Late bucket leads Dayton over Richmond

Tuesday, March 1

Robins Center

6:30 PM

University of Richmond

19-11,10-7Atlantic 10

Dayton

21-9,13-4Atlantic 10

Dayton

Richmond

03/01/2022 | Men's Basketball

Box Score

RICHMOND, Va. – The Dayton Flyers converted on an alley-oop from the baseline under their own basket in the final seconds to beat the Richmond Spiders 55-53 at the Robins Center Tuesday.

Richmond scored five straight points to tie the game at 53 on a pair of Tyler Burton free throws with 18 seconds to play. On the ensuing possession, the Spiders fouled Dayton's Toumani Camara on the floor with 2.4 seconds remaining, setting the stage for Dayton's game-winning basket.

"They had run that same lob play with about four-and-a-half minutes left in the second half and we were on it," said Spiders coach Chris Mooney. "That's what we thought and kind of sensed from the setup and we should have handled it better."

With 1.4 seconds remaining, Burton was unable to cleanly come down with a half-court baseball pass from Nathan Cayo and his desperation heave at the buzzer came up short. The Spiders had won 32 straight games when holding their opponent to 55 or fewer points entering Tuesday. The loss was Richmond's first when allowing no more than 55 points since December 7, 2014, when the Spiders dropped a 51-46 decision to James Madison.

"I thought we played great defensively, maybe our best game defensively," said Mooney.

Grant Golden led Richmond with 15 points and 10 rebounds for his 20^th career double-double. Golden passed Kevin Anderson (2,165) for the second-most points in program history on a layup with a foul at the 8:19 mark of the first half.

The Spiders played the final 16:53 of the first half without leading scorer and rebounder Tyler Burton, who picked up a pair of early fouls. With Burton on the bench, Richmond rallied to turn an early five-point deficit into a five-point lead, taking a 22-17 advantage with just over eight minutes on the clock.

But Dayton responded with a 12-2 run to retake the lead and led 32-29 at intermission. In the second half, Richmond tied the game at 43 midway through the period and again at 48 with under three minutes to play.

With 1:12 remaining, Jacob Gilyard hit Richmond's first three-pointer since the 12:33 mark of the first half, snapping a string of 11 straight misses from three-point range for the Spiders.

Gilyard finished with 12 points, three assists, three steals, and a career-high three blocks. He overtook Duquesne's Tom Pipkins to move into sixth place in Atlantic 10 history in career three-pointers, with 312.

Richmond finished shooting 36 percent from the field (20-56) and 25 percent from three-point range (4-16).

"We need to make a few more shots," said Mooney. "We had some open looks. We need to have those fall. I think if we could have made a couple shots it would have loosened up a little bit. But since we didn't it stayed a tight, hard-fought game at both ends."

The Spiders will wrap up their regular-season schedule Friday at St. Bonaventure. The game tips at 7 PM and will be broadcast on ESPN2.