The Dayton Flyers beat the Samford Bulldogs 65-63 Saturday night in the championship game of the CoSIDA Classic at The Pit in Albuquerque, NM. It was almost a different story however as the Flyers threw away an 11-point cushion with under 10 minutes remaining and had to hold off the Bulldogs with late-game heroics to pull out the win. A little more about that later. The Flyers get a week off before hosting Mt. St. Mary’s on Friday night in the home opener at the UD Arena — a game that’s sure to be a festive atmosphere.

Dayton and Samford got off to a slow start in the CoSIDA final and exchanged a handful of baskets before the Flyers started to pull away midway through the first half. The basketball wasn’t pretty — in fact it wasn’t pretty all night — but UD scrapped for a few loose balls and stick-backs to open up an eight-point lead with five minutes to go. While Dayton’s offense was playing consistently, the defense was nowhere to be found. Samford hung with the Flyers by driving uncontested to the rim nearly every trip down the floor for easy lay-ups and three-point plays. At times it looked like the red carpet had been rolled out and the band summoned.

Samford reduced the 8-point deficit to just a basket at the half with more dribble penetration and kickouts to wide-open perimeter players for easy dings from behind the arc. Samford converted on 8-21 treys on the night and nearly every Bulldog player had enough time to tie their shoes before letting go with a long-range bomb.

The Bulldog run was instigated by a Flyer mistake. With an 8-point lead and the ball with just a handful of minutes remaining in the half, Edwin Young dribbled down the court and forced a bad shot in the paint on a one-on-three situation. The Bulldogs came down the other end of the court, sank a basket, cut the lead to six, and added two more buckets to end the first half with the Flyers leading by just two.

In the second half, Dayton converted on a well-designed high-low play to Mark Ashman to score the first points of the final half, and then built on their lead on the heels of Tony Stanley’s hot shooting from three-point range. The Bulldogs played catch-up from this point on and managed to hang around the 7-8pt deficit zone by banging in more treys and slashing to the paint for more lay-ups.

Not to be outdone however, Dayton managed to build the lead back up to 11 points as Yuanta Holland, David Morris, and Cain Doliboa hit key shots down the stretch to pace the Flyers and, seemingly, put Dayton in a great position to finish the Bulldogs off comfortably. Not so fast.

Down double digits and needing to score in a big way, Samford decided to exchange three points for two nearly every trip down the floor. Bulldog players started casting away open trey after open trey without the nary of a hand in the face or a body in the way. After several minutes of carpetbombing, the Bulldogs were down by just two points in the closing minutes.

Though Dayton squirted away a comfortable lead, the Flyers executed at the tail end of the game when they absolutely had to. Up six points with three minutes left, Samford bombed in yet another trey to cut the Flyers lead to three, but Tony Stanley answered with a trey of his own to keep the contest at least a two-possession game. A couple trips down the floor later, Mark Ashman hit a turnaround baseline jumper that hit the front of the rim, bounced high, and fell through the net as if the basketball Gods were lending a helping hand for the red and blue.

The Bulldogs had one last chance to tie or win the game as Samford took possession of the ball with 30 seconds left and worked for an open jumper. After a loose-ball scramble out-of-bounds, Samford had one last chance but a trey from the corner fell short and Dayton came up with the rebound under the basket with four seconds left. Samford had just three team fouls however and as Dayton in-bounded the ball, the Bulldogs burned three quickies to send the Flyers into the bonus situation on the next infraction. With under two seconds left, the Flyers threw the ball the length of the court, caught the ball, and let the buzzer sound in what was a game of Kaopectate proportions.

On the whole, neither team played well and for much of the game it looked like a battle of two consolation teams rather than a battle of two squads vying for a tournament title. The match was competitive, but both sides had breakdowns and Dayton’s bench may have been the difference in the game.

The Flyer offense had a decent go of it all night and turned in the second solid performance in two days. The defense however was nonexistent. Knowing full-well that Samford is one of the national leaders in 3-pt shooting, Dayton let the Bulldog gunslingers run wild all night. When Samford wasn’t attempting a three pointer, their guards drove through the lane for easy baskets without even rubbing jerseys with a Flyer defender. While Samford was 24-6 a year ago and TAAC Champs, they had just two gameplans all evening: shoot the three or drive to the rim. The only Bulldog field goals attempts in the entire game were either from 20 feet or two feet. Everything in between was a basketball wasteland.

Despite the criticism on defense however, the only stat that matters is the one in the win-loss column. The Flyers are 2-0 with two wins away from the UD Arena — already double the total of wins away from home just a season ago. Mark Ashman took home CoSIDA Tournament MVP honors while David Morris was named to the All-Tournament Team. Morris assumed most of the ball-handling duties against Samford and appears to be the man Oliver Purnell is counting on to run the show. Edwin Young logged several minutes at off-guard and hit a critical trey late in the game to pace the Flyers. Young and Morris worked well together all night and could see more action together in future games that go down to the wire and necessitate ball-handling and free-throw accuracy.

Tony Stanley had a solid game all-around and could have easily been named to the All-Tournament Team as well. Though he continues to make mental mistakes from time to time, there’s no mistaking his propensity for getting hot from behind the arc.
Nate Green and Yuanta Holland split time at PF and did a credible job the entire game. Green got in foul trouble for the second game in a row — a bad habit that needs exorcised soon. In his defense, Green (and Ashman) were the recipient of a couple fouls that were crimes against humanity. Unlike the steady officiating in the New Mexico contest, the officials for the Samford game came from the school where the difference between a charge and a blocking foul are forbidden teachings. It was apparent the Principle of Verticality chapter had not been read in quite some time.

The Flyers look to make it three in a row on Friday night at the UD Arena. Few fans thought Dayton would be 2-0 at this point in the season, including the UDPRIDE staff — that is unless you are the optimistic John Churan. Dayton has a week to work out the kinks and strengthen a few weaknesses, but the Flyers have shown a toughness and grit not seen in UD circles for quite some time. That bodes well for Friday night — and potentially the rest of the season.