No. 6 Dayton brings streak, national spotlight to UMass

Dayton’s climb up the nationwide rankings is bringing newfound awareness on the highway for its system.

The No. 6 Flyers are drawing large crowds on the highway, with their next struggle coming Saturday at Massachusetts in Atlantic ten Convention motion.

The Flyers (22-two, 11-) are the optimum-ranked opponent to participate in at UMass because No. two Saint Joseph’s on Feb. 25, 2004.

The Flyers defeated UMass, 88-sixty, on Jan. 11 at Dayton.

Dayton enters the meeting showdown as a person of the hottest groups in the state. With a thirteen-video game profitable streak and a 5- mark in highway video games this year, the Flyers have momentum on their facet.

Obi Toppin is turning into a should-see participant in faculty basketball.

The significant-flying Toppin scored 22 factors and grabbed ten rebounds, though introducing three dunks to increase his year total to eighty in the get in excess of Rhode Island on Tuesday. The Flyers are off to a person of their very best commences in system history, profitable 22 of their initial 24 video games for the initial time because 1957-fifty eight.

Toppin mentioned the Flyers had to make a statement versus the Rams.

“We understood they ended up the No. two (group) in the meeting, and we had to set a stamp on what we have going on,” Toppin mentioned.

Dayton mentor Anthony Grant, who notched his 250th occupation victory Tuesday, mentioned his group should study to maintain its emotions in check as the year creeps closer to the NCAA Tournament. Seven technicals ended up handed out in the victory in excess of Rhode Island, with Dayton’s bench, Rodney Chatman and Trey Landers obtaining techs.

“You hate to see a video game with two truly excellent groups marred by the amount of technological fouls in the video game,” Grant mentioned. “A ton of emotion. That’s what’s going to materialize when two truly excellent groups get together.”

The Minutemen (ten-14, four-seven) are in the midst of a three-video game homestand, defeating George Mason on Sunday to enhance to ten-three at dwelling.

UMass struggled in the initial half in its prior meeting with Dayton, as the Flyers shot fifty nine % in the initial twenty minutes to cruise to the dwelling get. The Minutemen had a tough displaying in their last video game, top UMass mentor Matt McCall to consider out all five of his starters early versus George Mason to send out a concept.

“We are not budging on the conventional of effort,” McCall mentioned. “We failed to give excellent effort to get started the video game and that is eventually how we took the direct in the initial half, was our effort. Just actively playing challenging. It is really acquired to be that way each day.”

The Minutemen have struggled actively playing 40 minutes of basketball, hence falling into an early deficit or collapsing in the 2nd half. They just about squandered a large direct when George Mason scored 14 straight factors in a four-moment stretch.

Freshman centre Tre Mitchell, who scored 16 factors and grabbed seven rebounds in the initial meeting with Dayton, mentioned the Minutemen cannot avoid a letdown if they want to pull off an upset on Saturday.

“I think
it can be just our attitude since there is been so several periods that we’ve blown a direct and then we just maintain permitting them go on their operate,” Mitchell mentioned. “It is really time to stage up and not let this materialize no much more. So, it was just excellent we acquired that get.”

–Area Level Media