UD Flyer Nation

Shameless Self Promotion

2010-05-01T13:30:00.001-04:00

I have a friend from work named Garrett. He's a good dude, though not nearly as clever, charming or handsome as I am. Garrett and I started a podcast where we talk about things that interest us (and probably only us). Check it out HERE.

See You Next Year

2010-02-21T16:58:00.005-05:00

Well that was a fun season. Hope you enjoyed it as much as I did.

As I type this Tim is checking into the availability of www.firebriangregory.com, Rick is telling anyone who will listen that he thinks UD can win on the road at Temple and win two games in the Atlantic 10 tournament, and I am suprisingly unfazed by this afternoon's developments.

Anyway, we basically shut this thing down when Tim left the country immediately following (but not because of) UD's back-to-back losses to St. Joseph's and Rhode Island. We were already teetering, but today's wretched performance against Duquesne pushed us (or at least me) over the edge. I'm throwing in the towel for this season. Check back in, say, early October and we might get her up and running again.

-Secaur

We Beat Xavier, Weeeeeee!

2010-02-07T09:20:00.002-05:00

The Dayton Flyers dismantled Xavier 90-65 yesterday at UD Arena in what was Dayton's most dominant and complete performance since a 25-point rout of Pitt back in December 2007.

Two things about this game stuck out to me. First, Xavier's supporting cast did nothing. Down in Cincinnati three weeks prior, Dante Jackson shined with 19 points and Terrell Halloway came up big going 13-14 at the free throw line. Yesterday those role players failed to come through. Jordan Crawford got his, shooting 8-14 from the field and scoring a game-high 24. The rest of Xaiver's team shot just 13-42 including 5-17 from beyond the arc. Xavier's bench was outscored 37-6.

The second thing is something every UD fan has been harping on all season long: shoot less 3's! The Flyers attempted just 13 shots from way downtown yesterday afternoon, and guess what. Dayton made 7 of those attempts. Now I'm not naive enough to think the Flyers can shoot 50% or more from 3 just by taking fewer shots. However, I do know this: fewer 3-pointers taken in a given game does correlate to a higher percentage made for the red and blue. I'd also love to see a stat with UD's record in games in which it has shot 15 or fewer 3-point shots. The problem is it happens so rarely, so I'd bet it's like 3-0 or something.

Oh and just for fun, in two games against Xavier, Dayton has outrebounded the Muskies by a whopping 93-58. That's called making someone your bitch.

I'm not sure about the rest of you, but I'm not going to be able to enjoy this win for too long. The road ahead really doesn't get any easier for the Flyers as they still have to play what are, in my mind, the three best teams in the league not named Xavier (sorry Rhode Island). The final half of A10 play includes three games in which UD should handle its business: La Salle, UMass, and Saint Louis all at home. It contains two games I cannot see our beloved Flyers winning under almost any circumstances: at Temple and at Richmond. And it includes three toss-up games: Charlotte, at Saint Louis, and at Duquesne. The problem is that with the atrocious loss to St. Joe's, UD has put itself in a position where it must win all three of those toss-up games. (Seriously, have you seen what the Hawks are doing? They're 2-6 in A10 play with the only other win coming against Fordham.)

Now if you've been a college basketball fan for any length of time, there are two games that you should (and probably do) fear more than all the others -- especially if your team has a propensity for blowing games it should definitely win. The trap game and the let down game.

The trap game is simple. It can come either right before a very big game for your team, or it can come in between two games of the utmost importance. Georgetown fell prey to the classic trap game scenario just this past week when it beat a top ten Duke team last Saturday and knocked off #2 Villanova in impressive fashion yesterday. The Hoyas, however, lost to a middle of the road South Florida team mid-week in the obvious trap game.

The let down game is different in that it comes after a huge game, often a rivalry game where emotions run high and there is a lot at stake. Back on January 18 Kansas State knocked off then-#1 Texas only to suffer a let down in its next outing and lose at home to Oklahoma State. Butler knocked off Xavier in a big non-conference match up earlier this season (someone told me that had a controversial ending, but I don't remember hearing anything about it) only to lay an egg in its next game. Cincinnati's Bearcats actually lost to XU in what is also a pretty big rivalry and still suffered a major let down in their next contest. Coincidentally, both Butler and Cincinnati's let down games came against UAB.

The Flyers played their best game of the season, of that there is no question. Now the challenge is to avoid the dreaded let down, but this game Wednesday against Charlotte is not your typical let down situation for two reasons:

1) The 49ers come to Dayton all alone in first place atop the A10 standings. They are playing as well as anybody in the league right now, and if the Flyers don't know Charlotte can ball, you can be sure somebody is going to beat it into their heads over the next three days. A let down game usually involves overlooking one's opponent, and it's pretty tough to overlook a first place team.

2) The game before the let down game tends to be a taxing one both physically and emotionally. It tends to "drain" a team or take a lot out of them. Cincinnati and Xavier went to double overtime to settle their match up back in December. Yesterday's blowout is not something I would describe as a mental grind, and -- other than Chris Wright -- no Flyer played more than 23 minutes of action. So there should be no excuse for physical fatigue come Wednesday.

As a Dayton fan, though, it's tough for me not to see the potential for a major let down against the 49ers. Plus, you have to factor in just how well The Leprechaun has Charlotte playing right now. Derrio Green is a guy I'd never even heard of three weeks ago, and suddenly he is just torching people. In three of his last four games, Green has put 26, 34, and 24 point efforts. I really can't think of a word to describe Shamari Spears other than beast. Spears dropped 31 on George Washington and piled up 15 points and 13 rebounds in a win yesteday. The Flyers will have their hands full with those two to be sure.

Can UD avoid the dreaded let down game and in doing so climb within one game of first in the Atlantic 10? My feel for this team has been off all season long. After Puerto Rico and the Towson near-debacle, I predicted doom and gloom. Then I predicted a five game winning streak during which the Flyers dropped back-to-back one-point losses. So, to be honest, I have no clue how Dayton responds after throttling Xavier. Just have to wait until Wednesday and see.

P.S. This has nothing to do with anything ... but if you want a good laugh, check out Archdeacon's column from the DDN web site after yesterday's game.

Even in an Off-Week, UDFN has Flyer Fever 24/7

2010-02-02T15:04:00.010-05:00

It's barely a day-and-a-half old, but this is already feeling like one of the stranger weeks I've experienced in a while.

On one hand: it's a big fat week of Flyer Nothingness. Seven whole days with no new Flyer news, results, or input of any kind. Robbed of that usual stimuli, it should be a case of "out of sight, out of mind."

And yet, on the other hand: I'm all-too-conscious of what looms at the end of this week. A cataclysm at the D-Rena, to be broadcast worldwide on the ESPN Family. So forget the lack of stimuli... the Flyers are still very much on my mind, even if my mind doesn't quite know what thoughts to think about.

Surely, I can't be the only one?

Or maybe I am: I have no fricking clue what Tim is doing this past month but he ain't doing it here. And Secaur's dirty little secret is that he suffers from a severe emotional imbalance and cannot maintain a cogent thesis about the Flyers for more than 3 days at a time. In a world where he can go from predicting a 9 game winning streak heading into Temple all the way to volunteering to personally incapacitate Brian Gregory with his bare hands just to stop the man from coaching us straight into the CBI, you can see why he's not around checking with voluminous Flyer Thoughts. The blog was supposed to be a fun hobby, not something that causes one to be filled with murderous rage.

But I'm here. And despite the lack of fresh input, *I* can't stop thinking about the Flyers during this alleged off-week. I find they're mostly optimistic thoughts, at least, as compared to most of what I've seen passing as Flyer Discourse. Not naively optimistic (there's a bit of that out there, too, and I find it as laughable as the venomous and misguided pessimism), but I'm still excited for what is to come, rather than dreading it.

Or worse: considering it meaningless.

I think that's the mindset that I find the most troublesome at this point. People who get all whiny and indignant because Dayton has now already played its way into the NIT, and there's nothing to be done about it, and the season's over. Bottom line: anyone who says that DOES NOT KNOW WHAT WORDS MEAN. They should be forced to ride a short-bus to the Arena when parking in the Delco Lot, if you catch my drift.

Feel free to question our ability to do what it takes to cement our spot in the NCAA Tourney, if you want to have an intelligent discussion on the matter. But do not sit there an opine that we've already sealed our fate. Because if you do, what you are saying is that you not only predicted the Flyers to finish 25-5 or better, but that you believed that 25-5 WAS THE FLOOR for being considered for an at-large bid.

A few people might have said the former at the start of the season. But nobody said the latter. Nobody of consequence, anyway.

So why, now, in the first week of February, are people rushing to the nearest internet to type angry missives about the patheticness of our Flyers and the irrelevance of the rest of our season, now that we have 6 losses? Simple: because most people are stupid, but we have to humor them because if the internet has accomplished nothing else besides free and easy distribution of porn, it's democratized intelligence. Dumdum McGED's vote is worth as much as mine. Whee.

Way I look at it, I predicted a 23-7 regular season (11-3 OOC, 12-4 A-10), with that being more than ample to be an NCAA lock. Presently, RPIForecast.com backs this up, as our SOS is mighty (top 20 for our OOC schedule, and it'll end up being top 40 overall at the end of the season), and a 23-7 regular season would land us with an RPI in the top 25. Impossible to leave out of the Dance, really.

Even at 22-8, we remain a top 30 RPI team at the end of the year, and just because of the difficulty of our remaining schedule (and the fact that to reach 22-8 would still mean going 8-2 in the Selection Committee's precious "Last 10 Games"), we'd still have 3-4 regular season Quality Wins up against just the single Bad Loss (St. Joe's). We only really dip onto the Bubble (probably on the wrong side of it) if we stumble to 21-9.

Ergo:

(1) We're only really one game off the pace that I would have predicted, en route to my anticipation of a 23-7 finish. I had @Eggs, @Temple, and @Richmond pencilled in as losses, with the Flyers dropping one other random game, because that's what the Flyers do. Now: we've lost TWO other random games. And we did it back-to-back, which is probably why the angry shouty internet diptards decided to lose all sense of logic and fly off the handle the past week.

(2) 23-7 would be all well and good, but 22-8 will get the job done. Anybody who's written off the rest of the year because we have 6 losses is stupid. We have two more losses to give before a thinking person writes off the rest of the season. Until we give them, I say this is like baseball, and WE CONTROL OUR OWN DESTINY. We basically have a "magic number" next to our name in the standings. In this case, that magic number is currently 7.

(3) I'm not even prepared to say that this-game or that-game is a "must win" for our resume. Obviously, it would sure as hell feel good to bitchslap Eggs on Saturday, not just for reasons of blind personal hatred, but also because it's a quality win over a borderline top-20 RPI team. Others claim we need the "signature road win" @Temple now, because of how bad our resume sucks. Horsefeathers to all of that, says I! HORSEFEATHERS! Also: HOGWASH~! If we win 7 more regular season games, but default at least 1 of them will have to be a Quality Win (quite possibly 2 of them). That pairs up nicely with two pre-existing Quality Wins (GATech and ODU), and doesn't even get into what we'll have a chance to do to play add-on in the A-10 tourney (1 or 2 more Quality Wins are possible, depending on how the chips fall).

(3a) So to simplify: no one game on the remainder of the schedule is "must win." The only "must win" thing in my mind is the number 7. That's it: 7.

(4) Bringing the A-10 tourney into consideration, I think our other "magic number" to keep in mind is 24. If that's our number of total, overall wins on Selection Sunday, it's the one that makes us bulletproof. If we somehow still meet my prediction and finish 12-4 in the A-10, that means we just win one game in Atlantic City, in order to avoid another borderline "bad loss." If we hit 11-5, it means no bye, and we should AT LEAST win our game at home before advancing to AC, where we can make the Selection Committee's job easy by just getting one more Quality Win before crapping out in the semis; make the semis, and we're indisputably a top-4 team in what'll probably be a 4-bid conference. 10-6 or worse and, well, we pretty much have to win the tourney, which in a best case scenario probably means hitting 24 wins. Though if it's fewer than that, it won't matter, cuz they have to take us!

(4a) If you're some kind of schadenfreude enthusiast who can't wait for UD's 6th A-10 loss (9th overall), so you can come back and rub it in my stupid face that NOW the season is over, just you wait! Cuz I'll change my tune so fast, it'll make your head spin! Until we're ELIMINTED FROM THE A-10 TOURNEY, the season's not over. Nobody in this conference is really THAT much superior to us so as to make a neutral court game unwinnable (sadly, we're capable of such swings that nobody other than Fordham is that much inferior to us, either), and as long as there's an Auto-Bid on the table, I ain't ready to start talking about next year's recruits or whether CW will stay or go, dammit! I'm sticking with the 2010 Flyers until some point in mid-March, and there ain't nothing you poopy-pantsed pessimists can do to stop me!

To wrap up....

Saturday's home showdown with Eggsavier may be why I'm still Flyer Obsessed during this off-week, but as my mind wanders, it does tend to wander to the Big Picture. And despite the Sting of Pain after those back-to-back losses last week, the Big Picture is still looking alright. At least: we still control our own destiny, and don't have to rely on others to fade down the stretch. Feel free to rationally debate our ability to do so, but if we lose 2 or fewer games between now and March 6, we ARE dancing. Simple as that.

24/7, baby, those are the magic numbers. It's got a nice, easy-to-remember ring to it. 24/7, and the Committee doesn't matter. We'll have made the Selection for them. If you look at the data objectively, 23/6 should even keep us amply in the discussion and on the bubble, too. But I'd rather be in the Dance than in the Discussion, just to be on the safe side.

24/7... who's with me?

Rick

Well, that was a kick in the...

2010-01-26T21:07:00.002-05:00

Friends of Flyer Nation, today is a sad day. It's January 26th and already your UD Flyers have been all but eliminated from contention for an at-large berth. It's gonna take 3 wins in Atlantic City if the Flyers want to go dancing in back-to-back seasons. What's the only thing worse than blogging angry after a one-point loss to Rhode Island?

Saying I told you so.

Unfortunately, I saw this coming. Here's what I wrote all the way back on October 6, 2009. Number 3 is looking especially pertinent, no?

3. Bad Luck
You may see this and think that predicting bad luck sounds like the most ludicrous thing you've ever read. To that I say, read on friends. This blog is only a few weeks old; I can come up with stuff that's far more absurd.

Here's my point, though. The Flyers were something like 10-1 in games decided by five points or fewer last season. (I'm too lazy to look up the actual stat.) A lot of fans saw that as the mark of a gritty, hard-nosed team. One that knew how to get the job done by any means necessary and come out on top in a close one. Others saw that stat in a less positive light. They said the Flyers don't seem to be able to pull away and beat teams by large margins. That squad after all wasn't built to blow out its opponents.

I, on the other hand, saw the 10-1 record in close games as this: an incredible run of good luck. If you played out the 2008-'09 season again, there's no way UD would rack up a 10-1 record in those games. These things even out over time, especially when you have a team that far too often let inferior teams hang around deep into games. Play with fire enough times, and you're bound to get burnt, which leads me to...

2. A razor thin margin for error
This has been chronicled throughout the offseason basically since the non-conference schedule was released. It's a problem that is very easy to identify and far more difficult to solve.

Outside of Puerto Rico, the Flyers really have no chance to pick-up a marquee OOC victory. Match-ups with fellow mid-majors Creighton, George Mason and New Mexico have their benefits but aren't exactly head turners come Selection Sunday. If UD goes 1-2 in Puerto Rico or even if the team loses to Ga Tech and wins its next two, the chance for a resume padding non-conference W (a la Marquette last season and Pitt and Louisville two years ago) has slipped through its fingers.

And let's face it, the A10 itself is always a crapshoot. Other than Xavier, which team can you really rely on to be good? You could have a situation where Dayton's "signature" OOC wins are Creighton and George Mason, and that means the Flyers would have to be almost flawless in the A10 to secure an at-large bid.

UD pulled this feat off last year, I know. But even with 26 wins heading into Selection Sunday, the Flyers were on thin ice. Playing the "what if" game is pretty pointless after the fact, but one can't help but wonder: What if Fordham doesn't let Rob Lowery go coast-to-coast for a game winning lay-up? What if Karl Hobbs knows you're only allowed to play five guys at a time? That's why reasons #2 and #3 are so inter-related. A little dose of bad luck against a conference foe or two combined with such tiny room for error could spell the recipe for disaster ... or at least for an NIT bid.

1. The hunted, not the hunter
In recent memory the Dayton Flyers have never been the hunted. They've always been the hunter - hunting down some big-time BCS schools in the last few years and taking aim at Xavier which consistently sat atop the A10 standings.

Now the shoe's on the other foot. Your own Dayton Flyers are pretty much the concensus pick to win the league this season. They're in almost everyone's preseason top 25 rankings. Xavier has lost players to graduation, one left early to go to the NBA, and its coach abandoned ship for greener pastures.

Suddenly, UD is the team on top looking down at the rest of the league. It's a great spot to be in when you think about it. However, the Flyers had better be ready for a dogfight (not the Mike Vick kind) in every single conference game next year. Be ready to take your opponent's best shot game in and game out. Can the '09-'10 Flyers live up to being the hunted and not the hunter? I, for one, say this will slowly take its toll on this UD team and ultimlately cause it to miss the 2010 NCAA tournament.

Week in Review 1.23.10

2010-01-22T00:01:00.001-05:00

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.

Dayton-Xavier Recap

2010-01-16T16:27:00.003-05:00

First of all, let me say that I'm never very happy after a loss and that I don't really do moral victories. That said, I think there are a lot of encouraging things about today's game. I'm so used to watching the Flyers come out sluggish, especially on the road. It almost always seems like UD is content to let its opponent be the aggressor. Dayton's opposition acts while the Flyers spend the opening minutes of a game reacting. This morning at the Cintas Center that was not the case. UD dictated play to Xavier instead of vice versa. The Flyers came to play, and the Muskies came out flat (but not for very long). If UD could knock down free throws, it would have been a 6-0 lead for the good guys right off the bat.

