Dayton Flyers vs. Saint Louis Billikens

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About Dayton: Senior guard Kyle Davis likely will miss his second straight game with a sprained ankle and bruised foot. Miller said Thursday after a 75-59 victory over Richmond he doubted Davis would play. ? KenPom.com gives UD a 98 percent chance of winning and predicts a 73-50 score. ? Sophomore forward Xeyrius Williams is Dayton?s top scorer (7.6) and rebounder (4.6) off the bench. ? Dayton?s senior class has 92 victories. It is five away from tying the school record set the 2011 seniors. ? Dayton is 14-0 when it shoots better than 40 percent from the floor. ? Dayton shot a season-best 80.8 percent from the free-throw line (21 of 26) against Richmond.

About Saint Louis: The team?s leading scorer, Jermaine Bishop, has missed the last nine games with an ankle injury. ? Senior guard Reggie Agbeko started the first 15 games but has come off the bench in the last three. He averages 9.7 points per game and ranks second in the A-10 with 7.9 rebounds per game. ? The Billikens rank 249th in the RPI. Dayton ranks 26th. Dayton ranks 36th in the Pomeroy rankings, and Saint Louis is 311th. ? Saint Louis and Dayton had one common non-conference opponent: Alabama. Saint Louis lost 62-57 to Alabama. Dayton beat Alabama 77-72.

 

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Dayton a tough place for SLU to find confidence




For an Atlantic 10 team that struggles to score points, a game at Dayton would not seem to be the confidence builder that is needed.

St. Louis University scored 37 points in a loss at Dayton last season and followed with 49 in an overtime loss at home. They shot a combined 27.8 percent in those games.

Now as one of the lowest-scoring teams in the country, the Billikens will be faced Sunday with trying to solve a defense that leads the conference in scoring defense. And it comes after SLU played its worst half of basketball in a long time in its last outing against St. Bonaventure.

Dayton plays the type of aggressive defense that has been problematic for the Billikens.

?I thought we?d worked through some of the turnovers and some of the other things I saw a month ago and hadn?t seen in the last week or so,? SLU coach Travis Ford said after scoring 52 against the Bonnies. ?But athletic and physical teams have given us a little bit of a problem.?

Ford knew in the preseason that his team would be offensively challenged. In recent weeks he?s had to adjust to the loss of injured guard Jermaine Bishop, the team?s leading scorer, and Mike Crawford?s hamstring woes and season-long shooting slump.

Davell Roby is the only healthy player scoring in double figures with a 10.6-point average. While others have tried to pick up the slack, no one has done it consistently. That has left Ford to hope that he has more than one or two players perform well in a given game.



Averaging 60.6 points, the Billi-kens rank No. 344 in scoring in the country out of 347 Division I teams. That figure has dropped to 59.5 points in six A-10 games.

Dayton allows 64.5 per game, holds opponents to 40.5 percent shooting and forces 16.4 turnovers per game. And so, the Flyers are well on their way to a fourth consecutive 20-win season as a conference championship contender under coach Archie Miller.

To get an idea of the gap between the programs, Dayton already has league wins over St. Bonaventure and Rhode Island, two teams that beat SLU by a total of 53 points.

?I like our chemistry, our commitment level and where we are now,? Miller said. ?Our work ethic as a group has been good and there aren?t a whole lot of distractions for our team. That?s a big key in how we approach the early part of league and approach our business so that what we do every day travels to the court on game day.?

The loss at Dayton last season, when the Billikens had a deeper supply of weapons, was their most lopsided in the three years since their last NCAA Tournament appearance. In that time, SLU has lost seven times by 30 points or more with a handful of 28- and 29-point defeats.

The Billikens made their slow tempo work to their advantage against Dayton at Chaifetz Arena last year before some questionable strategic moves led to a blown lead and overtime loss.

Returning to Dayton, which boasts one of the few truly hostile environments in the A-10, will offer far more challenges for a team that has been relying on a seven-man rotation, including three freshmen.