Archie Miller turned the page after his Dayton Flyers played their third game in seven days and closed the non-conference season with a 92-56 victory over Virginia Military Institute on Friday at UD Arena.

“Time to take deep breath and play a little Punch Out!” he wrote on Twitter.

Playing an old Nintendo video game is as good a way as any to unwind in one of the rare breaks Miller and his team will get between November and March. The Flyers (9-3) get three days off for Christmas. They return to campus Tuesday to start preparing for the Atlantic 10 Conference opener at 6 p.m. Friday against La Salle at UD Arena.

“They have three big days, they know that, when we get back off the break,” Miller said after the game. “That first day’s always a tough one. They’ve got to get some time off. Most of them won’t be able to get out of town until Christmas eve morning. Some of the locals and the guys that can drive can sneak out of town tonight. They deserve a couple days at home. It’s always tough as a college basketball player. Everybody else you know is on break. It’s the nature of the beast. Everybody’s doing it.”

While Dayton finished its non-conference schedule with one of its most dominant performances, tying a school record with 15 3-pointers, the victory hurt its schedule strength and thus its NCAA tournament resume. UD dropped from No. 36 to No. 54 in the RPI. VMI climbed from No. 341 to No. 332.

Dayton is the fourth-highest ranked team in the A-10 behind No. 38 Virginia Commonwealth (9-3), No. 40 Davidson (6-4) and No. 45 Rhode Island (8-4). No. 57 St. Joseph’s (6-5), No. 77 Massachusetts (9-3) and No. 80 La Salle (6-4) are the only other teams in the top 100.

Dayton fares better in another popular metric, the Ken Pomeroy ratings. At No. 40, it is one of two A-10 teams in the top 50. No. 44 Rhode Island is the other. No. 58 VCU, No. 64 Davidson and No. 78 St. Bonaventure (8-4) are also in the top 100.

Eleven weeks before Selection Sunday, every A-10 team with NCAA tournament aspirations — including the Flyers, who are 0-2 against teams in the top 50 of the RPI — will have to perform extremely well in conference play to earn an at-large berth. ESPN tournament expert Joe Lunardi put Dayton and Rhode Island in the field in his latest bracket prediction.

“I don’t think we can even worry about the tournament committee right now,” Miller said. “I think the biggest thing for our guys is to approach the A-10 with a quest to try to win a championship. We have an 18-round fight. Nine of them are going to be here. Nobody’s played in more games than some of the guys on our team. The quest is to try to find a way to be at our best in February and March and compete in this league the best we can.

“From a non-conference perspective, we’re going to be evaluated by why we’ve done. We’ve had a couple of tough losses. But we’ve dealt with some injuries as well where we haven’t had our whole team. If we can keep consistency with our lineup, the big deal is just to approach the A-10 day by day and have some motivation to stay at the top of the league.”


FRIDAY’S GAME

La Salle at Dayton, 6 p.m., CBS Sports Network, FM 95.7, AM 1290 WHIO

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