The bottom line, however, is another loss to Xavier in Cincinnati. You all know the drill: Dayton has not won at XU since 1981 before I (and probably most of you) was even born. Let's recap it:

As a Flyers fan you're probably saying, "If we make just one or two more shots, either from the field or at the line, we win this game." If you're a Xavier fan (and why would you be?) you're probably saying, "If we could get a freakin' rebound, we beat those guys by 15." Both sides are probably right.
The rebounding, the hustle, and the energy were phenomenal. The boys in red played as hard as I've seen them play all year long. They beat Xavier's players to loose ball after loose ball and dominated on the glass. In case you've yet to see the numbers, the Flyers outrebounded XU 51-34 and had a ridiculous 25 offensive rebounds. This allowed UD to attempt an equally ridiculous 70 field goals.
Chris Johnson's jumper wasn't falling today, which is shame because the dude played an incredible game. Not sure how it comes across on TV but after being there in person, I can tell you that CJ was absolutely everywhere on the court today. He had 10 points and 16 boards, 10 of which came on the offensive end. Ten offensive rebounds is unheard of; I'm surprised he didn't play more than 26 minutes.
Speaking of minutes, Luke Fab continues to make the most of his. 2-4 from downtown for 6 points and 3 rebounds on the afternoon. Maybe more importantly, he didn't force any bad shots. He did pick up two first half fouls, but I didn't see him playing much more than 12 minutes anyway.
Hopefully Marcus Johnson is officially out of his funk. He played great today on both ends of the floor. He continues to be a tenacious defender and was taking the ball strong to the bucket on O. MJ led the Flyers with 17 points and 3 steals. He also went 4-for-4 from the stripe which was a welcome surprise.
I didn't think Chris Wright played all that well. Why CW was on the floor with 8:00 left in the first half to even have the opportunity to pick up his third foul is beyond me, but that's another story. It looked like Jason Love went to the Cole Aldrich/Kansas school of defending Chris Wright: play way off of him daring Wright to shoot jumpers, favor his right hand, let him dribble into your chest and then swat his shot. Love had six blocks while Wright was just 2-7 from the floor.
For a guy who is supposed to be UD's "energy guy," its "spark plug," London Warren was virtually nonexistent today. LW only played 11 minutes while Rob Lowery continues to try to make up for lost time by chucking it early and often. The numbers show a solid game for Rob Low (13 points, 8 rebounds, 6 assists, 0 TO's), and he did have a really nice floor game. But 3-17 FG (0-9 inside the arc) shooting just won't do.
Honestly, all that analysis (okay, rambling) is moot because this game came down to two key possessions. On the first, Jordan Crawford hit a back breaking 3 from about 30 feet out with the shot clock winding down. On the second, the same Crawford hit a fadeaway J from 15 with about 12 seconds left to put Xavier ahead by five and virtually end the game. I'm not mad about either one because, in both instances, UD got exactly what it wanted. If the fadeaway 2-pointer doesn't drop, UD is a defensive rebound away from having the ball and needing a 3 to send it to overtime. Sometimes good players just make superior plays. Crawford did that, and the Flyers came up just two plays short.
UD continued its trend of letting one of XU's less heralded role players have a career game. In the week in review post, I highlighted Will Caudle's game in '05. In 2010 it was Dante Jackson scoring a career high 19 points on five made 3-balls.
Kurt Huelsman's breakaway slam and the foul and the hang on the rim was nasty. Wouldn't have believed if I wasn't in the building.
Josh Benson was forced to play a dozen minutes due to foul trouble by Wright and Devin Searcy, and the freshman acquitted himself nicely. He had 8 points on 4-7 including a dunk in traffic over Kenny Frease. Didn't see that one coming.
I was in the third row under the hoop (opposite of XU's students section). If you were watching ESPN2 and saw a guy who had painted his entire upper body blue except for a white "X" across the top of his bald head, then you probably saw me as well. I was one of the dudes standing behind him wearing a red Flyers t-shirt. At one point early in the second half, the Musketeers were on a little run and they showed that guy on TV. I immediately got two texts, one of which read, "Slap the X off that douche bag's head." Good advice that I just didn't take.
I didn't think the officiating was bad. There were some tough calls on both teams, and I still think travelling should be called way more frequently than it is; however, there is just no excuse for all of the timekeeping issues. I can't argue that affected the outcome of the game, but it makes it really hard for the game to have any flow whatsoever. If you're Xavier and you had to endure that debacle against Butler, wouldn't you be extremely sensitive to this? The game was stopped at least four times for clock issues (including twice in the final 4:00 of the game).
It's been an interesting season in that the Flyers have really won every game they're supposed to and lost all of the ones they weren't expected to win. In recent memory, we've been treated to a few UD upsets (Pitt, Louisville, Marquette) as well as a game or two where the Flyers lay an egg and lose to an inferior opponent. This year, it's been pretty much all chalk (with Ga. Tech as the lone possible exception because nobody, including Paul Hewitt, knows what to expect out of the Jackets).

Conclusion: I'm not thrilled but it's hard to be too upset about losing at a place where you haven't won since 1981. Especially since the Flyers manhandled X on the glass and did not back down at any point.

Prediction: Your Dayton Flyers reel off five straight wins culminating with a W in the rematch against XU at UD Arena. This moves the good guys to 18-4 and back into the top 25 come Monday, February 8th.

Week in Review 1.15.10

2010-01-15T00:01:00.003-05:00

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.

2-0 in the league
Okay, so it's 2-0 with a home win against Duquesne and a roadie over Fordham, one of the worst teams in all of college basketball, but it is 2-0 nonetheless. A loss at home to the Dukes may not have derailed UD's entire season, but it would have - at the very least - been a major stumbling block on the road to an NCAA at-large bid. Avoiding that near-catastrophe was key.

Luke is back
A few weeks back, Blackburn Review commenter John (when's he gonna get his own weekly feature, fellas?) said that if the Flyers have Luke Fab, they win the game at New Mexico. I called him crazy - and don't get me wrong, he is - but maybe there was something to that. I'm not saying UD would have pulled that particular game, but let's just say it's a heckuva lot harder to play zone against the Flyers when Fabrizius is on the floor.

Box-and-One?
Wednesday night Dayton saw what I'm fairly sure was its first look at a box-and-one defense with four Fordham players playing zone and one guy manning up on Chris Johnson. It wasn't a major factor in the game because, let's face it, the Rams are terrible. But I feel like this could be the beginning of a trend. If I'm Brian Gregory, I would start drawing up some offensive answers to this in case the Flyers see it again down the road.

Shoot More 2's
After the 33 attempted 3-pointers debacle against the Lobos, there was one thing every UD fan, from the worst UD Pride poster to the most knowledgable follower (probably me), could agree on: The Flyers needed to shoot fewer 3's.

That message was received for all of one game. UD attempted a season-low ten 3-balls against Ball State in its next outing, even connecting on five of them. But old habits die hard apparently as the Flyers chucked 21 and 19 times from deep in their next two games. Now, an average of 20 attempts is not disparagingly high (especially if you can connect on 8-19 like UD against Fordham), but when you shoot just 34% as a team, that number could and should be smaller.

As a point of reference, Dayton has two players who are shooting 40% or better from the land of plenty: Luke (49%) and CJ (40%). Three players are shooting in the 20's (Williams, M. Johnson, and Wright). Also, does it bother anyone else that Mickey Perry and Paul Williams both have attempted more 3's than Fabrizius? I get that they play more minutes, but still... And finally, Rob Lowery has already attempted 47 shots from beyond the arc in just ten games. Guess he's making up for lost time.

Xavier on Saturday
The 2009-'10 Xavier Musketeers are good but not great. The Muskies played a pretty brutal non-conference schedule with games against Marquette, Baylor, Kansas State, Cincinnati, Butler, LSU, and Wake Forest. The problem (for them) is that they've failed to win many of these games, and Xavier's best W to date is a double OT game over Cincinnati, a win that'll be worth about as much as a Luke Hendrick autograph come March.

Jordan Crawford is the Xavier player you've heard of. He gets all the pub and fanfare (did you guys hear he dunked on LeBron in the offseason?), but I would probably argue that he is not XU's best player. (Sound familiar?) I'd instead make the case for sophomore PG Terrell Halloway. Halloway averages 10.6 a game while leading the team in assists. He also shoots a Brian Roberts-like 90% from the free throw line. Put him on the line down the stretch Saturday, and UD is asking for defeat. In my mind, Halloway vs. UD's two headed, dreadlocked PG monster will be key.

Speaking of Crawford, the dude has two big-time flaws in his game. He talks too much trash and he takes some horrible shots. The two go hand-in-hand at times too. Crawford seems like the kind of player whom, if you can get in his head, you can talk into trying to take over a game playground-style and get him to shoot a rash of ill-advised jump shots. He's actually a pretty decent passer when he wants to be and XU is at its best when he's sharing the ball and all five guys are contributing on the offensive end. I'm not suggesting any UD player get T-ed up or anything, but I wouldn't mind trying to talk to him a little bit and bring out Crawford's selfish side during Saturday's game.

One match-up in this game favors the Musketeers hands down: Jason Love against Kurtcy. Love is averaging 10 and 9 and can be an absolute beast on the boards for the Muskies. Plus, Xavier's big men always seem to have a big game against the Flyers. I need not remind you of David West's 47 point, 18 rebound peformance in 2003. But even lesser known XU post players have made Dayton their bitch. Perennial bench player Will Caudle put up career numbers (18 and 13) against the Flyers back in '05. I really do like Kurt's defense but Love could be in for a big day against the Flyers Saturday.

In Attendance
I will be attending the UD-XU game in Cincinnati for the seventh time in the last eight years. I missed last year because I had eye surgery on the morning of the game. One of my friends (actually Tim's brother) has always said that as a UD alum living in Cincy, attending the XU game down here is not something you do for fun. You do it because you're a Flyer and it's your duty as a fan. It's almost a badge of honor in the sense that you know exactly what you're in for but you go anyway. You take one for the team, and you hold out the tiniest glimmer of hope that maybe ... just maybe ... this is the year. And oh how sweet it would be to sit in those stands wearing red when it finally does happen. If it finally does happen.

I do hold onto that hope, but if ever there were a game for a UD fan to be pessimistic about, it's this one. To say history is not on the side of the Flyers is the understatement of understatements. With that in mind, if I had to make a prediction, I'd say Xavier by six. Halloway goes 11-12 from the stripe and Love is the player of the game with 17 and 11.

Mick Cronin can't coach
A week or two ago, Tim and I had a chance to go see Cincinnati take on UConn here in Cincy. It was a pretty decent game, and UC actually upset the Huskies (ranked #10 at the time) that night. But Tim and I both walked away saying the same thing: how glad we were that Mick Cronin is not the coach of the Flyers. His team has some talent - enough to beat UConn and to come an overtime period away from winning the Maui Invitational - but the dude can't coach a lick, especially when it comes to offense. Ninety percent of Cincinnati's "plays" consist of giving the ball to Lance Stephenson and having the other four guys stand still. Cronin makes Brian Gregory look like the Mike Leach of college hoops (you know, minus all that shed stuff).

CW Draft Status
I checked nbadraft.net earlier today to check out Chris Wright's projected NBA Draft status. That particular site has him going as the 35th overall pick ... in the 2011 draft. If CW goes pro after the season he's having, it'll only be because he got some BAD advice. I look forward to having him back as a senior.

Blog Link
My buddy Owen does a blog. On it he has the rules for storming the court.

And I'll leave you with this. It's the Kansas Jayhawks making four consecutive half court shots, and it's supposed to be legit. Check it out.

Dayton-Fordham Tonight

2010-01-13T16:25:00.003-05:00

The Flyers play in one of the most hallowed arenas in all of sports tonight, or so I'm told. UD takes on Fordham in Madison Square Garden this evening. Brian Gregory was kind enough to tweet this pic of the venue. Sadly, I have a feeling you'll see almost as many empty seats at around 9:30 this evening as you do in this photo.

The week in review post doubles a Xavier preview. Look for it first thing on Friday morning. Until then, follow us on Twitter @UDFlyers.

And then there's this:
http://www.people.com/people/article/0,,20336323,00.html

From the week in review on 12/11/09, I gave you:
I will say this, though, and you can bank on it. Tiger Woods will at some point go into rehab for sex addiction like that dude from the X-Files did. Think about it: If you cheat on your wife with one chick, you just made a mistake and maybe she gets over it, maybe not. If you're having dozens of ongoing affairs with women all over the country, if not the world, it's a little tougher to backpedal your way out of that. So does he admit he's a scum bag and a downright despicable human being? No way, he's Tiger; his image can't take that hit. But if you're addicted to something, if you physically and psychologically have to have it, if you've lost all control of yourself, it makes it easier for us, the public, to stomach. Some time in 2010 Tiger Woods tackles his "addiction to sex."

What can I say? I'm that good.

Dayton/Duquesne Preview (or, A Test Drive for the "KenPom-to-English" Dictionary)

2010-01-08T21:00:00.015-05:00

Hey, everybody: this is Your Favorite Internet Semi-Star "The" Rick Scaia, stepping up and ready to prove I'm every bit as ingenious and insightful when it comes to Flyer Hoops as I am when it comes to well-oiled men rolling around with each other on national TV every Monday night. Which is to say: very ingenious and insightful.

If you heard my first appearances on the UDFN Podcast (here and here), you know I'm gonna get pegged as something of the "stats guy" for UD Flyer Nation, and it's a role I'll fill gladly, if for no other reason than because -- in any debate or discussion -- I feel it's disrespectful and downright retarded to not be able to back up your punditry with facts and truths, and present nothing but bluster and BS in their place. Unlike much of what passes for sportstalk radio or political commentary or almost any form of discourse in this day and age of the intarwebs and "democratized intelligence," I don't believe arguments are won by shouting your "opinion" the loudest or most number of times in a given hour.

Repetition and decibel levels don't make you right. Being RIGHT makes you right. Anything else is a load of crap to me. If you're objectively and factually wrong, but still feel the need to express yourself with the defense that "Hey, it's my opinion, and you can't prove me wrong. Respect my opinion!", I assure you, I will be wanting to punch you in the throat more than I care to debate you. "The sky is green," "Obama is not an American citizen," "the Earth is 6000 years old," and "Kurt Huelsman is the worst player ever to don a Flyer uniform" are not Valid Opinions That Must Be Respected: they are demonstrable falsehoods that must be ignored, marginalized, and perhaps even mocked.

Ergo: if I'm "Stat Boy" around here, so be it. I'll tell you a number, or inform of you an actual factual event, which cannot be disputed, and THEN maybe I'll tell you what I think it means. I will delineate between fact and opinion, the former being bulletproof, and the latter being open for discussion.

"UD shoots almost 40% of its FGA from three" is a fact; "That's wayyyyy too many" is my opinion. In this case, we probably all agree on that little fact/opinion synthesis... it's the sort of rational thing you'll be seeing out of me. I'll leave the "UD lost to UNM" (fact) followed by "BG is horrible coach and must be fired" (opinion) caliber of syntheses to others. And boy howdy, are there enough of those others out there if that's the sort of insight you're in the market for... so go ahead, by all means ditch out now and ignore all my future postings if any of this rubs you the wrong way. Trust me: I won't be offended if you leave UD Flyer Nation, never to return again. Secaur will be, since this is his baby and he wants to be famous. But I'm already famous enough, baby, and can afford to antagonize the audience!

I digress.

So, "What are we gonna be doing here today, Rick?" I hear you asking... well, we're gonna look at tomorrow's Duquesne/Dayton game, using a specific set of numbers and data as our baseline, and see if we can't come up with some predictions and "Keys to the Game" that are a little better than Derrick Dukes stumbling over the concept that "For Dayton to win, they must score 10 points more than the opposition." Or whatever Harry-Carey-esque gem it was along those lines that he uttered during the GMU game.

That set of numbers/data? Ken Pomeroy's, from his profile pages for both teams, and the source for his own Pomeroy Rankings (which currently place Dayton as the 58th best team in the nation). I figure this is a worthwhile exercise because KenPom really does include some pretty cool figures that go FAR beyond a player's points per game or team rebounding or other things like that which most fans are most used to hearing about. I compare the stats and factors used by Pomeroy to the increasingly common use of stats like OPS in baseball circles. If you really think batting average fully encapsulates what makes a player productive in baseball, you're probably the sort of baseball dolt who thinks Tim F. McCarver brings a lot to a TV broadcast; there are now a few other stats which (when applied properly) cut more to the core of How You Win Baseball Games. Similarly, KenPom puts some numbers out there that are NOT the ones that show up on ESPN or in box scores, but which are very illustrative in terms of what causes teams to score points (or prevent points on defense).

Pomeroy takes all those numbers, and just spits out his ratings and a predicted outcome for every game. For him, that's where it ends. He has his numbers, and for tomorrow's game, he spits out "Dayton 66, Duquesne 56," and that's the extent of it. We can do better. Or at least: I can TRY to do better. And thus, I present my embryonic "PomPom-to-English" translation filter! Take what information Pomeroy has collected, synthesize it, and see if we can't figure out what's gonna go down at the D-Rena tomorrow afternoon... it's worth a try, at least, no?

Let's start by making sure we're all looking at the same numbers. KenPom's profile pages for Dayton and Duquesne are here:

http://kenpom.com/team.php?team=Dayton
http://kenpom.com/team.php?team=Duquesne

Glance through them. What do you see (besides a lot of gibberish, if this is the first time you've ever visited KenPom)?

In a nutshell, I'll tell you what I see: what I see here is a potential -- or even a need -- for Dayton to win a game "BG Style." With defense and rebounding.

Less of a nutshell, and a bit more in-depth:

Duquesne's defense profiles as being quite formidable, and a poor match-up for us: it looks like they play a tough, mostly-zone style which causes (a) an above average number of steals, and (b) an even MORE above average number of poor shots by the opposition. Duquesne ranks in the top 20% in the nation in Opponent's EffFG%, seemingly driven by an incredibly high percentage of blocked shots (poor shots forced up in the paint) and attempted 3pts (or other long jumpers forced late in the shot clock). They do all this without sending other teams to the line (one of the lowest FTA-against rates in the nation). This is not an easy team to score against in the half-court game.

The only weakness in Duquesne's defense is that they allow WAY more offensive rebounds by opponent's than they should (likely a result of being one of the most-undersized teams in the nation, 300th or so in KenPom's "Effective Height" metric).
KenPom's paints a picture of our offense as a team that shoots a lot of 3's (but not particularly accurately) and that doesn't get to the FT line nearly enough. Obviously: these two things are related to each other... but when we do shoot 2pt shots, we're one of the best shooting teams in the nation, which means we'd be best served to try to emphasize that while shying away from the treys early in the shotclock. We need to play AWAY from our KenPom profile a bit, as the chinks in our offensive armor (too many 3's, not enough FT's) so far this year are EXACTLY matched up with things that Duquesne's D has done well (force tough shots, commit few fouls) so far this year. This is somewhat worrisome.

Synthesis: our offense may end up looking as impotent as ever outside of our transition baskets (or defense-caused transition game is no doubt a huge part of our high 2pt FG%, and the source of our highlight reel dunks, too)... Duquesne will make us take less-than-premium shots, and won't just send us to the line for a ton of freebies, either. But if we stay patient, don't get into one of our UNM-esque spells of hoisting stupid 3's (keep our 3FGA at 30% or less of our total FGA, even if Fabrizius is back in the line-up), loosen up for a little more one-on-one with our superior athletes driving to the hoop (and getting to the line as Duquesne's smaller interior players are forced to foul), and hit the offensive boards nice and hard, we should still be able to squeeze out more than enough points to win.

Duquesne's offense profiles as slightly below average: they are a horrible 3pt shooting team (one of the bottom 25 teams in the nation), yet for some reason they still take 37% of their FGA from three-land (that's the 78th highest percentage in the nation, but STILL less than what Dayton has averaged). This seems the defining characteristic of an otherwise nondescript offense. It could once again tie into Duquesne being under-sized, relying heavily on the perimeter game and transition baskets forced by their tenacious defense. The fact that they are one of the 100 most-blocked teams in the nation probably backs up this notion that they don't really have the front-line size to convert easy buckets in the paint out of their half-court sets.
Our defensive profile is strong, and improving... a month ago, we were an average defensive team according to KenPom's metrics (leaving us to usually rate in the 70s or 80s); now, we're a top level defensive team (and rated in the 50s, even after another loss at UNM). This is because of our steadily improving EffFG% and our always formidable number of steals and rebounds. Just do what we do, and all should be well: nothing in the numbers indicates that Duquesne has any kind of kryptonite to weaken our D. On the contrary, the numbers suggest that our strengths and their weaknesses correspond, and could result in an afternoon of offensive futility for them.

The end result could be a game not unlike Ball St.: if we bring that same 40 minutes of killer defense, Duquesne is a team that will have trouble scoring 50 against us. Or even 45. So let's bring that killer defense, let's augment a possibly impotent half-court game with some transition buckets off that D, and even if Duquesne is superior BSU on the defensive end and holds us in the 50s (a possibility, since BSU kept us to just 60), we can still win comfortably. That's the formula to victory tomorrow, in my eyes; well, to a convincing and heartening victory. We simply shouldn't lose in ANY situation... but if we bring that defense, there really oughta be enough offense to win a game by double digits and with little drama. Even if you're a compulsive gambler type who cares more about beating the spread than about winning the game. [Note to those sickos: I'd bet the under, if I were you. If UD/DU combine for much more than 115 points, something will have had to go horribly, horribly wrong for one or both teams.]

Thus ends my first public attempt at using my "Pomeroy-to-English" Dictionary. KenPom takes his little numbers, and spits out the following analysis of the Dayton/Duquesne match-up: "Dayton 88% favorite; game tempo 68." Which is all well and good, but I like my Word Picture lots better. I hope you do, too.

Now: to wait and see if that picture ends up bearing any resemblance to reality, or if my dictionary needs tweaking before my Highly Anticipated Podcast Showdown versus Ken Pomeroy (allegedly coming soon to an mp3 near you)! Till next time, kids....

Rick

A Trip to the Pit (Part 2)

2010-01-06T17:00:00.002-05:00

A big thank you again to our friend "Gooch." He attended UD's game at New Mexico and concludes the tale of his legendary journey as follows: (For part one, click here.)

Because of me the Flyers lose the game by two instead of four. There I said it. I don’t mean to brag, but I do make a difference. I immediately make my presence felt in the first minute of regulation. UNM wins the tip, drives down the court and feeds their big man Hardeman. And guess what? He gets fouled. That will be the first of 33 team fouls that the Flyers allegedly commit. London gets him on the arm and he goes to the line. At this point in the game, the crowd is still getting settled and those paying attention just anticipate the rest of the night being this easy, so they don’t feel as though they need to cheer. That leaves the door wide open for me.

