NASHVILLE, Tenn. - A hot shooting night by the host Commodores snapped a five-game Flyer winning streak as Dayton fell to Vanderbilt, 90-74 in non-conference men's basketball action on Wednesday night in front of 9,311 fans at Memorial Gymnasium.
Vanderbilt (8-4) shot 52.7 percent (29-55) from the field including 56.5 percent (13-23) from three-point range in the game. Dayton (6-4) made 37.3 percent (25-67) of its field goals and 30.8 percent (8-26) of its shots from behind-the-arc.
Three Flyers reached double-digits in scoring led by 13 points and a career-high eight rebounds from freshman guard Brian Roberts (Toledo, OH). Senior guard Mark Jones (Taftville, CT) also tallied 13 points for UD while freshman backcourt mate Trent Meacham (Champaign, IL) matched his career-best with 10 points.
Sophomore forward Monty Scott (Reynoldsburg, OH) contributed seven points and seven rebounds while junior guard Warren Williams (Gaithersburg, MD) had nine points and matched his career-high with five assists.
Freshman Chris Alvarez (Miami, Fla.) finished with a career-high eight points while pulling down six rebounds and handing out two assists.
Six Commodores scored at least 10 points led by senior Dawid Przybyszewski with a season-high 19 points on 5-of-6 shooting from three-point range.
Winners of 20 consecutive non-conference home games, Vanderbilt took care of number 21 in the first half as it made 15-of-24 (62.5 %) of its shots from the field including 8-of-11 (72.7 %) from three-point range in the opening 20 minutes.
VU opened with an 11-2 run over the first 2:16 of the game as Mario Moore hit a three-pointer and a layup followed by a pair of treys by Przybyszewski. A three by Scott stopped the surge and pulled UD to within six at 11-5 with 17:29 remaining in the first. However, the six point margin would be as close as the Flyers would get the remainder of the game.
Vanderbilt led by as many as 20 on three occasions in the opening half before an Alvarez layup with 31 seconds left made it a 49-31 VU lead at the break.
The Commodores were paced by 11 points from Moore to go along with three assists. Corey Smith accounted for 11 of VU's 25 bench points in the first half while starter Przybyszewski hit all three of his shots from behind-the-arc to close out the first 20 minutes of play with nine points.
Dayton had eight points from Roberts on 3-for-7 shooting including a pair of three pointers. The Flyers also held a 17-13 rebounding edge behind a five-rebound half from Alvarez.
Vanderbilt kept things going in the second half as it led by as many as 32 points including an 85-53 margin with 6:53 left.
UD closed out the game with a 21-5 run over the final 6:44 which included seven points from Jones and the first basket of the season by junior Logan White (Chagrin Falls, Ohio) as the guard hit a jumper on a fast break off an assist from Williams with 33 seconds left to close out the scoring at 90-74 in favor of the Commodores.
Jones tallied eight second-half points for the Flyers followed by six by Meacham while Roberts collected six rebounds. Williams dished out four assists while not committing a turnover in the final 20 minutes for UD.
Przybyszewski proved to be too much for Dayton to handle in the second half as he tallied 10 points on 3-of-5 shooting.
The Flyers return home to open Atlantic 10 Conference play on Wednesday, January 5 as they host Duquesne at 7 p.m. The game will be televised live from UD Arena in the Dayton area on WHIO-TV.
POST GAME QUOTES
Box Score | Quotes
Dayton Head Coach Brian Gregory
"The things that have been positive for us, and have helped us be a better team, are our energy and our intensity level. We didn't take care of that tonight. [Vanderbilt is] a great shooting team, and they shot the ball very well tonight. But we can't allow a team to shoot 63 percent in the first half. In the two games we've lost (prior to tonight), we played better defense. You're going to have days like this. We have to figure out why this happened and move on so we can focus on (Atlantic 10) conference play. But we can't forget how this happened."
"Obviously we weren't fully prepared to play the way we should have, and I take the blame for that. We looked tentative out there for the first time this season, and that bothers me. When you play good teams on the road, you have to have an edge about you. We've done that before this season -- we did it against Cincinnati. This is the first time I've thought we took a step back, and we need to correct that."
Vanderbilt Head Coach Kevin Stallings Opening Statement "I thought we played a really good game for 30 minutes, maybe 32 minutes, then it looked like we got a little sloppy toward the end with the freshmen playing a lot of minutes. Despite that, we are happy to win the game and win it comfortably. Obviously, we have some things to work on." About the team's three-point accuracy (13 of 23).
"You can tell by the numbers that we really distributed the ball well. We were finding the open guys. Their plan was to stop the backcuts and we did a better job of finding guys with the outside shot."
Atmosphere among team with the recent tragedy regarding Vanderbilt student-athlete Kwane Doster: "I thought our guys handled it well, both in practice before the game and tonight. I know all of them are hurting, but they are handling it well."
Play of Dawid Przybyszewski (19 points, 5 of 6 from three-point range) "He shot the fire out of the ball yesterday in practice and shot the fire out of it again tonight. He is just in a very good rhythm with his shot."
