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DAYTON, Ohio – No. 25 Xavier (22-6, 13-1 A-10) held on for a 66-62 Atlantic 10 victory over the University of Dayton (19-10, 7-7 A-10) Sunday at UD Arena in front of a sold out crowd of 13,435.

Xavier’s Tu Holloway, the A-10 Conference’s leading scorer, put up a game-high 26 points, along with six rebounds and five assists, and was voted the Blackburn/McCafferty MVP. 

Junior Chris Johnson led UD with 22 points and nine rebounds. He currently has 999 career points. His three-point attempt in the final seconds rimmed out and Holloway pulled in the defensive rebound to clinch the win. Also for the Flyers, junior Paul Williams chipped in 13 points, and redshirt sophomore Josh Benson and senior Chris Wright added nine points. All of Wright’s points came in the second half as he went 0-for-5 in the first.

Johnson scored UD’s first eight points of the contest. After his early three-point flurry to put the Flyers up 6-2 at the 18:18 mark and his basket to cut the XU lead to 9-8 with 15:25 remaining, the Musketeers used a 24-12 run and took their largest lead of the half, 33-20, on a Mark Lyons layup at the 3:46 mark.

The Musketeers closed out the half with an exclamation point on Jeff Robinson’s dunk with 33 seconds left to give XU its 37-25 halftime lead.
Dayton struggled with 13 first-half turnovers, but the Flyers’ three-point shooting kept them in the game as they shot 60 percent (6-of-10) from behind the arc.

The Flyers outscored XU 37-29 in the second half and it helped they turned the ball over only three times.

UD clawed its way back into the game and tied it 59-all on a pair of Johnson free throws with 1:48 left to play in the game.

Holloway scored seven points in the final 1:26 – two free throws (at 1:26), a trey (at 42 seconds) and another set of free throws (six seconds).

Dayton hosts Saint Louis at UD Arena on Wednesday, March 2 at 7 p.m. ET. The game will be aired WHIO-TV and WHIO radio. The Flyers will celebrate and honor their four seniors (Logan Nourse, Devin Searcy, Chris Wright and Peter Zesterman) prior to the game.