I've been blessed with a good arena voice. For some reason it carries well, even in the most hostile environment. Or at least I think it does. This time I'm sure it matters. Hardeman goes to the line. . I anticipate that this galoot will 1. Be a weak foul shooter and 2. Come to the line at an important point later in the game. I know he is one of their most important players, so I feel that his is a head into which I would like to get. He ambles to the line, the big tree of a man. He is at the basket nearest us and in front of the student section. The students of course do the old "home town hush," quieting down the crowd. The fools. I still can see it.

The basketball looks like a melon in his oversized hands. I try to note any Shaquillian hitch in his first free throw stroke, just to judge how easy it will be. It seems fairly smooth. He makes the first, hitting nothing but the net. The crowd cheers briefly and quiets quickly for the second one. My plan has worked; they have been lulled into a false sense of security.

The crowd is hushed. Hardeman draws his right wrist back so the ball is parallel to the floor. He then begins the ball on its path to the basket. “Just like in practice, just like in practice,” I can almost hear him thinking. As the ball moves from the palm of his hand to his fingertips, out comes one voice penetrating the silence:

"BRICK!"

The ball, originally intended to roll off of the middle finger instead rolls off of his right ring and pinky fingers, making a line drive toward the rim. It glances sharply off of the right side of the rim and hits the backboard, line driving into the arms of Chris(t). In unison, the half of the student section closest to us pivots on their heels and shakes their thumbed fists at me. I immediately point to Knachel a la Chevy Chase in "Spies Like Us." I don't think they buy it.
One point for us and Hardeman can suck it. He ends up going 2-5 from the free throw line. You’re welcome.

Unfortunately, that was the Flyer highlight of the first half. The first ten minutes are:

UNM- 4/10 FT; 3/7 FG; 1/2 3-PT; 4 Fouls; 1 BLK; 8 REB (2 OFF); 2 ASST; 1 TO; 3 STL
UD- 4/6 FT; 2/4 FG; 0/5 3-PT; 10 Fouls; 2 BLK; 12 REB (3 OFF); 2 ASST; 6 TO; 1 STL

The score ten minutes in is 13-8, but the feeling in the crowd is that we are lucky to be so close and if UNM could make free throws, it would be a different story. Hard to disagree with that.
I would like to point to Rob Lowery’s play from the first time he entered the game at 18:10 until he is pulled at 16:02 - He runs fourteen seconds off of the shot clock and then hoists up a 20 foot three that misses the basket entirely. He would be serenaded with the old air ball chant from this point forward. UD gets the ball back on a steal and then fourteen seconds later, Lowery turns the ball over. UNM drives and Lowery blocks Hobson and gets the rebound (way to go Rob!). Then he assists Marcus on one of his two field goals on the night. Seeing a Marcus Johnson field goal is like seeing a unicorn with a two dollar bill swimming in Atlantis. Then Lowery commits a foul and gets pulled.

I only highlight Rob's struggles because they are a microcosm of how the team struggled overall during the first ten minutes. A lot of fouls, not many field goal attempts, a lot of turnovers, not many assists and horrendous three point shooting. But at least we made some free throws. Yet we’re only down by 5 and holding UNM to 13 points. Our defense has to be the highlight of the game as they kept us in it until the end. Our offense, however, BLOWS!

One more word before we speed along through the rest of the game, the fouls. For the game, UD fouled UNM 33 times to UNM’s 21 fouls of Dayton. In retrospect, that shouldn’t have been surprising given that two of the officials - Rick Batsell and Kevin Brill (12520 263rd Ave Se, Monroe, WA 98272) call an average of 38.8 and 37.5 fouls per game respectively. They are also Mountain West refs, so they have incentive to, let's say, keep it even in favor of the Lobos. There were spells during the first half where they just took over.

The second ten minutes of the first half were more of the same:
UNM: 7/8 FT; 3/9 FG; 1/2 3 PT; 5 Fouls; 0 BLK; 10 REB (3 OFF); 3 ASST; 8 TO; 4 STL
UD: 2/2 FT; 4/10 FG; 1/8 3 PT; 4 Fouls; 1 BLK; 12 REB (7 OFF); 1 ASST; 6 TO; 3 STL

Halftime score: 29 University of New Mexico- 23 University of Dayton

The highlight of the half is a Josh Benson put back dunk and CJ stepping it up at half's end. Also Paul Williams played well in his limited playing time.

It seems like we have a lot more fouls called on us than do the Lobos, however it is because of the 10 fouls during the first ten minutes that all four times the Lobos go to the line in the second quarter of the game, they are in the double bonus. UNM only committed 9 Team fouls in the half to our 14. That being said, we do well on the glass, especially the offensive glass at this point. We are forcing turnovers. If we could just make some shots, we'll be in business.

The halftime show is pretty lame. Sumo wrestling and some award goes to a has been for doing something only a few people care about. The people sitting around us begin engaging us in conversation. We see that they are starting to take our Flyers seriously. They didn't expect the game to be as close and competitive as it is. They are also appreciative of our enthusiasm, what with our yelling "Defense Flyers" and "Let’s go now Flyers" at opportune lulls in the cheering. Because I'm in the zone, I didn't notice it, but I found out later that the student section was getting more and more agitated with us throughout the first half. If I knew that then, I would tell them the same thing I will tell them now. Suck it.

The first 10 minutes of the second half go like this:
UNM: 1/1 FT; 3/7 FG; 2/2 3 PT; 5 Fouls; 2 BLK; 6 REB (1 OFF); 4 ASST; 6 TO; 1 STL
UD: 1/2 FT; 5/10 FG; 2/7 3 PT; 4 Fouls; 0 BLK; 8 REB (5 OFF); 3 ASST; 1 TO; 5 STL

Score with 10 minutes to go is 44-40 UNM

Clearly this is the best quarter of the game. We actually had the lead on the offensive prowess of London Warren. Within 1:30 seconds, London got 1 steal, a dunk, a layup (after a steal from Chris[t]), and an assist on a dunk to Chris(t). It is at this point in the game where the Flyers have the most hope. It is also here that the Lobo fans start to recognize LW as one of our best players. More than three different people say as much to us as we file out of the game.

Alas, our hope is short lived. After the London run, Roman Martinez hits a three, Lowery misses a jumper, Chris(t) misses a layup, Martinez hits another three, Paul Williams misses a three. And it all commences to go to hell. Finally, the last 10 minutes shape up like this:

UNM: 14/22 FT; 5/10 FG; 0/0 3 PT; 6 Fouls; 1 BLK; 13 REB (5 OFF); 2 ASST; 2 TO; 2 STL
UD: 7/10 FT; 2/4 FG; 5/7 3 PT; 14 Fouls; 0 BLK; 15 REB (6 OFF); 4 ASST; 3 TO; 0 STL

Final Score: 68 New Mexico- 66 Dayton

Unfortunately for us, the last 10 minutes look a lot like the first. A lot of fouls and a lot of three point attempts. We do make more this time, but that is mostly thanks to CJ, whom I think we can all agree is special.

I do give the Flyers one more point when Hardeman misses a free throw at the 4:58 mark. I made a point not to overdue my "Brick" call throughout the game, knowing that using it too much would just make it cliché, so I sit on it for many, many free throws until a time when I think it will work. At 4:58, I yell Brick for a second time and Hardeman obliged. For the record this is much more difficult than the first time because the crowd is much louder than before and I have to pick the split second of silence before he shoots to yell. It works again and Knachel will verify its effectiveness if no one believes me. It’s the least I could do.

Overall, we rebounded well (43-32). We defended adequately to win (UNM shot 47%). We just sucked on offense except in two short bursts (London and CJ in the second half). We ended the game shooting 34% from the field and 24% from three (7% in the first half). But you know what, at the end of the game, Knachel and I weren’t really that disappointed.

Could Lowery have played point guard better? Sure. Maybe a good point guard shouldn't hoist 11 threes. Could Marcus Johnson have woken up from his season long slumber? Yeah, I guess he could have. A lot of teams would expect a senior in a big game to attempt more than four shots. But we had some people step it up. The fact is that we played a really tough team in a really tough environment close.

Going into this game, we knew that it was a can't lose proposition as far as our long term tournament goals. The loss actually raised our RPI, the closeness of the score may mean something to the tournament committee in March and our players know that they could have won if they only made one more three pointer or if they only committed two fewer fouls. It is definitely something they can build on. I don’t think a lot of recent Flyer teams could have come into the Pit and played a team this balanced and confident this well.

Dark, is this what Father Barletta called “sweet lemon?”

A few things that stick out now that it’s over are:
1. The Pit can get loud and it gave us a feeling of what fans of other teams feel when they come into the D-rena. However, it was only loud for about the last 10 minutes, but at those times, my eyes were bouncing in my skull like when I’m at a really loud rock concert. The Flyers did a good job of holding their composure.

2. The UNM fans are pretty cool. They seem knowledgeable about basketball and they had no problems with us making asses out of ourselves. At the end of the game, we shook hands with all of those around us, wished each other's team a good year and wished each other a Happy New Year. It was very cordial. Knachel mentioned that it is something we would never see on the east coast.

3. As we were leaving Knachel and I both got stopped by different people who wanted to express how impressed they were with the Flyers. The man I spoke with said he heard we would be tough, but he didn’t think we would be "the toughest team they played all year." He also mentioned that it is impossible to believe we aren’t ranked. I agreed. I blamed ESPN.

4. The next day as we were walking around historic Old Town Albuquerque, we were stopped a few more times by more UNM fans who wanted to talk about the Flyers. They may still be talking about us.

It was altogether a pleasant experience seeing a game there. Even though some parts could have been better than others.

A Trip to the Pit (Part 1)

2010-01-04T17:09:00.007-05:00

UD FlyerNation has a friend (of the blog) who was lucky enough, if you want to call it that, to attend Dayton's game against New Mexico at the Pit. He is a diehard Flyers fan and a UD alum. He was kind enough to recount the adventure that is a Dayton Flyers road game. For the sake of anonymity, we'll call this friend Gooch. Here is Gooch's retelling of his trek to Albuquerque.

The first problem is figuring where to begin a tale like this — one so dependent on the chronology of the events.

I easily could start at the beginning of the 18 hour train ride to Albuquerque, delayed at Chatsworth station, waiting for the police to clean up the body of the guy who jumped in front of the train going the other way and my swearing to myself that it wasn’t an omen of things to come. Because it wasn't. Of more interest is probably my pacing up and down the aisles of the train, wearing my Flyers sweatshirt and trying to make eye contact with everyone wearing a New Mexico Lobos sweatshirt in the hope of some recognition. But nothing came of that, either.

It's better to start at the beginning of the game — where all good tales should, at Chris(t) acknowledging our existence. I am in the company of 2 ½ other Flyer fans (the ½ is a Michigan State fan who loves seeing Tom Izzo’s protégé succeed, but who has lived in Albuquerque for 7 years). We assume our seats here:

Old folks to the left, student section to the right and the Flyer bench right in front of us. Immediately when we get to our seats, we see the Flyers conducting lay-up drills on the opposite side of the court. They swoop, they lay it up and sometimes dunk, then run to the end of the line and gain a practice rebound.

The rebounder returns to the end of the opposing line ready for his chance to attack the rim. In this case the rim attacker is He himself. On his way to the end of the line, he looks toward the crowd, toward us. Jeff (MSU fan) sits down, Haskins to his right, Knachel and then me closest to the students’ section. Immediately upon seeing our mighty Flyers warming up, Knachel and I break the lethargic New Year’s day hum of the Lobo fans finding their seats by yelling, "Go Flyers!" toward our squad. Heads turn as most are initially shocked that any Flyers fans made the trip and that they would have the temerity to debase their cathedral with heretical yells. Of course we have no reverence for their home as we hail from a better church. On his way to the end of the line Chris(t) looks up to the crowd, spots Knachel (1969 CJ throw back jersey [the one in which he was concussed]) and me (Rob Lowery nee Ryan Perryman jersey) pointing to the Dayton emblazoned on our chests. Chris(t) sees us, unsheathes his mighty right arm and points once at Knachel and once at me. I wonder what this omen portends. In retrospect, looking at his stat line (8 points, 10 rebounds) it probably does no more than negate the suicide on the tracks earlier in my journey.

A Flyer fan we located earlier — a stick thin man dressed in red and Columbia blue sitting on the edge of his seat cheering every Flyer player (and Fabrizius in street clothes) — witnesses our anointing. His face that was in profile turns toward us and we see that he is boldly mustachioed and most likely is one of the UD graduates from the late '70s, early '80s whose picture can be found on the wall in the Deli. He points at us. I believe at that point, Knachel realizes he is the mouthpiece of Flyer fanaticism. I know I did.

We gain more acknowledgment from Josh Benson, yet I am snubbed by Rob Lowery, even though I’m wearing the exact same jersey he wore when he played a very sound game against St. Joe's last year. His lack of awareness seems significant now that we know how he finished the game (0-10 from three) No matter, Knachel and I are starting to understand our roles.

The Flyers finish their warm ups and head to the locker room for a spell. The arena begins to fill in, but it becomes apparent that even though it is billed as a sell-out, the arena won’t be full. Going into the game, I felt that Dayton had quite a few things going their way: 1. We got done playing one of our best offensive games against a lowly Boston University club while UNM had a marquee game against Texas Tech. Of course all Flyer fans know that we are better than TXTech, but the pollsters are simpletons. 2. The preparation that UNM needed to put into the TXTech game most likely precluded their preparations for us, while we could afford to look a little beyond BU toward the UNM game. 3. Oral Roberts already laid out the blueprint for how to beat UNM. We just had to do what they did. And 4. We have Chris Johnson.

Most importantly, however, was the fact that we would take the fans by surprise and neutralize the Pit. Prior to the game, Steve Alford needed to go on a media blitz to let the fans know that we were to be feared, calling us the most dangerous team they faced all year. Where the Texas Tech game sold out two weeks prior, our game still had 600 tickets available the day before. All of this translated into the fans coming into the arena, somewhat catatonic from their New Year ’s Eve celebration (which takes the form of an alarming amount of gunfire in ABQ for some reason). They expected a cake walk and certainly didn’t think that they would have to deal with rival fans. To the Flyers benefit, it took the UNM fans most of the game to warm up.

All of that being said, don’t believe UNM fans are ignorant. They bear many similarities to Flyer fans in their knowledge of their team and their love of the game. While we were walking from the car, I was stubbing out a joint we had smoked when a Lobo fan in full attire walked next to us. He noted Haskins and Knachel in full Flyer outerwear and began asking them about our team. He said to Knachel, "So, is Chris Johnson back from his concussion?" Knachel, shocked that he would not only recognize CJ, but that he would know he suffered a concussion replied, "Yeah, he came back last game. He should get a lot of minutes tonight." The man then said, "That stinks. I was hoping he’d be out this game. That guy is good."

Knachel looked at me dumbfounded. "Wow. That’s pretty cool that that guy knows about CJ."

We consistently encountered UNM fans who had paid some attention to our Flyers. They knew we had consistently been screwed out of the rankings and legitimately feared us. That wasn't the case for everyone, however. Especially the students.

My friend Jeff has one shining moment of repartee during the game. While I stand up and yell support for the Flyers during their pregame huddle, a young UNM student full of piss and vinegar makes his way down the aisle with two underclasswomen on each arm. He is wearing a New Mexico jersey and feels as though he needs to call me out. I'm in my zone, focused only on the Flyers, so it takes his biggest voice to get my attention. He points to his jersey. He tells me that his is the type of jersey that I should be wearing. He then mentions that his team is the one ranked and my team is just a bunch of nobodies. He lets me know that they will make shorter order of us than they did of Texas Tech (90-75). And that we might as well get our yelling out of the way now as there will be nothing to yell about at the end of the game. The two girls on his arms nod their heads in approval, even though they are clearly uncomfortable with the fight he was picking.

Distracted out of my focus, my mind is reeling with possible comebacks to the boy. Jeff then speaks up. Up until this point he has just sat with a sheepish grin watching the three Flyers he came with make spectacles of themselves. Coming from Detroit, he has an admiration for true fans, even though he doesn't feel very strongly about either team on this day. During the game he would clap for the Flyers, but this was the only time he raised his voice. He turns, and yells at the arrogant fan: "Your hubris is amusing!"

It ends up being the perfect comeback. The boy is so shocked at it, the fact that it is artful and that he isn"t positive what it means, that he has nothing more to say. In one fell swoop, it stops the student section from wanting to taunt us (for now) and gets the older fans surrounding us more on our sides. They appreciate true fans and I think they welcome fans who don’t resort to base vulgarities. We are UD.

There really isn't a lot more to say about the pregame events. I could bore you with our feelings eating green chili cheeseburgers at a pro UNM restaurant and the shabby service that our jerseys led to. I could also tell you about the Knachel-led expedition to meet Larry and Bucky which ended up with us yelling "Go Flyers" across the Miami Valley airwaves. But I won't. That would be tiresome.

The rest of the pregame looks eerily similar to a pregame at the D-rena. The visiting team runs on the court and gets lightly booed. Then the home team runs on, preceded by flag runners with the UNM logo accompanied by the team’s fight song. Player announcements:

And then tip off.

Check back later today or first thing tomorrow for part 2 of the trip to the Pit.

Week in Review 01.01.10

2010-01-01T13:14:00.002-05:00

It's back

2009-12-30T09:43:00.009-05:00

No, not UDFlyerNation actually posting articles, the Swag is back!

In early December, I was wondering what happened to the Flyer's Swag. Well apparently Rob Lowery took notice as he had this to say in the Dayton Daily News:

At 10-2 and close to cracking the Top 25 again, the Flyers — said Lowery — are starting to get “our swag back. We had it last year and it’s coming back.

Mr. Lowery, I asked and you are delivering, I appreciate it. Keep up the good work and bring us a W in the Pit.

Week in Review 12.23.09

2009-12-23T18:16:00.005-05:00

12/21 Rankings and RPI update

2009-12-21T18:16:00.023-05:00

Another phenomenal weekend for the A-10 is in the books and UDFlyerNation digs in to tell all six blog readers how the rankings mistakenly left the Flyers out, again.

RPI

I said that last week was the first week we can really take a good hard look at the RPI and attempt to get some real meaning out of it. Another week down is another week closer to how the RPI will look at season’s end. It will become increasingly solid every week as we will begin to see the Flyer’s position fluctuate less and less.

That 25th RPI ranking last week was pretty cool, huh? Well, play a clunker like Presbo and look what happens: The Flyers see their SOS plummet from a very respectable 25th to a less respectable 49th(!) to the Wabler bashers delight. That takes our pure RPI rating from 25th to 32nd - not too much damage.

The Flyers see six, yes I said six opponents in the top 25 of the RPI this week, four of whom we still have yet to play AND three of whom are in the A-10 – Temple (3), Richmond (21), Rhode Island (24). I’ll tell you what folks, that screams of opportunity in conference to boost a tourney resume.

Another great RPI sign shows us that besides Fordham (at a disgusting 249 RPI), the next worse A-10 team is Umass at 129; the same Umass who beat Memphis in The Garden this weekend. That is the best news of all, especially if things stay that way. I believe that if we can enter conference season with all teams other than Fordham within the top 150 RPI mark, 12-4 is looking like a tourney lock, so long as this conference avoids a complete pant crapping the next few weeks.

I’m not a big schedule basher this year because I believe we will end up around the 40 RPI mark when the non-con is over. However, Wabler does need to avoid some of these 220+ RPI teams. There are currently 283 college basketball teams with a better RPI than Towson St. and Presbyterian. You can’t tell me 2 of those 283 teams won’t come collect a check at The Arena. I’ll give Wabler a B in the non-con scheduling, let’s just try to avoid the super clunkers, ok Wabs?

Rankings

Three signature wins for the A-10 on Saturday included Richmond over Florida, Temple over Seton Hall and the previously mentioned Umass over Memphis. Friend of the Blog, ODU shocks the Hoyas of Georgetown by collecting a win in their gym. X had an opportunity to score with 1.2 seconds left vs. Butler to add another big win, but they missed that shot. Wait, I’m being told X actually didn’t get that opportunity, the refs just ran the clock down with the game stopped. X lost the game while Butler lost a water fountain.

