UD Avoids Disaster in 74-64 2OT Win Over Richmond

The UD men's basketball team returned home after two weeks away from UD Arena, hosting the Richmond Spiders on Saturday afternoon in a must-win game to control destiny for a coveted double-bye in the upcoming A10 Tournament. UD got the job done -- barely -- with a 74-64 decision that took some late heroics and a pair of overtimes to decide.  Dayton improves to 20-9 (10-6) while the Spiders fall to 10-20 (5-12).
UD lost 69-64 last year at the Robins Center on a night when Javon Bennett scored 18 points. The Flyers came into today's contest winners of 10 of the last 12 games in the series and were 22-11 overall in 33 meetings between the two schools.
Nate Santos opened the game with a triple, but Richmond scored a pair of baskets as the Flyers committed three early turnovers before Enoch Cheeks added a trey to give Dayton a 6-4 advantage. The Spiders responded with five straight points, culminating in a trey from the right side to take the 9-6 lead at the first media timeout of the half.  The teams traded baskets on the restart as UR maintained the 14-11 lead with 11:55 remaining at the second media timeout. UD offense struggled, managing just one basket inside the arc through the first eight minutes.  The Spiders hit a trey out of the stoppage, but Santos responded with a dunk. A Flyer steal led to a Malachi Smith triple to trim the deficit to 17-16 at the under-8 stoppage. UD surrendered another trey to fall behind 20-16 but Amael L'Etang got a point-blank deuce on the other ...