DAYTON, Ohio - Dayton leading scorer Brian Roberts drained a fade-away jumper with 3.6 seconds remaining to stop Saint Louis 46-44 in a defensive tug of war this afternoon in an Atlantic 10 Conference men's basketball game at UD Arena. The loss snapped Saint Louis' three-game winning streak and prevented the Bills from moving into a second-place tie with Charlotte.
"We've built our team as a solid defensive unit, because some days the offense comes and goes, which is what happened today," said Billikens head coach Brad Soderberg. "We played well enough defensively to win, but we missed too many open looks and turned the ball over too many times in the first half."
In a mistake-laden first half, Dayton took a three-point halftime lead on Roberts' long-range triple at the horn from the right side. The Flyers came out aggressively and jumped to an 8-2 lead on forward Norman Plummer's jumper. SLU guard Kevin Lisch capped an 8-0 run with a threeball as the Bills took their first lead at 9-8. The Bills consistently seemed to have control of the game and led by as many as four, but couldn't create any working margin because of the 10 turnovers they had committed by halftime. UD got control for the last shot of the half after Bills junior center Ian Vouyoukas missed a 15-foot jumper off the right baseline.
The Flyers attacked the Bills early in the second half with Plummer posting up SLU swingman Luke Meyer. Plummer gave UD a 37-26 lead on a lay-up after recovering a pass that was tipped by Meyer. The Bills switched to senior Vas'Shun Newborne on Plummer, and that slowed down the Flyers. After Flyers forward Chris Alvarez knocked down a jumper with 13:59 to play, SLU held UD without a field goal for more than 12 minutes with only a Plummer free throw interrupting the drought.
Nevertheless, the Billikens struggled to catch up. The Bills only committed four turnovers in the second half, but shot only 31 percent in the second half after shooting 47.4 percent in the first 20 minutes. The Bills pulled to within 40-39 on sophomore guard Danny Brown's breakaway lay-up after a UD turnover. But for as long as the Bills' defense had grounded the Flyers, SLU couldn't get the critical stops in the waning moments as UD scored on its final three possessions.
Roberts finally nailed a high-arcing jumper to beat the shot clock from the left wing for a 42-39 lead, but SLU freshman guard Tommie Liddell answered with a lay-up. Roberts then found Alvarez open on the left side, and the UD forward buried the open J. SLU's persistence at the offensive glass paid off when Lisch tied the game at 44 with a threeball that danced on the iron before falling with 32 seconds remaining. With Lisch tightly guarding Roberts, the UD guard drove toward the right of the lane, shed Lisch with a sturdy forearm and drained the fall-away shot for the winner. Lisch got off a hurried shot from the right sideline that was on-line, but hit the glass hard and bounced away.
"We had our best on-ball defender against Roberts, but give him credit for doing whatever he needed to do to get the space necessary to make the shot," Soderberg said.
Roberts led Dayton (12-13, 4-7) with 14 points, while Plummer finished with 10 points and a game-high 13 rebounds. UD shot 38 percent from the floor, 28.6 percent from the arc and 66.7 percent from the free throw line.
While Lisch led the Bills with 14 points, Liddell posted his second career double-double with 13 points and 10 boards. He also topped the Bills with three assists. Junior center Ian Vouyoukas blocked three shots to set a SLU junior single-season record with 47. SLU shot 37.5 percent from the floor, 26.7 percent from the arc (Lisch was 4-of-6, while the rest of the Bills were 0-9) and 44.4 percent (4-9) from the free throw line.
Saint Louis (12-10, 6-4) visits Duquesne on Wed., Feb. 15, at 6 p.m. (CT).