This weekend is exactly why my Xavier hating theory is correct. There are 12 other teams in the Atlantic 10 that I root for every game, Xavier is not one of them. We can control our destiny outside of X’s success while others in the conference step up. Way to go A-10, and way to go Butler timekeepers!

The AP poll looks like this:

21. Temple
34. Dayton
35. Charlotte
52. Richmond
53. Rhode Island

8. Villanova
12. Kansas State
13. New Mexico

Glad to see Temple getting some recognition but are you kidding me voting Richmond at 52?!? With 4 quality wins including @ Florida, @ Mississippi State, vs. Missouri and ODU, the Spiders will be a very touch match up this year and a team I believe will seriously contend for the A-10 title. Will five teams not named Xavier getting this kind of recognition mean 4 bids this year?

I said a week ago and still believe that the Flyers will need to beat New Mexico to earn an AP ranking. With only one more voting Monday (Dec. 28th) before the New Mexico game, the best Dayton can do to sway voters will be a win over Appalachian State tonight. I dont believe that will be enough to move the Flyers up 9 spots. Furthermore, if the Flyers lose to New Mexico, we’ll see them drop from 27ish back down to 40ish with a long winning streak in the A-10 needed to ever get back on to Sportscenter highlights.

Dayton cannot ask for much more out of their past and future opponents this year. New Mexico may very well be in the top 10 on New Year’s Day in the Pit (how many schools call their gym/field “The Pit” by the way) which would vault the Flyers into the top 20 entering A-10 play. We’ve received a lot of help from our A-10 brethren, and control our destiny for an NCAA bid. The question remains; can we do it?

Not Good

2009-12-20T11:12:00.002-05:00

The Dayton Daily News is reporting that the initial prognosis on Chris and Marcus Johnson is that both players are expected to miss Monday's game against Appalachian State. Chris took a blow to the head very early in Saturday night's win over Presbyterian. According to the DDN, CJ suffered a concussion after running full speed into a backcourt pick. Reports are that Marcus has an ankle sprain and had X-rays taken late last night.

The Flyers should be okay against App State even without the Johnson boys and the previously injured Luke Fabrizius. Hopefully Johnson and Johnson can return in time for the Boston U. game if only to knock off some of the rust. I would not want to have two starters playing their first game back from injury after a two-week layoff in a hostile New Mexico environment.

They're laughing with you, not at you.

2009-12-19T17:48:00.015-05:00

This is the actual dialogue of a phone call between Secaur and I at 4:16pm today:

“Hahahahahahaha. Bwahahahahahaha. Muwahahahahahahahaa. Bwahahahahahaha. Hahahahahaha”. This happened for literally 45 seconds before we said an actual word. And it wasn’t funny haha laughing, it was devious, menacing, deep terrorizing laughter – as if we were both super villains who had just taken over the world. It was truly a tremendous moment.

For those of you that did not watch the Butler vs. Xavier game, you missed one of the all time jobbings I’ve witnessed, in all of sports, ever. If that had happened to the Flyers, I’d be in the market for a new 52” television seeing that my fist just went through my old one.

With about 45 seconds to go in the game, Butler made two free throws to bring the game to a one point Bulldog deficit. Xavier inbounded and Butler’s Gordon Hayward was able to get a hand on the ball, allowing the ref to call a jump ball. Possession arrow > Butler. First off, the definition of a jump ball is when two players both have possession of the ball simultaneously. I didn’t see Hayward secure possession of the ball and I think he fouled the X player. That didn’t stop Bob Knight from slurping Hayward for the next 15 minutes though. After the jump ball, Butler down one point, the last “play” of the game took place. It's really indescribable but just know Butler scored with 1.2 seconds left on the clock.

During this long play, the clock stopped for approximately one second around the 14 second mark but play continued on. After Butler’s bucket, clock reading 1.2 seconds, the referees took a break to put it all together.

And that’s where things really went wrong…

For starters, Bobby Knight does not understand how time and clocks work. He repeated several times that the referees were going to be adding time on the clock. Robert, when the time clock stops but the game continues you need to subtract time from the clock to make up for it. He and Musburger could not grasp this concept whatsoever. Secaur put it best by saying that when the broadcasting team’s combined age is around 140, you’re in trouble.

Let’s move from the commentator’s ignorance to the referee’s ignorance...

I mentioned that the clock stopped while play continued; the refs now needed to determine how much time should come off the clock when it was stopped so that they could subtract this time off of the final game clock. This was an impossible task. How does one determine that the clock was stopped for 1.3 seconds rather than .9 seconds? Does the ref count “one Mississippi” and know exactly how much time came off the clock?.

Well, apparently they were able to make a perfectly accurate determination. And they discovered that exactly 1.3 seconds should come off the clock. Conveniently for Butler, that was exactly how much time should have been left on the clock after their final shot, meaning, game over. Butler’s shot was, in reality, a buzzer beater.

Mack went absolutely ballistic, and I don’t blame him one bit. Honestly, I think he should have made even more of a scene than he did. I would have thrown a chair. I would have taken off the suit jacket and gone on an absolute tirade. I would have pulled a Joe Pa and followed the refs all the way into the tunnel. The refs just told you and your team that instead of there being 1.8 or even 1.2 seconds on the clock, the game is now over. Not only that, but Butler’s shot counts and it just so happened to go through the hoop at the exact time the clock expired, even though the clock you’re looking at, Coach Mack, reads 1.2 seconds right now. Thanks for making the trip out, good effort, but you lose and you don’t even get a final shot. Ouch! And to add insult to injury we’re going to let the 1.2 seconds tic off the clock right in front of your face, with play stopped and sound the buzzer. Personally, that was one of my favorite parts.

People like Seth Davis are saying the refs made the right call, but what if Butler had taken the final shot with .5 seconds left on the clock as opposed to 1.3 seconds? Would the refs then determine that Butler’s shot did not count, and Xavier wins the game? Using the same logic they would have had to, right? Well, how would that be fair to Butler? If you think about it, what if a point guard had looked at the clock and specifically taken a shot with .5 seconds to go? Do you then tell that player, “sorry, I know the official game clock you were looking at said .5 seconds when you let the shot go, but really your time keeper screwed up 17 seconds earlier and the clock was at 0 when your shot went off. Sorry about your luck”? There really isn’t a right answer here.

I think the reasonable solution consisted of playing the end of the game with the time that was on the clock when Butler’s shot went through the hoop – 1.2 seconds. It was the Butler time clock operator who screwed up, let X get one more shot at it, with the time on the clock when the Butler shot went through. I can’t imagine being an X fan today, even if the “experts” say the refs got this right, they got absolutely hosed!

If your Butler, why in the world would do you not call a time out during that last sequence? Hindsight is 20/20 but that really surprised me.

Also, how many more times are we going to see Xavier players come off their bench to confront an opposing player or official? Does anyone else have the feeling Mack doesn't have the same clout with his players that Miller did? In addition to these guys throwing tirades, Mack lets Crawford do whatever he wants, whenever he wants. It will be very interesting to watch these guys the rest of the season.

When all is said and done, this couldn’t have happened to a better program. You earned this X, congrats! My dream scenario now is that Xavier becomes the last team left out of the NCAA tourney. Reason? They just needed one more quality road win.

Twitter will be hopping tonight for the game. Follow Rick and Kevin’s tweets via the twitter name “UDFLYERS”.

Finally, with all this talk of Robert Montgomery Knight and his recent resurfacing in the news about his comments on John Calipari, I thought I'd share one of my favorite all time RMK videos. Enjoy his top 10 moments:

Week in Review 12.18.09

2009-12-18T14:00:00.005-05:00

Old Dominion
Anybody else feel like the Flyers played ODU about two months ago? This eight day layoff between games has been brutal. From what I remember, the win over the Monarchs was a pretty good one. UD played very solid D limiting its opponent to just 50 points.

After dropping the ol' "We're a man-to-man team" in our podcast, ODU coach and friend of the blog Blaine Taylor proceeded to play a 3-2 zone for about 75% of the game. Well played, Coach, well played. Any zone is going to give the Flyers a hard time but with Luke Fab sidelined, a team with a little length playing a zone can give UD absolute fits. 58 points does not impress me, but a five-game winning streak after coming home from Puerto Rico is nothing to sneeze at.

Hot Presbo Action

The Presbyterian College Blue Hose come to UD Arena tomorrow night sporting a 2-9 record on the season. How would you like to be a diehard Presby hoops fan? If that record and this guy as your head coach doesn't instill confidence in a fan base, I know nothing that will.

The Blue Hose's non-conference schedule consists of games at Clemson, at Illinois, at North Carolina, at Ohio State, at Dayton, at Marquette and at Florida ($$$). Are you serious? Do you think that's a big selling point for recruits? "Hey, come to Presbyterian College and get waxed by 30 points every night while members of the administration stuff their wallets with fat cash for your effort."

Anyway, I think UD cruises even easier than it did vs. Lehigh and wins by, let's go with, 24. I'm not going to waste 30 seconds of my valuable time looking up anything else about Presby, so let's also assume they are undersized. With that in mind, Kurtcy has a nice game for the Flyers going for 13 points and seven boards.

Throwback Night

Tomorrow will be "throwback night" as the Flyers will wear the replica 1969-'70 jerseys. I was going to make fun of this until I read that UD Arena is celebrating its 40th anniversary, and this year's team is wearing the throwbacks to honor the first team ever to play at the arena. That's actually kinda cool.

More Rob Low

If Rob Lowery is 100% or close to it, he needs to play more. The offense looks so much better with him in there. Plus, he's a threat to knock down an open jump shot from time to time. This is nothing you didn't already know, but hey it's been a slow week. Also, Mickey Perry learning to shoot a left handed lay-up might come in handy at some point this season.

Podcast

Ever since our newest contributor Rick Scaia mentioned rpiforecast.com on the most recent podcast, I've been checking that site like crazy. Aside from Ray's Georgia Tech preview, it's probably my favorite thing on the entire Internet right now. Here's the rub, though, it has UD going 21-9 on the season (10-6 in A10 play). I don't need to tell you this, but if it does shake out that way I'll be in UD Arena watching the Flyers host a first round NIT game.

The silver lining (sort of) is that it lists four games in which UD has between a 48-54% chance of winning. Those are basically toss-up games that could go either way. So win all four and you're 23-7 (12-4 in the league) and looking like a strong contender for an at-large bid; win three of four and you're 22-8 and and heading to Atlantic City with some work left to do; anything less and you need to win to the conference tourney to dance.

Coach Speak

New Mexico coach and former Indiana standout Steve Alford just happens to be a friend of the blog, so we'll probably be talking to him a few days after Christmas to get a preview of UD-New Mex. If you have any questions (or suggestions to make me sound like less of a bumbling idiot) for when I interview Alford, feel free to send them along.

Off Topic Stuff

Time for your favorite part of this post (and mine), the part that has nothing to do with Dayton basketball. According to reports, Fiesta Bowl employees were encouraged to donate money to specific political candidates and were then reimbursed by the bowl. This was allegedly done so that the Fiesta Bowl would remain in good standing with the BCS and not get bumped out of the rotation in favor of the Cotton Bowl. Corruption in the BCS? I'm shocked!!!

The new theory floating around the interwebs is that somebody got wind of this a while ago and, as a "punishment," the Fiesta was forced to take both TCU and Boise State this year. No word on what crime the Orange Bowl committed to get stuck with Ga Tech and Iowa (hey-oh!).

I had some more thoughts on the college football bowl season as well as on the death of Bengals wide receiver Chris Henry. But then I figured there are so few people who care what I have to say about the Flyers, so my best guess is that even fewer of you come to this site to read my opinions on that other crap. Maybe we'll do some bowl predictions before the ones that actually matter are played. Until then, enjoy Presby and App State.

There's a part two?

2009-12-17T11:09:00.011-05:00

You didn't think we'd leave you hanging with just one podcast on this boring week, did you?

In the interest of full disclosure, we recorded a podcast on Monday night that was long. Really long. It lasted about an hour, and we decided not even the three contributing members to UD FlyerNation (and the three most knowledgable Flyer fans I know) could hold your attention for a full hour. But the content was so good that we couldn't leave you, our fans, hanging. We broke up it up into two sections. Part two is 20 mintues and it features:

-Is the RPI still useful (you can listen to the debate if you didn't like the name calling on the written part of the blog)
-Should the RPI include margin of victory?
-What's the difference between KenPom, Sagarin and RPI?
-Where do the Flyers stack up in these polls?
-What will the selection committee look for on our resume?

Click HERE to hear part two and let us know what you think.

Let's debate: podcast style

2009-12-15T16:27:00.022-05:00

With a full week of no Flyer Basketball, management at UDFlyerNation thought this would be the perfect time to debut the third contributor to the blog.

He is internet celebrity and Flyer expert Rick Scaia. Rick, who formerly handled the professional wrastling department for CBS.sportsline.com can now be found over at OnlineOnslaught where he currently earns a living writing about steroid injected, greased men in underpants throwing each other around a ring.

We are fortunate enough to have Rick put down the steel chair and join UDFlyerNation this year. Rick will be a breath of fresh air to you stat geeks out there as he highlights all the numbers you never knew existed. Rick will also serve as our Information Technology Director as one day we will be taking the .blogspot out of our name. It's a thankless job but we're happy to have him aboard.

Without further ado, listen in as Rick joins Secaur and I to discuss a number of pressing Flyer issues including:

-What can we do to get Chris Wright out of his funk?
-How damaging will the Luke injury be?
-Should you be happy with the current OOC schedule?
-What are the Flyer's chances of being ranked before New Mexico?
-Who are the Flyer's most efficient players?
-Biggest disappointment of the year?
-And much, much more...

To begin play click HERE

12/14 Rankings/RPI Update

2009-12-14T14:10:00.024-05:00

As teams begin to cross the 10 game mark in this young season, it gives UDFlyerNation a chance to look at rankings and RPI numbers that are supported by real actual data. While some will argue the RPI doesn't take shape until the new year, I'll argue that the 10 game mark is the starting point to have real discussions using such data.

Also, it's Monday, new rankings came out, and the A-10 had a great weekend. This is perfect timing to take a look at numbers, which are probably at their yearly peak, and let them make the Flyers and A-10 look decent before the spiral of death that is A-10 conference play begins.

Rankings

Flyer opponent and friend of the blog Kansas State makes their debut in the top 25 coming in at 17 and 22 in the AP and coaches respectively. New Mexico takes some of that same mojo and makes their first appearance of the season checking in at #19 in both polls.

As the A-10 continues to have fantastic OOC success, with a banner weekend for the conference, the sucess is recognized as several teams receive votes this week:

-Temple does what the Flyers could not as they defeat Villanova and jump up to #30 this week in the AP, receiving 83 votes.

-Your Dayton Flyers tie the 49ers of Charlotte at #36 as both teams receive 24 votes.

-And a few (literally) folks notice Rhode Island and show a tiny bit of love, placing the Rams at #48 this week with 3 votes.

-Still no sign of the X men after the crosstown shootout win but with big time opportunities coming up vs. Butler (15), LSU (NR) and Wake Forest (receiving a few votes) in the next 4 games, Xavier could vault their way over all of the above A-10 teams and secure a ranked spot for most of conference season. Although with a few losses in these games, the Muskrats will need some big time help in conference to secure another at large bid.

-Do you root for Xavier in the OOC? I sure don't.

-In related news, Dayton plays New Mexico in 2010.

-Gary Parrish brings it strong and makes his case for the Flyers over the Huskies

RPI

As the RPI begins to come together, the Flyers find themselves with four opponents currently in the RPI top 13 including Kansas State, Temple, New Mexico and Villanova.

Five Atlantic 10 teams show up in the RPI top 50 - I'll take that any day. However the A-10 only has 7 in the top 100.

The Flyers themselves have an RPI of 25, which, coincidentally is their SOS rating. A lot of folks were unhappy with our OOC scheduling but if we can finish with a top 40 SOS rating, I'll be thrilled. The SOS will drop big in our next three games but will receive a nice boost heading into conference play with the New Mexico game. Off the top of my head, I think we finish around 34 in (edit: Non Conference) SOS.

We talked a lot about this at the time but winning that Ga. Tech game was HUGE. Imagine we lose that game and play George Mason and Boston U. instead of Nova and KSU. Forget the fact we'd be playing them two times each, a Puerto Rico schedule consisting of those teams absolutely crushes our SOS - something the committee actually pays attention to. Would you rather be 2-1 in Puerto Rico with that previously mentioned schedule, or 1-2 how we actually did it. I'll take the 1-2.

The RPI numbers are young and raw, which means they can change fast but overall I'm not to disappointed with where the Flyers and the rest of the A-10 show up. Now go on and enjoy them before they change!

Flyght can Fly

2009-12-13T13:36:00.002-05:00

Hopefully the second half vs. ODU was him officially waking up for the season.

Enjoy some video highligts of the game:

Thanks to flyerhoops.net for putting this one together.

New podcast up Monday evening where the mysterious third contributor to the blog will make his debut.

Podcast #7: Old Dominion Style

2009-12-11T10:04:00.013-05:00

Earlier in the week, our crack staff at UD FlyerNation was trying to set up an interview with Old Dominion head coach Blaine Taylor. Taylor's schedule did not appear to be conducive to joining us on the weekly podcast; apparently D-I basketball coaches are pretty busy or something. But, out of the blue this morning, Taylor gave me a ring and said I could have ten minutes of his time if I still wanted them. I recorded our conversation (that's legal, right?) and present it to you now in podcast form. Enjoy.

Click HERE to listen.

Week in Review 12.11.09

2009-12-11T05:00:00.004-05:00

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.

One half at a time
Somebody should feel free to tell these Flyers that they're allowed to put together two good halves in a row. It's not against the rules or anything. Just when you thought Dayton was a "second half team," the Flyers come out and put a hurting on George Mason in the first frame in Fairfax to the tune of a 16-point lead at intermission. I won't get into the second half because we could argue all day about who's to blame for UD's poor performance there. Bottom line: When you shoot 5-20 in a half (0-7 from downtown), you're going to let a lot of teams come back on you. For the game, though, UD shot better than and outrebounded the Patriots. Hell, the Flyers even made 70% of their free throws. Six assists versus sixteen turnovers is a little worrisome, but road wins always seem to be a premium so I'll keep my griping to a minimum.

While I'm on the George Mason game, did anyone else catch the small roar that went up from the home crowd when GMU hit that meaningless 3-pointer at the buzzer on Tuesday? "Wooooo we only lost by one!" Way to know the score and situation, Patriots fans ... Unless, of course, that 3-ball covered the spread in which case I can't blame people for getting nuts.

Earlier in the week, Dayton played Lehigh and won.

ODU
In one of the podcasts I predicted UD would lose both at Miami and tonight's game at home to Old Dominion. When that happened I think I was still hung over from Puerto Rico and bitter about the Towson game. Four straight wins upon return from San Juan have me singing a different tune, but I do think this will be a tough, hard-fought game.

Old Dominion returns all five starters from a team that went 25-10 last season and is favored to win the Colonial. George Mason, as a point of reference, is picked to finish fourth in that same league. According to its web site, ODU captured the inaugural CollegeInsider.com Tournament title last year. What is that? Did they change the name of the CBI and nobody told me? Or is this a fourth postseason college basketball tournament?

Anyway, the Monarchs are supposed to be pretty good and they're led by Gerald Lee, a preseason co-player of the year pick in the CAA. Further, ODU has been tested playing at Richmond and getting games against Missouri and Mississippi State in some preseason tourney. Granted, they lost all three of those games, so I'm changing my mind and picking the Flyers to win by six.

TV or not TV
As a Dayton fan, one of my favorite pastimes is complaining about the fact that the Flyers are never on TV and that the team gets no national exposure whatsoever. Seriously, how ridiculous is that I live 50 miles from campus and have to watch almost all of the games on a tiny laptop screen with grainy video? BUT let me just say what a blessing this has been through the first eight games of this season. I'm so glad no one outside the Miami Valley got to see the Towson game (or even the games against Miami and Mason, for that matter).

If you've got a vote in one of the polls, all you know is that Dayton is 6-2 with a win over Georgia Tech, and the two teams it lost to are a combined 17-1 right now. Filling out my ballot, hmmmmm, I'd say they're about 35th in the country. Sounds like a winner.

