• Negele Knight celebrating the 1990 Midwestern Collegiate Conference tournament championship.
• Dan Obrovac jumping for the opening tip against UCLA’s Lew Alcindor in the 1967 NCAA championship game.
• Current Dayton coach Anthony Grant, as a Dayton player, standing with his coach Don Donoher.
• Jalen Crutcher celebrating a buzzer-beater at Saint Louis in 2020.
Over the images, Grant’s voice is heard, narrating the video.
“Over 12 decades of service,” he says. “The birthplace of aviation. A legacy as rich as the city itself. Built by dreamers. Fueled by Flyers. Thousands of games. Millions of fans. The Flyer Faithful. This is UD Arena, the epicenter of college basketball.”
Dayton had a lot of competition for that title Monday as the college basketball season began with 168 games across the nation. Eleven of the 14 Atlantic 10 Conference teams played, and they all won.
Here’s a breakdown of what happened on Day 1 of the 2025-26 season:
Credit: David Jablonski
Most lopsided victories: Dayton beat Canisius 88-48 at UD Arena. It was the only 40-point victory by an A-10 team. The Flyers return to action at 2 p.m. Saturday against Maryland, Baltimore County (0-1).
Davidson won 97-63 against DeSales University, a Division III team.
Rhode Island beat Stetson 93-62 in a game matching former Dayton coach Archie Miller, now in his fourth season at Rhode Island, against his former UD player, Joey Gruden, an assistant coach at Stetson.
Best victory: St. Bonaventure beat Bradley 69-63 in the Field of 68 Opening Day Marathon in Rock Hill, S.C.’
Bradley ranks 116th in the Ken Pomeroy ratings. St. Bonaventure is 113th.
No one else in the A-10 beat a team ranked in the top 200 in their first game.
Closest game: Loyola Chicago beat Cleveland State 91-88 on a 3-pointer at the buzzer by Deywilk Tavarez, a junior guard who played at Delaware State and Charleston in his first two seasons.
“The feeling from today’s game is fairly positive. Cleveland State is a tough first opponent to play,” Loyola coach Drew Valentine said in a press release. “We’re pretty thorough in our scouting, and we kind of had an idea of what they were going to do, but we didn’t know everything, so it was tough to prep for.”
Top scorer: St. Bonaventure guard Darryl Simmons II scored 24 points against Bradley. He made 5 of 11 3s.
Simmons played his first two seasons at Gardner Webb and averaged 17.4 points per game last season.
Best shooting: Duquesne made 11 of 26 3-pointers (42.3%) in an 83-63 victory against Niagara in Pittsburgh.
Worst shooting: George Washington made 2 of 20 3s (10%) in an 67-47 victory against Maine in Washington, D.C.
Other notable performances: Saint Joseph’s sophomore guard Jaiden Glover-Toscano, a transfer from St. John’s, scored 23 points on 8-of-11 shooting in an 85-76 victory against Lafayette. It was the first game for Steve Donahue, who took over as head coach when Billy Lange left the Hawks in September.
• Virginia Commonwealth junior forward Lazar Djokovic scored 21 points on 7-of-10 shooting in a 103-74 victory against Wagner. He played last season at Charleston after spending his freshman season at Xavier.
In coach Phil Martelli Jr.’s debut, VCU hit the 100-point mark against a Division I opponent for the first time since Nov. 20, 2014.
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