Mason men's basketball falls to Dayton, 84-67

The Patriots are on a nine-game losing streak, after falling to Dayton on Wednesday night at the Patriot Center (photo by John Irwin).

Mason men’s basketball fell to Dayton on Wednesday night, 84-67.

Jordan Sibert led all scorers with 19, as the Flyers shot 54.9 percent from the floor on 28-51 shooting. Sherrod Wright led the Patriots with 18 points, followed by Bryon Allen with 16 and Corey Edwards with 10. Mason shot 40.0 percent on 18-45 shooting, but won the rebounding battle 30-28 in the game.

Dayton opened the second half with an 11-5 run to lead 51-30 at the 15:56 mark, and the Flyers went on to lead by as many as 27 points with 12:48 to go in the game. Corey Edwards tallied the first field goal off the bench for the Patriots with a trey at the 11:53 mark, which brought the score to 62-39 in Dayton’s favor. The Patriots closed out the game on a 10-5 run to bring the final score to 84-67. Dayton took advantage of Mason’s 15 turnovers with 26 points, and outscored the Patriots 38-22 in the paint.

“Obviously we’ve been on a pretty tough stretch, but effort has been outstanding – tonight it wasn’t,” Paul Hewitt said. “We just didn’t have any life on offense.” 

— Fourth Estate Sports (@FourthEstSports) February 6, 2014

Despite the Patriots winning the rebounding battle 17-14 in the first half, Dayton took advantage of 13 points off of Mason turnovers, and led 40-25 heading into the locker room at the half. The Patriots saw one point off the bench in the first half, which came from Marko Gujanicic on 1-2 free throw shooting.

— Fourth Estate Sports (@FourthEstSports) February 6, 2014

“Today we just didn’t have it. You could see early, and I was hoping we’d kind of snap out of it,” Hewitt said. “But, once they put that run on us – we just didn’t have it.” 

With the loss, the Patriots are now 7-15 overall and 0-8 in Atlantic 10 conference play. Dayton improved to 15-8 overall and 3-5 in A-10 conference play.

Mason’s next matchup will be on the road at Duquesne at 2 p.m. on Saturday, Feb. 8.