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Technical foul in last minute strikes a chord of irony for Flyers

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By Tom Archdeacon, Staff Writer 12:15 AM Saturday, March 13, 2010

ATLANTIC CITY, N.J. — For the Dayton Flyers, it was the cruelest of ironies.

All season the team has made much of its embrace of all things boxing: training in a downtown gym, watching fight films, listening to fistic-themed music.

And yet in the end — at least in part — it was because of one of their punches that the Flyers lost to Xavier, 78-73, Friday night, March 12, in the Atlantic 10 tournament quarterfinals and in the process almost certainly saw their NCAA tournament hopes go down for the count as well.

In a season riddled with disappointments, this one will go down as the biggest. The Flyers led Xavier most of the game — and were up by 15 points with 10:37 left — but then began to unravel.

Although Xavier caught up and had a two-point lead with 34 seconds left, the Flyers had the ball and guard Rob Lowery was trying to call timeout.

That’s when Xavier guard Terrell Holloway — feisty all night from his snub of London Warren’s pregame handshake to his late-game drives that made for a game-high 22 points — slapped at the ball Lowery was holding.

The Dayton guard reacted with what he called a push, but refs called a punch. From across the court it looked like a shove.

A technical foul was called on Lowery. UD not only lost the ball, but Holloway made his two free throws, then two more two seconds later to seal the outcome.

Asked if that let the air out of his team, UD coach Brian Gregory shook his head: “That would be more than a little air being let out.”

He said he didn’t see the play, but offered: “I just hope they’re (the refs) right. That was a crucial call. I have no problem with the call being made if Rob’s reaction was inappropriate.”

But he said if the timeout had been called first, then something should have been called on both players.

Here’s what Holloway saw: “Rob Lowery was running over to the sidelines trying to call time out, so I remember one of my uncles used to tell me if a guy’s just standing there with the ball, try to slap it away. He probably thought I was trying to slap at him and he kind of like threw a punch at me.”

A dejected Lowery sat in the Flyers dressing room afterward and said he let his emotions get the best of him. He blamed himself for the loss.

In truth, the Flyers have to share the blame. They were beaten soundly on the boards. Their three ballhandling guards had 10 turnovers. No one could come up with a big shot down the stretch and no one could stop Holloway and Jordan Crawford (20 points) in the final minutes.

The 20-12 Flyers — who had all but one player back from last season’s splash in the NCAA tournament and were the preseason favorites to win the A-10 — will likely go to the NIT now.

Nothing turned out quite like it was supposed to this year.

When the Flyers drubbed Xavier by 25 last month at UD Arena, Gregory inspired his team before the game by appearing in a boxing robe with padded mitts as LL Cool J’s “Mama Said Knock You Out” blared in the room.

Friday night, that song took on new meaning for the Flyers.

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