Mikesell steals the show in Dayton win

DAYTON - Charles Cook, Scoochie Smith and Kendall Pollard are usually the attention-getters for the University of Dayton men's basketball team.

On Wednesday night, St. Henry graduate Ryan Mikesell was Mr. Popular in the postgame press conference following his big performance in a 68-63 victory over Vanderbilt at the University of Dayton Arena.

The sophomore forward, who has started all 11 games this season for the Flyers, recorded his first career double-double with 12 points and 11 rebounds and ignited a second-half surge that sent the Flyers past Vanderbilt for their sixth consecutive victory over a Southeastern Conference program.

"I would say this is the first time this year that I kind of put everything together," Mikesell said.

And against a Commodores team that never went away, the Flyers needed everything they got from Mikesell, who scored all 12 of his points in the second half on a perfect 5-of-5 shooting.

"Ryan was good," Dayton coach Archie Miller said. "He stayed out of foul trouble. Ryan's been picking up one quick foul, then he picks up a second one and we can't play him in the first half. That's happened in the last two or three games. He got into a little bit of a rhythm offensively, and defensively he made some things happen for us. He also had some scrap rebounds. For him to get a double-double, 11 rebounds in 29 minutes, that kind of shows his versatility."

Dayton and Vandy both shot a unimpressive 9-of-32 in the first half. The Flyers led by as many as seven points, but Vandy eventually tied the score on a Matthew Fisher-Davis 3-pointer and then took a 23-21 lead into the locker room after Payton Willis' jumper at the buzzer.

Though Mikesell led Dayton at half in rebounds with five, he missed all three of his field goal attempts. That changed in a hurry once the second half began.

He scored four points during an 8-0 Flyer run that forced Vandy coach Bryce Drew to burn a timeout less than three minutes into the half. Mikesell began the second by making a reverse layup off a feed from Pollard. A few possessions later, he collected a pair of offensive rebounds and banked the second one home.

Mikesell was just getting warmed up.

The Commodores had their margin back to three, 37-34, with 11 minutes to play. During the next Dayton possession, Cook picked up his dribble with the shot clock running low and flipped a desperation pass to Mikesell, who knocked down a 3-pointer from the left elbow extended.

With just under eight minutes to go, Vandy had cut the score back to four, 43-39, when Mikesell got open in the corner and splashed his second trey of the half - which ignited an 8-2 run that gave Dayton a double-digit lead for the first time in the contest.

The Commodores kept coming but never could get any closer than four points the rest of the way.

"In the first half, we really weren't hitting our open shots," said Mikesell, who averages 6.7 points and 4.6 rebounds per game this season. "We were playing really good defense. They didn't shoot a very good percentage in the first half, but they started to hit a bunch of 3s at the end. Overall, we played really good defense. In the second half, we started making our open shots."

The Flyers (8-3) rebounded from last Saturday's loss to Northwestern to improve to 8-3 on the season ahead of Friday's 7 p.m. home game with Virginia Military Institute.

"We knew coming into this game we needed a win, especially after a tough one against Northwestern," Mikesell said. "I'm glad we got this one. We've got one more against VMI and hopefully we can get it and enjoy a happy Christmas break."

Cook had a team-high 19 points for Dayton and Pollard added 13. But the Player of the Game honors went to Mikesell after he tied a season-high in points and posted a career-high in rebounds against a Commodore frontline that featured 7-foot-1 Luke Kornet and 6-10 Djery Baptiste.

"He made crucial, winning plays for us," Miller said. "Offensive rebounds, tap outs ... he made a big 3 in (the) left corner. I thought he defended inside pretty well. This was one of his better all-around games."