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Really hope we have a sold-out student section tonight. With break starting Monday, you never know. But we will need that boost.

goramblers2011 wrote:Really hope we have a sold-out student section tonight. With break starting Monday, you never know. But we will need that boost.

Never fear. Students came through. At lease wrt claiming their tix.

Let's go, guys. Guys besides Watson need to hit from outside.

Either the board is broken or we did not actually win.

I took the blue pill I thought.

We were all there living in the moment! Hell of a win!

Without question the loudest game I’ve ever been to at Gentile. It was loud all damn game! Amazing game, and winning it makes it even better

Final Radio Call of the Win: https://soundcloud.com/ramblersn/final- ... al_sharing

Interviews with Drew and Braden: https://soundcloud.com/ramblersn/dayton ... al_sharing

We were a little high in fouls tonight with 19. I hated to see Rubin foul out. But he did get his customary 3 blocks.

TOs were a little high at 11, but manageable, considering we were at home.

OK at the FT line at 74%

Norris and Watson pretty much never left the game, 38 and 37 minutes respectively.
Norris was outstanding. A double double in assists, 11, and points, 19. He stole the ball 4 times and put in the last Rambler points burying a 3 late and 2 at the line. Watson 4 of 5 from 3 range.

Alston 7 Rebounds, and 50% from 3 range.

Good to see JD getting better each game. 9 points.

JQ plus 12, and he showed his speed and agility to the basket again tonight. He needs to do that at least once per game IMHO.

Mwamba with 3 steals. Good D game.

Rough points night for DAME with 3 points. Although 4 fouls, he was a plus 10.

Dayton coughed up the ball 22 times. We stole the ball 15 times. We had 20 points off of Dayton TOs. Dayton had only 7 off of our TOs.

The way I saw this was that we stole the ball late a few times which really led to our win. Our defense won it in the end.

Our bench outscored their bench 12 to 8.
We played 11 guys and Dayton stuck with their usual 8.

The Joe was loud. So glad the students stayed for the game before taking off for where ever?

We just beat a ranked team at home for the first time in how long?

This one was a dogfight from the tip-off, and a hell of a lot of fun!

First home win against a ranked team since Dec. 28, 1986 when we beat #9 Illinois at UIC Pavilion, which was our home court that year.

Wow…just got home, I am jacked up! Thoughts:

1. Ugly: Officiating was rough AGAIN. At one point in first half it was 8-0 in fouls at about 10 minute mark. We were fouling, but Dayton was being physical and getting away with a few. Refs bailed out Holmes 3-4 times when he was out of control and they blew whistles.

2. Bad: Miles had a foul 90 feet from the basket. He ended up fouling out. More on Miles below. We missed some lay-ups and dribbled into bad situations a couple of times. We allowed Dayton to shoot a high percentage from all three levels. Similar to the GM game tonight. Dayton shot 52.2% (24-46) from the floor, 46.7% (7-15) from the arc, and 85% (17-20) from the line. On the surface, you would think we should lose that game…BUT

3. Good: I was looking for a bounce back game and we got it! Big Time! The key to the game was we forced 23 To’s. This allowed us to get 13 more shots up than Dayton. Our numbers: 44.1% (26-59) from the floor, 40.7% (11-27) from the arc, and 73% (14-19) from the line. We also assisted on 20 of our 26 buckets. Dayton in contrast only had 10 assists. Our defense forced them go one on one most of the night. In that context, my star of the game was Jaylen Quinn. He was HOUNDING Elvis all night long on defense and was disrupting Dayton’s offense. He also chipped in with 5 points 2 assists, 2 steals and only 1 TO! Now, let’s talk a little about the game. 1st half our offense was struggling. Des took over and went nuts from the arc and some of them were deep. He carried us and ended up 24 pts going 9-13 from the floor, 2-2 from the line and 4-5 from the arc including a big one late. He had 16 or 18 at the half. 2nd half comes around and Braden took over. He ended up 19 points on 5-10 from the floor, 5-7 from the line, and 4-7 from deep. He turned it on from the arc in 2nd half and buried a couple late. Interesting tid bit late. Braden burning a huge 3 late and Welch and Rubin ran up to him as Dayton called a time right by the student section to congratulate him. Braden made the 3 sign by his neck and said “That’s what I F’ing Do!” Him and Elvis were trash talking all night. Braden also only had 1 TO too. Between Norris, Quinn and Dolan ( who didn’t play much), our primary ball handlers only had 2 TOs all night. We only had 11 on the night. Let’s get to Miles. He was in foul trouble all night, but when was on floor he had an impact, especially late when he had 2 huge blocks when Dayton was close to keep us ahead. Man, we need him to play a little cleaner.

4. Final thoughts: I thought TOs would be big tonight and they were. Tom Welch also gave us good minutes and energy tonight. Tom had a huge dunk on a screen roll that got the crowd revved up late in 2nd half. Jaden Dawson was back in the starting lineup.He chipped in with 9 points. He struggled with the 3 (1-7), but was otherwise effective going 3-4 from 2. I think Drew started him trying get him going. Felt bad for Sheldon as he has been lights out. I felt like Sheldon was pressing tonight and his minutes were down(5 total). Jayden only 18, but the rest of those minutes were gobbled up by Quinn who also played 18 minutes. Tonight Quinn earned those minutes with his defensive play annd he annd Braden were on the floor a lot taking pressure of Braden having to bring the ball up. I believe this is why he was anble to finish strong tonight. Another gritty win.

Special shout out to the students! Dayton had a lot of fans in the building and every time the Dayton fans tried make some noise, our kids drown them out. It would have been easy for kids to take off as spring break started today, but 3 hours before the game, they were lining up. The Joe is a true home court advantage. Also, thanks for the Alumi function before the game. It was great. Last home game a week from tomorrow after the LaSalle Game in the Sister Jean room. It’s free and if you haven’t RSVP, call and see if you can get in. We might be celebrating a Championship! Hope they let the kids come back early to pack the place and give the team a great send off heading to the A10 tourney.

Love this team. Go ‘blers!