You may recall the NBA scout I quoted after the Temple game, the one who thought SLU didn’t look like a Division I team in the first half of that game. He was at the Dayton game on Thursday and afterward, I asked him  what he thought this time. “Impressive,” he said. He said it was clear they were learning from Majerus. And he was really impressed by Kwamain Mitchell. “He’s going to be good,” he said.

I don’t want to say the Dayton game was a coming out party for Kwamain Mitchell (considering the concussion, a coming-to party?) because he’s looked pretty good so far. But Thursday was his best shooting night and, in the wake of his head injury, he showed a lot of energy, diving for loose ball, leaping into the stands. He led the team in plus-minus at +3. More on that later.

It wasn’t until I looked at the numbers that I realized just how truly bad the second half was in a great many ways. I realized the teams had gone long stretches without scoring — after a basket with 6:57 to play, Dayton scored just two points the rest of the way. SLU shot 23.5 percent, making just four field goals. Dayton shot 32 percent, making eight of 25. SLU also had 10 turnovers in the second half.

Yet they looked better than they did against Richmond, maybe in part because the defense was better. It’s one of this team’s recurring themes: How well they do will be judged by the defense, not the offense. Any game where SLU plays good defense, they have a chance to win.

This is SLU’s second three-game losing streak this season. In Majerus’ college coaching career, he’s never had a four-game losing streak. If SLU’s defense holds up, they’ve got a decent chance to win at Fordham, a team with plenty of kids of its own. And which is truly bad. And for those who want to be sure before booking a trip to Atlantic City, a win over Fordham would go pretty far toward guaranteeing SLU a spot. With a win, both Fordham and GW would have to win four games to edge SLU out. That seems unlikely.

The last time SLU led at the half was the UMBC game on Dec. 30. It’s the second time this season they’ve been ahead at the half and lost. The other was at Detroit.

You could make the case this was the tightest game SLU has played this season. SLU’s biggest lead was four, Dayton’s was five. That’s a nine-point spread. The only game with a smaller spread was the Fresno State game, but SLU led by as many as eight and Fresno never led. So it didn’t have the back and forth aspect.

Dayton, by the way, has the nation’s best record in games decided by five or fewer points, 8-0. New Orleans is 6-0.

The alley oop play that Dayton got the winning points on was supposed to have been run earlier in the possession, but SLU had it defended. Dayton went back, reset, and it worked the second time.

“They’re phenomenally althetic and they’re deep,” Majerus said of Dayton. “Part of it is their athleticism, their depth, their size. We were playing boys against men. I credit Dayton a lot. They’re a very good team, athletic, deep, they played their (butts) off. It was a difficult game plan for two days of preparation. I thought (SLU) executed on both sides of the ball fairly well.”

SLU’s 19 turnovers were a season high. Dayton turned them into 14 points. Many of them were unforced. A few times SLU players made passes toward no one in particular. In what I’ll interpret as a sign SLU is better at getting back after a turnover, Dayton’s potin total is actually comparatively small. Against Nebraska, for instance, SLU turned the ball over 13 times and the Huskers turned those into 19 points. Against SIUC they had 15 turnovers and the Salukis got 20 points.

SLU’s PPP was .78, which is quite lower than the 1.0 against Richmond.

Dayton’s 0 for 11 on 3-point tries is the biggest 0-fer in the past four years for a SLU opponent.

Only Savannah State (31.3) shot worse as a team than Dayton (32.7). Dayton’s 15 offensive rebounds, which they turned into 14 points, matched the most for a SLU opponent this season. BC turned theirs into 18 points.

“I think our defense was good once we boxed out,” Kevin Lisch said. “We had a good game plan. We did a pretty good job stopping their fast break.”

They sure worked on the game plan a lot. They practiced about four hours on Tuesday and had a long session on Thursday morning before the game.

SLU played some zone again, a box and one. Lisch told me on Tuesday the team needed to be more aggressive at the start and they were.

“I think we tried to be more aggressive,” he said. “We got a little stagnant in the second half. We’ve got to keep coming out and attacking.”

