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The Dayton Flyers closed out their game against the Saint Louis Billikens on a 10-0 run to claim the 51-44 victory on the road. The Flyers claimed an Atlantic 10 conference road victory after losing their previous three attempts to get a conference road victory against Davidson, Massachusetts and George Washington. Dayton goes to 18-5 on the season and gets within a half game of the lead in the A-10 conference standings.
Saint Louis failed to close out a game yet again. The Billikens have struggled in the final four minutes of games this season. SLU committed 5 turnovers and missed their final 5 field goal attempts at the end of the game. The team was stagnant on the offensive end of the floor and the team lacked faith in their offensive sets during the game against Dayton. Saint Louis falls to 10-14 on the year with a 2-9 record in A-10 play.
The game started off very slow. After an opening 3-pointer by SLU Guard Marcus Bartley, both teams struggled to make a bucket. The ball would not fall for either team, they had good looks, but the shots could not go in the goal. The score was only 11-9 at the second media timeout of the first half.
After the second media timeout, Dayton went on a huge scoring drought. They closed out the first half going 2 of their last 13 from the field. Their shooting struggles allowed Saint Louis get to back into the game.
Saint Louis used a dribble-drive offense to go on a 6-0 run during the final two minutes of the first half. SLU got layups from Guard Achraf Yacoubou, Forward Milik Yarbrough and Guard Davell Roby. The Billikens had some success and put Dayton’s defense on its heels. That forced Dayton Head Coach Archie Miller to call a timeout. However, SLU could not get another bucket and held a 6 point lead going into halftime.
Both teams could not score in the opening three minutes of the second half until Dayton’s Kendall Pollard made a free throw. The Flyers battled in the interior despite a significant height disadvantage and got buckets from Forward Dyshawn Pierre and Pollard to cut the Bills lead down to 3 points. Dayton eventually reclaimed the lead on a Darrell Davis 3-pointer.
The game had 7 lead changes during the second half as the teams were continued to struggle to find the bucket. The teams exchanged free throws during these lead changes. SLU appeared to break away by getting a huge layup from Forward Reggie Agbeko to reclaim the lead for the Billikens.
SLU Guard Mike Crawford hit another bucket giving the Billikens a 3 point lead, but Crawford’s bucket was the final field goal of the game for the Billikens. Dayton would close the game on a 10-0 run to claim the victory in the sloppy offensive game.
Saint Louis will go on the road to take on the Rhode Island Rams on Saturday, Feb. 14th at 2 p.m. eastern time. Dayton will return home to take on the St. Bonaventure Bonnies at 12:30 p.m. eastern time.