since beaten Detroit Mercy, lost to Purdue Fort Wayne and Toledo and beaten Eastern Michigan. It plays at Michigan State on Monday.