“Coming in 2025,” it reads.
UMass, a charter member of the Atlantic 10 Conference, will enter the MAC later this year — a move that’s all about football and the money a Football Bowl Subdivision team can bring to a school — but it had one last parting gift for the Dayton Flyers on Wednesday, a devastating defeat that puts UD in an A-10 hole just three games into conference play.
UMass broke open a tie game with a 6-2 run in the last 90 seconds and beat Dayton 76-72 at the Mullins Center. Coupled with an 82-62 loss at George Washington on Saturday, Dayton (11-5, 1-2) is reeling after finishing 10-3 against one of the best non-conference schedules in recent memory.
The Dayton team that beat Northwestern and Connecticut in November and Marquette and UNLV in December is now a team that has lost to teams that were expected to finish in the bottom half of the A-10.
“We’re just not playing very well right now as a team, individually or collectively,” Dayton coach Anthony Grant said. “We’re not playing to our identity on either side of the ball. We’re struggling offensively to find any continuity. Guys that we’ve been able to rely on are just in a funk right now from an offensive standpoint. Defensively, we have to figure some things out in terms of what’s been ailing us. From a defensive standpoint, it looks like matchups are being exploited, and we’re not defending the way we have to defend.”
Credit: David Jablonski
Credit: David Jablonski
Here are three takeaways from Dayton’s first loss to UMass since Grant’s first season in 2018:
1. The shots still aren’t falling for Dayton: Dayton shot under 30% from 3-point range (6 of 24, 25%) for the sixth straight game.
Javon Bennett made 3 of 8, including a game-tying 3-pointer that tied the game at 70 with 1:48 to play. Nate Santos made 2 of 5.
The rest of the team combined to make 1 of 11. Enoch Cheeks and Malachi Smith each missed all three of their 3-point attempts. All together, those two starting guards made 1 of 11 field-goal attempts.
“Sometimes it’s hard when you’re struggling on the offensive side to have that next-play mentality,” Grant said, “and I think we’re seeing some of that with some guys on our team that are struggling to find themselves from an offensive standpoint, especially guys that were pretty consistent for us throughout the non-conference.”
Credit: David Jablonski
Credit: David Jablonski
2. UMass earned a much-need victory: UMass (6-10, 1-2) won its first A-10 game after losing 81-72 at Saint Joseph’s and 72-64 at home to Richmond. The Minutemen had lost eight straight games to the Flyers.
“I’m really happy for our guys,” UMass coach Frank Martin said. “I kept saying after every game, ‘We’re right there. We’re not that far off. We’ve got to fix some things on how we manage our emotions during the course of the game when the game gets hard.’ And I thought, today is the best in a hard game we’ve done all year.”
Credit: David Jablonski
Credit: David Jablonski
3. Dayton is not making winning plays: Malachi Smith and Nate Santos each made 1 of 2 free throws in the final two minutes, while Daniel Rivera, of UMass, sealed the victory by making two free throws with 14 seconds to play.
Earlier in the half, Zed Key was hit with multiple goaltending calls, leading to UMass baskets.
In the first half, Dayton led by 10 and had two wide-open 3-point attempts by Cheeks with a chance to push the lead to 13 points. He missed both.
Dayton still had a 39-36 lead at halftime but gave up a 7-0 run to start the second half.
One of Dayton’s biggest problems in the second half was an inability to grab defensive rebounds. UMass had a 36-28 advantage on the boards and a 13-7 edge in offensive rebounds. UMass broke a 70-70 tie on a basket by Rivera with 1:22 to play, and that was the third shot on that possession. UMass first missed a 3-pointer. Rivera got the rebound, missed a layup, grabbed his own miss and scored.
In other bad news, Dayton guard Posh Alexander hurt his left ankle in the second half and did not return to the game. He left the arena on crutches and in a protective boot.
Asked to explain what has happened to the team, Santos said, “It is definitely tough. I think there’s definitely a lot of stuff that we can figure out. More specifically to this game, it was our rebounding defense and we kind of got into scoring droughts at times.”
STAR OF THE GAME
Daniel Rivera led UMass with 23 points on 8-of-13 shooting. He made 7 of 7 free throws.
STAT OF THE GAME
UMass shot a season-best 95% (19 of 20) at the free-throw line. Dayton made 28 of 38 (73.7%).
LOOKING AHEAD
Dayton gets a week off before playing George Mason (11-5, 2-1) at 7 p.m. on Jan. 15 at UD Arena. George Mason won 64-58 at home against Richmond on Wednesday.
NEXT GAME
George Mason at Dayton, 7 p.m., Jan. 15, CBS Sports Network, 1290, 95.7
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