After winning 16 of its first 18 games of the season, No. 16 Dayton has lost three of its last four road games — all in Atlantic-10 play.
Luckily for the Flyers, they return to the friendly confines of UD Arena on Tuesday when they host Davidson.
Dayton (21-5, 11-3) will have had nearly a week off following its 71-67 loss at George Mason last Wednesday. Head coach Anthony Grant’s team let an 11-point, second-half lead slip en route to dropping out of the top spot in the conference standings.
George Mason had a significant edge at the foul line, as the Patriots shot 29 free throws to just 14 from Dayton.
“We’ve done a really good job all year of being able to defend without fouling,” Grant said. “Just in league play alone, we’ve taken over a hundred more free throws than our opponents. I didn’t think we changed what we we’re trying to do, but it didn’t go in our favor today.”
Outside of Dayton’s DaRon Holmes II, who scored 26 points, nobody scored in double figures for the Flyers in the loss.
Holmes leads the A-10 in scoring at 20.2 points per game and was recently named to the Naismith Trophy Men’s College Player of the Year Midseason Team.
“We’ve just got to keep moving forward,” Holmes said. “We can’t make excuses.”
Dayton has excelled from the 3-point line this year, holding a 39.2 percent shooting clip, good for eighth in Division I. Eleven of the Flyers’ 23 made field goals were triples against George Mason.
Dayton guard Koby Brea has accounted for much of the teams’ long-range shooting success, as the senior’s 48.7 3-point shooting percentage is the best in the nation.
Since conference play began, Davidson (15-12, 5-9) has struggled mightily to find its rhythm. The Wildcats have alternated wins and losses in each of their last seven games.
Most recently, Davidson dropped a heartbreaker at Richmond on Saturday, 66-63.
After Davidson’s Bobby Durkin tied the game at 63-63 with a triple at the 14-second mark, the Wildcats fouled Richmond’s Jordan King with two seconds left. King made all three free throws for the win.
Davidson began the season well, finishing nonconference play 10-3 before its recent rough patch in A-10 play. The Wildcats fell to the Flyers 72-59 on Jan. 3 in the conference opener for both teams.
“We gave up a lot of transition baskets to Dayton,” Davidson head coach Matt McKillop said of the first matchup. “I felt like we defended them fairly well in the half court, but we didn’t give ourselves enough chances to defend them because we gave them second-chance opportunities and we let them get free in transition.”
Durkin’s 14 off the bench led Davidson in the first meeting, while Holmes had 18 for Dayton.
David Skogman leads Davidson with 13.3 points per game, but hasn’t played since Jan. 24 due to a season-ending foot injury. Grant Huffman adds 13.1 points per game for the Wildcats, followed by Reed Bailey’s 12.5.
–Field Level Media