The Dayton Flyers made it an undefeated 2000-01 preseason as the home team overcame shaky defense and a 5pt halftime deficit to beat the Premier All-Stars 85-81 before a sizeable Flyer contingent at the UD Arena Tuesday night. Dayton opens the regular season on Monday against nationally-ranked UConn in the Maui Invitational.

While the first exhibition game was a clinic in stingy defense, Dayton perfected the Matador approach against PAS, and paid mightily all evening as the traveling bandits of college has-beens and NBA rejects put on an offensive show for much of the game. The visitors stormed out of the gates and controlled much of the first half, building a 9pt lead before the Flyers trimmed it to five by halftime. Between the opening whistle and intermission, PAS exploited Dayton’s soft halfcourt defense by making an array of one-handed leaners, turnaround fall-away jumpers, and dipsy-doos in the paint. While PAS was shooting lights out, Dayton didn’t help themselves on the offensive end of the court. With PAS dressing just eight players, the Flyers should have been forcing the ball in the paint and drawing fouls for cheap points at the charity stripe, but it wasn’t until the final minute of the half that PAS committed their seventh infraction and fell into the bonus situation. Without any foul trouble to force a bad hand, PAS continued an aggressive stance on both ends of the court that rattled Dayton until the middle of the second half.

With Dayton unwilling to dump it in the paint, the Flyers looked for fortunes from the outside, but by and large, open shots weren’t falling for Tony Stanley, Brooks Hall, and David Morris. When Dayton tried knifing in the paint for penetration, the Flyers fumbled the ball, lost possession, and needed strong transition defense hold it together on the other end.

The second half was a definite improvement however and the lid started coming off the basket as Hall and Stanley connected from the outside while Keith Waleskowski and Yuanta Holland did the dirty work in the post to give the Flyers a 44-43 lead. Though the offense began firing, the defense — despite improving from the first half — still had trouble stopping PAS from hanging around and making a game of it in the final minutes. PAS got to the foul line whenever they wanted and filled the scoreboard with freebies — and unlike most patchwork exhibition teams, they shot them lights out.

Dayton gradually stretched the lead to 10pts however and it proved to be enough to derail the visitors as PAS started sucking serious wind with eight minutes to go and needed 27pts from Justice Thigpen to keep things close. Thigpen was a load all night for David Morris and he talked it up for much of the contest. Thigpen dropped 26pts on Ohio Univ. one night ago — though he also dropped the ball quite a bit. He had 10 turnovers against the Bobcats.

While the defense was downright mediocre and the offense continues to be hot or cold, several players had solid overall games. Brooks Hall had a typical game, doing a little of everything on the court by chipping in 16pts, 5rbs, and 7assts. Tony Stanley netted a team-high 19pts, while David Morris added 16pts and 5assts.

Yuanta Holland had a big second half and finished with a quiet 15pts and 13rbs. If Holland can add some thunder to his game as the season opener approaches, good things are in store. Keith Waleskowski had another solid performance and showed off his blue-collar attitude on several occasions to give the Flyers a lift. Waleskowski moved well without the ball and opened himself up for several pick-and-rolls that turned into lay-ups underneath the hoop.

Dayton tips the regular season off on Monday against #13 UConn in the Maui Invitational. UDPride will be there and provide complete coverage throughout the three days of the event.