MJ Injured?
During the Mason game, Hartsock busted out the ol' "Oh, Marcus Johnson's been playing with a wrist injury" nugget and did it real casual-like. I'm not one to speculate (okay, that's pretty much all I'm qualified to do), but does anyone else think something's fishy here? If I'm a senior guard and one of the guys expected to lead this team back to the NCAA Tournament and I'm shooting 36% from the field, 13% from three, and 40% from the foul line, I might suddenly develop a mysterious "wrist injury" too. Seriously, read those numbers again. 40% FREE THROWS and 13% from the arc. Yeesh. I hope your head, errr I mean wrist, gets right soon, MJ.

Coming up big down low
The Huelsman versus Searcy debate continues, and it will likely go on all season long. I'm taking a different tact though and just treating them as one player. They/it needs a sweet nickname though if I'm going to track them as one person for the rest of the year. Suggestions welcome. Right now, they (he?) are averaging 8.5 and 5.5 a game. I'll take that all season long.

A scheduling question
How does putting together a D-I men's college basketball schedule work? I feel like I should know more about this, but I find myself almost completely in the dark. When fans think a schedule isn't up to snuff, I hear the AD get criticized more than anyone, but doesn't the coach have a lot to do with it? I thought I read somewhere that coaches had as much influence, if not more in some cases, as to who their team played and where. Am I way off base here? If someone could point me in the right direction, I'd be much obliged.

John Wall
Ready for the off-topic rants? Good, because I know I am. Growing up in Northern Kentucky (Cincitucky, if you will) I came to love all, at least most, things Cincinnati and hate a lot of things Kentucky. One of the things I hated most during my formative years was University of Kentucky basketball. It just didn't make that much sense to root for a team who played its games 90 minutes away when there were not one but two Division I college basketball programs within a ten minute drive from my house. I rooted for Cincinnati and hated Kentucky as a kid.

Having said that, watching John Wall play so far this year has been awesome. The kid is sick and will almost certainly be the #1 overall pick in this spring's NBA Draft. (I have Derrick Favors two and Chris Wright three, in case you were wondering.) The UK-UConn game ended after my bed time, so I didn't see the finish, but it's been talked about all day today. If you can escape the Brian Kelly media blitz that's taken Cincinnati by storm, you'll find a lot of people talking about UK and John Wall. Seeing as this will be his only season in college, I really feel the need to get to Lexington and watch the kid play in person. Who's coming with me?

Tiger Woods y'all
I don't know how the whole Tiger saga is going to play out and, frankly, I don't particularly care. I do find it amusing that women are suddenly tripping over each other to come out and say they slept with him, but that's about where my interest ends. Nothing earth shattering is going to come out of this anyway. Nobody's getting arrested. His wife is either going to divorce him and get tens of millions of dollars or "reconcile" with him and get to spend half of his billions of dollars. Big deal.

I will say this, though, and you can bank on it. Tiger Woods will at some point go into rehab for sex addiction like that dude from the X-Files did. Think about it: If you cheat on your wife with one chick, you just made a mistake and maybe she gets over it, maybe not. If you're having dozens of ongoing affairs with women all over the country, if not the world, it's a little tougher to backpedal your way out of that. So does he admit he's a scum bag and a downright despicable human being? No way, he's Tiger; his image can't take that hit. But if you're addicted to something, if you physically and psychologically have to have it, if you've lost all control of yourself, it makes it easier for us, the public, to stomach. Some time in 2010 Tiger Woods tackles his "addiction to sex."

Social Networking
I'm about to turn 26 and never in my life I have felt older and less cool. Well, I probably felt less cool when I was about 14 maybe. (Note to any middle schoolers reading this: Getting straight A's in high school and junior high is the least important thing you'll ever do and a complete waste of your time. Try to figure out ways to make out with chicks instead - or at least work up the courage to talk to them - and you won't be such a d-bag in high school. You're welcome.)

Back to the present, can someone get me up to speed on what's cool and what's not in social networking? I mean, we can all agree that being on Facebook is cool, yes? As long as you're not a big enough tool that you play Farmville and Mafia Wars, you're fine. And I'm pretty sure MySpace is only for 14-year-old girls and creepy internet pervs who want to stalk 14-year-old girls, right?

Recently I find myself getting more and more hooked on Twitter (UDFlyers). I tweet more frequently and check the site multiple times per day. Does this make more of a loser, less of a loser, or about the same? What about LinkedIn? Does anyone know what that even is? Is there other social networking stuff out there that's so cool I don't even know about it? (Tim just renewed his eharmony membership, but that's another subject for another post.)

Twitter baby with a capital T!
And finally, while I'm on the topic of Twitter, I have started following Dick Vitale on there. No matter if you love Dickie V or hate him (put me in the "don't like him but think he's harmless" camp), I think it's hilarious that he tweets. If Twitter was ever targeted specifically toward one person, it would be Dick Vitale. Hell, you could make the case that he practically invented Twitter. Vitale has been speaking in sentence fragments and 140-character exclamations for almost 40 years now. Plus, it's great to get his dining out tips as well as his thoughts on the Heisman. You know, stuff on which Dick Vitale is in no way qualified to give an expert opinion.

Where's the swag?

2009-12-09T21:28:00.011-05:00

A win is a win. That’s what we heard last year and I’m guessing that will be the excuse again this year. The question that arises highest in the minds of Flyer fans today reads, when will this team learn to put opponents away?

Or will they ever?

Maybe it’s the leaders on this team, maybe it’s Brian Gregory but whatever the reason, it needs fixed faster than Bob Barker’s dog. You can’t always count on Karl Hobbs not knowing how many players to put on the court. You can’t always count on looking at the scoreboard with 12 minutes to go and "not knowing we were down by that much" and mounting a miracle comeback, especially against a team as bad as Towson. Playing this way will burn this team. While many will counter with, "It hasn’t happened yet" or "These guys just know how to win," one day London won’t hit the free throws like he did against Miami, one day Paul Williams won’t hit a 3 and four straight free throws vs. Ga. Tech, and one day a team like Mason will make us pay big time for Mickey avoiding a make at the free throw line like he avoids the patty melts at KU.

The team that has stepped on the floor so far this year is not the best team in the Atlantic 10 (neither is Xavier for the record). It’s not even a 12-4 team in the A-10. The team we’ve seen thus far will be lucky to get 10 wins in this conference.

So what needs to change?

For starters, executing a game plan beyond the first 3 minutes would be nice. Every game begins with a focus to get Kurt a touch in the post. Often times, we’ll see the guards give him looks on three straight possessions to start a game. This leads me to believe that getting touches in the post is a pregame point of emphasis. However, after those first three possessions, this team seems to forget that game plan. It’s right back to rotating the ball around the perimeter, often times with a center dribbling around the three point line and handing off to a guard (opponents are learning how to defend this and draw charges by the way), and relying on an attempt late in the shot clock.

What’s wrong with continuing the original game plan? Don’t get me wrong folks, I don’t think we should focus the offense around Kurt but I do believe he would be much more willing to play an inside/outside game if the guards would give him more touches. When you know you’ll only touch the ball once every six possessions in the post, you become a black hole like Benson. Give the post more touches and they'll feed it back for open shots - give and take. I shouldn't rip Josh too hard. He's played well on the offensive end lately, and I bet we see more than four minutes out of him moving forward. Let's keep the original game plan. Feed the post, play inside/outside with your three bigs and create open shots that way rather than the weaving ball rotation around the perimeter.

Secondly, run plays for your playmakers. Did anyone realize we have a potential NBA draft pick on this team? I swear, we could have four absolute stiffs and a superstar on the court and Gregory would run the exact same motion offense. Oh wait, it was called the Brian Roberts era.

My point, do something creative to get your star looks outside of the regular context of the only offense you’re ever willing to run. BG’s stubbornness absolutely kills me sometimes! Whether it’s refusing to even try a trapping press, even when we are down in late game situations or subbing a hot shooter right out of the game, he is set in his ways. He holds the philosophy that "my system wins" and the players need to execute that system. While some of this rings true, this doesn’t always allow you to play to your strengths, (CW, CJ). Outside of one alley oop play per game, we run nothing specifically designed for these two. There just isn’t a lot of room for playmakers to make plays, it’s darn frustrating as a fan and I bet it’s even more frustrating as a playmaker.

I can hear the comments coming now. Why the rant, Tim? We are 6-2, we are winning games. If you are saying these things, refer back to the top of this post where I mention we are going to get burnt.

Lastly, light a fire under these kids. All I hear about is how players won’t play for BG if they don’t play defense but I see the same players getting the same minutes in the same substitution patterns every game. I don’t know what it will take: bench someone, call someone out in the press, make them walk around campus without headphones on, ban them from Tim’s, just do something. I want to see the Flyers play with that killer instinct I’ve seen from them before like last year’s games vs. Marquette, X and WVU. Find a way to bring that every game, Coach. That’s what we pay you the big bucks for. Have you seen this team come out and play like they know they are going to win? Like they know they are the best team on the court? Like they are angry they aren’t in the top 25 anymore and want to split some heads? Time to turn the swag on ... just like Flyght does in his pimp suit.

We need changes and we need them quick. I think this team has the leadership to wake up; they just need to do it. The A-10 isn’t great this year but teams 1-5 are all very tough. It isn’t UD and X with a boatload of mediocrity as in years past. The Flyers have their work cut out for them and they’ve already hit that sleep timer one too many times this year. I’m afraid if they try to sleep for just ten more minutes, we’ll be talking about the loss that makes us one of "the last four out."

Flyers Week in Review 12.04.09

2009-12-04T05:00:00.005-05:00

I figured I would start writing a weekly post breaking 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 reneg 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. Let's give this thing a whirl.

Two wins
I wouldn't exactly call wins against Towson and Miami (OH) "big" wins, but I would definitely call them important ones. The Flyers seem to have, however temporarily, righted the ship after a disappointing trip to Puerto Rico. Running the table until a New Year's Day showdown at New Mexico now becomes a distinct possibility.

CJ > CW?
Okay we've all come to grips with the fact that Chris Johnson is the best player on this year's edition of the Flyers. He certainly has been through six games and I don't really see that changing any time soon. But here's the thing ... Somebody needs to print this (other than our little blog that nobody reads) or start talking about it. Especially to Chris Wright. I don't know much about Wright other than what I see on the basketball court, but he seems like a player driven by motivation. He feeds off the crowd at UD Arena, he plays his best in the biggest games (XU and WVU last year), so somebody call him out. BG? One of the assistant coaches? Tell him that until he steps up his play, he's playing second fiddle to Chris Johnson on what is supposed to be HIS team.

It seems a little silly saying a guy who averages 16 and 6 needs to be "called out." But I think CW is capable of a lot more. He could - and should - be averaging a double-double, and I'm not wild about his team-high 19 turnovers.

No zone after all
I tweeted about this during the game, but I can't believe Charlie Coles played 40 minutes of straight man-to-man defense. I would have bet Adam's life savings that he would play zone for two-thirds of the game if not more. Maybe that white piece of paper he kept checking during Wednesday night's game really was a take out menu.

Kurt will be missed
I can't believe I've become the chief Kurt Huelsman apologist in the UD blogosphere but then again, most days I can't believe I'm even a part of the UD blogosphere. I despised Kurt Huelsman the basketball player (as a person, we're cool) last year. This year I like him. He plays the best interior defense on the team by far, and he's averaging 3 and 3 right now. I think come A10 play, he'll average 5 and 5 and everybody will hate him a lot less.

But here's something for you to chew on. Will Kurt Huelsman be missed more than any other graduating senior come the 2010-'11 season? I could make a pretty strong case that he will. Searcy and Benson are much more accomplished on the offensive end, but they don't D up like Kurt. They also don't do the dirty work Kurt does. Huelsman has become something of an enforcer for this year's UD team.

When you think about it, the tandem of Staten and Parker seems more than capable of replacing London and Rob Lowery. Paul Williams is waiting in the wings to inherit MJ's two guard spot, and Mickey Perry is a solid role player but nothing more. I think KH is the most-missed senior come this time next year.

Speaking of...
Mickey Perry, he saw more court time than London against Miami, 22 minutes to 18. Perry had six assists and only one TO in the game. Under different circumstances, I'd be interested to see if this starts a new trend for the PG position. But with Lowery's likely return on Saturday, it probably becomes moot. Let's not forget that Perry was nothing short of cancerous in Puerto Rico, but at least he's come around a little in the last two games. I think Perry still sees 15+ mpg in the coming weeks - some at the point while Lowery gets his sea legs back, some at the SG if Marcus is still struggling and because he's a little bit better defender than P-Will.

Props to Tim
I pretty much laughed Tim off when he predicted the Big Ten would come away victorious for the first time ever in the ACC/Big Ten Challenge. And, while it means absolutely nothing, he was right. It did happen. Obviously, I blame Oliver Purnell for this as his Clemson team blew a 23-point second half lead AT HOME to a mediocre Illinois team. (If there was a way to place some of the blame on Trent Meacham, I'd do that as well.) Anyway, the Big Ten won the challenge 6-5, but I still think the conference is overrated and not underrated as Tim claimed. Michigan was the most overrated team in the country preseason and, to me, Purdue looks more like the 20th best team in the nation than the 6th. No way the Boilers make it past the Sweet Sixteen especially with their starting PG sidelined by injury.

Off Topic
The other day I had a random thought about the future of Duke basketball. It's probably its own full post, and it probably has no place on a Dayton Flyers b-ball blog, but I wanted to run it by the masses. Basically, I see some major parallels between where Duke is headed and where Notre Dame football is right now. I think that when Coach K hangs it up, Duke finds itself at a major crossroads as to the (near term, at least) future of its program. The wrong hire at that time could send them into a similar tailspin. Just think about some of the similarities:

Having to replace a legendary head coach who was the face of the program
High academic standards make fewer super-stud high school athletes available to them
Duke won't take one-and-done guys (notable excpetion: Corey Maggette); Notre Dame doesn't redshirt its players
ND has its own TV network (NBC); Duke has its own TV announcer (Vitale)

It's weird because the media treats Notre Dame as if it is a relevant player in the national championship picture every single year when it hasn't been since the days before Bobby Bowden was castrated and Charlie Ward was his star quarterback. The media (mainly ESPN) treats Duke in the same manner even though the Blue Devils haven't been past the Sweet Sixteen since '04 and have, if I remember correctly, been knocked out by a higher-seeded team each of the past five seasons. Maybe it's coming or maybe this is just wishful thinking on my part.

I'm working on Saturday but I still plan to watch the internet feed of Dayton-Lehigh. I'll tweet if I'm able to, so follow us on Twitter under the name UDFlyers. You can also check out our podcasts on the right side of this very page.

Miami Preview

2009-12-02T09:50:00.013-05:00

Picking my favorite part of that video is like a parent choosing his/her favorite son. (For my parents that choice was an easy one, and I still resent my brother for it.) But if you forced me to pick, I'd say, "They're the Big Blue!" is the best line in Coles' rant.

I just wish the Flyers had a similar moniker in the hopes that Charlie would drop it in his postgame presser tonight. "Dayton Flyers, number 38 in the country, I'm hearing ONE second round draft pick ... They're the small red! ... Huelsman became Huelsman ... And that's how we held them to 48 and won the game."

I've seen the Flyers at anywhere from 3.5 to 4.5 point favorite for tonight's contest. I've also seen the total ranging from 134.5 to 138. Conventional wisdom says this game goes way under. If you're in the mood to gamble, I'd recommend a parlay with the Miami money line and the under.

I like the under not because of stellar defense but rather poor outside shooting. Millett is tough enough for good shooters, let alone these Flyers. I'm sticking with what I said on the podcast: 57-51 RedHawks.

By the way, if you think the above paragraphs are just one long excuse to re-post the Charlie Coles video, you know me all too well.

Podcast: Towson Fall Out

2009-11-30T21:18:00.003-05:00

After narrowly beating a bad Towson team, the sky is falling here at UD FlyerNation. Tim tells you what it will take for the Flyers to get an at-large bid, Secaur compares Marcus Johnson to Jim Furyk, and we both speculate on the return of Rob Lowery. Plus much much more...

Listen to the latest podcast here.

Your Requisite Towson Recap

2009-11-28T16:21:00.000-05:00

The University of Dayton Flyers played one of those classic "get healthy" games that all teams need from time to time during a season. A vastly inferior opponent + at home + coming off a tough loss or two = a recipe for a blowout win and a much needed confidence boost. The Towson Tigers, however, did not receive the memo on this. They gave your Flyers everything they wanted and then some this afternoon.

In the end, UD managed - and I'm still not totally sure how - to squeak out a 74-69 win. Honestly I feel worse after this game than I did after both the 'Nova and K-State losses. Letting a piss poor Towson team dominate you for 30 minutes only to turn it on with ten to play and eek out a victory is just asking for trouble. Games like these make you glad nobody outside the Miami Valley actually watches the Flyers play. I have no idea what emotion to feel right now. Anger? Relief? Disbelief? Here's a schizophrenic recap:

Mickey, Marcus, CJ, Wright and Kurt started the game. Chris Johnson got the nod because of his play in San Juan, Mickey because LW was late to a meeting this week.
Remember when the Flyers were a team renowned for their defense? When any bucket against that stout D was cause for celebration from an opponent? Not anymore, folks. TU came in shooting 28% from deep only to go 4-5 to start the game and 9-14 in the first half from downtown. Even after missing a bunch of desperation 3-pointers late, the Tigers still shot over 50% from three for the game. At one point in the second half, Larry H said Towson was shooting 75% from the field for the half. I honestly think this was more a case of them crapping the bed than UD storming back and winning it.
Is there a difference between a two-fisted jam and a two-handed one? Larry kept saying two-fisted, which sounds dirty.
Bucky's ability to identify a defense is just plain comical at this point. He gets it wrong more often than right anymore. You know your broadcast team is solid when they can't even agree if your opponent is Towson or Towson State.
At what point does Chris Wright outgrow the "catch the ball and take two steps before dribbling" move? It was cute when he was a freshman, now it's just annoying.
Trailing by as much as 18 to Towson is straight up embarrassing. Right now, this team is on the NIT bubble.
Watching UD play so far this year has been painful, and it's not just because they fall behind every game. The play is so sloppy and full of turnovers (again, the last ten minutes notwithstanding) that the games never seem to have any rhythm. Against K-State, I chalked it up to the number of fouls called. Not this time, though, it was just a matter of poor play.
London Warren played like ass today. Let's hope it's his sore back and not something more serious. With no Lowery, he becomes one of, if not the, most valuable guys on this team.
Right now Marcus Johnson couldn't throw the ball in the ocean while standing on a beach in Puerto Rico. Normally, I'd say it's a slump and that he's a senior and will work his way out of it. The problem, however, is that London already can't shoot to save his life and UD's 5 spot is no threat to score either. With MJ slumping, this means the other team only has to defend TWO guys. I don't care how outmatched you are athletically, five guys can stop two from scoring all day every day.
HOWEVER, the turning point came when Towson missed a wide open three and Marcus grabbed the board. He took it coast to coast for the and-1. The made free throw finally got the deficit back to single digits. After a Tigers bucket, Mickey and CJ then hit back-to-back threes to cut it to five. That was the first time I actually let myself think UD would win since late in the first half.
Nice reminder that Mickey Perry is a SG playing out of position. He knocked down two huge 3-balls when UD was making its big push.
How about not one but two passes that didn't come within 15 feet of a teammate? That's how you completely dominate a game for the first 30 minutes and still find a way to lose. Thank you, Towson, thank you much.
CJ's three to give the Flyers the lead was huge. You think he'll go pro after this season? P-Will's three on the ensuing possession was arguably just as big. That kid deserves to be in games during crunch time. Plus, I'm pretty sure he missed that last FT on purpose just so UD could be perfect in games decided by five points or less.
From 62-45 down with 10:00 to play, UD closed the game on a 29-7 run. Big time finish.
CW's line: 20 points on 5-7 from the field and 10-11 from the line and 9 boards. Ah, if only the Puerto Rico Tip-Off was played at UD Arena.
Chris and Marcus combined for 8-20 shooting and 3-9 from three. Thing is, it was waaaaay worse until both hit a couple key buckets down the stretch. If those two are going to take almost 40% of the team's shots, UD's going to need more out of them than it got this afternoon.
Time for me to ask Tim if he's ready to concede a loss on our preseason point/counterpoint article.

Now, if you'll excuse me, I'm going to try to find someone to punch me in the stomach so I'll start feeling better.

