Dayton basketball: What to know about Flyers' game vs. Canisius

Jaiun Simon made all six of his free-throw attempts in a 90-59 exhibition game victory against Bowling Green — no small feat after he made 2 of 5 in the previous exhibition game against Penn State.

“It just shows that the work I’m putting in is showing,” Simon said Wednesday. “I was in the gym all week getting up my free throws. I shoot 100 plus free throws a day.”

That work is never-ending during the offseason and the preseason. Hundreds of hours of practices, workouts, strength training, conditioning, etc. lead to 31-plus games that count in the five-month regular season that starts this week.

Simon, the longest-tenured scholarship player on the 2025-26 roster who did not start his career at another school, bided his time the last two seasons, redshirting as a freshman and playing limited minutes last season, in hopes of playing a bigger role this season.

Of the three Dayton players who averaged single-digit minutes last season, Simon is the only one who stayed. Hamad Mousa transferred to Cal Poly. Isaac Jack left for Pacific.

“I‘m big on loyalty, and I’m just a guy who believes, ‘Don’t make excuses for yourself,’” Simon said, “because I have all the resources here to be whatever player I want to be. Put in the work and then the results show is what I believe in.”

If the preseason is any indication, it appears Simon will be an important part of Dayton’s rotation. The Flyers open the season at 7 p.m. Monday against Canisius. Here are five things to know about the game:

1: Series history: Dayton and Canisius have played 20 times but haven’t met in almost 40 years. Dayton leads the series 18-2.

All but four of the matchups took place in the 1950s and 1960s. The teams didn’t play in the 1970s. The Flyers won three of four games against the Golden Griffins in the 1980s.

In the last matchup, on Feb. 15, 1986, Dayton freshman guard Negele Knight made 1 of 2 free throws with five seconds remaining in overtime to break a tie and give Dayton a 69-68 victory. Anthony Grant, then a junior and now in his ninth season as Dayton’s head coach, scored 11 points.

Dayton is 41-11 against Metro Atlantic Athletic Conference programs. It has not played a MAAC team since Dec. 19, 2013, when it beat Iona 96-84 at UD Arena.

2: Program history: Canisius finished 3-28 overall last season and placed last in the MAAC, the nation’s 25th-ranked conference, with a 3-17 mark. It posted the program’s worst winning percentage (.097) since 1957-58 (2-19, .095).

Canisius ranked 357th out of 364 teams in the NCAA Evaluation Tool. It was picked to finish last out of 13 teams in the MAAC preseason poll this year.

Canisius last played in the NCAA tournament in 1996 when John Beilein, the future Michigan head coach, led the program. It made its other three NCAA appearances in the 1950s.

Credit: AP

Credit: AP

3: Ohio connection: Jim Christian is in his second season as head coach at Canisius. He led Kent State to four Mid-American Conference regular-season championships in six seasons (2002-08) and won 49 games in two seasons at Ohio (2012-14). He also has coached at Texas Christian and Boston College.

4: Scouting report: The Canisius roster includes seven new transfers and four freshmen.

• Marcus Niblack, a 6-foot-2 fifth-year guard guard, did not play last season but averaged 10.2 points two seasons ago with Jacksonville.

• Myles Wilmoth, a 6-9 forward, played three seasons at Butler and last season at another MAAC school, Siena, where he averaged 2.9 points.

“Change is sometimes really good,” Christian said at MAAC Media Day last week. “Change for us has been good. We have some hungry people coming in. They’re working hard. We live in a time that you have to kind of regroup ... and get the right kind of people. I think we have that. I think we have depth, and I’m excited about the year.”

5: Streak on the line: Dayton has a 20-game winning streak in season openers. It has not lost its first game since a 2004 loss to Eastern Kentucky.

Dayton has won the last four openers by double digits. The last close call came in the 2020-21 when Dayton beat Eastern Illinois 66-63 in the first game in front of a crowd of fewer than 300 people during the pandemic.

The status of senior guard Jordan Derkack was still up in the air as of Wednesday. He did not play in either exhibition game after suffering a fall in practice.

“That’s a medical decision,” Grant said Wednesday. “I think he’s working really hard to get himself back. I think he’s been able to do some conditioning and some non-contact stuff up to this point. We’ll see how the week goes.”

TODAY’S GAME

Who: Canisius at Dayton

When: 7 p.m. Monday, Nov. 3

Streaming: ESPN+

Radio: 95.7-FM, 1290-AM