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Kansas St.-Dayton Preview

Nov 22, 2009 - 3:14 AM By MATT BECKER STATS Senior Writer

Kansas State (3-1) at Dayton (2-1), 5:30 p.m. EDT

Dayton coach Brian Gregory was pleased with how his team responded to adversity in its second-round game of the Puerto Rico Tip-Off.

Now he wants to see how they'll respond to a loss.

The 18th-ranked Flyers try to bounce back from their first defeat of the season Sunday when they play Kansas State for third place in the tourney.

Things weren't looking good for Dayton (2-1), trailing fifth-ranked Villanova by 18 with 14:08 remaining in the second half Thursday, but the Flyers stormed back and nearly pulled off the upset.

Dayton trimmed the Wildcats' lead to 62-60 with 2:23 left when London Warren converted two free throws after he was fouled on a breakaway, but it could not get any closer and suffered a 71-65 defeat.

"I am proud of our guys for that, but we are at a point right now where we feel we can at least compete with these teams and wish we would have been able to do it for little more than just the last twelve minutes or ten minutes or so," Gregory said.

"I said before the tournament started that the key to this was how we responded within the tournament and after. Within this game we responded pretty well. Now we need to respond to this loss, which is going to be important."

Dayton, which defeated No. 21 Georgia Tech 63-59 in Thursday's first-round game, needs to control the ball better and cut down on mistakes.

The Flyers' offense struggled to get in rhythm Friday, turning the ball over 17 times leading to 13 points for Villanova.

Despite the offensive miscues, Dayton got another strong performance from its bench, which has outscored its starters 86-42 so far in this tournament.

Reserve forward Luke Fabrizius had a season-high 16 points Friday while backup forward Chris Johnson finished with 13 after scoring 19 against the Yellow Jackets.

The Flyers' offense will try and get back on track against a Kansas State team that struggled to slow down Mississippi in Friday's 86-74 second-round loss.

The Wildcats (3-1) allowed the Rebels to make 56.0 percent of its shots, including 63.0 percent after halftime. This is a stark contrast from Kansas State's first three games, when it allowed an average of 58.0 points on 29.4 percent shooting.

While the defense didn't come up with many stops against Ole Miss, the Wildcats, who beat Boston University 80-70 in a first-round game Thursday, had another solid offensive performance.

Curtis Kelly had a team-high 18 points while Jacob Pullen and Denis Clemente added 17 each for Kansas State, which is averaging 82.0 points.

This will be the Wildcats' first game of the season against a ranked opponent after going 1-3 against Top 25 teams a year ago.

This also marks the first meeting between these two programs.