Dayton uses size advantage to top Duquesne in Atlantic 10 matchup

The mystifying transfer portal’s impact on college sports was on full display at UPMC Cooper Fieldhouse on Saturday as Duquesne and Dayton brought their overhauled basketball lineups to the court for a renewal of a long and storied series.

Dayton is ranked dead-last among 358 Division I teams in KenPom.com’s “experience” category, and Duquesne is at No. 354.

It worked out a whole lot better for the visiting Flyers, who used their superior size and shooting expertise to manhandle their hosts in an Atlantic 10 matinee.

“We haven’t figured out how to build team camaraderie,” Duquesne coach Keith Dambrot said. “We’ve been preaching that for two months.”

Freshman DaRon Holmes II, the highest-ranked recruit ever to sign with Dayton, scored 18 points and redshirt freshman Kobe Elvis added 16 to lead Dayton’s dominating 72-52 victory. It was the surging Flyers’ third win in a row and fourth in the past five games.

Dayton (11-6, 3-1) shot 53.8 % overall and made 8 of 18 3-point shots (44.4 %), including 6 of 12 in the decisive first half en route to a 40-28 lead. The Flyers outrebounded the smaller Dukes, 35-24, and produced 19 assists to Duquesne’s 8.

“They had good movement. They moved the ball so much in the first half that we tired in the second half,” Dambrot said. “We didn’t have any energy.

“I told our guys, ‘If you keep shooting it as quick as we’re shooting it and then have to play 20-25 seconds of defense the whole game, that’s what happens to you.’ It’s kind of like taking body blows in boxing. You keep taking those punches, and you’re not going to have any energy. It was noticeable to start the second half. We didn’t have any juice.”

In fairness, Duquesne’s bench was further depleted with the loss of 6-foot-10 Austin Rotroff, who’s battling foot pain from a lingering stress fracture.

The Dukes (6-9, 1-2) already were without 6-7 R.J. Gunn Jr., the former Division II star who officially was redshirted last week as he battles a stubborn high-ankle sprain injury.

“We’re in a tough spot. We don’t have a lot of guys,” Dambrot said.

After losing three consecutive games early in the season to opponents from lesser conferences — UMass-Lowell (America East), Lipscomb (Atlantic Sun) and Austin Peay (Ohio Valley) — Dayton is on a roll, and it was evident Saturday that the Flyers’ new lineup was a cut above the Dukes’.

Dayton, since those losses, has beaten Miami, then-No. 9 Kansas, Virginia Tech, VCU and Saint Louis, among others.

Holmes II, a consensus four-star, top-50 recruit from Goodyear (Ariz.) Compass Prep, is the first true freshman to start for Dayton in seven years and is being compared early to former Dayton star Obi Toppin, the 2020 National Player of the Year who is in his second NBA season with the New York Knicks.

Holmes II shot 9 for 12 and grabbed five rebounds in Dayton’s balanced attack.

“It’s still a players’ game,” Dambrot said. “We have to care about nothing else but winning, play hard and play together. It sounds stupid and simplistic, but it isn’t. We have some good individual pieces, but we haven’t shown we can play consistently together. It’s as simple as that, which basically is on me. We’re just going to have to clobber them over the head because I’ve been talking about it enough.”

Dayton pulled away from an already large 12-point halftime lead to go up by as many as 25 (64-39) in the second half before Duquesne closed the gap.

But the difference was too much for the Dukes, who were within 67-50 with 4 minutes, 7 seconds left on a basket by Kevin Easley Jr. but had no real answers for Dayton’s onslaught.

“All good teams in the country play the same way,” Dambrot said. “Maybe not exactly, but they move the ball. All the good teams in our league move the ball. We’re just too 1-on-1 oriented right now. It’s not good for your trust.

“Now, I have a revolving door. That’s what’s going to have to happen at both ends of the court. If you don’t move the ball and you take bad shots, you’re coming out. If you don’t guard consistently, you’re coming out. The problem is we don’t have a lot of guys now.”

The Flyers enjoyed a deeper bench and a decided size advantage, particularly with Rotroff unable to play.

He’d been giving the Dukes good minutes (10.9 average) in a backup role on and around the block but was not dressed after sitting out practices following the Dukes’ last-second 72-71 loss at Fordham on Wednesday.

“It’s been bad since we got back from Fordham,” Dambrot said, referring to the pain Rotroff has been experiencing.

It is another injury in a college career filled with them. In 2019, Rotroff missed nearly the entire season following knee surgery.

A senior with one year of eligibility remaining, Rotroff played 13 minutes and produced six points on 3-of-4 shooting and six rebounds against Fordham. Overall this season, he’s averaging 2.9 points and 3.8 rebounds.

Without Rotroff, Duquesne’s tallest starters were the 6-7 tandem of Easley Jr. and Tre Williams. Dayton, meanwhile, countered with the 6-10 Holmes II and 6-8 sophomore Toumani Camara for starters, along with 6-9 backup Richard Amaefule.

Williams, Leon Ayers III and Primo Spears led Duquesne with 12 points apiece. Easley Jr. added 10.

“Tre played OK in the first half,” Dambrot said of Williams, the Dukes’ primary inside guy. “But when you have to hedge 4,000 ball screens and play 34 minutes, it’s too much. You can only do so much. Easley, too. You can’t play at a high level playing that much, not after chasing them around like they did today.”

Holmes II played 29 minutes for Dayton, and Camara was on the floor for 27.

“That makes a big difference, especially over time,” Dambrot said. “That’s where Rotroff has really helped us. He’s been rebounding the ball at a high level. He’s big and he gives those guys a rest, and he knows the system.

“He’s a bad loss for us.”

Rotroff’s status is day-to-day, but he’ll get some more much-needed rest because the Dukes are idle until A-10 preseason favorite St. Bonaventure visits UPMC Cooper Fieldhouse on Friday night.

“We need five days off,” Dambrot said. “We just played two on the road and came back to catch Dayton when they’re playing very good. They’re more settled in with who they’re playing. They’re starting to settle in on how they want to play.”

Dambrot in the first half briefly inserted little-used 6-11 freshman Mounir Hima but almost immediately removed him after Hima committed an offensive foul prior to a timeout.

“He looks like a guy who’s played the amount of minutes he’s played,” Dambrot said. Including the 5:23 that Hima played onSaturday, he’s been on the court this season for a total of 17:32.

Hima returned briefly to block a shot near the end of the game, when both coaches emptied their benches.

Duquesne, which shot 40.4 % (21 for 52) and was just 5 for 19 (26.3 %) from behind the arc, played catch-up throughout the first half and trailed by as many as 13 points.

With different lineups last season, the Dukes split a pair of games with Dayton, winning at home on Feb. 2 in the official opener of UPMC Cooper Fieldhouse, Duquesne’s first game on campus since March 9, 2019.