Dayton’s Miller: ‘We’re on to Saint Louis’

Dayton coach Archie Miller channeled Patriots coach Bill Belichick — minus the hoodie — in his postgame interview Friday by saying, “We’re on to Saint Louis.”

Miller had many reasons to be proud of his team, but he knows a 65-64 loss at George Washington goes down as just another defeat, no matter the circumstances. Joe McDonald’s putback at the buzzer in overtime left the Flyers with their first last-second loss since the quarterfinals of the Atlantic 10 tournament a year ago.

“Whether we won this game, lost this game, lost by 20, it doesn’t really matter,” Miller said. “The next day, the next approach is the only thing on my mind right now. They should be proud of their effort. We competed. We played very hard in a tough environment. We battled foul trouble for the first time all season. Guys, to a man, really stepped up and played.”

Star of the game: Kyle Davis scored eight of his 13 points in a two-minute stretch to get the Flyers back into the game when they faced their biggest deficit, 48-40 at the 6:45 mark of the second half. He also hit a 3-pointer with 16 seconds left in overtime to give Dayton its first lead of overtime.

Davis hit 3 of 5 3-pointers. The rest of the team was 2 of 12 from long range.

Davis also defended Kethan Savage on the last shot of the second half. Savage missed with seconds to play, and the game went to overtime tied at 56.

Stat of the game: George Washington only out-rebounded the shorter Flyers 32-29, but the Colonials had 12 second-chance points to Dayton's two. McDonald's game-winning basket accounted for two of those points.

Run of the game: George Washington dominated the opening minutes and led 9-2 after four minutes. The Flyers went on a 14-0 run over the next eight minutes.

The Flyers then had their own drought. They scored two points in the last six minutes. The Colonials ended the half on an 11-2 run.

Tweet of the game: Walk-on Nick Haldes on Kyle Davis, "Tough loss but @KD_MP3 is special."

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