Nate Santos led the Flyers were 18 points after scoring 23 against GW. (Press Pros File Photos)
For the second straight road game, the heavily-favored Dayton Flyers took a header, this time to UMass, 76-72, when the Minutemen hit 19 of 20 free throws, including two at game’s end by Daniel Rivera with 14 seconds left to seal UD’s doom, their second straight Atlantic 10 defeat.
Amherst, MASS. — The University of Dayton Flyers suffered a mass execution Wednesday night, a UMass execution.
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For the second time in less than a week, the heavily-favored Flyers felt the ignominy of an unexpected defeat.
UMass, 5-10 and 0-2 in Atlantic 10 play when the night began, raked the Flyers under the basket and at the foul line to score a 76-72 arm-breaker in a near-empty Mullins Center.
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It was as if former UMass legends Dr. J. (Julius Irving) and Marcus Camby were back in uniform. They weren’t and they weren’t needed to beat the Flyers on this night.
For UD, it was as if the BeeGees were singing in their ears, “And the lights all went out in Massachusetts.”
This one mostly was decided with the clock stopped while the two teams were shooting free throws.
And UMass, 63% shooters entering the game, was unworldly — 19 for 20.
The Flyers walked to the line 38 times and might as well have been walking the plank. They made 28, leaving 10 decisive points at the foul line. UMass, though, trekked to the foul line and was as predictable and precise as a metronome — cock arm, release, follow-through, swish.
Malachi Smith is in a shooting funk, making just 4 of his last 19 shots.
And it was emphasized in the final seconds.
UD trailed 74-71 with 18 seconds left and Nate Santos was fouled. With a chance to cut it to one, Santos made the first but missed the second, leaving the Flyers down by two.
The missed free throw was humongous because the Flyers had to foul and with 14 seconds left Daniel Rivera made two free throws, putting UMass ahead by an unreachable four points.
Rivera scored a career-high 23 points and created a double-double with 12 rebounds. And he had plenty of scoring help — 18 by Rahsool Diggins and 18 by Marqui Worthy, who came off the bench to score his career best.
On Dayton’s side, Santos scored 18, Javon Bennett 17 and Zed Key 16. But for the second straight game, Malachi Smith and and Enoch Cheeks were AWOL.
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During UD’s 82-62 debacle at George Washington, Cheeks was 1 for 9. He was 1 for 5 Wednesday. Smith was 4 for 13 at GW and 0 for 6 Wednesday.
There were seven lead changes and six ties. But UD’s last lead was 56-55 with nine minutes left. Then the Flyers made only two baskets in the last six minutes.
Zed Key scored 16 and spent considerable time at the foul line.
UMass pulverized the Flyers in the paint, outscoring them 46-24 as the Minutemen knew the best way to handle matters was to get physical.
It was a UMass stampede under the basket, but the Minutemen did it with the grace and ease of a waltz on the Danube.
UD coach Anthony Grant was bluntly honest and incisive during his post-game post mortem after his Flyers slipped to 11-5 and 1-2 in the Atantic 10.
“We’re not playing very good basketball right now, that’s the truth,” said Grant with a gross understatement. Not playing very good is putting it softly. They are playing terrible basketball, not within a mile-and-a-half of the team that beat UConn and Marquette.
“On either side. . .we don’t have the intensity on the defensive side to get stops,” he added.
The Flyers did stop the Minutemen from making threes. They were 6 for 24, but UD was worse at 3 for 20. And of UMass’s 27 field goals, 17 came on assists.
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“Teams have been able to go at us and exploit some matchups and take advantage of it,” said Grant. “They were able to impose their will on the glass. They played harder and with more intent.
“We didn’t do the things we needed to do and we’ve gone amok from an offensive standpoint,” he added.
Javon Bennett hits a late-game three on his way to 17 points.
He didn’t name names, but he didn’t have to do it. A look at the box scores from the last two games indicates what Grant means. Smith and Cheeks are out of sorts.
“We’ve had some guys we’ve relied on who have been able to help on the offensive end kind of struggling right now,” said Grant.
Kind of?
“Hopefully it’s a slump,” he added. “We have to find that connectivity in terms of the guys on the floor together helping each other, doing the things we were doing earlier in the year that, for whatever reason, we are no longer doing.”
After laying two gigantic dinosaur eggs, the Flyers have a bye week, time Grant hopes can be used to resurrect the team that did much more than acquire tans in Hawaii during the Maui Invitational.
“This is probably a good time to have a bye week and at the end of the day we need guys to perform better on both sides of the ball,” said Grant. “That’s been the theme in all three (Atlantic 10) games that we’ve had.
“We were fortunate to win the first one (LaSalle in UD Arena),but in terms of doing the physical things that are required to win basketball games, especially on the road. . .we’re just not doing them.”
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On the other side of the room, UMass is another team that believes a win over Dayton is a basketball feast, complete with dessert.
Before the game, UMass guard Rahsool Diggins said, “Dayton is one team I want to beat. Coach (Frank Martin) always talks about how much he respects Dayton.”
Enoch Cheeks is in a scoring slump, 1 for 14 over the last two games.
That’s because Grant and Martin played high school basketball together at Miami (Fla.) High School, coached together, and have a mutual admiration affair.
During the afternoon shoot-around, after the rest of the Minutemen left the floor, Diggins stayed for 45 minutes and took 100 shots.
It looked as if it was wasted energy and wasted time with little more than three minutes left. Diggins was 5 for 18 that included 2 for 10 from three.
UMass led, 67-65, and Diggins found the ball in his hands in the left corner. So what that he was 5 for 18 and 2 for 10.
He launched a three. . .swish. . .UMass 70, Dayton 67, a Diggins Dagger.
UD had won eight straight against UMass, but the Minutemen gave the Flyers a parting gift.
After this season, UMass is vacating the Atlantic 10 to join the Mid-American Conference, populated by five Ohio schools — Miami, Ohio U., Toledeo, Akron and Kent State. UMass will be the only MAC team east of Ohio.
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