The Flyers went ahead for good on a pair of Charles Cooke free throws with 1:25 remaining, making it 81-79, and Kyle Davis and Scoochie Smith grabbed two crucial defensive rebounds to maintain the advantage before a Darrell Davis free throw with 12.8 seconds left made it a three-point lead the Razorbacks couldn’t overcome as both teams made a few more trips to the line before the final buzzer.
“It feels good to get the win,” Cooke said. “It was tough, but we battled throughout and came through with the big plays we needed at the end.”
Six players scored in double figures for Dayton, including Cooke (18), Kendall Pollard (15), Kyle Davis (13), Scoochie Smith (13), Darrell Davis (12) and Pierre (11). Moses Kingsley led Arkansas with 26 points.
Dayton missed a chance to put the game away at the free-throw line at the end of regulation after Pierre – who returned from a first-semester university suspension Dec. 20 — came up with a go-ahead jumper from under the basket with 26 seconds left for the last lead in regulation at 71-69.
Kyle Davis missed a pair of free throws with 14 seconds left, then rebounded a missed one-and-one at the other end and again drew a foul. However, he only converted the first of two attempts and Anthlon Beard drained a 3-pointer in transition to tie the game at 72 with 1.4 seconds left, and Pierre’s last-effort shot from just inside the arc bounced off the back of the rim.
“It would have been cool (to make it),” Pierre said. “I didn’t make the bucket, but wasn’t upset about it. We’re just all happy we got the outcome we did.”
The Flyers had started hot, giving Pierre a comfortable situation to enter for his first game action since March 22. They opened on an 11-0 run and led by 23 before Arkansas closed the gap to trail 38-34 at the half.
Pierre, a senior forward, entered the game to a standing ovation less than three minutes in with an 8-0 advantage. Moments after replacing Steve McElvene, who had just committed his first foul, Pierre assisted Cooke’s first of four 3-pointers for the night to make it 11-0 with 17:05 on the clock before Arkansas got on the board with a three-point play from Kingley.
Dayton answered with a 13-0 run over the next four-plus minutes, which included Pierre’s first basket on a short jumper and his first shot attempt of the game with 14:23 left in the half. The Flyers then made five of their first nine 3-point attempts before the shots stopped falling, and Arkansas chipped away at the lead.
The Razorbacks, one of the best 3-point shooting teams in the country, were 0 for 6 from behind the arc in the first half and made 5 of 15 for the game.
“It’s tough to maintain (a big lead like that), but you have to be able to maintain it,” UD coach Archie Miller said. “You can’t lose a (23-)point lead in eight minutes.”
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