Nope

That technical sequined was awful. Two shoves by UD players. Only one tech. And it wasn't even for the shove. And somehow Welch gets a common and a tech. And to top it all off, Dayton gets the ball. No idea what happened there.

We had our chances. Toughest environment in the A10 and we took it to OT. The team is showing fight. Alston is a superstar. Need more from the veteran guards, Braden and Quise.

Let's come out with fire at home on Saturday and start banking some wins.

Heartbreaker of a game.

Pros:
- Great full game effort, honestly was expecting a 2nd half let-down to get them within the betting spread but I guess Drew reminded them that the second half is just as important, if not more important than the first; and they seem to not understand that this whole season.
- Alston great offensive production as usual, ball handling/turnovers still an issue
- Norris scored 14 pts which was a vast improvement from last game
- Bryce had a good game, we leaned into him alot and he delivered for the most part. CBS announcer was clueless regarding his season so far but whatever
- 3 point percentage as a whole was very good (52%) It kept us in the game, literally. (Alston's 3pt in regulation to tie)
- We beat them in points in the paint which is shocking (30-28)
- We took them to OT, which nobody was expecting and showed we had heart and game especially in front of a notoriously rambunctious home crowd

Cons:
- Quinn and Schweiger had mediocre games. turnovers at crucial times and low scoring vs minutes played (combined 9 pts for about 30 min for each)
- Kennedy definitely has lingering knee issues which would explain his hesitancy for driving to the rim. Scary moments with his knee in this game
- TOs at 14 was a killer, Dayton points scored from turnovers (17) so it was mitigated by better defense in this game, still bad.
- The whole Tom Welch - Daron Holmes sequence was horribly reffed. I don't get how Amzil gets a free shove without penalty.

Overall vastly improved effort from the Duquesne meltdown, just wish we were able to pull it off.

Does anyone else feel like we might have a motivation problem for games against non big name teams? This stems all the way back to last year. We started that season playing Michigan State tough but then consistently playing close games against conference teams we shouldn’t have. All of last year we had horrible starts to games. Then come conference tourney time, we looked like a different team. This year for much of the season we have looked horrible against average teams, but beat Clemson by a lot and took this game to OT, where we looked like a different team in both. It seems like we really come out to play against good teams but we never see that against anyone else

I'd still like to see Hutty get some more minutes. Golden had a good game today. But I with him in foul trouble, I would have liked to see more of Hutty instead of Welch. In limited minutes the past few games, Hutson has looked improved and a legit threat from deep.

It seems like Edwards is buried and Wilson is getting good minutes. Interesting flip. I like Wilson's game. I see a bit of Ryan Schwieger in him.

I think there's a motivation problem, yes. I can't correlate it to anything except we're 5-2 at home with the students there, 1-2 without them.

We just weren't prepared to start the season, and we weren't prepared to play this level of competition by the time we got to conference play. If you've got great athletes that are P5 recruiting level players and you're not prepared, maybe you can get away with it. Alston is our best athlete, and because he's only 6'6", I'm not sure P5 teams would spend a lot of time recruiting him.... Hell, he fell to Division II rather than getting a ride at a MAC, MVC, Horizon, MAAC, or even an NEC school.

We just played game 21 or 22, and we're just now getting our zone defense in shape, communicating better on defense, and defending the three through screens.

To me, a lot of the motivation problem fixes itself when you have players taking pride in defense, which is a team endeavor.

Well, that was something. No rhyme or reason to what kind of performance we will get game to game. It was a fun game to watch in that we hung right in there and battled. Wish we gave this type of effort all year.

The dive into the box score shows we did a lot of things better than Dayton tonight. We shot a better FG & 3 pt % and we turned it over 14 times, which for this team is pretty good. The way it started it looked like we were headed for a higher number.

The glaring difference was FOULS! Dayton Made 23 FTs, we only SHOT 12 total. This was physical at times with no calls, but there were, in my opinion, some ticky tack fouls called on us and the same not being called on Dayton. Case in point, with around 4 minutes to go, Welch rolled to the hoop and was clearly fouled, no call. Pete Gillen on replay saw it, but he didn't want to say the refs missed it. He hemmed and hawed. I lost some respect for him. We have been getting the short end of the stick all season in the A10 when it comes to fouls. We do foul a lot, but so are the other guys.

I would hope that the light bulb is going on for this team. If we get this type of effort, we can win some games and perhaps cause some havoc in A10 tourney.

Great game to watch. Little disappointing we did not get the W.
I have had no problem with effort this year. I think through this difficult season the kids have played hard. Sometimes looking dejected, sometimes looking overmatched, sometimes looking confused, sometimes playing poorly but I have never thought they have dogged it. I am guessing this season is weighing heavily on them and yet last night we went toe to toe with a good Dayton team who was another example of how the A-10 is a better league than the MVC.
If you total steals, blocks by the other team and then add your own turnovers and compare you usually get some insight. We had 26 total, they had 13. You can also add rebound differential you can get to a more possessions factor.
We also fouled out two players and two more with 4 attempting to stop Camara. When you are overmatched physically you are probably going to accumulate more fouls.
This was another A-10 team with more length than us.
How bout that block by ALston at the end of regulation..He is becoming worth the price of admission. Still makes mistakes but less and less of them.

Alston is definitely playing good ball. His only drawback is he commits 1 or 2 silly fouls a game. Case in point his first foul he ran to double, he was out of control, for some reason left his feet and ended up landing on Dayton player. No reason for that foul. He ended up fouling out and who knows what happens if he doesn't foul out. We maybe physically overmatched at times, but the reaching, pushing off fouls are at times frustrating.

Agreed with most of the commentary here. Bummed that this wasn't a win given how the game went, but this was one I was worried about going in.

Really happy with the effort and physicality with our defense down low. Did it get our bigs into foul trouble? Yes, but we're an undersized team in this league and I felt like that physicality is what kept it close. Think Hutson should've gotten more time in the second half, which would've helped with the foul trouble, but the effort was there.

Alston is a dude who plays at one speed -- an absolute beast, but if the coaching staff could help him slow down half a step with the ball in his hands, he's an all-conference player in my mind, even with some of his defensive shortcomings. I thought Quinn also showed some more confidence in this game and was happy to see him hit that three in the later stages of the second half. He can be a really big piece for the future if he can get through those screens at the top of the key. Teams are running at him hard and it's resulting in too many open shots.

Weird officiating across the board for me. Even outside of the sequence with the technicals, there were a handful of plays at the rim deserving of calls (for both sides), plus that charge that was called a travel. Not a banner night for the refs.