After two consecutive one-point losses, the Dayton Flyers men's basketball team notched a 75-58 win Saturday night over St. Bonaventure in Olean, N.Y. to improve to 15-6 overall and 4-3 in A-10 conference play.

"We needed this win," UD Head Coach Brian Gregory said. "I thought we played well in spurts. Maybe not the whole 40 minutes but give St. Bonaventure credit for that."

The Flyer win was driven by the team getting back to what they do best - getting everyone involved in a balanced scoring attack. Ten Flyers played at least 13 minutes on Saturday, wearing down a short-handed squad of Bonnies that was without its leading scorer and rebounder Andrew Nicholson due to illness.

"It was [a total team effort]," Gregory said. "I thought our defensive effort was good; we held them to 37 percent from the field, and we out rebounded them by 15. But there was a 10-minute stretch in the second half where we did not rebound as well as we have. And that's troublesome to me."

Gregory said that he was bothered by the rebounding at times because there were two other games this season in which the Flyers did not rebound well in the second half-Xaiver and Rhode Island. Both games were close losses and better rebounding by the Flyers might have changed the outcomes.

Overall, though, Gregory said that he was pleased with the win.

"We're making progress," Gregory said. "I was pleased with the way a lot of guys played tonight. We can't have anyone play bad. But we need everyone to play well and just keep getting a little bit better and now we [will] start being able to play the way we want to play."

Offensively, the Flyers shared the ball as well as they have all season. Chris Johnson had 12 points, Marcus Johnson had 11 points and eight boards, London Warren notched 11 points, Kurt Hueslman added nine points and seven boards, while Devin Searcy put in nine points and six rebounds off the bench.

"We just wanted to come out and be aggressive," Marcus Johnson said. "We lost the last two games close, and we needed to get back to what we do and that's defending, rebounding and running. We did that and took care of the ball and the game came out in our favor."

One sign that the Dayton offense was flowing well was the number of times that the Flyers got to the free throw line (34). The Flyers also did a good job of converting from the charity stripe-something that's been suspect in the last two losses. Dayton shot 74 percent from the foul line against the Bonnies.

Another clear cut indicator of a flowing offense Saturday night was Dayton's three-point shooting. After forcing three point attempts against St. Joe's (3-of-22) and Rhode Island (3-of-14), the Flyers did a good job of keeping the three ball timely against St. Bonaventure. Dayton shot a tremendous 50 percent (6-of-12) from behind the three point line.

"We go inside, we get some fast breaks, we dribble drive and create some high percentage shots, and then you play the three off that," Gregory said. "I thought some of the ones we missed were pretty good looks, too. That's an area that we need to improve on. I'm not saying we can't shoot threes, it's just when we shoot threes."

The Flyers now have the entire week to prepare for their second and final regular season meeting with archrival Xavier.

"We got the whole week to prepare for them and I think that will help us mentally and physically," Marcus Johnson said. "We can get a lot of rest and do a lot of studying film."

Gregory said he thinks having an entire week will help his team recover mentally. "Those last two games were hard emotionally," Gregory said. "You lose two tough games, one with the ball and one without the ball. Every guy looks at it as if they could take one play back that maybe those two losses are different outcomes and those are hard. We just need to get back in the gym, work on our game and get ready for Saturday"

And don't think for one second that this team gets caught up in the rivalry hype with Xavier.

"It's just our next opponent, it's nothing bigger," Marcus Johnson said. "It's a great rivalry game but we're just going to take it like another game. We don't treat it any different."