Anthony Grant is less concerned about facing his alma mater as he is about helping his team learn how to be more efficient against zone defenses.
The Alabama coach will bring his 16th-ranked Crimson Tide on the road Wednesday night to face a Dayton squad that has been blown out in back-to-back games.
Grant played at Dayton from 1983-87, helping the Flyers go 70-49 with two NCAA tournament berths. He's unsure of the last time he's been back on campus, but hasn't been reminiscing much on the eve of his return.
"It never is about me," Grant said. "Right now it's an opportunity for our guys to go on the road against a quality opponent. If you look at Dayton, they've had some quality wins on the year, obviously a very tough team at home."
The coach is hoping for improvement after Alabama (7-1) fell 57-55 to Georgetown last Thursday. The Crimson Tide struggled against the Hoyas' zone defense in their first loss, making 3 of 16 3-pointers.
Alabama has the SEC's second-worst 3-point percentage at 27.0.
"The fallacy there is that people think to beat a zone, you've got to shoot the ball (well) from the perimeter," Grant said. "I disagree with that. I think obviously there's a lot of different ways but no matter what you do, the ball has to go inside-out."
Point guard Trevor Releford had a season-high six assists against the Hoyas, but agreed that the ball movement needs to be better to get star forwards Tony Mitchell and JaMychal Green more involved.
"Definitely penetrating and stuff like that," Releford said. "That brings everybody in and then you can kick out for an outside shot. That's where it starts at."
Dayton (5-3) appeared to be a team on the rise after winning the Old Spice Classic in Orlando, Fla., during Thanksgiving week by beating Wake Forest, Fairfield and Minnesota.
The Flyers haven't won since, falling 84-55 at home to Buffalo on Nov. 4 and 75-58 at unbeaten Murray State on Sunday.
Dayton shot 37.7 on 3-pointers while making at least seven in its 5-1 start before shooting 20.5 percent (9 of 44) in those two losses.
"When we have a lot of our parts working and working well and getting a lot of production, then we're a team that can play with about anybody," first-year coach Archie Miller said. "We're also a team that if a couple of those parts aren't playing well, we're not getting a lot of the production that we're accustomed to having, then our team dramatically changes its face."
The Flyers have lost five of nine home games after winning 48 of their previous 51. They have dropped four of their last seven at home against Top 25 foes.
"We got an unbelievable Alabama team, really well coached by coach Grant, a team that's going to compete for the SEC championship in so many ways or another," Miller said. "It's a great opportunity for us to play a great team at home."
Dayton has four players averaging more than 10 points, led by Southern Illinois transfer Kevin Dillard's 12.4. Dillard is also averaging a team-high 5.1 assists.
