By Paul Casey Gotham
DAYTON, OH – What a difference a few weeks can make. On February fourth, Archie Miller and his Dayton Flyers dropped their fourth game in a row, a 58-50 decision at St. Louis. The loss left the Flyers at 4-5 in the Atlantic 10. A home game in the first round of the A-10 tournament seemed remote at best.
Three weeks later and the Flyers have a first-round bye in their sights.
Chris Johnson notched a double-double leading five in double figures as UD dismantled the UMass Minutemen, 76-43 on Blackburn Court Saturday night.
Johnson scored Dayton’s first eight as the Flyers grabbed a lead they never surrendered.
The senior guard nailed a catch-and-shoot three when Devin Oliver found him open in the right corner. Johnson followed with a rebound and putback of an Oliver attempt. He increased the early lead to five when he connected on his second trey of the game.
“Scoring the ball for Chris is almost secondary to what he brings to our team,” Miller commented. “When he makes shots and scores the ball, that’s great. I look at the rebounding totals, and he is ferocious.”
The Flyers continued to use the long ball to stretch the lead.
Luke Fabrizius connected on three straight as the Flyers took a 17-6 advantage. Kevin Dillard used a high ball screen from Alex Gavrilovic to get into the lane before kicking it out to Fabrizius for the first the trifecta. The tandem combined on the next trip when Dillard found Fabrizius for three of UD’s 13 first-half transition points. Fabrizius made it a 17-6 game with a catch-and-shoot three from Paul Williams.
“Luke was a difference maker,” Miller explained. “More than anything he got the building going. Our kids feed off that.”
The Minutemen closed the gap to six when Maxie Esho completed an unconventional three-point play. After hitting the front end of a one-and-one, the redshirt freshman chased down the rebound of his second attempt and laid it in off the glass.
UMass trailed 18-12, but that’s as close as they would get.
After Dillard hit one of two from the line, Josh Parker nailed a three from the top to bring the lead back to 10.
In the end, the story of the game was Dayton’s defense.
“Coach has really been on us the last few practices about defense,” Dillard said. The past couple of games we’ve really been attacking the defensive side of the ball, and really making teams adjust to our pressure.”
UMass came into the game leading the A-10 scoring more than 76 points per game. Prior to Saturday the Minutemen were hitting almost 44 percent from the floor including 33 percent behind the arc. The Flyers limited UMass to 13-52 (25 percent) from the floor and 4-17 from long range.
“For us it all starts and stops on the defensive end,” Miller said. “We’re a different team than we were in January. It starts with our ability to pressure the ball. It starts when a team comes across half-court. What are you telling them by the way you are playing?”
The Flyers created just 15 turnovers, but the Minutemen were forced to start their offense high and very rarely broke down the Flyer defense by getting the ball into the paint. UD’s defense stymied the Minutemen and their use of the high-ball screen.
“Our big guys did a nice job of not letting them get into paint,” Dillard explained. “We were able to control them for most of the game.”
Dayton scored eight of the first ten in the second half and never looked back.
Johnson finished with game-highs of 11 rebounds and 20 points. He hit 6-of-11 from the field including 4-of-9 from behind the arc.
Dillard followed with 14 and a game-high seven assists while committing just one turnover.
Fabrizius chipped in 11. Oliver and Parker each had 10. Matt Kavanaugh grabbed 10 boards.
Chaz Williams led the Minutemen with 11 points. Esho added 10.
The Flyers outrebounded UMass 46-37.
With the win, Dayton moves into a sixth place tie with UMass at 8-6. Both teams sit one game out of third.
The Flyers travel to Richmond on Wednesday for a 7 pm tipoff with the Spiders.
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