Dayton’s season has been a disappointment so far, losing to the likes of La Salle, Fordham, Duquesne, and Rhode Island, all teams that this program should not be losing to with this much talent. Well, add Saint Joe’s to the list for this season. The Hawks completed dismantled the Flyers on Wednesday night, winning 97-84 on senior night at Hawk Hill.
I have to give credit to Saint Joe’s for coming out and playing hard, especially during a season where they have had a long covid pause, injuries to key players, and only two wins up to this point against Albany and La Salle. Ryan Daly and Taylor Funk combined for 61 of the Hawks’ 97 point total. Jalen Crutcher and Ibi Watson were the only bright spots for Dayton, scoring 17 and 16 points, respectively.
Personally, I am disappointed about this loss mostly since Dayton has blown other opportunities to get an at-large bid after a good non-conference and the chance to win the conference with the conference schedule they had as well as the results they had against Saint Louis, Duquesne, George Mason, and Rhode Island early on after the La Salle and Fordham games. Now the Flyers have blown a third opportunity, this time to gain a top 4 sport in the A10 tournament seeding. If the Flyers would have won their final two games against Saint Joe’s and St. Bonaventure as well as have Davison and UMass lose out, which has happened so far and has a high probability to happen, Dayton would be the 4 seed in the conference standings. Instead, the Flyers drop to 8th.
Dayton will play its final game on the road at St. Bonaventure on Monday night at 5:00 pm at the Reilly Center in Olean, NY. The Flyers have had good fortune playing at Bona, winning their last 9 games at the Reilly Center. This will be Dayton’s final tune up game before the A10 tournament that will start later on that week in Richmond.
