PITTSBURGH – The final 30 seconds of Saturday afternoon’s Atlantic 10 Semifinal showdown between Saint Louis and Dayton played all the hits that only a conference tournament game in March can deliver.
Dayton’s Amael L’Etang was the hero, tipping in a ball that seemed to hang in the air in slow motion with less than a second to go in the game. The play by whom Dayton head coach Anthony Grant nicknames “Frenchie”, was enough to give the Flyers a 70-69 win over the top seeded Billikens, and send Dayton to the A-10 Championship game for the first time in three years.
The last 30 seconds were a back-and-forth fracas of uninterrupted madness.
Robbie Avila was called for a five-second violation under Dayton’s basket, handing the ball to the Flyers on their own end.
The Flyers were able to inbound the ball successfully, then got the ball into the hands of Javon Bennett, who looked like he had a wide-open right-handed layup driving to his right.
Saint Louis’ Amari McCottry seemingly appeared out of thin air to swat Bennett’s attempt off the glass.
The Flyers’ Keonte Jones followed the blocked shot, quickly kicking out to a wide open Jordan Derkack on the left wing. Dercack quickly threw a “one more” pass to the corner to Jacob Connor, who drilled a right corner three and sent the large contingent of Flyers fans into a frenzy.
McCottry calmly brought the ball over the timeline for Saint Louis, and hit a wide open Avila, who was trailing the play. He drilled a wide open three from straight on, his lone made triple of the game, as L’Etang sank back into the paint following the three by Connor.
Then the sea of blue behind the Billikens bench went bonkers.
Dayton’s Jordan Derkack, who scored a season high 28 points in Saturday’s win, raced down the court driving to his right. He spun back to his left, and threw up a tough up-and-under layup wedged in between McCottry and Avila.
L’Etang rose up over Avila to tip home the miss, giving the Flyers the win, and with it, the chance to play for the A-10 Tournament Championship and spot in March Madness tomorrow.
“The last 30 seconds, that was crazy,” said L’Etang.
“There was no timeout, like back-to-back. Jacob Connor hit a three, Avila hit a three. To be honest, I don’t know what happened. I have to see the clip again. … I just tried my best to put the ball back in the rim, and that worked pretty well,” L’Etang aid.
L’Etang, a threat as a three-point shooter, and can stretch the floor as well as anyone in the A-10, has apparently maddened his coaches, who want the 7-foot-1 center to play inside more. You have to think they’ll be pretty happy with him now that they get a chance to play on Sunday.
“Coaches get mad at him because he wants to stay on the perimeter too much,” said Derkack. It paid off going to the glass. Maybe he’ll do it more now.”
With six seconds remaining after Avila’s three, Anthony Grant saw Derkack, Dayton’s best player on Saturday afternoon, with the ball in his hands in the midst of the chaos. With a timeout in his back pocket, he never reached for it. Grant didn’t think his whiteboard would have done any good.
“6.6 seconds, we got the ball in Derkack’s hands, broken floor, I couldn’t draw up anything better,” said Grant.
“I knew he was going to attack the rim. If he got fouled, we were in the bonus. He attacked, got a good look at it. And credit to Frenchie [L’Etang], he was there to tip it in. Grateful that it ended the way it ended,” said Grant on the end of game sequence.
Derkack, who’s averaging a tick under nine points a game on the season, picked a timely juncture to have his best game in a Flyer uniform. His 28 point outing was his only 20 plus point game of the season, scoring 16 points in the second half. Every one of them was needed on an afternoon where Dayton trailed by double digits in the second half, with their season in the balance.
Complimenting Derkack’s scoring outburst was one of his best three point shooting days of his entire college career, one that took him to Merrimack and Rutgers before landing at Dayton this summer.
Derkack by percentage is Dayton’s least imposing three point marksman, making under 27 percent of his attempts on the year. Saint Louis played the numbers game, and boy did Derkack make the Billikens pay.
Derkack made four of the eight made triples for Dayton in the win. From the charity stripe, Derkack might be a guy that opponents want on the line late too. He made 12 of his 15 free throws for the game, and ten of 11 freebies in the second half.
His ability to step up offensively when his team was critical to help the Flyers extend their season by at least one more day, but to Anthony Grant, he’s happy about how Derkack’s come along over the course of the whole season, not just on Saturday, to be able to put himself in that position.
“Jordan’s been through a lot physically from the time he came on campus,” Grant said. “He’s had some setbacks in terms of his availability, and he’s worked really hard to put himself in a position where he could be available and play at the level we know he’s capable of.”
“What he’s been through, just his resiliency, that’s the beauty of team basketball. Last night it was Javon [Bennett], tonight it was Jordan who had a career high for us,” he added.
Derkack put in the work necessary to even make sure he could get out on the court and play, and his coaches and teammates recognize that effort. Grant and his staff have poured into him, instilling belief into him to be able to produce when his number is called. Saturday was a culmination of that.
“Credit to my coaches, they’ve always been confident in me to take those, and I was feeling good from behind the arc,” Derkack said. “Credit to my teammates, they were putting me in positions, especially around the basket.”
“Just the coaches’ plan in place for the game, if we do that for 40 minutes, we’re putting ourselves in the best position,” he added.
Now the focus turns to Sunday afternoon, when they can earn their spot in March Madness. Dayton is not in the at-large conversation, so Sunday’s championship game is their only way to gain admission to the dance.
Grant’s group will be ready for the matchup and the stakes that come with it.
“What you see is a bunch of guys that trust in each other, believe in each other, that understand at the end of the day, the most important thing is getting a win,” Grant said. “That’s what March is all about. Our guys want to win a championship.”
