Feb. 21, 2006

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DAYTON, Ohio - Norman Plummer scored five points in the final 59 seconds to lead Dayton to a 66-62 victory over Xavier in front of 13,092 fans at UD Arena on Tuesday night. Plummer finished with 15 points to earn the 44th Blackburn-McCafferty MVP Trophy in the 141st all-time meeting between the rival schools.

Dayton (13-14, 5-8 A-10) leads the all-time series with its longest rival 80-61 after breaking a two-game losing skid to Xavier (16-8, 7-6 A-10). The win was fifth straight for the Flyers at UD Arena.

Plummer's 15 points led all Flyers in just 27 minutes of play. The sophomore forward also pulled in a team-high seven rebounds while shooting 5-of-15 from the field and 5-of-7 from the charity stripe.

Sophomore Brian Roberts and freshman Charles Little tallied 14 and 12 points respectively for Dayton who took advantage of 13 Xavier mistakes for an 18-8 advantage in points off turnovers.

Warren Williams and Roberts ran an efficent Flyer backcourt as they combined for 11 assists and just four turnovers. Williams led UD with six assists and just three turnovers and none in the second half. Roberts dished out five assists with just one turnover.

The Musketeers were led by a game-high 18 points by sophomore forward Josh Duncan who shot 6-for-9 from the field including 3-of-5 from three-point range. Justin Doellman and Stanley Burrell added 12 and 11 respectively for Xavier.

Neither team gained a decided advantage during the first 12 minutes of the game until a 12-0 Xavier run over a span of 3:28 put the Musketeers ahead 32-23 with 5:05 remaining in the opening half. Duncan had seven of the 11 XU points in the rally which was finally stopped by a Chris Alvarez jumper with 4:35 left.

From there the Flyer defense would hold the Musketeers without a point for the remainder of the half, which allowed Dayton to close with a pair by the intermission. That rally would carry over into the second half as UD would outscore XU, 17-5, over a nine and a half minute stretch.

In the first half, Xavier out shot Dayton 44.0 percent to 37.9 percent from the field with both teams seeing a bulk of its scoring coming from outside. XU was 5-of-12 from three-point range while UD made 4-of-8 from beyond the arc. The Flyers got back into the game by winning the rebounding battle, 18-15, and a 9-6 advantage in points in the paint.

The game remained tight after halftime as neither side led by more than four as the teams entered the final two minutes of regulation with Dayton ahead 58-56. Little stretched the lead to four with a free throw at the 1:59 mark. Then after he missed the second shot, UD retained possession after a held ball on the rebound attempt.

Little made up for his previous miss with a tip-in off a Flyer miss for his 12th point of the night and a 61-56 Flyer advantage with 1:15 left to play. After Doellman cut the lead to three with a pair of free throws with 62 seconds on the clock, Dayton needed three timeouts successfully inbound the ball underneath its own basket. Finally, Marques Bennett found Plummer at the far free throw line who put in a layup for a 63-58 Dayton lead with 58.3 seconds remaining.

Xavier countered with a layup from Cage who was fouled with 36.2 on the clock, but Plummer hit another two free throws just under 14 seconds later to keep the Dayton margin at five with 21.6 remaining.

The Musketeers closed the gap again with two free throws by Stanley Burrell in the final 15 seconds, but Bennett once again found Plummer across half court. The sophomore drained the first of two free throws with 12.6 left to close out the scoring for a 66-62 Flyer victory.

UD played the game without the services of sophomore Jimmy Binnie who suffered an oblique fracture of the fifth metatarsal

Dayton heads to Massachusetts on Saturday for a noon ET tipoff in a game that will be televised live on WHIO-TV.