RELATED: UMass shocks Dayton
Dayton played its worst game of the season at the Mullins Center, committing a season-high 19 turnovers while shooting 31.6 percent. Of course, it has overcome its worst games in recent seasons. Now is as good a time as any to revisit those games and remember what came next.
• In 2014, Dayton lost five of its first six games in Atlantic 10 Conference play. It hit rock bottom when it lost 60-57 at home to St. Joseph’s on a last-second 3-pointer by Langston Galloway. Dayton responded by winning nine of its last 10 regular-season games, going 1-1 in the A-10 tournament and then advancing to the Elite Eight.
• In 2015, Dayton lost 83-73 at Duquesne on Feb. 21. Two games later, it recorded its best A-10 victory of the season, winning 59-55 at Virginia Commonwealth.
• In 2016, Dayton lost three of four games in late February. It rebounded to win its last two regular-season games, 85-84 at Richmond and 68-67 over VCU on Senior Night at UD Arena. Those wins gave UD a share of the A-1o title.
Dayton can lean on all those experiences in the next 14 A-10 games, but mostly it has to figure out what went wrong on an awful night in Amherst. Miller started his postgame press conference by praising UMass (11-6. 1-3), a team that started 0-3 in the conference but still ranked No. 96 in the RPI.
The Flyers (12-4, 3-1) knew the Minutemen were better than their record but still had to wonder how they lost by 12 to a team that lost by 12 three games earlier to St. Bonaventure in the same arena. The Flyers beat the Bonnies 90-74. UMass lost to the Bonnies 89-77. Comparing scores rarely proves anything — and especially so in this case.
ARCHIE MILLER INTERVIEW: 'Unexplainable performance' by Flyers
“Credit to UMass and their staff and their players,” Miller said. “I thought they played with great toughness and made things very hard on us. They were a team I felt was on the cusp of breaking through, and you could see some of their young guys making plays. From our standpoint, I’m really disappointed. It’s a really unexplainable performance in terms of execution. From an offensive standpoint, we hadn’t had one of these in a while, in particular the 19 turnovers, the missed layups, shot selection, some of the things we had going on. We were a very disorganized offense.”
Only one Dayton player had a decent stat line. Kyle Davis scored 16 points on 6-of-8 shooting, though seven of his points came in the final minutes with Dayton down by double digits.
Darrell Davis scored Dayton’s first six points and led the Flyers with eight points at halftime but didn’t score again. John Crosby played 17 minutes because Scoochie Smith was on the bench with two fouls for a good chunk of the first half. He didn’t score and had three assists and there turnovers.
Ryan Mikesell made 2 of 10 shots from the field and scored five points. Kendall Pollard had six points on 2-of-8 shooting.
Charles Cooke struggled as much as anyone, recording nine points and seven turnovers. He did make 2 of 3 3-pointers. The rest of the team combined to make 4 of 17.
RELATED: Senior guard struggles in first game back from injury
At the critical juncture in the game, with Dayton trailing 42-41 at the 11:50 mark, it failed to score on seven straight possessions. It fell behind by 11 and didn’t get closer than seven in the final four minutes. The Flyers scored three points in an eight-minute span.
“In the first half, we struggled to take care of the ball,” Miller said. “We were wild. We had guys take chances, whether that’s early in possessions with careless passing or transition opportunities where we make mistakes. We’ve tried to calm down that in the first half. Even in our wins, we’ve had eight or nine in the first, but we’ve usually bounced back with two or three in the second. Tonight that wasn’t the case. Tonight was a disaster in terms of taking care of the ball.”
SATURDAY’S GAME
Dayton at Duquesne, noon, CBS Sports Network, FM 95.7, AM 1290 WHIO
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