For Archie Miller, turning point for Dayton was Northwestern loss

UD coach likes effort level and toughness of his team

Kendall Pollard posted a photo of himself to Twitter not long after a 67-64 victory over Rhode Island on Friday at UD Arena. He had ditched his uniform for a sharp-looking outfit featuring sneakers with red laces on one shoe and blue laces on the other.

“Now let the festivities begin!!!” Pollard wrote.

Pollard was referencing his birthday — he turned 22 Friday — but could just as easily been talking about the season. Dayton (12-3, 3-0) hit the halfway point of the regular season with its fifth straight victory.

The Flyers took over sole possession of first place in the Atlantic 10 for a few hours, pending the results of other conference games Saturday and Sunday. The Flyers haven’t lost since Dec. 17 when Northwestern knocked them off 67-64 at the United Center in Chicago.

“The turning point for me was Northwestern,” coach Archie Miller said. “The Northwestern game was an awakening that we weren’t near ready to compete. Slowly but surely since then, we’ve started to grind away.”

Not all the wins in the last three weeks have been pretty, Miller said, and they haven’t always shot the ball well.

“The one thing that’s been intact is our effort level and our toughness,” Miller said. “We’ve just got to keep it going. We’ve got to go on the road now. We’ve got to find a way to win on the road. As we get through the next couple of weeks, it will become clear how much better we can get.”

Miller compared the state of his team now to what he saw two years ago when a seven-man team, led by senior Jordan Sibert, finished 25-8 and won two NCAA Tournament games. That’s high praise because that team captured the hearts of UD fans like few others.

“I see us approaching things like that team did,” Miller said. “If we do that, that’s really exciting for our staff because that team was amazing in terms of their commitment to one another.”

The Flyers were 13-2 through 15 games two seasons ago. They were 12-3 last season. They were also 12-3 in 2013-14 when the current seniors were freshmen. Those seniors won their 90th game Friday and are seven away from tying the school record for most wins by a class.

The Flyers beat Rhode Island (10-5, 2-1) by taking what the Rams gave them. Rhode Island took away the 3-pointer, so Dayton took only 12 shots from long range, making 3. The Flyers shot 1 of 10 inside the arc in the first 10 minutes and then made 18 of 27 shots (66.7 percent) the rest of the way. They outscored the Rams 32-18 in the paint and 14-3 on fast-break points.

While Dayton played without leading scorer Charles Cooke for the second straight game and third in the last four, Rhode Island played its second straight game with Hassan Martin, who missed five games with a quadriceps injury. Martin had seven points and five rebounds in 20 minutes but didn’t play in the last eight minutes and may have re-injured the quad.

Rhode Island made 10 of 21 3-pointers (47.6 percent) and had 19 assists on 22 field goals. The Rams lost in part by committing 12 of their 18 turnovers in the second half.

“Really disappointing loss for us here,” Rhode Island coach Dan Hurley told the Providence Journal after the game. “Just not the type of defensive performance (we needed) in the second half, and the lack of ball security most of the time was embarrassing.”


WEDNESDAY’S GAME

Dayton at Massachusetts, 7 p.m., CBS Sports Network, FM 95.7, AM 1290 WHIO

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