While it wasn’t always pretty, the University of Dayton Flyers defeated Mt. St. Mary’s 73-51 on Friday night. The Flyers used a strong defensive effort, a couple of Cain Doliboa bombs, and Tony Stanley’s inside scoring to pull away in the second half. With the victory the Flyers improve to 3-0 for the first time since the 1990-91 season. Dayton struggled through most of the first half. Mt. St. Mary’s led 12-6 about six minutes into the game as the Flyers gave up offensive rebounds on several possessions and missed several wide open shots.

Throughout much of the early going UD was willing to settle for perimeter jump shots rather than looking inside first. Led by the inside scoring of Tony Stanley — who was frequently posting up smaller defenders — and several offensive rebounds by Mark Ashman and Yuanta Holland, the Flyers put together a 20-6 run over the next 8 minutes to go up 26-18. At that point Ashman picked up his second foul and took a seat on the bench. The offense went into a dry spell, with the Mount cutting the lead to a single bucket at the half. Mt. St. Mary’s had a chance to tie the game at 29 at the end of the half, but was unable to convert off a steal of an Edwin Young pass.

Both teams shot poorly in the half. Mt. St. Mary’s was 10 of 33 for the half while the Flyers were 10 of 38 for a frigid 26%. Rebounding was even, with both teams giving up 10 offensive rebounds in the half. Fortunately for Flyer fans, UD warmed up in the second half while the Mount went into a deep freeze. The Flyers continually frustrated the Mount with tenacious defense, continually denying open looks at the basket. The Flyers also kept the Mount off of the offensive glass in the second half until the game was out of hand. After trading baskets for the first several minutes of the half, UD slowly pulled away, eventually opening a 70-44 lead. The Flyers were led in scoring by Tony Stanley with 16 and Cain Doliboa with 13. More impressive were the rebounding numbers. Brooks Hall led the Flyers with 10 boards, while Nate Green, Tony Stanley and Mark Ashman each grabbed nine. Continuing an impressive display of taking care of the basketball, the Flyers had only nine turnovers for the game.

Other than the poor first half shooting and the first half failure to control the defensive glass, most signs for Flyer fans continue to be positive. The Flyers continue to share the ball, generally make sound decisions, and have balanced scoring. The Flyers continue to look to be able to use their depth without a significant drop-off in play. Nine Flyers saw more than 15 minutes against the Mount, with no one getting more than 30 minutes. The defensive effort was again the key, holding the Mount to 28% field goal shooting for the game, and limiting Gregory Harris to 12 points on 6 of 21 shooting.

Next up for the Flyers are the Kentucky Wildcats, a 63–51 loser to Arizona in the championship game of the preseason NIT on Friday night. Game time is 7:00pm at the Firstar Center in Cincinnati. As of Friday morning tickets were still available.