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Warming up before the tipoff, power forward Jason Maxiell glanced over at Dayton's coach and noticed that he was looking back.
Cincinnati's top player figured that could mean only one thing -- the Bearcats' pressure was already working.
Maxiell scored 19 points, setting the tone with four early jumpers, and the 14th-ranked Bearcats turned up the full-court pressure to stagger No. 23 Dayton 82-53 on Tuesday night.
Cincinnati (7-0) put all of its depth and muscle into the press as it dominated its toughest opponent yet. The Bearcats forced 17 turnovers in the first half alone, and all Dayton coach Brian Gregory could do was watch his veteran team unravel under pressure.
The Bearcats think the pressure got to Dayton even before it started.
``Their coach looked
scared before the game,'' Maxiell said. ``He wasn't paying attention to his
team warming up, he was looking at us. He looked pale.''
Gregory, in his first year as the Flyers' coach, joked that he always looks
pale. He had no explanation for why his team paled so much in comparison.
The flustered Flyers (9-1) threw away their best season-opening streak since 1955-56. Dayton won its first nine by surviving a few close calls against overmatched teams, including two-point wins over Wagner and IUPUI.
They weren't ready for the Bearcats' press.
``They came out and had something to prove and did a very good job of it,'' Gregory said. ``They can play so many guys, and they keep replenishing that speed and quickness on the court.''
The Flyers had a season-high 28 turnovers, extending their futility in Cincinnati. They haven't won on the Bearcats' home court since 1971, a streak of 15 consecutive losses.
Sean Finn led Dayton with 17 points, and Mark Jones added 13.
The Bearcats used the game as a measuring stick. They wanted to not only beat their toughest opponent yet, but to dominate.
AP - Dec 23, 10:40 pm EST
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``We knew we could make a statement by beating this team handily,'' point guard
Nick Williams said.
Dayton turned the ball over on six of its first eight possessions, helping the Bearcats take control. Maxiell, who scored only nine points in his last game, hit four jumpers in the first 1:55 for a 10-1 lead.
``He's far and away our best player,'' coach Bob Huggins said. ``He does more things for us. I've talked to him about slowing down. He makes shots when he slows down. He had been hurrying everything.''
The more they tried to hurry through the press, the worse the Flyers got.
Their 17 first-half turnovers were one shy of their season high for an entire game. They fell behind by as many as 23 in the half, when they went more than six minutes without a field goal.
The telling moment came on the Flyers' second possession, when they passed the ball through the traps and Keith Waleskowski found 7-foot center Sean Finn unguarded to the left of the basket. Finn hurried to catch and shoot and fumbled the ball out of bounce for turnover No. 2.
The second half opened with Dayton getting the ball -- and its 18th turnover.
Cincinnati, which has 10 players averaging at least 10 minutes a game, kept going to its deep bench to keep its press fresh. The Bearcats wasted chances to increase the lead even more, hurrying low-percentage shots that drew Huggins' wrath.
Dayton finally settled down, and Jones had a fastbreak layup and a 3-pointer that cut it to 49-36. Maxiell had four more jumpers and a free throw in a 17-4 spurt that ended the Flyers' comeback and pushed the lead to 26 points.
Waleskowski, a senior forward who averages 14.9 points, fouled out with 8:27 left and only two points in the game, his lowest total of the season.
Cincinnati relished the drubbing. Forward James White stood in place, pointed and mugged for the television camera under the basket after a dunk with 30 seconds left.