By Malcolm Price
1 21 2025
GAME NOTES
https://daytonflyers.com/documents/2025/1/20/Duquesne_1.pdf
DAYTON —The University of Dayton men’s basketball team goes on the road for the third time this year on Tuesday when they go to Pittsburgh to meet Duquesne. Game time is 7 p.m. ET.
Dayton is 12-6 overall, and 2-3 in the Atlantic 10. Duquesne is 9-9 overall, but 4-1 in the A-10 under new coach Dru Joyce III.
UD won 83-81 in overtime at home over Loyola on Saturday on the strength of a 55-foot alley-oop layup essentially at the buzzer from Malachi Smith to Amaël L’Etang. L’Etang slid over to contest a game-tying shot by Loyola’s Jalen Quinn with 3.8 seconds on the clock and then ran the floor where he took in the long pass from Smith and softly laid it in with 0.2 seconds remaining.
Enoch Cheeks scored a college career-high 26 points, with seven rebounds and five steals. Smith scored 15 points and added eight assists. Javon Bennett also scored 15 and L’Etang had 11 points. L’Etang was +13 for the game.
The Duquesne game will be broadcast on WHIO Radio, and streamed on ESPN+. 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 season.
• Santos’ 6-for-6 shooting performance from deep against Lehigh is the second-best in D-I. 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 (1,439 and 588 respectively). 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).
• 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 assigned 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 forward 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.
• 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 11th in the A-10 in rebounding (6.8) and fifth in steals (1.9). Of the top 12 A-10 rebounders, Cheeks is the shortest by three inches.
• Smith is second in the A-10 in assists (5.7) and third in assist-to-turnover ratio (2.6)
• Zed Key is sixth in FG% (.592, 61-103). He is tied for 10th in D-I for most dunks (34).
• As a team, Dayton is second in the Atlantic 10 in assist-to-turnover ratio (1.55) and is tied for third in FG% (.470, 468-996).
• This is the Flyers’ 30th season in the Atlantic 10.
• 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 exhibition games that have already been played. This will be the fourth consecutive year UD has sold out every home game. That streak is now 69 games.
• This is also the 55th anniversary season of UD Arena. The Arena underwent a $76.2 million transformation project 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 will host Saint Joseph’s on Friday, Jan 24 at 7:30 p.m. ET.
• That is the first of three consecutive appearances (and five overall this season) on the Atlantic 10’s Friday Night Showcase on ESPN.
COURTESY DAYTON MEDIA RELATIONS
