The Louisville Cardinals came up with the big plays down the stretch and capitalized on several Dayton mistakes late in the game to sneak out of town with a 68-65 win before 12,774 vocal fans at the UD Arena. Freshman PG David Morris missed a 22-footer with 4 seconds left that sealed the outcome. The Flyers, losers of four of their last six contests, even their record at 4-4 while the Cards improve to 4-2.

In a game that matched one physical team against another finesse team, the Cardinals’ power game took high honors as the Flyers played from behind for nearly the entire contest. Tony Stanley scored 17 first-half points and finished with 18 points, 4 rebounds, and 3 steals while Mark Ashman finished with a game-high 20 points and a team-high 7 boards.

With the UD Arena crowd anxious to see the Flyers get out of the gate running, U of L broke out to a 8-0 lead before Dayton settled down and found offensive answers. Tony Stanley and Coby Turner tossed in treys as the Flyers tied the game at 8 but a few minutes later UD found themselves down 11 and in need of a quick solution. Slowly, Dayton began to assert themselves on the offensive and defensive ends and managed to trim the halftime deficit to 37-34 on a late-half flurry.

In the second half, Dayton took a brief lead but once again found themselves down several baskets in lieu of Louisville’s aggressive defense and physical play. Cain Doliboa ignited a second-half run by nailing a trey, and Dayton held tough on several consecutive defensive stands to take a 62-61 lead with only a few minutes remaining on an old-fashioned three-point play by Doliboa. During Dayton’s run, the Flyers went small and used quick hands and feet to make up the deficit. As the clock fell under two minutes to go however the Cardinals made all the big plays and Dayton made all the critical mistakes.

Louisville hit a trey and converted on another rim-roller while the Flyers mishandled several easy defensive rebounds, threw bad passes, and eased up on the throttle at a time when UD fans were hoping the team would step up and take care of business.

Dayton had possession with 28 seconds to go and down only two points but David Morris committed an untimely turnover that eventually led to Dayton’s last hurrah to tie the game on a three-pointer at the buzzer. Ironically, junior Edwin Young was not on the court during the last minutes of the game to lend ball-handling, experience, and free throw shooting. What can only be described as a coaching error in retrospect can be summed up as a lesson learned for Head Coach Oliver Purnell. Morris is quicker and the team’s best foul shooter but is still prone to freshman mistakes. In fairness however, the game was not lost in the last possession.

Key to Dayton’s downfall was an inability to stop the Cards’ offensive set. U of L burned Dayton for three backdoor lay-ups in the first half and scored on several short jumpers in the paint in the final stanza. For the game, Louisville shot .509% from the floor while Dayton hit only .407% of their attempts. Couple this with losing the battle of the boards (33-27) and converting only 14 of 21 free throws and its no secret why Dayton played catch-up all night against a decent but not outstanding Louisville team. While U of L is shooting a blistering .510% from the field for the season, Denny Crum’s team made enough mistakes to cost them a victory against an opponent ready to take advantage of miscues.

Alex Sanders led Cardinal scorers with 17 points to go along with 9 rebounds. Cameron Murray and Nate Johnson added 16 and 11. Johnson received a technical foul in the first half after throwing an elbow to the head of Ted Fitz but was not ejected.

Cain Doliboa rounded out the bulk of the Flyer scoring with 10 points while Metzler added 7 and Turner 6. Coby Turner made only 2-9 shots from the field and injured his hip in a collision late in the second half that sidelined him for the final Flyer push. His status is unknown.

Dayton returns to practice this week, will take a shortened holiday break, and get back on the hardwood Sunday afternoon against #3 Cincinnati in the Rock n’ Roll Shootout in Cleveland. The Bearcats may be a legitimate Final-4 contender this year and outclass the Flyers at every position with the possible exception of Tony Stanley’s talents.