Just Flyers being Flyers

2009-11-28T16:17:00.002-05:00

Kettering Hospital must treat more heart related illness than anywhere in the country. Why must the Flyers torture us like this? Why must they bring us such pain after maximizing joy? Why must they turn around, maximize said pain only to in the end bring us joy?

Hopefully someone has a formula for this.

Much more to come on this game later - after heart surgery.

Paradise Lost

2009-11-25T14:30:00.005-05:00

First thing's first, a recap of the action in Puerto Rico almost 72 hours after it ended is weak. I grant you that, and I apologize. Full refunds for all of our readers. But sometimes in life you find yourself with the following dilemma: Stay out until 6:00 AM drinking, gambling, and who knows what else in a city you know nothing about and will likely never be in again OR go back to the hotel room and blog up a storm. When I found myself drunk as a skunk and searching for a cab in a dangerous looking part of San Juan as the sun was starting to come up Monday morning, I could tell I'd made the right choice.

I was trying to think of who or what to blame for UD's 1-2 record in Puerto Rico, and I could find only one culprit: AC/DC. Confused? Well it's all too obvious if you think about it, my young friends. See, you probably noticed that games in this tournament were on Thursday, Friday, and Sunday. No Saturday games? What gives? The reason for no Saturday games was that the Coliseo Puerto Rico had been booked for a concert by none other than AC/DC. On the surface, this seemed great because it gave the fans on the trip an extra day of vacation. But I now firmly believe AC/DC cost the Flyers a W against K-State.

In the first half of the KSU game, UD put on one of the all-time lackluster performances I've seen in my time following the team. It looked like a team on vacation ... one which had been enjoying a little fun in the sun, playing blackjack in the hotel casino, visiting Mickey Perry's mom, or even was already on Thanksgiving break. The Flyers did what they've done in three out of four games now and dug themsleves an early hole (trailing by as much as 15 at one point). Only against Creighton were the Flyers able to come back and get a win.

It looked to me like Villanova was just a better team than UD. Though I don't think Dayton matched up particularly well with KSU, I'm not sold that the Wildcats are the better squad. I think if this game is played on Saturday with a focused Flyers team, the outcome might be a little different.

As far as the games go, the free throw and outside shooting were abysmal. How a team of scholarship Division I athletes cannot make two out of three free throws on a consistent basis is still beyond me. 104 of UD's 232 field goal attempts have been threes; opponents of the Flyers have taken 64 in 214 attempts. And UD is the team that CAN'T shoot. I wish it had taken ten games to get to 104 3-pointers attempted.

Does Dayton practice its offensive sets against a live defense? Obviously I'm not the first person to ask the question, but I'm actually serious. How many lazy, telegraphed passes did this team throw over the weekend? Those who watched the games on TV, could you tell where every dribble/pass was going before it happened like we could in the gym? It's one thing to have turnovers; they're inevitable. It's another thing to watch a team full of upperclassmen lob lazy pass after lazy pass and watch those TO's turn into dunks and lay-ups on the other end.

Not sure about you, but I envision a practice where the Flyers run plays against no defense for a half hour scoring bucket after uncontested bucket. Then they break out into two groups. One of the groups has a dunk contest (in lieu of practicing free throws) while the other group is just Luke Fab on the other end of the floor bombing 30-footers while the walk-ons chase down his rebounds.

K-State's guards got absolutely worked by Ole Miss on Friday. I think Pullen and Clemente had something to prove on Sunday and they took it out on the Flyers.

At halftime of the game, the braintrust from the Puerto Rico Tip-Off was charged to select two fans to shoot against one another in a free throw contest. They picked the loudest and most obnoxious-looking fan from each team's representation. Naturally, Tim was chosen. He went out on the court and proved he was a true Flyer by missing two free throws. The Wildcat fan, who looked like he was barely sober enough to stand, followed suit so I suppose the contest ended in a draw.

K-State's students represented hard. I have never felt better about a possibly crushing loss than I did about 15 minutes after the end of that game. Those dudes came to P.R. to party and accomplished their goal. I know it means absolutely nothing, but they made four dudes from Ohio into KSU fans - and not just because it'll help the Flyers in the RPI.

Not going out on a huge limb when I say the Flyers get healthy with a blowout win over Towson. But did you ever think the Miami game would be this important? A loss there would drop UD to 3-3 and possbily cripple its chances for at-large bid come March. Welcome to fandom of a mid-major team with a razor thin margin for error. I have a feeling the roller coaster ride that will be the 2009-'10 season has only just begun.

Day Off in San Juan

2009-11-21T17:54:00.000-05:00

Saturday is a day off for us (and boy did we work hard to earn it). Yesterday we (there are four of total - two buddies who are both UD class of '07 and Tim and I) drank an entire bottle of rum at the hotel pool before the Flyers game. This is noteworthy for two reasons:

1) As we were quite literally pouring our last drink from the bottle, one of the hotel employees came over and told us there was no drinking in the pool area. We begged to differ using the previous hour and a half as evidence.

2) I'm trying to party like I did in college and failing quite miserably. I really can't drink liquor anymore, and I'm only 25, which means I'm pathetic. It also means I don't remember yesterday's game against 'Nova in much detail. Flyers got down big, mounted a furious comeback late and fell just short. Luke Fab played well, Marcus Johnson needs to channel Stella and soon, the better team won, but it was an encouraging effort from our Flyers. Love that this team never says die even if it didn't squeak out a W yesterday afternoon.

Friend of the blog Glen Rice was kind enough to pose for a picture with me as GT was closing out a win against Mason. That will be my new profile picture on facebook on Monday. (And yes, I'm THAT guy.)

There is a happy hour during games at the arena here in PR. During games! Three dollar Coors Lights during halftime only. Our crew bought two apiece, walked down to our seats, set them down and immediately bought two more. If you want to get people from Dayton, Ohio, to spend their money, have a happy hour during halftime of a UD game.

We've been asking different local people where to go and what to do in San Juan, and at least four have recommended a strip club called Frenchy's. Now, I see three options here:

a) Frenchy's is the best strip club on the entire island, if not the planet.

b) Puerto Rican people think that all Americans love to go to strip clubs.

c) We just look like a bunch of perverts.

It's probably C. We haven't been there ... yet.

Went to a bar in old San Juan last night. They noticed four Gringos in there, and what song did they play for us? The electric slide. Puerto Ricans actually think Americans dance to that song. The kicker was when they played the local version of the electric slide. The dance steps are the same, but the music most definitely is not.

There was also a congo line featuring someone from the bar pouring shots of some unknown liquor concoction straight into our mouths. From what I recall, it was delicious.

Today we split our time between the beach (it looks nothing like the picture above, but still) and the pool. Tim said it best; this place is absolutely paradise. I said I wanted to buy a bar and move here, and I was only kinda joking.

A couple Flyers came to our hotel in the afternoon. Apparently, Mickey Perry's mom is staying here, and Mickey, London and Paul Williams came to see visit her. P-Will was playing a couple hands of blackjack and LW was just wandering aimlessly around the casino.

More updates to come tomorrow before, during or after K-State. We plan on doing a super sweet podcast (as if there were any other time) when we get back to the mainland and recuperate. Keep it tuned here in the meantime.

VillanOVER

2009-11-20T20:07:00.009-05:00

So we have our third must win game of our four game season Sunday. Am I dramatic or is that actually true? Vote on the poll.

The Game
Well, we lost. I’m not gonna talk a lot about it because I’m still in the “I’m pissed off” zone. Maybe Secaur will give a rundown later. However I do have a few bullets.

*We need to get buckets when we needed them and we didn’t. Did that make sense? The first ten minutes of the second half were brutal. When you play the #5 team in the country, you cannot wait until the last five minutes to make your run.

*Nova is a solid squad. We spoke with an older gentleman in front of us from NY who remembered a man named Arlen Bockhorn playing in Madison Square Garden. I pointed out Buckey for him sitting next to Larry across the court. He liked it.

*In general, Nova fans were nice. I commented in the bathroom, to a priest, that we both hate Jesuits. He laughed. You can't beat a good priest joke ... ever.

*That last run was nice. Swing of the game for me was when CJ missed that three and they scored on the next possession. Not sure of the timing, maybe around two minutes left to go. Needed that one and badly.

*Luke haters, where are you? We don't win without him yesterday and we aren't close today if he's not on the floor. Is it just cool to hate on the kid, even if he does well? BG had him on the floor in the final minutes of the game at the 5 over Kurt - look for that to be a trend, especially if we're down.

OK, game analysis is over, time for sweet stuff that happened in PR.

*We ask the bartender where we should go for the night, and he told us about a bar called Lupis. Naturally we ask directions and he gives us the following answer: “You go up two blocks and take a right, and about one block after the cock fighting arena you’ll see it”.

Your reaction reading that was this same as ours. Ummm, COCK FIGHING ARENA?!?! Seriously?!? We then asked him for the details and we’re determined to place a hefty wager on the finest cock in Puerto Rico (take it easy, perverts). Not really sure if “our type” are welcome inside Cock Fighting Stadium but we’re ready to test the waters. They fight tomorrow and we’ll be there.

*So yesterday we played Ga. Tech. You remember when Favors missed the free throw early in the first half? During his free throws I was screaming, and I mean screaming at him about how he was too concerned about the NBA draft. I was asking, “What pick are you Favors? Too concerned about the draft, Favors?” His mother was not happy with me in the least bit. She turned around, looked me in the eye and screamed in my face, “SPOT HATIN'!! STOP HATIN'!!!” When Favors (and his mother) are rich, I guess I’ll have a story to tell.

*UD students, weak effort. Kansas State has about 15 dudes who just rock and roll every night. They’ve skipped class (before they even knew what classes they were taking) so that they could rock out in San Juan. It’s a giant sausage fest but it’s freaking hilarious. I’m now a Kansas State fan unless we play them.

*There really aren’t rules in Puerto Rico. Seriously. You can drive wherever you want without consequence of traffic offenses. Traffic rules here are suggestions only. Drinking beer in the cab is not frowned upon. No meters in the cab, all prices are negotiable. Drinking/gambling age is 18 (more to come on this next). This place is Paradise.

*We found out last night that an individual can drink and gamble here when they are 18 years of age. When my parents were calling other parents to make sure they supervised me at an overnight party, I could have been drinking and gambling in Puerto Rico. I guess I was doing that anyway, minus the Puerto Rico part, however I regret never taking advantage of an underage vacation here.

*I was really loud at the game tonight. My brother texted me to say that he could hear, “Call the charge both ways, sir” on the radio broadcast. Larry and Bucky were sitting cross court from me so I was proud. At halftime I was complimented/insulted by several Villanova fans about my antics. One lady said, “You are loud, we don’t’ like you, but we wish we had a fan like you here tonight.” Greatest compliment I’ve ever had in my life. I'm a Bengals fan and it's kinda how I feel about Hines Ward.

*Good night at the craps table last night for UDFlyerNation.

*We’re still looking for Blackburn and Fieldhouse. We’re thinking of having a blog party, just as long is it doesn’t sound like any of Blackburn’s podcasts. I’m guessing the party would be filled with awkward conversation of Ray wondering why he’s the best writer while Blackburn wonders why most readers are offended by everything on his blog. Advantage still stays with UDFlyerNation.blogspot.com

UD - Ga Tech Recap

2009-11-19T17:46:00.000-05:00

Greetings again from Puerto Rico. In case you were wondering, 85 and sunny here this afternoon and it felt even hotter with humidity. Just thought our Ohio readers might like to know.

We are, at present, sitting in the hotel lobby/bar enjoying two hours of free drinks. Dayton fans and free alcohol = a recipe for trouble. I'm pretty sure the employee who came up with this idea has already been terminated. Now, if I can put down my rum and Coke long enough, some thoughts on today's W over Ga Tech.

*Absolutely had to have this game, and the Flyers got it. I'm still not entirely sure how it happened, but they got the job done. With this team it is rarely, if ever, pretty, but we'll take it.

*Can't say enough about P-Will's play down the stretch. Seven points in the final minute of the game, including a huge go-ahead 3 and 4-4 from the foul line. Great poise out of a kid who's only a sophomore.

*Speaking of sophomores, Chris Johnson with 19 points and 7 boards. Team high in both. Ho hum.

*I thought this was a great game, especially the last ten minutes of it. UD fans to put the Ga Tech supporters to shame. This may be an exagerration, but it seemed like there was about a 10:1 ratio in our favor. The Flyer fans wanted this win badly too, and I'm happy to say they got it.

*If I told you that Chris Wright would have 7 points and 6 turnovers and MJ would have no points, 5 turnovers and 4 fouls and the Flyers still win, you'd have called me crazy.

*Luke Fab - 4-7 from 3, 12 points in just 7 minutes of play. The problem remains that BG just can't play him down the stretch in close games because of his D. Not complaining though because his and CJ's 3-point shooting (8-15 combined) won this game (along with P-Will's clutch play down the stretch) for the good guys.

*Turnovers have the potential to absolutely kill this team. Six from CW, 5 Marcus, 4 Mickey Perry (who played awfully by the way). Can't have that from your upperclassmen. Luckily for the Flyers, GT turned it over a whopping 26 times.

*You think BG was sending Benson a message when we saw Kav not once, but during two different stints in the first half?

*Favors is gonna be nasty, but he's still a freshman. He didn't seem to be aware of who was guarding him at different times. Twice he took turnaround and/or fadeaway jumpers when Luke Fab was guarding him. I guess he didn't know he could have just taken one power drill and went up and dunked on him.

*Kurt played solid. 1-1 from the field and it looked like a solid post move. Five boards including two on the offensive end. And one major mental blunder. Saving that ball underneath your own hoop and basically gifting the Jackets a dunk is unforgiveable. Good thing it didn't come back to bite UD hard.

*My buddy Scott and I were walking up toward the concourse at halftime when he looked at me and said ,"Is that Glen Rice?" It turns out that it was, and he was on hand to watch his son (Glen Rice Jr.), who plays for Ga Tech. Scott and I actually went up and talked to him for three or four minutes during halftime. (Yeah, we're those guys.) He was genuinely a nice guy and really hid his digust for having to talk to two white kids from the Ohio really well. He also had a smoking hot broad on his arm who looked to be about 15 years his junior.

When we got back to our seats, I told Tim about the encounter. His response: "You know why he was happy to talk to you? Because nobody's recognized him in five years." I'd argue with that if I could. My only regret is that I didn't tell him how awesome he was on NBA Jam.

UD 63 - GT 59. Bring on 'Nova (who squeaked past George Mason by a single point) tomorrow.

The Journey

2009-11-18T08:36:00.019-05:00

4:25am - Wake up call from Kevin - time to get this thing started.

5:10am - Kevin's mom drives us to Cincinnati/NKY airport (yes, we are grown men).

6:00am - $8.58 for a sketchy breakfast sandwich and milk. The Gold Star Chili was open. Riddle me this? Who eats chili cheese coneys at 6am?

6:40am - And we're set for take off - nasty morning here in the tri-state area.

8:00am - Nice, quick easy flight into Charlotte - time to wait for the big one.

8:30 - Our good friend Mike (and by good friend I mean a random guy who approached Kevin and I because of my UD hat) stopped by in the airport to say hello. Flyer fans are the friendliest in the country. Dude literally came up, introduced himself and shook our hand.

Quick note on this: I had an extra ticket for the Creighton game and went over to the ticket line to give it away. I had to literally wait in a line to GIVE away a ticket to the game because so many people were doing the same thing - none of which were asking for a dime. Flyer fans are fantastic (sounds like a Secaur headline).

9:00 - Judging by this giant plane display in the airport, these fools think that North Carolina was the birthplace of aviation. Have they ever seen an Ohio license plate? Have they not heard of the Dayton FLYERS? Kevin and I are going around to people one by one and informing them about the REAL birthplace of aviation.

Dayton > Kitty Hawk

9:10 - And they've called our zone. Time to board. We'll try to update on the ground but it's Puerto Rico, I may not touch my computer for the rest of the week.

9:40 - Nice big comfy plane is in the air with about a dozen folks in Flyer gear on board and no sign of Ga. Tech fans; we've already won. Forget the fact there are direct flights from Atlanta to San Juan, Ga. Tech fans travel horribly because there weren't any on a flight from Charlotte.

10:30 - Two ladies in Secaur's row offered him a snack. He first refused but they insisted he take some of their peanut butter crackers, and he happily obliged. What did they offer me you ask? A freaking apple! I declined and I think they were genuinely insulted.

1:15 - This bird has landed. Unfortunately the San Juan airport has one person handling all bags for all airlines. Which leads me to...

2:15 - We get our bags and hop in the car. Below was the reaction when the locals realized UDFlyerNation had descended on their native soil...

2:20 - If you ever fly into San Juan do not wait in the cab line. Apparently there's an option of blowing right by everyone in the line and getting your own cab. Secaur, being the conformist that he is, made us wait in the line (he may argue with this).

The lady in front of us said she was going to our hotel, so we politely offered her a share of our cab. Turns out she's on business and paid for the whole thing. People are being too nice to us ... I feel like this cannot end well.

2:25 - Meet Pablo. Don't bother asking Pablo anything about Puerto Rico. After telling us there was no beach I inquired about the weather, asking if it was on and off sun and rain. Pablo replied, "Ya, sun rain, rain sun".

2:40 - Hotel is tight. Casino downstairs, two bedroom suite. There are two giant clear glass elevators that face the common area. Secaur and I have set the over/under at Thursday at midnight for when our buddy will unveil the full moon to the poor saps in the common area.

That's it folks - time to rock PR style. We'll check in tomorrow.

The Kurt Conundrum*

2009-11-17T06:49:00.014-05:00

Game one of the 2009-'10 UD basketball season is in the books, and what does that mean? It's time to overreact and make sweeping generalizations about an entire season based on a mere forty minutes of play.

Chris Johnson is a sure-fire First Team All-A10 performer and will average a double-double this year. Chris Wright has moved from late second rounder to lottery pick in next spring's NBA Draft. Freshman Matt Kavanaugh is resigned to a career riding the bench as Flyers fans hopelessly wish for his scholarship back. Kurt Huelsman needs to stay out of foul trouble and be on the court more if UD is to have success this year.

Wait ... what?

Many followers of UD hoops may think that last sentence is the most ludicrous of all. Perhaps, but it is, at present, the only one I actually believe to be true. Kurt Huelsman, he of the 0 points and 1 rebound in the season opener, needs to be on the court more. And the reason for that is simple: his defense.

Josh Benson struggled in the opener, especially on the defensive end. This has been well documented. Devin Searcy is a really solid player, and I hold high hopes for the last two seasons of his career as a Flyer. Also, I'm just as sick of the whole tangibles vs. intangibles debate as you are. That's why I wanted to bring the topic of Kurt's playing time back around to something that is, in my mind at least, very tangible. And Huelsman is, simply put, Dayton's best interior defender.

To me there were two key differences at the beginning of the second half when the Flyers made their run against Creighton. Those were the presence of London Warren and Huelsman, both of whom were forced to sit out much of the first half with foul trouble. With those two guys on the floor, UD is lightyears better as a defensive squad.

Huelsman's weaknesses have been discussed ad naseum at this point, and I've been one of his bigger critics especially last season. The fact that a guy who is (allegedly) 6'10" can only grab four rebounds a game still boggles the mind, but I've come to grips with Huelsman's limitations. And I'm of the opinion that what he brings to the defensive end outweights his lack of offensive output for this particular Dayton team.

So what does all this mean? Basically, I think Kurt needs to start, defend the opposition's best post player, and play 20-24 minutes a game ... which is convenient because that's exactly what's going to happen. Brian Gregory has been fiercely loyal to his senior center and seems hellbent on starting Huelsman every single game of his college career no matter how well or poorly the big man plays.

I'm embracing Gregory's stubbornness because I've convinced myself it's what's best for the Flyers. I also think Kurt slows down Georgia Tech's heralded freshman big man on Thursday (notice I said slows down, not shuts down) and helps lead the Flyers to a W. I also think a part of UD's game plan is to go inside to Kurt on offense and maybe pick up a quick foul or two on Favors early in the game.

In the podcast, I said UD wins 82-77. I'm amending that pick because I don't know that the Flyers can really score 82; I got all caught up in the excitement of scoring 90 against CU. I'm still going Flyers by five, 76-71.

