Week in Review 1.23.10

Every Friday I'll break down the week that was in Flyers basketball, as well as whatever is else is on my mind at the time. It'll be my chance to overreact to the UD's most recent game as well as renege on everything I said in the podcast earlier in the given week. Or, at the very least, it will give you something distracting to read when you should be working on a Friday.

1-1 on the week
It feels like the game at Xavier has been covered ad naseum, so much so that the game seems like it must have taken place much more than just six days ago. I will reiterate one thing I said in the game recap though: Dayton took the game to Xavier. The Flyers didn't sit back and wait for X to take it to them. They didn't look like a bunch of deer in the headlights nor did they look scared or intimidated (or any other adjective) of Xavier simply because it's Xavier. For this reason, I think UD wins in the rematch and it might not even be as close as everyone expects.

It's difficult to predict how a team will react coming off a big rivalry game, especially a tough road loss. It's easy to fire up the troops for a game at X on ESPN2; it's not so easy to do the same thing for a week night game against a middle of the road George Washington team. UD responded well and cruised to a win without the services of Luke Fabrizius and Paul Williams. Sure, GW is a pedestrian team with a who coach who seemingly cannot grasp the concept of playing only five men at a time, but the Flyers needed a bounce back win and got it Wednesday night. Dayton also remained perfect on the year at UD Arena and stretched its home winning streak to 30 games. (Chris Wright is 37-0 in his career at home.)

The road ahead
If UD ever makes it to the Elite Eight in my lifetime, I really hope the program, the administration, and the coach at the time do not take one out of St. Joseph's playbook. The Hawks, led by current NBA-ers Jameer Nelson and Delonte West, did just that back in 2004 and, best I can tell, the basketball program has done nothing to build upon or parlay that success. In fact, if you aren't a college basketball fan who pays attention to these things, you'd probably never know this happened. I'm a huge Phil Martelli fan, but I'm very surprised SJU has failed to cash in on past successes with better recruits or more national exposure or ... something.

The Hawks are in a rebuilding phase and sit at just 6-11 overall (1-3 in conference play). This is a game Dayton must win and, in my opinion, should win handily. Will it be pretty? It never is. Will it be a blowout? It almost never is. I look for the boys in red to win by ten.

But if games again George Washington and St. Joe's provide a respite of sorts for UD, it will be a brief one. The Flyers return home for a Tuesday, January 26, bout with Rhode Island. The Rams are an impressive 15-2 (3-1) and sport a quality victory against Oklahoma State as well as a decent road win over Boston College. URI's lone conference loss game is in a 4-point affair with Temple. The good news for UD fans may be that Rhody will be coming off a big game at Xavier just three days prior to taking on the Flyers. The Atlantic 10 schedule makers seem to have done the Rams no favors this season, as URI plays the league's toughest out (Temple) twice and arguably its next two best teams both on the road.

How close is it?
I think this Dayton team is close. I feel good about where the Flyers stand right now and about the progress the team has made thus far in 2009-'10. UD is capable of playing stellar defense and has put on a rebounding clinic in its last two games. Really, the only thing you can say the Flyers do at a below average level is put the ball in the basket (if only that were not the object of the game).

As long as the Flyers continue to ratchet up the D and crash the glass as they have been, I think these guys are a forced to be reckoned with, at least in the A10. Plus, I honestly believe UD will have a game or two where shots start falling, a game or two in which the Flyers knock down half of their wide open jumpers and 80% of their free throws. If these games come against the right opponents (Xavier, URI, or at Richmond), UD could reel off a bunch of W's and even finish as high as 13-3 in the league. Even if it doesn't go down like that, I think UD can score just enough points and lean heavily on that D to win every home game and go 12-4 in A10 play (which would all but lock up an at-large bid.)

The Rotation
With Luke and P-Will on the bench last night, UD's rotation was smaller and Brian Gregory was forced to be much less liberal with his substituion patterns. And guess what? UD won in blowout fashion. Of course, one would have to attribue that more to GW being not good at basketball and less to substitution issues, but it does raise a question. Is it time for Brian Gregory to tighten up his rotation?

