By Charles Hollister

GAME NOTES

https://daytonflyers.com/documents/2024/12/11/Marquette.pdf

Game Time Is 7 P.M. ET

DAYTON — The University of Dayton men’s basketball team is back at UD Arena on Saturday, playing Marquette at 7 p.m. ET.

Dayton enters the game 8-2, and is receiving votes in the Associated Press and Coaches Polls, while Marquette is 9-1 and ranked sixth in the AP poll and fourth in the Coaches.  The Golden Eagles are the highest ranked team to play the Flyers at UD Arena since No. 6 Pitt played in Dayton on Dec. 29, 2007.

In Dayton’s last game on Saturday, UD never trailed in an 86-62 win over Lehigh.  Nate Santos led the way with 24 points.  Santos made all six of his three-point attempts, which is the best single-game performance in NCAA Divi-sion I this season (Santos is one of three players to go 6-for-6). Malachi Smith had 17 points (9 assists, zero turno-vers), Enoch Cheeks 14 and Zed Key added 12 (including his 1,000th college career point).

The Marquette game will be broadcast by WHIO Radio and televised on CBS Sports Network  Streaming audio, video and live stats will be at DaytonFlyers.com.

#TRENDING
• Nate Santos was named First Team Preseason All-Atlantic 10 after being named to the third team after last sea-son.  The 6-7 forward from Geneva, Ill. was the Flyers’ second-leading scorer (11.7) and rebounder (6.3) last year.  He was also second on the team in 3-pt. FG% (.418, 51-122).  Santos was fourth in the A-10 in three-point shooting, and 10th in rebounding in 2023-24.
• Santos’ 6-for-6 shooting performance from deep against Lehigh is tied for the best in the nation.  It is also the second-best ever at UD, behind Shawn Haugh’s 8-for-8 in 1993-94.
• Posh Alexander was named Second Team Preseason All-Atlantic 10 and to the Preseason All-Defensive Team.  Alexander is a fifth-year transfer who already has 1,000 career points and 500 career assists.  The fourth recruit from New York City in Anthony Grant‘s tenure at UD, he led the Big East in steals in each of the last four seasons (three at St. John’s and one at Butler).  Last year at Butler, Alexander averaged 11.3 points, 4.9 assists, 4.3 rebounds and 2.2 steals per game.  He was 16th in the nation in steals per game.  In his three years at St. John’s, he averaged 10.9, 13.8 and 10.2 points a game.
• Enoch Cheeks was also named A-10 Preseason All-Defensive Team.  He led the team in steals (40), was second in blocked shots (21), and was third in rebounding (4.7) in his first season at UD after transferring from Robert Morris.  The Providence, R.I. native was the 2023-24 winner of UD’s Steve McElvene Award.  Cheeks was consistently as-signed the opponents’ top perimeter player on defense.  In the 25 games (out of 33) where the Flyer foe’s top player was a guard or wing, that player was held under his average 17 times. He started in all 33 games and averaged 8.1 points per game (9.5 in A-10 play).
• The Dayton roster includes five players who have earned all-conference recognition in their past – junior for-ward Nate Santos (Atlantic 10), junior Enoch Cheeks (Horizon League). junior Javon Bennett (Northeast Conference), redshirt junior Malachi Smith (Atlantic 10) and fifth-year senior Posh Alexander (Big East).
• Amaël L’Etang was named the A-10 Rookie of the Week on Nov. 25.  He scored 11 points (4-6 FG) in 13 minutes against New Mexico State.
• Enoch Cheeks was named the A-10 Player of the Week on Dec. 2 after averaging 15.7 points and 7.0 rebounds against North Carolina, Iowa State and UConn in Maui.
• Cheeks is tied for fifth in the A-10 in steals per game (1.9) and sixth in rebounding (7.6).
• Malachi Smith leads in 3-pt. FG% (.632, 12-19) and third in assists (5.5)
• Posh Alexander is first in assist-to-turnover ratio (3.8).
• Zed Key is fifth in FG% (.643, 36-56).  He is also tied for fourth nationally in dunks (22).
• As a team, Dayton leads the Atlantic 10 in assist-to-turnover ratio (1.91) and FG% (.500, 275-550) and second in 3-pt. FG% (.388, 90-232).
• UD ranked 20th in average attendance in NCAA Division I last season, averaging a capacity crowd of 13,407 fans a game in 2023-24.  Of schools in the top 25 in attendance, only Kansas, Purdue, Michigan State and UConn also sold out every game of the season.
• Dayton has already announced it has sold out every game for the upcoming 2024-25 season, including both ex-hibition games that have already been played.  This will be the fourth consecutive year UD has sold out every home game.  That streak is now 66 games.
• This is also the 55th anniversary season of UD Arena.  The Arena underwent a $76.2 million transformation pro-ject that was completed in time for the 2019-20 season.
• The Flyers are wearing “DJD” on their left shoulder strap in memory of Don Donoher.  Coach Donoher died last April at the age of 92.  He was the first man to coach his alma mater in the NCAA tournament after appearing in it as a player.  A member of the NABC College Basketball Hall of Fame, he is Dayton’s all-time winningest coach (437 wins).  He was the 2017 winner of the USBWA’s Dean Smith Award.

UP NEXT
• Dayton’s next game is at home against UNLV on Tuesday, Dec. 17 at 7 p.m. ET.

COURTESY DAYTON MEDIA RELATIONS