DAYTON, Ohio — The University of Dayton men’s basketball team opens the 2026-27 regular season Monday night, Nov. 2, welcoming NJIT to UD Arena for a 7 p.m. tipoff — the first game that counts in a season the Flyers begin picked third in the Atlantic 10 and playing, once again, in front of a sold-out building, according to the University of Dayton Athletics preview.
Tipoff is scheduled for 7 p.m. and will be broadcast on WHIO TV, streamed on ESPN+, and available on WHIO Radio, Dayton Athletics said. Dayton (0-0, 0-0 Atlantic 10) finished its exhibition campaign 2-1, sprinting past Morehead State 88-56 in the preseason finale.
The exhibitions showcased the Flyers’ depth more than any single star: no Dayton player averaged more than 22 minutes per game across the three exhibitions, with newcomer Zaide Lowery playing a team-high 22.0 minutes per contest, according to Dayton Athletics. Three Flyers averaged double figures in the preseason, led by junior Malcolm Thomas at 11.7 points per game, freshman Aiden Derkack at 11.0 and Landen “Dunk” Joseph at 10, Dayton Athletics reported.
The finale offered the clearest preview of the rotation. Dayton jumped to a 12-point halftime lead over Morehead State and outscored the Eagles by 20 in the second half of the 88-56 win, with five players scoring 10 or more points, according to Dayton Athletics. Junior Amaël L’Etang had a team-high 14 points and six rebounds, Derkack scored 13 — all in the first half, on perfect 5-for-5 shooting — Thomas added 11 points, six rebounds and a team-leading five blocks, and Lowery and sophomore Damon Friery each finished with 10, Dayton Athletics reported.
Across the three exhibitions, Dayton averaged 79.7 points while shooting .509 from the floor and .355 from behind the arc, and held its three opponents to 67.7 points on .405 shooting, according to Dayton Athletics. The two wins came over Notre Dame and Morehead State; the loss came against Xavier in the opener, played as part of the CareSource Invitational at the Lindner Family Tennis Center in Mason, Dayton Athletics said.
NJIT (0-0, 0-0 America East) arrives with its own marker of progress: the Highlanders were selected to finish fourth in the America East Preseason Coaches’ Poll, their highest preseason selection since joining the conference in 2020, according to Dayton Athletics. NJIT is led by David Bolden, the 2026 America East Rookie of the Year, who averaged 11.8 points, 2.8 rebounds, 2.8 assists and 1.9 steals per game, Dayton Athletics reported.
The expectations around Dayton start with the league’s own voters. The Flyers were picked to finish third in the Atlantic 10 preseason poll, collecting 279 points and two first-place votes, trailing VCU (308 points, 11 first-place votes) and Saint Louis (307, 10), according to Dayton Athletics. George Mason was fourth and George Washington fifth. L’Etang was named to the A-10 Preseason First Team after averaging 11.9 points, 5.9 rebounds and 1.2 blocks last season, with 16 double-digit scoring games in his final 17 outings and six double-doubles, Dayton Athletics reported.
L’Etang, at 7-foot-1 the tallest player in program history, has played 67 games as a Flyer with 49 starts — and both the 1,000-point and 500-rebound clubs are in sight this season, needing 365 points and 157 rebounds to get there, according to Dayton Athletics. He would become the 16th Dayton player in both clubs.
Monday’s opener also extends one of college basketball’s most remarkable streaks. The University of Dayton announced last week that the Flyers have sold out the entire season for the sixth consecutive season, according to Dayton Athletics. The sellout streak currently sits at 94 games and will hit the century mark against Loyola (Maryland) in early December; 18 more sellouts this season would extend the regular-season streak to 112 games dating back to 2019-20, Dayton Athletics said. It is the same building that makes fall in Dayton a basketball season unto itself — a few miles and one sport over from the football Flyers, who scored 35 second-half points to beat Stetson for a fourth straight win, and part of a southwest Ohio weekend that also crowned champions in our Cincinnati district soccer coverage.
What we know — and what we’re still waiting on: the opponent, the 7 p.m. Monday tip, the broadcast details, the exhibition numbers and the preseason poll are all set out by Dayton Athletics. What no exhibition can answer is how the deep rotation holds up over 40 minutes that count — Monday night is the first real evidence, against an NJIT team picked higher than it has ever been in its league.
What happens next: Dayton vs. NJIT tips at 7 p.m. Monday, Nov. 2, at UD Arena, on WHIO TV, ESPN+ and WHIO Radio. A win starts the Flyers’ march toward that 100th consecutive sellout in December — and toward the Atlantic 10 race the league’s voters expect them to be in until March.