AMHERST, Mass. – Dayton might be best summed up as a team that’s been knocking on the door all season but hasn’t been able to get inside. They have looked very good, they have looked just okay, and they seem very close to being a good team. But the Flyers haven’t been able to get over the hump quite often this season, and Saturday’s 76-66 loss at UMass was no different.
Watch the Flyers and you can see that there’s a high skill level with this team to go along with some length and athleticism. They don’t have as much of the physical gifts as some teams, but they are hardly lacking. The big problem is that they haven’t yet been able to maintain a high level of play to reach the potential they have.
“I don’t think we have the winning mettle, that toughness to figure it out for themselves,” said head coach Archie Miller. “We play hard, we have our moments when we look great. We shot 57 percent in the second half, 50 for the game on the road and only had 13 turnovers. We did some really good things. We’re just not physically and mentally tough enough to play on the road right now and find a way to win if we don’t have the lead.”
Dayton spent a lot of Saturday playing from behind, although never by much until near the end when the outcome of the game was no longer in doubt. UMass scored the first seven points of the game, and that was their biggest lead until the final minutes. Dayton managed to get the lead more than once, but almost every time UMass built a lead and the Flyers rallied, they didn’t quite get over the hump and take the lead. Dayton scored the first six points of the second half to tie the game, then traded baskets until an 8-0 UMass run.
The Flyers then had one of those stretches where they were very good, as they ran off 11 unanswered points to take the lead. Through the first 12 minutes, they were 13-17 from the field, with 11 assists on those baskets and just two turnovers.
After that, turnovers hurt, the Flyers cooled off and UMass regained the lead for good. The Minutemen made the plays to seal it, including a pair of clutch three-pointers by Terrell Vinson, and Dayton couldn’t do enough to make another comeback. This time it got to be too much, as all the second chances they gave UMass added up. The Flyers, one of the better rebounding teams in the Atlantic 10, allowed the Minutemen 13 offensive boards en route to a 36-27 rebounding edge.
“There have been very, very few times this season where we’ve played and there’s been four or five minutes to go where it hasn’t been a one-possession game,” Miller said. “Tonight was just another example of not being able to get something done in the fundamentals of basketball. If it’s not turning it over, it’s rebounding; if we’re rebounding, we’re turning it over. We’re not able to put all facets of the game together. Today, the determining factor was definitely the backboards.”
Many times, the reality about a “potential” team like Dayton is that the future is bright, but in the present, they “are who they are.” This team has three upperclassmen who start, but they also have four freshmen and two sophomores who see significant minutes. That may partially explain why this team has often been a little short. The Flyers are 1-7 in games decided by five points or less, and they haven’t been a great team coming from behind, with Saturday’s game being the latest case.
“In today’s game, I thought for about a 15-minute stretch, we played about as well as we’ve played in a long time,” said Miller.
Miller added that he thought the Flyers’ previous game, a 70-59 win over Xavier, was “maybe our best performance of the season.” That, along with games like their thorough dominance of Boston College in Charleston and wins over Alabama and Murray State, provided an example of how good this team can be. They simply haven’t been able to put it all together on a consistent basis.
Dayton is on the outside looking in as far as the Atlantic 10 Tournament goes. The top 12 teams get in, and Dayton is in 13th place with four games left. The Flyers are a game back of St. Bonaventure, who they play at home in their next-to-last game of the regular season. They will need that one and likely the prior game against Richmond, and it wouldn’t hurt if they did something they haven’t been able to do to date: win a road game in the Atlantic 10, at either Charlotte (Wednesday) or George Washington (regular season finale).
There isn’t much time left for this team to grow into being able to finish games better and start reaching some of their potential. The future is bright, but they don’t want to just knock on the door of the Atlantic 10 Tournament or wait until next season. They want to walk in and have a chance this season and worry about next season when that comes.
