Tag: Dayton

Neutral-site games with Santa Clara and Wichita State. Road games at San Francisco, Grand Canyon and Virginia Commonwealth. SLU went 0 for 5 in those games.

That’s what made SLU’s win over VCU on Tuesday a big deal. After going 0 for 5 against Quad 1 and Quad 2 teams, essentially the top 75 teams in the nation according to the NCAA’s Net ratings, SLU broke out with its win over the Rams.

“It shows what we’re capable of,” said guard Gibson Jimerson, “that we can compete with the physical teams that we play. And I think for us, it’s kind of been a journey. We’ve had a lot of guys out and we kind of have that core group now that’s been playing together for a good amount of games. Defensively, I think we really stepped it up. We saw last game, from the physicality standpoint, but just what we’re doing schematically and in scouting report, I think we’ve been really on point. It was obviously a good win for us, probably our best win so far. But we got a lot to go.”

SLU’s tough week continues on Friday with a game against Dayton that, as of Thursday afternoon, was on the brink of being the team’s first sellout at Chaifetz Arena since Feb. 3, 2023, against VCU. As recently as the start of 2025, Dayton was clearly the best team in the Atlantic 10, but it has run into some trouble and is 4-4 in league play.

“The (VCU) win means something,” said coach Josh Schertz. “That’s obviously the best one of the year so far. We haven’t played Dayton or a bunch of these teams yet, but that’s the best team we’ve played all year. I felt that going into the VCU game and certainly feel that as of today. So it gives us confidence moving forward, that with everything that we’ve been through, that we have enough. That’s what we’ve kind of talked about, is we have enough to win games in this league. You’d love to have your full complement of players and be able to have the depth and the things that you’d like, but this group now should have confidence that there’s no reason we can’t go out and compete and find a way in every game moving forward.”

At 6-2 in Atlantic 10 play, 13-8 overall, SLU is one of only three teams in the conference with a winning record as it hits the halfway point in conference play. SLU has won seven of its past nine games and doesn’t look much like the team it was before.

“This journey has been rewarding,” Schertz said, “because of how much I’ve seen guys improve and how much this team has grown. I would have said in November, in my 17 years, I don’t know that I had coached a softer team, a less physical team, mentally or physically, and then to see them go out and do that against VCU. But just in general, the growth the last month or so, five weeks or so, has been about as good as I’ve seen. The trajectory, I mean, we were, I think, 15th out of 15 (in the A-10) in non-league play in defensive efficiency, now we’re first eight games into the league. That’s a change in mentality, much more than anything else than scheme. It’s a change in mentality. It’s a change in commitment.

“To see a group that has endured what these guys have in terms of games missed and losing what you would consider to be three or four of your main players and your experienced guys and just continue to work, try to get better, not hang their head, not make excuses and say, ‘Well, you know, it’s not our year.’ It’s been super impressive to me, super inspiring to me. And that’s that physicality, that effort, that commitment that they’re making to it to win high level games, those elevated games where you’re playing the best teams. There’s a level of competitiveness needed. There’s a level of physicality needed, and there’s obviously a level of execution of detail needed on both ends of the floor. The physicality growth of this team from Nov. 22 against Wichita State to Jan. 28, that’s about as good as I’ve ever seen. Now, you don’t want to start off as bad as we did with it. You hope there’s a baseline that’s way above what our floor was.”

It’s a weird time in the Atlantic 10 right now. George Mason is 7-1 in league play, SLU and VCU are 6-2, and those are the only three teams — out of 15 — with records above .500. Dayton is one of five teams at .500, and then there are four teams that are one game below .500, either at 4-5 or 3-4.

That underscores the danger of Dayton (14-7, 4-4), which has some of the best nonconference wins in the league but is at .500 in conference play. The A-10 has shown on any night, just about anybody can beat anybody.

And SLU has to make physical play like it had on Tuesday the rule rather than the exception.

“I think this group is starting to look like a basketball team,” Schertz said. “We’re flawed. We’re not perfect. We do a lot of dumb stuff, but we fight and we fought at Richmond, and I’ll say this, we fought at GW. We were down 13 with five minutes to play. We’re down in 16 in the second half and easy to mail it in and say, ‘Ah, we got beat by 25 today. We just didn’t have it.’ … The resilience is there, the competing together, competing present, the attention to detail. You’re starting to see the lights come on, and as a coach that’s exciting.”