For the first half of the year, I was on board with the whole "play 11 guys and wear down the opposition over 40 minutes" strategy ... mainly because it worked so well last season. But that, as they say, was then and this is now. I think it's time for Paul Williams, sick or not, to see a lot more bench time. If you can't outplay Mickey Perry on a regular basis, you just don't deserve a regular spot in the rotation. I'd tell P-Will that he's still a big part of the plan here at UD and that I fully expect him to start at the 2 next season, but that there are two seniors (Mickey and MJ) in front of him right now and he might be seeing a cutback in his PT down the home stretch.

The other move I'd suggest is going to a 3-man platoon at the center position. Basically, Huelsman and Searcy (Kurtcy) have been averaging 36 mpg at the 5 with UD "going small" (or playing Kavanaugh and the walk-ons) for the other four minutes. Huelsman starts and sees 20 minutes a night; that part is a given. What I'd do is cut back on Searcy's minutes and have him split time with Benson. Benson's too skinny to be a traditional 5 but there are so few legitimate post presences in the A10 that the Flyers can get away with it for ten minutes an outing.

This means Searcy and Benson are getting ten apiece at the 5-spot; Wright and Luke are splitting 30/10 at the 4; CJ is in the game as often as possible without him collapsing on the court; MJ and Perry are dividing up minutes at the 2; and London Warren is getting the bulk of the minutes (let's say 26 to Lowery's 14) at the point. This still leaves you with a ten man rotation, but it really acts as nine since Searcy and Benson are both serving as one back-up center (Ben-cy? Searson?).

Speaking of...
Rob Lowery has not been good for the Dayton Flyers this season. There's really no other way for me to say it. Rob needs to step his game up and soon. If you take out his 23-point performance against Boston, Lowery has shot just 22-78 from the field and 13-50 from 3 in his other 11 games. Obviously, it's not fair to Rob to eliminate only his best game of the season, but those numbers certainly are telling. Roughly 7 shots per game is way too many for a guy playing a shade under 20 mpg. Those percentages, by the way, are a less-than-stellar 28 and 26. Shoot less and those numbers have nowhere to go but up.

Guard Play
I had a chance to watch a good chunk of Temple and Xavier the other night, and one thing is abundantly clear. Juan Fernandez and Ryan Brooks are by leaps and bounds the best backcourt duo in the conference. Fernandez has come a long way since that scared little pup of a freshman we saw at UD Arena late last season, and Brooks leads the Owls in scoring and is second in rebounding from the shooting guard position. Add in Luis Guzman off the bench and Temple might have best backcourt the Atlantic 10 has seen since the aforementioned Nelson and West.

Ghosts in the post?
Did anybody else catch this quote from Chris Wright in the Dayton Daily News? He was talking about playing at UD Arena:

"There's just all the energy and all the great players who played on that floor before. Everybody in spirit is out there with us — the ones who are still living and even the ones who have passed. It's fun being out there."

Yeah, that's not creepy at all, Chris. Nice to know the Flyers' homecourt is haunted. No wonder it's so tough to win there.

Around the Nation
Is it me or are there no great teams in college basketball this year? A month ago, I probably would have told you that Kansas is a cut above the rest of D-I and a clear favorite to win the national championship. In that time, the Jayhawks squeaked past Cornell by 5 and Baylor by 6, both at home, and got beat by an undermanned Tennessee team. I'd still have to say Kansas is the most complete basketball team in the country, but I can no longer say with certainty that they're this season's favorites.

Texas was looking strong until Monday's game against (friends of the blog) K-State. Frank Martin's men made the Longhorns look very beatable and downright average at times. And that leaves Kentucky as college basketball's only unbeaten team. A month ago, I would have told you I could see UK making the Final Four but that there's no way a team which starts three freshman and a sophomore could win the national title. Now, I'm not so sure about that.

In my opinion, the Big East is once again the best conference in the country. It's a weird league, though, in that it has 5 or 6 teams that could make a run to the Elite Eight if the chips fall, but it doesn't have a real national title contender. Villanova and Syracuse are close but not real threats in my eyes.

A sleeper team to go all the way -- well, as much of a sleeper as the #6/#7 team in the country can be -- is Michigan State. The Spartans stumbled a bit early but have won 11 of their last 12 and are a quiet 6-0 in Big Ten play. Plus, Tom Izzo flat out gets it done in March. With no elite team in college hoops, could MSU take advantage this year?

That's it for this week. My back and shoulders are getting a little tired from carrying this thing, but I'm gonna keep on truckin'. Live tweets from @UDFlyers during the St. Joe's game Saturday, which is on ESPNU.