Three takeaways from Dayton’s win over UConn

Grant wore a Jay’s Light T-shirt in support of the organization honoring his late daughter because his players doused him with water in the locker room after an 85-67 win over No. 2 Connecticut. The red Dayton jersey he wore during the game ended up on a drying rack — or perhaps in a Dayton basketball museum; That’s how big this victory was for Grant’s program.

The seventh-place game at the Maui Invitational could have been an NCAA Tournament play-in game for Dayton, which needed at least one win in the tournament to improve its overall record for March. He accomplished that and more with a dominant and historic performance that began after midnight in Ohio, where weary fans wondered whether they should stay awake or save energy for Thanksgiving.

Those who made it to the end were rewarded with Dayton’s first win against a top-25 team since beating No. 4 Kansas with the Mustapha Amzil shot in 2022, but according to the top-25 poll of The Associated Press ranked this two places higher.

Dayton (6-2) had not beaten a team as ranked as Connecticut (4-3) since 1974, when it beat No. 2 Notre Dame at UD Arena. It had lost nine straight games to teams ranked first or second in the Associated Press Top 25 poll. It hadn’t beaten No. 6 Pittsburgh by such a large margin since an 80-55 win over No. 6 Pittsburgh at UD Arena in 2007.

“I’m so proud of our boys,” Grant said. “Three really challenging games. We talked about this before the tournament started. We knew this was one of the most challenging fields – a great tournament. We are always happy to be invited. That’s why we are grateful. Our boys really fought. I think we really grew up here in the tournament.”

Dayton bounced back from a 92-90 loss to No. 12 North Carolina on Monday and an 89-84 loss to No. 5 Iowa State on Tuesday. In the first game they had an 18-point halftime lead and in the second game they had a four-point lead.

Against UConn, Dayton built a 41-34 lead at halftime and didn’t relinquish the lead in the second half, although UConn was able to tie a point early in the half.

“We had to do some things better tonight,” Grant said. “We understood that against a UConn team that is just extremely talented and well-coached. We knew we had to play really well, especially defensively. I’m just proud of the resilience, the toughness, the cohesion, the heart that we showed throughout the tournament. This didn’t feel like a seventh place game tonight. Our guys understood the opportunity, the things we’ve talked about all year in terms of our goals and what we’re trying to accomplish. They understood that. So I’m really proud and really grateful.”

Here are three takeaways from Dayton’s final game on Maui:

1. The Flyers played their best in the last five minutes: Dayton forward Isaac Jack took a hard fall in the second half and hit his head on the field. Coach Mike Mulcahey, Grant and others looked after him.

In this tournament everyone suffered a defeat. Three physical games, all intense until the end, should have worn the Flyers down. Instead, they opened up a close game by outscoring UConn 25-12 in the final 5 minutes, 39 seconds.

Dayton lost two games at the Maui Invitational for the first time in five appearances, but in many ways delivered its best performance, lasting 40 minutes against North Carolina and Auburn and then handing tournament favorite UConn, which lost its first two games to Memphis and Colorado by three points overall, their worst non-regular season loss since coach Dan Hurley’s first season in 2018.

“It means a lot,” said Dayton forward Nate Santos, who scored 18 points on 5 of 9 shooting. “Obviously we had really close games in the two games before that. Like Coach said, we’ve really grown up. We really put together a complete game. We realized what we are truly capable of. It was nice to see that we finished the game strongly.”

2. The Flyers made their free throws: A week after Grant bemoaned the team’s free throw woes (10 of 18) in a 74-53 win over New Mexico State at UD Arena, the Flyers shot 27 of 30 (90%). It was the team’s best performance since it scored 28 of 30 points against Cincinnati last season.

Zed Key made 9 of 10. Nate Santos made 6 of 7. Posh Alexander, who had his best game of the season with 16 points and six assists, made 5 of 5. Malachi Smith made 4 of 4. Javon Bennett made 1 of 2.

Ironically, four free throws on one possession started Dayton’s game-winning run. A day after Iowa State made the most of a flagrant foul with two free throws and a layup on a possession to break a tie with 44 seconds to play, Key made two free throws after a flagrant foul. This time the call went against UConn star Alex Karaban, who backed into Jack, causing him to fall hard to the ground and hit his head.

Dayton got the ball back, Alexander fouled and made both free throws. Dayton led 66-57 with 5:38 to play.

Dayton outscored UConn, which shot 7 of 11, by 20 points.

“We’re starting to put everything together,” Santos said. “We struggled last week and it’s good to see we’re improving in the areas where we struggled.”

3. UConn has quickly returned to earth after winning two straight national championships: The Huskies became the second former Maui Invitational champion to lose the seventh-place game. Illinois won the championship in 2012 and lost in the seventh-place game in 2013.

The Huskies finished third in the preseason AP poll and have trailed only Kansas since then, while they received six first-place votes in the last poll. They could be eliminated from the poll next week after losing to three unranked teams: Memphis; Colorado; and Dayton.

“It’s scary that a five-point game turned into this with five minutes left,” UConn coach Dan Hurley said. “When you come to a tournament like this and there are three games in three days and things start to go bad, there is no way to fix it because there is no time. You just have to deal with the situation. It’s obviously been a humbling journey for the program to achieve what we’ve achieved.

STAR OF THE MATCH

Cheeks scored 10 of his 20 points in the final six minutes. He made 8 of 12 field goal attempts and 3 of 5 three-pointers. He put the exclamation point on the win with a fast-break dunk at 1:15.

Cheeks made 3 of 5 three-point shots. He made 3 of 6 against Iowa State and 3 of 8 against North Carolina.

STATUS OF THE GAME

Dayton shot a season-high 47.1% (8 of 17) from 3-point range. Dayton shot 43.2% (29 of 67) in the tournament. Dayton shot 31.1% in its first five games. It improved his season percentage to 35.5. The national average is 33.1