City of Basketball Love

Stephen Pianovich (@SPianovich)
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Temple hosting No. 1 Villanova isn’t the only important game in town tonight. St Joseph’s is hosting No. 15 Dayton tonight at Hagan Arena.

A lot is one the line, including first place in the Atlantic 10 as the Flyers enter at 11-1 in the conference with St. Joe’s at 10-2. Here’s a breakdown of the matchup by the numbers:

64.0
The Flyers allow just 64 points per game, which is the lowest mark in the Atlantic 10 and the 20th-best scoring defense in the nation. Of Dayton, St. Joe’s coach Phil Martelli said: “They’re very, very, very good defensively, and that’s my biggest concern – whether or not we can score enough. We can’t have a defensive gameplan that doesn’t involve scoring, because we’re not winning 50-48 here.”

4
Dayton has a quartet of players who average double-figures in scoring this season. Charles Cooke leads the way with 16.0 points per game and is helped by Dyshawn Pierre (13.5 ppg), Kendall Pollard (11.0 ppg) and Scoochie Smith (10.2 ppg). Pollard missed the Flyers’ last game with a knee injury, but could return Wednesday.

29.9
St. Joe’s hold opponents to the lowest 3-point percentage in the conference at 29.9 percent. The Flyers enter the matchup shooting it at a 36.3 percent clip from beyond the 3-point arc.

3
The number of A-10 teams ESPN’s Joe Lunardi has in his latest NCAA Tournament projection. Lunardi has Dayton as a No. 4 seed and St. Joe’s and VCU as 10 seeds. The original bracketologist also has St. Bonaventure, which beat St. Joe’s two weeks ago, on the bubble as part of his next four out.

34.3
The combined points per game between St. Joe’s players Isaiah Miles (17.5 ppg) and DeAndre’ Bembry (16.8 ppg). Those numbers are good for 10th and 13th, respectively in the conference, and the duo also combines to grab 16.2 rebounds per game. Miles (8.2 rpg) is fifth in the conference, while Bembry (8.0 rpg) is seventh.

215
The area code where Dayton’s only A-10 loss of the season happened. The Flyers fell to La Salle on Jan. 10 at Tom Gola Arena, in what is their only conference loss of the season and the Explorers’ lone league win of the 2015-16 campaign.

57
That’s how many points St. Joe’s got in this week’s AP poll, good for 28th in the nation. The Hawks have not been in the top 25 since having an undefeated regular season 12 years ago, but a win on Wednesday could very well change that.