Wright named co-player of the week
According to daytonflyers.com:

University of Dayton junior Chris Wright has been named Atlantic 10 Co-Player of the Week after his 25-point performance, including 18 in the second half, to lead the Flyers to a 90-80 win over Creighton in the season opener for both teams.
Wright shared this year's first A-10 Player of the Week award with Duquesne junior Damian Saunders. This is the second time that both players have been named players of the week, and in an odd coincidence, they also shared co-player of the week honors last season when they were named on November 30.

Wow, that is a whacky coincidence.

Perry struggles in opener
I had high hopes for Mickey Perry entering his senior season, but he had a rough afternoon Saturday against Creighton. I really thought an entire offseason of playing the point coupled with his strong performances in two exhibition contests meant he was ready to take the reins of UD's offense behind London Warren. Instead, he turned the ball over three times and the offense just doesn't seem to flow when he's in charge. If LW gets into foul trouble in Puerto Rico, it could be a long couple of games for the Flyers. And Rob Lowery can't get healthy soon enough for me.

Miami (OH) might be good?
Or it might not. I watched a good chunk of the Kentucky-Miami game last night, and the RedHawks gave UK everything it wanted and then some. Miami led by as much as 18 in the first half, but the Wildcats clawed back and John Wall hit the game-winner with 0.5 left. Could have been a fluke, though, as MU shot a ridiculous percentage from three. Some dude named Winbush hit eight himself. He hit four or five in a row to start the game prompting UK's announcer to exclaim, "A windfall for Winbush!" (I'm Mike Hartsock and I approve this call.) This is the same Miami team which lost by 11 to Towson -- another team on UD's schedule -- in its season opener, so take that for what it's worth.

Here's how Charlie Coles reacted - hilarious.

*During my senior year at UD, I was the assistant sports editor for the award-winning Flyer News. One of the things the sports editor and I would do is try to write the most atrocious headlines possible for our stories. The worse the headlines, the better as far as we were concerned. We especially loved to use alliteration, as in "Dominant Dayton defense downs Drake." (I'm not sure why we were so easily amused by this. College kids.) All things considered, "The Kurt Conundrum" is a pretty weak effort. Here's a classic one that I wrote featuring puns!

Viva Los Flyers

2009-11-15T16:35:00.005-05:00

18 points and 15 rebounds from Chris Johnson? 25 and 8 from Flyers Jesus? 0 and 1 from Kurt Huelsman? It all happened Saturday. The Flyers overcame a pretty poor first half of play, outscored a game Creighton team 49-34 in the second half, and came away with a win in the season opener. Tim's last post highlighted (overstated?) the importance of getting that W against the Blue Jays.

Riding high from UD's 1-0 start, Tim and I got together for a little podcast. During it we discuss Chris Johnson's beastliness, the blueprint for beating the Flyers, a Puerto Rico preview and much much more.

Download and listen here.

And don't forget to follow us on twitter under the name UDFlyers.

Let's get it on!

2009-11-13T10:59:00.007-05:00

So remember when I sarcastically joked about UD having real actual media people who make videos? We'll those clever sons of guns are at it again. This got me all fired up.

Check out daytonflyers.com for more. They've posted several really good videos about the 2010 recruiting class as well. Kudos to you, New Flyer Media Department.

Programming notes: we plan to do a podcast after the Creighton game before we leave for Puerto Rico (can't wait for that 6:00am flight). We'll tweet like mad men from PR with hopefully an article/day and cap it off with another podcast once we're back.

Go Flyers!

This one could make the difference

2009-11-11T18:59:00.009-05:00

Well folks, here we go again. Tip off to the most anticipated season in Flyer memory is upon us and I’m nervously excited. Saturday, University of Dayton Area welcomes the pesky Creighton Blue Jays to town as the Flyers will be looking to avenge last year’s 19 point beat down in Homerha. When focusing on the following statement; “the ranked UD Flyers open up their season with a team that beat them by 19 points last year,” one can find the “nervous” part of that nervously excited feeling.

The importance of this game is magnified when you consider the Blue Jays are our only scheduled opponent in the non-conference (outside Puerto Rico) who finished in last year’s RPI top 50 (GMU 53, New Mexico 69, ODU 81). My point: the Flyers don’t get many RPI boosting opportunities this season and will have to make the best of the few they get. Consider last year Dayton was one of the “last 4” teams in the tourney while racking up 14 OOC wins including BCS scalps of Marquette and Auburn. Our only OOC loss you ask? Those pesky Blue Jays of Creighton. In the eyes of the committee, this qualified the Flyers as a bubble team.

Assuming we lose one game and one game only in Puerto Rico, this Creighton game still has enormous implications on our tournament resume. I can already hear people calling me crazy but refer to the previous paragraph and reread the part about Dayton being a BUBBLE team with a 26-7 record and an almost perfect OOC run. The committee will look for any and all reasons to exclude a team like this so that a mid-level Pac 10 team can sneak in instead.

While it’s fun to start a season like this, when you live in mid-major land, these games become exponentially more important. Conference records matter much less on Selection Sunday for teams like UD.

For argument’s sake let’s say we lose to Creighton and then lose one game in PR. We then lose only one more game in the OOC; let’s call that the game at New Mexico. That leaves the Flyers with an 11-3 OOC record with the biggest win being either Ga. Tech or (gulp) Old Dominion. Let’s further assume we do a little better in conference when comparing to last year and we go 12-4. Throw in two wins and a loss in the A-10 tourney final and we’re looking at 25-8. A 25-8 Dayton Flyer basketball team that enters Selection Sunday with the above criteria will have a really good seed ... in the NIT. A 23-7 Dayton Flyer basketball team that enters the A-10 tourney needs to win it to dance.

Now do you see how important this game is? Win against Creighton and I think it’s plausible to escape the OOC schedule with only 2 losses (Ga. Tech/Villanova and New Mexico). Run the same scenario (12-4 A-10, 2-1 tourney) and I think the Flyers are one of the last 4 teams in the dance yet again.

Or we could beat Creigton, win the whole thing in Puerto Rico, and I’ll pretend this post never happened.

Look someone in the eye and tell them the Creighton game will make or break UD’s NCAA chances and they’ll laugh in your face. Break this bad boy down, game by game, and that statement isn’t too far from the truth.

My prediction: This game is the difference maker on Selection Sunday. It’s the reason we’re in or the reason we’re out.

Exhibition Game #2: The Norse

2009-11-09T19:01:00.005-05:00

Some Division I college basketball players come into a program, underperform from day one and prove to be a tremendous disappointment. Still others are over-recruited and never should have been brought in in the first place. Eventually, those player are given their walking papers so that scholarship can be used by someone who is not a complete waste of a roster spot. There is place these players go when this occurs. That place? Northern Kentucky University.

Our very own Dayton Flyers scheduled an exhibition game with James Cripe's alma mater Monday night. The Flyers managed a 71-61 win. I watched the game, and here are some thoughts in bullet point form.

London, Perry, Chris Johnson, Searcy and Huelsman started the game. Larry H. tells us that Wright and Marcus Johnson were on the bench not because of the very minor injuries that kept them out of the Ferris State game, but because -- in Brian Gregory's system -- you "have to earn your job back."
Flyer TV has the technology to produce a live event? And on location, to boot? I'm furious that this capability did not exist when I was an undergrad.
On the alley-oop to Searcy, there was an NKU defender underneath. London threw it up there anyway, and Searcy went up and got it. Nasty. Later in the first half, Searcy hit a wide open 14-footer on the baseline; that's a good sign. Bucky called it the "toughest shot in all of basketball;" that's not a good sign.
Luke Fab's first three was such a brick that it almost got wedged in between the backboard and rim.
About 12 minutes in, I found myself googling Scott Bibbins. He is not a D-I transfer (read: reject), but rather an NKU lifer. Still trying to decide what's worse.
LW took a shot with one foot on the three-point line and almost banked it. That's about enough of that.
Late in the first half, I think NKU had cut the Flyers lead to 35-32 (wasn't paying that much attention). Then UD answered with six straight down the stretch to extend the lead back to nine. It would've been an 8-0 run had C. Johnson's tip-in with 0.4 to go counted. The follow-up was ridiculous and it didn't look like an over-the-back foul when I saw it live. The Flyers led 41-34 at the half.
I thought the defensive intensity in the second half went way up, which was good to see. A couple of steals led to back-to-back breakaway dunks for UD early in the period.
The technical foul on MJ for hanging on the rim was a joke. So was the intentional foul called on NKU against Searcy.
I'd be shocked if Chris Johnson doesn't lead this team in offensive rebounding.
Anybody else's video feed keep freezing all throughout the second half? Coincidentally, I finally gave up right around the time Monday Night Football started.
Eleven points and five boards in 22 minutes of action from Wright is fine. 3-10 FG shooting is a big worrisome though.
Mickey Perry looked really good in the first half (8 pts, 4 rebs, 2 assts, 0 turnovers). If he can put up that kind of line per game, I'd be thrilled.
Kavanaugh tied for a team high in rebounds with five in just seven minutes. Huelsman had two in 19 mins. Kav is a frosh and will experience growing pains all year but he's going to be just fine.
Nine assists to just one turnover from London? Yessir.
After the Flyers shot 5-9 from three and 6-7 at the line in the first half, I was encouraged. But I still don't think this is a very good 3-point shooting team. 15-18 FT shooting is something you have to like though.
A ten point win over a D-II school is nothing to do backflips over, but it was a fine performance. The formula is there: stifling defense and get out in transition.
It feels weird how much the Creighton game and the P.R. trip seem to mean. I always get nervous when games in November seem to take on this much importance.
Check out the blog all week as well as the twitter feed (UDFlyers). Look for the next podcast shortly after the Creighton game.

Podcast #4

2009-11-04T16:11:00.008-05:00

Your Dayton Flyers knocked off a pesky Ferris State squad last night in the exhibition opener to the 2009 season. Micky Perry led the way with 16 points, and Chris Johnson had a big night with 14 points and 9 boards. Check out Tim's thoughts on the game below.

Before that game, though, FlyerNation had the chance to talk with Matt Schwade, the publisher of FlyerHoops.net. Matt was kind enough to give us a ring as he drove down to the UD Arena, and we were smart enough to record that very conversation. Tim and I got Mr. Schwade's thoughts on:

*every recruit in the 2010 class
*if Flyers fans should worry about Juwan Staten backing out of his commitment
*what the future might hold for Brian Gregory
*the odds that Chris Wright will be a Flyer at this time next year, and much more

Click here to listen to our soon-to-be award winning work.

Check out Matt's site flyerhoops.net here.

The Good, The Bad, and The Ugly

2009-11-03T21:22:00.004-05:00

sThe Good

Chris Johnson – This guy is going to have a great year. He is straight clutch. I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again, he just has a nose for the ball. That phrase is very cliché but he’s the only person I’ve ever used it for. CJ looked solid on the offensive end too and is the complete player we need. 14pts, 9 boards, 4 assists, 2 steals and a block. Not sure if he’ll start but I bet you he’ll be on the floor to finish.

Paul Williams – I didn’t even think he’d play tonight but Paul turned in a very solid effort. He shot the ball well and didn’t do anything cancerous. 11 pts on 3-4 from down town. We need big efforts out of our sophomores this year.

Kurt – Looks much much stronger on the offensive end. I heard that happens when you play a team who doesn’t run out a defender over 6’6”. Still, I’ll take it. 6-7 from the field is what a center should shoot. We’re definitely going to need better than 3-8 from the foul line though.

We played without Wright and Johnson and we survived. This barely made the Good category.

The Bad

Luke – He wasn’t that bad, but to get minutes he needs to improve defensively and just shoot smarter. I’m a Luke fan as opposed to a lot of the message board blog world, I want him to shoot, he just needs to improve decision making at the position.

Kav – Keep in mind the kid’s still a freshmen. He’ll develop but it won’t be overnight. I don’t see him playing more than 6 mins a game this year.

The Ugly

Are you telling me that when Marcus Johnson can’t go we have to play Dan Fox for significant minutes? That was just because it was a fake game right? Right?

The broadcast – One of these days Larry and Bucky will figure out that everyone who watches the game online can hear what they say during the timeouts. It’s literally going to take a Buckey F-bomb before anyone tells them this.

Gotta love the broadcaster/production vs. sales department relationship in Radio. Apparently WHIO sales dept overbooked commercial time and the dude talking in Larry’s ear wasn’t happy about it. I’m a sales guy and Secaur is a broadcasting guy – I’m on the sales side of this - no matter how wrong they are.

Mickey Perry – Not a good outing whatsoever. The stats say he shot the ball well, which I guess he did, but he was not under control as our backup point guard. I dismissed his sloppy play after the Red & Blue game because it was a scrimmage, I’m trying to dismiss his sloppy play tonight because it was an exhibition game. Here’s to hoping we don’t start a pattern here.

Speaking of which, we are a London Warren injury away from being a middle of the road A-10 team. Until January 1 when Lowrey is back, London Warren is the most important player on this team. We simply cannot be successful without him.

Inability to bust it open: While we never really let the lead get to 6 or so, we couldn’t put these guys away. Inability to play D will do that for you. This has always been a problem under BG’s teams (unless we’re playing Pitt) and will bite us in the ass if we don’t fix it. We’re not gonna be able to win every close game again this year. Inferior teams, especially those who play in division II, need put away early and kept there.

Free throws – 57%. Really guys? Really? Another season of this? Come on!

Ball handling – sloppy, sloppy, sloppy. Bad passing, bad dribbling, unnecessary charges. We don’t come close to Creighton if we play anything like this. 23 turnovers is about 12 too many, especially for an exhibition game.

Did we really give up 73 points to Ferris State?

-------------------------------------------------------------

I’m not going to go crazy, it was a practice game and we didn’t have Wright or MJ. With that said, we didn’t look good but I guess that’s why they play these.

I’m still wondering who our starters will be. Will it be Searcy at the 4 with Wright at the 3 or will it be CJ at the 3 with Wright at the 4? Interesting to see who suits up when everyone’s healthy.

I put on for my city

2009-11-03T14:46:00.003-05:00

With the season starting this evening, I'd like to share my favorite Flyer video ever made. I could watch this daily.

Secaur and I are recording a new podcast tonight - it's going to be a good one. Look for it up sometime tomorrow.

Sparty it is

2009-10-29T16:04:00.004-04:00

I think Payne will fit in well here. DDN breaking another story, I'm telling you they got their stuff together over there!

Rumor has it that BG played a big part in coaxing the big man to his buddy Izzo after UD was out of the picture. I'm sure we'll learn more about that as time goes on.

Best of luck to AP. Glad he didn't fall for UK or WVU's shananigans.

Payne saga finally ends...

2009-10-28T22:29:00.016-04:00

Adreian Payne is holding a press conference tomorrow at 6:00 to announce his college destination. For those of us who can't make it out to Jefferson HS, have no fear, Secaur will be making the trip to live blog the announcement; he thinks AP will choose the Flyers. Actually neither of those statements are true but you can tune in to ESPNU and watch it for yourself. Seriously.

One of the more peculiar recruiting processes in Flyer memory will finally come to an end. We have heard everything and nothing at the same time from his Jefferson coach Art Winston about where Payne will lace it up for the next four years.

My guess is he heads for the glitz and glamor of Kentucky. My hope (outside of UD) is that he heads to MSU. While WVU went a little overboard for Payne's official visit, I don't think he pulls the trigger on Huggy Bear. And by the way, WVU is in some hot water over that whole fiasco while hosting Payne. If I'm Payne, do I really want to go to the school and coach that may have vioated NCAA rules on my visit? Then again, I've never had grown adults make signs and t-shirts with my name on them, especially when I was 17. My decision to attend UD was based on a weekend party visit. Just kidding, my Dad reads this.

To be honest, I still had a little hope for UD until we offered D. Oliver. I think Gregory knew Payne was gone for good and pulled the trigger elsewhere, before it was too late. Others still hold out hope, especially after the reports that AP was spotted with some current Flyers at BWW taking in some NBA action last night.

It's amazing to me the attention that 17 year old KIDS garner these days and that grown men make a living off of following them around the country and reporting on their thoughts. Tomorrow, we see it come to an end. But as of today, no one has a clue.

We're all Flyers

2009-10-28T09:12:00.003-04:00

Could it be?

Could UD Athletics have actually hired someone to make real videos to promote our top 25 team?

I was kind of getting used to finding my Flyer highlights through grainy youtube videos. Hopefully whoever did this keeps it up during the season. It's not easy to get people all buttered up from the Red and Blue game highlights but put one of these together after we beat GaTech and I'm watching.

I'm on the border line as to whether I really like this or I want to make fun of it. Someone be the voice of reason...

Live from Red and Blue game

2009-10-24T10:18:00.024-04:00

Bear with me now as this is my first ever attempt at “live blogging” not to mention my 5th or so blog post ever.

Also, to make sure you get the sweetest live action available, I will be typing directly into to the blog. What does that mean? I am absolutely terrible at spelling; as we speak I’m typing this into Microsoft Word so that the spell check works. All bets are off when I type directly into the blog, especially when Secaur isn’t around to edit it (yes, Secaur has to edit all of my posts).

10:15 The women's Red and Blue game was like Chinese water torture. We should make terrorists sit in the UD Arena and watch that game over and over for punishment. They'd tell us everything.

10:25 The men are out for warmups. A few nasty throwdowns from Wright and M. Johnson. I personally witnessed Kurt Huelsman dunk - so he can.

10:29 Luke Hendrick can (in my best Bill Walton) THROW DOWN.

10:31 Guys ran some 3-man weave full court layup drills and if I hadn't already known he was hurt, Rob Lowrey looks fine. He was running full court, shooting lay-ups, etc. Still don't think he'll be ready until Jan. 1 but wow I'm encouraged watching him now!

10:37 Ok, I promise this will be the last mention of Luke Hendrick, but the dark gray, XXL t-shirt that hangs below his elbows is definitely not a good look.

10:37 Interesting that when the teams separate for drills, guards go to one end and post men go to the other end - Luke Fab goes with the big men to practice. Is that one of the reasons he can't play on the outside? I'm not saying...I'm just saying.

10:40 I mean, I hate the stereotype that "Dayton fans are hicks" as much as the next guy. But when the random hillbilly stops a lady to question her about her relationship to Kurt Huelsman because he saw "Huelsman" stitched on her mommy bag, it's hard to argue against it. He told her he could "see the resemblance", she then informed him she was Kurt's sister in law - God Bless Dayton, Ohio.

10:50 Paul Williams is in warmups. And by warmups I mean a Fubu looking jump suit. He must be hurt. [edit: got hit in the chin and had a concusion]

Red Team: Parker, Perry, C. Johnson, Luke, and Kav.

Blue Team: London, Marcus, Wright, Searcy and Hueslman. Starting lineup preview? Interesting that C. Johnson suits up for the Red.

10:55 4-2 Blue as if you actually care what the freaking score is. Wright with a nice coast to coast, judging from that alone, his ball handling looks much improved. Luke 0-2 from 3 land, he missed his second attempt from around the Dayton Flyers half court logo.

11:05 Luke now 2-4 from the land of three. Searcy playing very solid. Wow do we need Josh Parker THIS year, he is by far a better PG then Perry. I've seen him play for 12 minutes so take that for what its worth.

Halftime: Speaking of things I've seen for 12 minutes and am willing to declare as "better by far", the backup cheerleaders fit that category. I'm sure they can't cheer as hard as the first string but they'd look better on a calendar.

11:13 Aaaaaaand halftime was about 90 seconds, literally. They switched up teams and jerseys and the score and everything. I'm not reposting the new teams. Benson with a nice oop from a white walk-on. [edit: they played 4 quarters, with the same break in between them each].

11:20 Perry looks 100% to these eyes. You know a good way to improve your PG skills? Have London Warren guard you every time you bring the ball up the floor. Perry looks good, better then last year, but not great. Luke with another 3 bomb. --- And another 3 bomb. He's 4-4 after his first 0-2.

11:30 Wright with a nice 3-ball stoke, makes him 1-2 for the afternoon.

11:33 Ok newcomers (keep in mind I'm judging from a very limited time of play) - Josh Parker looks good. I'm not seeing the "scoring machine" some have touted him to be but he is currently the 2nd best PG on the floor today. Has a good stroke but I haven't seen him create anything on his own - hard to do in the dry system BG runs. I'm not hating on it, the system just doesn't leave a lot of room for a player to create on his own.

