Banked buzzer beater hands Dayton straight fourth loss
By: Steven Wright – Sports Editor
The woes continue at home and in Atlantic 10 Conference play for the University of Dayton men’s basketball team.
Saint Joseph’s University senior guard Langston Galloway banked in a 3-pointer with 1.8 seconds remaining, and the Hawks defeated UD 60-57 Wednesday, Jan. 29, at UD Arena.
The shot sent Dayton (13-8, 1-5) to its fourth consecutive loss overall and third in a row at home.
“It’s getting to the point where I don’t even know what to say anymore,” senior forward Devin Oliver said. “I don’t know how that continually happens to us. I mean, what can you do?”
After trailing by as much as eight in the first half, SJU doubled its first half point total in the first 7:29 of the second half, building a lead as large as 15 with 10:07 remaining.
Dayton fought its way back down the stretch, beginning with an 11-2 run over the next four minutes.
Down two with 17.7 left, sophomore forward Dyshawn Pierre went into the paint with a spin move and scored to tie the game at 57.
After calling a timeout with just over nine seconds left, Galloway received an inbounds pass from midcourt, drove to his right and banked in a shot from beyond the arc over Pierre’s outstretched arm to win the game.
“The deal is when you’re down 15 with 10 to go at home, that doesn’t feel good,” head coach Archie Miller said. “The way we’re playing right now, that was good. That was really good for our basketball team to fight.”
Dayton was led by redshirt junior guard Jordan Sibert’s 21 points on 7-of-15 shooting, including 6-for-14 from three.
Oliver added 16 points and a team high six rebounds.
The Hawks had four players score double figures, led by junior guard Chris Wilson’s 15 points.
SJU (14-6, 4-2) shot 73.7 percent in the second half after Dayton’s defense held them down to 7-of-26 shooting in the first.
UD led 25-20 at the break behind 4-of-6 3-point shooting from Sibert. Dayton only made three of its 12 attempts from two in the half, but had 13 fast break points.
The loss was the second at home at the buzzer this season, the other coming at the hands of the University of Southern California Dec. 22, 2013, from a nearly identical spot.
Coming off an 88-76 loss to the University of Rhode Island Saturday, Jan. 25, in which it gave up 62 percent shooting, Miller said he’d rather take a loss like this than witness the effort he saw Saturday.
“It’s more frustrating to not play hard and get beat like we did on Saturday,” he said. “I take this one right here.
You lose on a buzzer shot to St. Joe’s and you compete and play hard, there’s something to learn from that and there’s things to teach. The other film, you can burn that in a trash can and not even worry about it.”
Dayton has now lost its first three conference home games of the season for the first time since 1995.
George Washington University visits Dayton next at UD Arena Saturday, Feb. 1, at 12:30 p.m.