Dayton Beats Buzzer to Defeat Cardinals in Opener

Friday, November 10

Dayton, Ohio

7:00 PM ET

Ball State University

0-1

Dayton

1-0

Team	1	2	F
Ball State	33	44	77
Dayton	36	42	78

Photo by: Justin Casterline

November 10, 2017 | Men's Basketball

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Tayler Persons, Tahjai Teague lead Ball State with 14 points each

DAYTON, Ohio -- Tayler Persons gave Ball State a one-point lead with 2.4 seconds to play Friday at Dayton, but the Flyers spoiled the Cardinals' bid for a season-opening road win in the final second.

Dayton's Josh Cunningham caught a lob, turned and laid it in with just 0.1 seconds showing on the clock as the Flyers escaped with a 78-77 victory.

"Tough ending," Ball State coach James Whitford said. "I just told the guys in the locker room I thought we played a good game. I felt like we had some first-game discomfort, and I feel like we're better than we played tonight. But the thing I was really proud of is how we hung in there and competed for 40 minutes."

Ball State rallied from seven points down in the final two and a half minutes to give itself a chance to win in front of more than 13,000 fans at UD Arena.

That wasn't the biggest deficit the Cardinals overcame on the night. Dayton jumped out to a 14-0 lead to start the game, but Ball State found its footing and clawed its way back.

The Cardinals outscored Dayton by 11 over the remainder of the first half and trailed only 36-33 at the break. BSU then connected on its first four field goals of the second half and grabbed a 42-38 lead on a Francis Kiapway 3-pointer.

BSU stretched the lead to as many as seven points when Ishmael El-Amin drove and scored with 11:25 to play. But Dayton answered with an 8-0 run to regain the lead, and the teams started going back and forth.

Persons, who scored all of his points in the second half, and Tahjai Teague led Ball State in scoring with 14 each. Teague drained a late 3 as part of Ball State's closing rally and also finished with 11 rebounds for a double-double. Persons had a game-high eight assists.

Freshman Zach Gunn joined that duo in double figures with 11 points, knocking down a pair of 3-pointers in his regular season collegiate debut.

Cunningham led Dayton with 22 points in Anthony Grant's debut as the Flyers' head coach. His biggest points came as the clock ticked down.

Ball State will travel to Oklahoma to play Wednesday night before returning to Muncie to host Stony Brook Friday, Nov. 17 in the home opener.