PHILADELPHIA, PA — The No. 18 Dayton Flyers went on a big second half run to beat the Saint Joseph’s Hawks, 94-79, Tuesday night at Hagan Arena in Philadelphia, PA.
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Five players scored in double figures.
Nate Santos and Kobe Elvis each scored 21 points and Javon Bennett added 18. DaRon Holmes II had 13 points while Enoch Cheeks scored 12. Elvis also dished out a career-high 10 assists for his first career double-double.
UD trailed 41-37 but scored 15 straight points to take control of the game in the second half.
The Flyers improved to 19-3 overall (9-1 in the Atlantic 10).
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Dayton fell behind as Saint Joseph’s Cameron Brown scored 13 points to start the game as the Hawks led 23-12.
UD responded by going on an 11-0 run to take a 24-23 advantage after Elvis’ three-point play with 6:25 left until halftime.
Saint Joseph’s scored seven unanswered points and led the rest of the half. The Flyers trailed 38-34 at halftime.
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Elvis and Brown exchanged three-pointers to start the second half as the Hawks led 41-37. Javon Bennett buried back-to-back treys to put Dayton ahead, 43-41. They never trailed again.
UD got layups by Santos and Cheeks to go up 47-41, forcing Hawks head coach Billy Lange to call a timeout with 15:35 remaining.
Brea capped the Flyers’ 15-0 scoring run with a three to expand the advantage to 52-41.
Dayton built their largest lead of the game to 19 points, including 69-50 with 6:33 to play.
The Hawks got within 11 points, 78-67, after Rasheer Fleming and Brown made back-to-back three-pointers. But Santos countered with a trey to end any thoughts of a Saint Joseph’s comeback.
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Dayton went 33 of 58 from the field (57%) and shot 68% in the second half. They also scored 19 points off 13 Saint Joseph’s turnovers. They also had 19 assists as a team. UD also outrebounded the Hawks, 33-27.
The Flyers’ next game will be Friday night at 7 p.m. when they travel to Richmond, Virginia to play the VCU Rams at the Siegel Center.
Pregame coverage on WHIO Radio begins at 6 p.m. The game will also be carried here at WHIO.com.