It wasn’t a breakout game that rekindled the Flyer spirit from the Maui Invitational. It wasn’t even pretty at times. But the Dayton Flyers won a game for the first time in four tries and improved to 11-7 (2-3) with a 62-43 victory over the LaSalle Exlporers at the UD Arena. Tony Stanley led all Flyer scorers with 15pts while Yuanta Holland added 14 and Keith Waleskowski 13 to go along with a team-high nine rebounds.

Dayton got things off to a fine start by opening a 10-2 lead in the early going, and many fans in attendance smelled a rout. It wasn’t to be however — at least in the conventional sense — as LaSalle turned the momentum around and took a brief first half lead for themselves. While Dayton owned the glass and kept LaSalle to a dismal percentage from the field, the Flyers couldn’t pull away because of costly unforced turnovers and mediocre shooting of their own. Despite leading in most of the statistical categories, Dayton held just a 23-21 advantage by halftime. Considering LaSalle played so poorly and Dayton’s Keith Waleskowski had three fouls in the first half, no one knew what the second half might bring — especially in light of the team’s inability to build a lead and sustain it in the latter parts of a game.

Fortunately, Dayton scored the first three baskets of the second half and opened up a nine-point lead before things could really go wrong. LaSalle kept the margin to 7-9pts for several minutes but couldn’t make a serious dent in the deficit. As the game clock dipped under 10:00 to play, the Explorers simply ran out of gas and the Flyers extended the lead from 14pts to 20pts to seal the win. While Dayton shot well above .500% from the field in the second half to help their shooting percentage, 17 turnovers for the game was far too many and the Flyers continue to do a sub-par job of handling the basketball or avoiding mental mistakes.
Defensively, the Flyers did a solid job of containing LaSalle’s All-Conference tandem of Rasual Butler and Victor Thomas. While both average over 20ppg, Thomas finished with 15 and Butler a disappointing six. Point guard Julian Blanks chipped in nine points to help make up for things, but with a non-existent bench, LaSalle cannot afford to have its “double trouble” duo misfiring in the same contest and expect to win. For the game, LaSalle shot a dismal 15-50 from the field (.300%), and some of that can be attributed to Dayton’s rededication to solid man-to-man defense. But the Explorer offense looked like they were trying to pul away from a stop sign in fifth gear all afternoon and did a whole lot of nothing for most of the game, making Dayton’s responsibilities that much easier. Against a better, more motivated squad, the Flyer defense would have been much less effective.

Offensively, Dayton shot a respectable 26-50 from the floor (.520%) but nailed just 3-11 from behind the arc. The Flyers continue to emphasize the three-pointer on nearly ever possession and it appears to be their first option on too many occasions. When Dayton got the ball down low in the blocks to Yuanta Holland, Nate Green, or Keith Waleskowski, UD had little resistance.

Dayton needed a victory in the worst way and got back on the positive side of things on Sunday afternoon. Things don’t get easier however as they travel to Olean, NY, for a Thursday night affair with a talented St. Bonaventure squad. After the Bonnies, Fordham and Xavier are on the horizon so there is no time for the team to catch their breath and start celebrating. Dayton must continue to look for inside points and avoid the lure of the three-point shot. On defense, the Flyers must tighten up their man-to-man at least two or three more notches if they have serious intentions of picking off some or all of the remaining powers in the Atlantic-10.