Kevin Lisch passed Harry Rogers and is in sixth place on the SLU career scoring list with 1,498. He’ll join Anthony Bonner, Erwin Claggett, Roland Gray, Monroe Douglass and Scott Highmark in the 1,500 point club on Saturday. I think.

This was the second time this season Liddell has had five points. Xavier was the other. (All the more reason to stay out of Ohio.) He also had five at Kent State last season. He didn’t score in the first half, hit a 3 on SLU’s first possession of the second half and then made two late free throws.

Barry Eberhardt had two fouls in the first half that limited him to five minutes. He played 13 in the second half.

Paul Eckerle played a far more manageable six minutes on Thursday.

Late in the first half, Mitchell took a really bad shot along the baseline and when he came over to the bench, you could see Majerus waving his hands and saying “No more.” Majerus has said he’s going to rein in Mitchell at times, and this seemed to be it. A few minutes later, the shot clock was running out and Mitchell got the ball and had no choice; he had to shoot. He made it. And after that he made another.

Brian Conklin’s two points were his fewest in a game so far in his career. But he had five rebounds.

Kyle Cassity made more than one basket for just the second time in his SLU career. (Samford is the other.) I was seated across from the SLU bench on Thursday, and during some huddles, the one person I could see was Cassity, and he seemed to be talking a lot. I don’t know if Majerus was asking him questions or what, but Cassity was always saying things.

Brett Thompson stayed in St. Louis and did rehab on his injured ankle. He was flying with some athletic department staffers to New York today. His rehab has apparently gone well.

“He’s going to come to New York,” Majerus said. “I need every hand on deck. Do I think he’ll play? Probably not. Do I think it will be good for him to be with the team and rehab? (Yes) If he could just give us a few minutes of relief, just a little bit of fouls, whatever. We don’t have a good walk-on, we can’t find a good walk on. We have Daniel Lisch, he’ll have a great career at (Fontbonne). I can’t pull Femi John’s redshirt. That wouldn’t be fair to him. Every time I walk by Femi I want to put him in a uniform. He’s exactly what we need, an athletic tough kid. But you make a promise to a kid, you tell him to do the right thing, that’s the way it is.”

Willie Reed won the opening tip, I think just the third time this season SLU has gotten the ball at the start. His nine rebounds were a career high. He had four turnovers, however, and dropped the ball a couple times under the basket. That’s the kind of thing that should change in the years ahead.

SLU was 0 for 2 from the free throw line in the first half, 9 for 9 in the second.

SLU is 0-3 this season when referee Mike Kitts works the game. That brings SLU’s two-season total with Kitts at the game to 1-6.

 As I mentioned above, Mitchell led the plus-minus at +3. He, Liddell and Cassity were the only players in positive territory:

Mitchell +3

Liddell +2

Cassity +2

Reed 0

Lisch -1

Conklin -1

Eckerle -4

Eberhardt -6

The team got on a charter flight immediately after the game and flew to New York, where they’ll practice today (and presumably sleep late; they couldn’t have gotten to their hotel much before 2 a.m.). I won’t be in New York on Saturday; in cost-conscious times, we’re skipping this game, though I’m a bit bummed about missing an off night in New York City.

Life on the road:

In a supreme stroke of wisdom, I chose to fly into Dayton rather than taking the cheaper flight into Columbus. That looked really good when the weather got bad and the roads turned slushy. Having already toured the Wright Bros. old store and the Air Force Museum at Wright-Patterson Air Force Base, I was planning on heading to the field near the base where the Wrights tested their early planes. But it was just too darn cold and the roads too darn messy, so I stayed at the hotel. I’m sorry I have nothing to report on the joys of Dayton, where a lot of roads seem to be under repair. For those who haven’t had a chance to go there, the UD Arena is a nice place to see a game. They draw good crowds — 12,436 on Thursday — and the place is noisy. It’s not as intimate as the Cintas Center in Cincinnati or as cozy as Memorial Fieldhouse at St. Joe’s, but for a big arena, the biggest in the league, it’s a good place to see a game. And on Saturday, they’ll see the opposite end of the spectrum. Fordham’s Rose Hill Gym is dinky and atmosphere-free.