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The Dayton Flyers took a bad loss at the worst time Saturday, falling to the La Salle Explorers 61-60 to close out the Atlantic 10 regular season. The Flyers are squarely on the bubble at 20-9 on the season, and losing to a 8-18 team is not going to do them any favors in the eyes of the committee.
The Gola curse strikes again. Dayton’s Koby Brea missed 3 at buzzer. This will be its third one-point A10 loss. Officials reviewing clock but it’s pretty much over. La Salle up 61-60. pic.twitter.com/9VQBWJUGFT
— David Jablonski (@DavidPJablonski) February 26, 2022
The Flyers entered the contest on a five-game winning streak, with their last loss coming to St. Louis. Dayton has been a popular March Madness underdog in recent years, especially in the first round of the bracket. The Flyers did make the Elite Eight in 2014, but haven’t reached those heights in later editions.
As noted above, this is the third one-point loss for Dayton and the Flyers will rue those losses if they miss the cut on Selection Sunday. This one will particularly hurt, since it comes against a bad La Salle team at the end of the regular season. We’ll see if Dayton can make enough noise in the A10 tournament to get in the “Big Dance” if they don’t secure the automatic bid.