Who doesn’t need a car wash at this time of year? The grime builds up all winter. It’s hard to keep cars clean on so many ugly days.
It’s also hard to avoid blemishes from January through March in the Atlantic 10 Conference, where so many Dayton Flyers teams over the years have seen strong non-conference performances stained by A-10 teams that know them well.
• In 2014, Dayton started 12-3 and then lost five of its first six A-10 games.
• The following year, Dayton won its first five A-10 games only to go 8-5 down the stretch.
• In 2016, Dayton won 11 of its first 12 A-10 games and then three of its last six.
• The 2017 Flyers lost only three A-10 games but one was to Massachusetts, which finished a game out of last place.
Those were the last four Dayton teams to play in the NCAA tournament. The one Dayton team that survived the 18-game A-10 schedule without a loss didn’t get that chance because of the pandemic in 2020. The 2024 Flyers keep moving closer to easing some of the pain that will always surround the program because of the abrupt ending in 2020 because they have, with one exception, avoided the A-10 pitfalls.
No. 21 Dayton (18-3, 8-1) beat St. Bonaventure 76-71 on Friday to complete a 2-0 week at home after a 69-64 loss at Richmond last week.
“The game was like a heavyweight fight,” Dayton coach Anthony Grant said. “It was great for college basketball. It was great for A-10 basketball. You had two really hard-playing, competitive teams on display tonight. I’m just really proud of our guys. We grew up today as a team.”
The current Flyers became the third UD team to reach the halfway point of the A-10 schedule with only one loss in the 10 years the league has played 18 games.
“It’s amazing; it’s a blessing,” Dayton star DaRon Holmes II said. “It just shows all the work we put in, but our goal is to just stay disciplined and keep working hard and continue to try to be the best versions of ourselves and be where our feet are. We have to stay level headed. It’s a lot of fun, but we’ve got to celebrate when the season’s over. We’re just pushing forward.”
Holmes used one of his coach favorite phrases — “the best version of ourselves” — in that quote, which was a response to a question about the buzz around the team on campus.
Dayton hasn’t needed the best version of itself very often in A-10 play. A decent version of itself has often been good enough. It has two dominant victories against Rhode Island and George Washington, double-digit wins against Davidson, Duquesne and La Salle and three victories by five points or fewer against Massachusetts, Saint Louis and St. Bonaventure.
Dayton’s eighth victory goes down as one of its toughest. St. Bonaventure (13-8, 4-5) is a disappointing team if you judge it by its resume but also a dangerous team. It already has two victories against defending A-10 champion Virginia Commonwealth, and it entered this game with momentum after overcoming a 20-point deficit to beat VCU 67-62 on Tuesday.
What St. Bonaventure doesn’t have is Holmes, who scored 25 of his season-high 34 points after halftime. He took over the game in the second half as he has done so many times this season.
“We had a hard time stopping Holmes with our two big guys in there,” Schmidt said. “He’s just a really good player. Maybe you play a little bit of zone, but they surround Holmes with four shooters, so that makes it difficult. We tried to double, and you can’t do the same thing over and over to him. He’s a good passer.”
Dayton blew an early 17-9 lead and trailed 30-28 at halftime in part because it made 1 of 12 3-pointers in the half. The Bonnies twice built a seven-point lead early in the second half. For a nine-minute stretch, neither team could separate itself. Then Holmes took over, scoring six points at the line during a 9-0 Dayton run that broke open a tie game and gave the Flyers a 63-54 lead at the 3:22 mark.
As dominant as Holmes was, he had help.
• Enoch Cheeks scored a season-high 13 points on 6-of-9 shooting.
• Isaac Jack made all three of his field-goal attempts, twice tipping in missed shots, and both of his free throws, scoring eight points.
• Koby Brea scored seven points and made only one 3-pointer, but it was a big one that came during the key 9-0 run.
Dayton, of course, leaned on the fuel provided by 13,407 fans, who helped will the team to its 11th straight home victory.
“That’s the Dayton 6th for you,” Holmes said. “Our crowd is amazing. It’s the best crowd in the country. It doesn’t get enough attention. The thing I like about our crowd is it’s positive. They don’t talk too much smack to the other team. But they support us, and they’re loud. That’s the right way to go.”
St. Bonaventure lost its fifth straight game at UD Arena since a 79-72 victory at Dayton in February 2016. The Bonnies lost because they couldn’t stop Holmes, who was fouled 13 times. He made 13 of 17 free throws and also 10 of 15 field goals, including 1 of 2 3-pointers.
“I thought it was a great college basketball game,” St. Bonaventure coach Mark Schmidt said. “Give Dayton credit. They made the plays at the end. We had a hard time with Holmes as you can imagine. But I thought our guys showed a lot of character. We didn’t start off well early. We played on our heels. Against Dayton, if you play on your heels, things are not going to go your way. We got our legs 10 minutes into the first half. We fought. We made some big plays. We didn’t quit. We didn’t execute all the time, but I thought our effort was was good.”
TUESDAY’S GAME
Dayton at Saint Joseph’s, 8 p.m., CBS Sports Network, 1290, 95.7
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