Kav - he is ready to play Div. 1 basketball but looks a lot like a freshman. (Luke with ANOTHER bomb). I think Kevin was right on the podcast in saying about 4-6 minutes a game for Kav. His first take got glassed by Kurt, however he stuffed Kurt a few possessions later. His body is ready, he's just as thick as Kurt, but you can tell he's a freshman. The guy said he hates eggsavier though, I like him. I'd like to see more of him to make a real judgement but I think that his minutes will increase as the season goes on, especially if he can score like we've heard - haven't seen it yet today though.

Benson - Not seeing the NBA potential we heard about this summer. With that said, he definitely has some range. He's made a few outside shots and had a very athletic reverse lay-in on a bad oop pass. He looks more ready for minutes than Kav and I believe he will get more. Searcy has looked very very good today and from what I've seen, he should get the bulk of the minutes at the 4/5. Not saying that will happen, but he looks good.

10:45 On the floor currently for the Red team: Parker, white walk on, white walk on, white walk on, and Searcy. We got to see Parker create a little with that lineup on a nice take and finish.

11:47 Wright - who is on the Blue team facing the previously mentioned Red team just had a monster oop and slam.

11:50 London is making Parker's life at opposing PG a living hell - just pestering the heck out of him. Parker had to come out of the game he was so winded, but handling the pressure well.

Searcy with a few more STRONG buckets. He has been the star today. All those summer hoops over seas are really paying off. I mean, he looks really good. Rumor had it that he was on his way out with Stephen Thomas (Luke with another bomb (he missed 2 in between I didn't tell you about)) but I'm glad he's here. BG needs to give him minutes this year, major minutes.

12:00 Marcus running a little PG. He has to be the 3rd option with Paul Williams out. By the way Paul looks straight pimpin' in his jump suit.

Wright hasn't really exerted himself much today but when he has, he's looked good. It's easy to see he's the best player on the court. The few times he has taken the ball to the hoop, they've been under control. He's learning to use his athleticism to avoid contact (charging) and maneuver around it - still while bringing the ball high and strong.

12:07 Luke with another bomb. He's around 7-11 for the day from splash town. He's been shooting great but I'm seeing Secaur's point about where he fits in with the offense - more to come on that.

That's your ball game, with a final score of 65-58 Blue. Actually I just made that up. They switched jerseys every quarter and I wasn't attempting to keep you abreast - haha abreast.

Other than Searcy, I didn't see any big surprises out there. If he isn't getting at least as many minutes as Kurt something is wrong. Kurt played solid and I'll leave it at that.

London, Marcus, CJ all looked like themselves, nothing crazy. Wright didn't bring the house down but I don't think he was trying to. When it's game time, he'll shine. Btw, he's still on the floor signing autographs, what a quality kid.

Liked Parker a lot, it's a shame we have to wait for next year's Red and Blue game to start talking about him seriously.

Good production by the Flyers. Lower arena was a little over 1/2 filled. I'll say 4500 showed up. Thanks for struggling through this one with me. Secaur will now spend 2 hours of his Saturday correcting my spelling and grammar errors.

FlyerNation Podcast 10.22.09

2009-10-21T21:13:00.010-04:00

We all know Atlantic 10 Media Day is one of, if not the, most highly anticipated events of the year. Tim and I were so excited we couldn't wait to do another podcast for your listening pleasure. In part one, we talk about the starting line-up for 2009-10 and what to expect from each of the starters. Click here to listen.

In part two, we talk about UD's bench, why Matt Kavanaugh won't redshirt, and whether or not Chris Wright is headed to the League after this season. Check it out here.

Atlantic 10 Names 2009-10 Preseason All-Conference Teams

2009-10-21T21:12:00.004-04:00

No surprises from Atlantic 10 Media Day today. Your University of Dayton Flyers are picked to win the conference.

Chris Wright was named first-team All-Conference, Marcus Johnson makes the second team, and London Warren shows up on the All-Defensive team. I don't think they pick a preseason Player of the Year, so we here at FlyerNation are gonna go ahead, with apologies to Ricky Harris, and give Wright that honor as well.

No Xavier players made the first or second teams. It's pitiful how much pleasure I take in that.

Oliver Commits

2009-10-18T17:30:00.003-04:00

Devin Oliver has officially committed to the University of Dayton. FlyerNation learns from a source that the final scholarship has been filled.

Questions:

Do will still have an offer to Payne?

What if Payne commits to UD?

Am I crazy because I think there's any chance at all we land Payne?

More on Oliver to come....

The 5th 'ship

2009-10-16T15:45:00.005-04:00

By most accounts, the 2010 recruiting class has been quite the success for Brian Gregory and the Dayton Flyers. With top 20 rankings from multiple recruiting services, the Flyers have put themselves in elite company, receiving verbals from some of the county’s top talent. However there is one question that has yet to be answered: what will Gregory do with the 5th and final scholarship?

Speculation from most Flyer fans indicate that BG and staff are still hoping to land Jefferson’s Adreain Payne, the local 5-star forward who carries offers from Arizona, West Virginia, Michigan State, Kentucky, Kansas and others. Payne and his advisors, mainly coach Art Winston have stated that UD is not a likely destination. However with the lack of a verbal commitment elsewhere and appearances at UD open gyms, many Flyer fans still hold out hope that the Jefferson stud will have a change of heart and decide to stay home. Still others say to hold the scholarship for the class of 2011.

Here’s where things get interesting….

Flyerhoops.net is reporting that Brian Gregory has offered the final ‘ship to Devin Oliver – the 6’5” wing forward from Kalamazoo Central in Michigan. It’s FlyerNation’s belief that since BG offered this late, Oliver is going to accept.

Not a lot is known about Oliver, but the Flyers extending an offer his way means one of three things:

The ship has sailed on Adreain Payne and UD is no longer waiting – his scholarship has been offered to Oliver.

Gregory knows Wright is headed to The Association after this season, opening up an additional scholarship.

UD will still take Payne in addition to Oliver and simply Cripe* someone off the team should we not have room.

Option 1 is extremely unlikely. Adreain Payne has an offer from UD until he signs the dotted line elsewhere.

Option 2 is the most likely as BG has a good feel for what Wright is thinking and if he’s projected as a first round pick, he goes. It’s a win/win for UD either way. Chris Wright staying for his senior year will make UD a top contender yet again but if Wright makes the dash after this year, Flyer fans will be able to cheer on the first Flyer alum to suit up in the league since Negele Knight. In addition, Wright will prove that local talent can still achieve NBA dreams by playing collegiate hoops in their own back yard – absolutely a huge step on the recruiting front.

Option 3 allows for a transfer or a Cripe. I’m not in favor of Criping anyone, but let's say Payne commits and Wright isn’t NBA bound – well wouldn’t that be a nice little problem to have, as unlikely as that may be?

The chances of landing Payne are slim but they’re still alive, and when you have a 5-star recruit in your own backyard that has yet to commit, you keep that door open no matter what his coach says he’s thinking. The most likely scenario still remains that Oliver commits and Payne goes elsewhere, making this all moot but it will certainly be interesting to see how this situations play out over the next few weeks.

Flyer Fun Facts: I love alliteration

2009-10-13T15:08:00.005-04:00

University of Dayton Flyers men's basketball Media Day was held Monday, and we here at FlyerNation were snubbed. I, for one, am shocked and appalled that a blog which is not even a month old did not receive an invite. (Do you think the people in the UD media relations department even know what a blog is?)

But don't be dismayed Flyer Fans, the university did put out a 23-page booklet of Flyer Fun Facts. Find it hard to believe that anyone could actually compile 23 pages of Flyer Fun Anything? Me too, but click here for the whole thing. Let's review some of the highlights with my own thoughts added in italics.

• Senior Kurt Huelsman has started all 100 games of his Flyer career. Remember the kid on your grade school basketball team who got the Most Improved Player award every season? That's pretty much Kurt as this point.

• Senior London Warren finished last season among the NCAA’s Top 50 in assist-to-turnover ratio at 2.33. If you'd have told me this during London's freshman year at UD, I wouldn't even have laughed at you. It was so absurd a notion so as to not even be funny. I'm still not entirely sure I believe it.

Pronunciation Guide
Luke Fabrizius - Fah-BREEZ-ee-us
Kurt Huelsman - Hills-MUN
Matt Kavanaugh - Cah-van-AUGH
Logan Nourse - Nurse
Devin Searcy - SEAR-see

I can't even tell you how many conversations I've had recently where I called him "Logan Norse."

• And when Dayton was ranked again during the 2008-09 season en route to a 27-8 record that included a first-round win in the NCAA tournament, Gregory became the first UD coach since Don Donoher to have the Flyers ranked in back-to-back seasons. First thought, this is a little disturbing. Second thought, OP never had his teams ranked in back-to-back years? Yikes. I don't even wanna know when the last time the Flyers were ranked in three consecutive seasons was.

Headlines about Chris Wright
The Wright Stuff
Wright to Know
The Price is Wright
Fight for your Wright
Taking Flight with Wright
Wright named first team NABC All-District

Whoever wrote that last one needs to be fired immediately.

• A versatile player that can play either the two guard or the wing, Luke Fabrizius is a strong scorer with good range from the outside. And whoever wrote that has never seen a single second of Luke Fab in game action.

• The University of Dayton finished in the Top 30 in men’s basketball attendance for the 11th straight season in 2007-08. The Flyers led the Atlantic 10 in attendance for the 12th straight season. UD averaged more than 2,400 fans a game better than any other team in the conference. This is either really impressive, or it underscores the fact that there is absolutely nothing to do in the city of Dayton, Ohio. I'm going with impressive.

2008-'09 Record by Uniform
White............................................20-1
Red...............................................7-6
Blue..............................................1-0
Black.........................................0-1

Simple solution: Wear white on the road.

New podcast coming early next week. Plus, follow us on twitter under the name UDFlyers.

I Believe

2009-10-11T22:20:00.011-04:00

Many won’t believe it until he officially suits up in the Red and Blue, but according to Bill Staten, father of Flyers prized recruit Juwan Staten, he is committed and not looking elsewhere.

Doug Harris reports this in another solid recruiting article from the DDN this (late) summer. On that topic, how about the DDN this offseason? If Doogie keeps up this kind of recruiting info, he’s going to put pay sites like Flyerhoops.net out of business. I say this in jest; Matt Schwade does a great job over there, but the point stands that the DDN has provided better recruiting info then I ever remember. From being the first to report on most things Adrien Payne, who was visiting Sean Miller’s Arizona Wildcats this weekend, to pretty solid coverage of the Jesse Berry and Brandon Spearman recruiting process, I’ve been impressed.

Anyway, good news out of the Juwan Staten camp that he seems steadfast on his commitment to UD. Whether it’s report after report he is not looking elsewhere, proudly sporting Dayton warm-up clothes while playing for his AAU team this summer, or the name on his facebook page reading “Juwan DaytonFlyer Staten,” we’ve heard all the right things out of Juwan and his Dad.

It is worrisome to me that many Flyer fans are as paranoid as they are about the Staten recruitment. As Juwan announced he was attending Oak Hill Academy for his senior year of high school, some feared he was looking for his ticket to the bigger stage. Lots of big time schools sniff around the Oak Hill campus on a daily basis, some of which do not see Juwan’s verbal as" binding" (see Matta and OSU). After all, it’s just UD. He can be swayed elsewhere, right?

But why? We are a tournament team! We are a pre-season top 25 team! When you start playing with the big boys, they are going to be talking to your recruit. When your wife is the 5'11 blonde bombshell at the bar, other men will look at her – whether she’s got a rock on her finger or not. That’s the game you play when you lock up the hot wife. Don't want guys looking at her? Get an ugly wife. Wanna be a top 25 team on a yearly basis? Scum bag coaches from OSU will recruit players who have verbally committed to you – especially since they haven't had a stud point guard since Conley.

So from FlyerNation to you, Doug Harris – thank you for helping calm The Faithful’s paranoia on this one. Although pretty soon the season will start and you’ll have to get back to reporting on more important things ... like why UD and Wright State don’t play.

Five reasons UD will (not) make the 2010 NCAA tournament

2009-10-06T16:33:00.000-04:00

Flyer nation has to be feeling pretty good after the success of 2009. Not only an NCAA tourney berth but a win, the program's first since 1990, has the Faithful in high spirits.

Tim is a glass-half-full kind of guy, and he sees no reason why Brian Gregory's boys won't piggyback off of last year's success in the 2009-'10 season. He gives you five reasons Dayton will be in the field of 65 come March 2010. Secaur is, predictably, the eternal pessimist. Last year was a fun one to be a Flyers fan, but last year is just that. And it guarantees nothing for the one upcoming. He lays out five reasons the Flyers could be NIT-bound this spring.

UD will not be dancing in 2010 because:

5. Lack of a third scoring option
My mild dislike for the coaching of one Brian Gregory is fairly well known at this point; it's also an extreme understatement. Because of those feelings I almost made BG's in-game coaching my #5 reason, but then I thought, "The dude won a school record 27 games last year and took UD into the round of 32 for the first time in two decades. Maybe I ought to cut him some slack." It's the first, and likely last, time I'll let that thought slip into my brain.

Since BG and I are boys now, I decided to go with this as my fifth reason. Last year Chris Wright and Marcus Johnson averaged 13.3 and 11.8 points per game respectively. Charles Little was third on the team and Rob Lowery fourth with 7.3 a game, while only one other Flyer averaged more than 4.6 points per. With Little gone to graduation and Lowery likely not back to 100% until January (and who knows if he'll ever be the same player?), I have some concerns about UD's offensive output.

Many will point to Chris Johnson, who managed 6.3 ppg in only about 16 minutes of play per contest. C. Johnson is the likely candidate to pick up the slack and become a viable third scoring option. Others will say that a consistent third scoring threat is not necessary. UD didn't really have it last season, as it relied on stingy defense and different players stepping up on different nights, and that seemed to work out okay.

In my mind, a legit top 25 team needs to have a third guy it can count on on a regular basis. A guy who will step up when Chris Wright is being hounded by the opposition's best athlete and most capable defender. A guy to shoulder some of the burden when Marcus Johnson's jumper just isn't falling. A player you can pencil in for 8-12 points a game no matter what. A few players have this potential, but as the season nears, none has proven himself as that third scorer just yet.

4. Kurt Huelsman

3. Bad Luck
You may see this and think that predicting bad luck sounds like the most ludicrous thing you've ever read. To that I say, read on friends. This blog is only a few weeks old; I can come up with stuff that's far more absurd.

Here's my point, though. The Flyers were something like 10-1 in games decided by five points or fewer last season. (I'm too lazy to look up the actual stat.) A lot of fans saw that as the mark of a gritty, hard-nosed team. One that knew how to get the job done by any means necessary and come out on top in a close one. Others saw that stat in a less positive light. They said the Flyers don't seem to be able to pull away and beat teams by large margins. That squad after all wasn't built to blow out its opponents.

I, on the other hand, saw the 10-1 record in close games as this: an incredible run of good luck. If you played out the 2008-'09 season again, there's no way UD would rack up a 10-1 record in those games. These things even out over time, especially when you have a team that far too often let inferior teams hang around deep into games. Play with fire enough times, and you're bound to get burnt, which leads me to...

2. A razor thin margin for error
This has been chronicled throughout the offseason basically since the non-conference schedule was released. It's a problem that is very easy to identify and far more difficult to solve.

Outside of Puerto Rico, the Flyers really have no chance to pick-up a marquee OOC victory. Match-ups with fellow mid-majors Creighton, George Mason and New Mexico have their benefits but aren't exactly head turners come Selection Sunday. If UD goes 1-2 in Puerto Rico or even if the team loses to Ga Tech and wins its next two, the chance for a resume padding non-conference W (a la Marquette last season and Pitt and Louisville two years ago) has slipped through its fingers.

And let's face it, the A10 itself is always a crapshoot. Other than Xavier, which team can you really rely on to be good? You could have a situation where Dayton's "signature" OOC wins are Creighton and George Mason, and that means the Flyers would have to be almost flawless in the A10 to secure an at-large bid.

UD pulled this feat off last year, I know. But even with 26 wins heading into Selection Sunday, the Flyers were on thin ice. Playing the "what if" game is pretty pointless after the fact, but one can't help but wonder: What if Fordham doesn't let Rob Lowery go coast-to-coast for a game winning lay-up? What if Karl Hobbs knows you're only allowed to play five guys at a time? That's why reasons #2 and #3 are so inter-related. A little dose of bad luck against a conference foe or two combined with such tiny room for error could spell the recipe for disaster ... or at least for an NIT bid.

1. The hunted, not the hunter
In recent memory the Dayton Flyers have never been the hunted. They've always been the hunter - hunting down some big-time BCS schools in the last few years and taking aim at Xavier which consistently sat atop the A10 standings.

Now the shoe's on the other foot. Your own Dayton Flyers are pretty much the concensus pick to win the league this season. They're in almost everyone's preseason top 25 rankings. Xavier has lost players to graduation, one left early to go to the NBA, and its coach abandoned ship for greener pastures.

Suddenly, UD is the team on top looking down at the rest of the league. It's a great spot to be in when you think about it. However, the Flyers had better be ready for a dogfight (not the Mike Vick kind) in every single conference game next year. Be ready to take your opponent's best shot game in and game out. Can the '09-'10 Flyers live up to being the hunted and not the hunter? I, for one, say this will slowly take its toll on this UD team and ultimlately cause it to miss the 2010 NCAA tournament.

The Flyers will once again be in the Field of 65 because:

5. Veteran Leadership
These guys just plain know how to win. Whether it's Marcus Johnson flushing down a dunk off a miss in the waning seconds of a road victory or London Warren straight glassing an opposing guards weak lay-in off a fast break, the senior leadership on this team has seen us go from rags to riches. Gregory gives them a lot of credit for the turning of this program they (yes, that includes Kurt) are and the #5 reason you will hear Greg Gumble announce our name on Selection Sunday.

4. Sophomore Slump?
I don't think so. It's cliche, I know, but Chris Johnson just plain has a nose for the ball. The kid can slam, he can jump, and every time we need a critical board he makes a video game-like leap across your screen to slap that ball tight. I see more of the same from CJ with a breakout year from Paul Williams to help the Flyers dance.

3. Ahhh Dee Dee Dee – D Fennnnce
When you talk about a team’s strong point, you’re talking about defense when it comes to the Flyers. If you want to log minutes in a Brian Gregory coached system, you best be playing defense. This team has shown it has what it takes to be, and I say this with a straight face, one of the best defensive teams in all of college basketball. Team defense along with spectacular individual defensive efforts from London Warren, MJ and Wright will have the Flyers blocking their way to the NCAA’s for a second straight year.

2. No clever saying here – Depth
I remember year after year of being a player away from this team self destructing. Hell, we saw what happened when a 14th ranked team lost a freshman – we missed the dance.

With the exception of the point guard position, this team has incredible depth. This depth goes two fold. 1) UD can sustain injuries should they happen. Now, I'm not talking about your ACL out for the year but the bumps and bruises that will happen over the course of a season and I'm confident our depth will be an asset. 2) While many (including myself) lost years off of our lives watching the first few years of Brian Gregory’s substitution patterns, I think we're stating to get it. He has his players, he's implementing that famous Michigan State system of depth, D and rebounding, and we have the horses to do it. Everyone will score, everyone will play, and come the tail end of the A-10 season, the Flyers will have the freshest legs in the conference.

1. Christopher Flyght Wright
Not only have we never lost a game when Flyght suits up in The Arena but the man has changed the face and attitude of Dayton Basketball as we know it. You could first see signs of it when a young (and arguably foolish) freshman from Trotwood took the ball strong to the rack at Freedom Hall years ago. He was absolutely stuffed time after time but the kid would not stop taking it strong. NEVER have I seen an attitude like that lace it up for the Flyers. Do remember, he had one of the key plays in that game with his gazelle-like striding lay-up in the final minutes to seal another W off Slick Rick and the Cards.

Wright has grown up a lot since that game, and has made this program what it is today. I love being able to out-physical a Marquette team and hear the Big East Network announcers comment that, "Wright has been the sherriff inside today." His attitude is the refuse-to-lose and scared-of-no-one type of attitude that we need.

I could type four pages about what Flyght has done for this program and maybe one of these days I will. But for now, you don't want to read it and I'm scared it might turn into a quasi-man crush love letter. The facts are that the kid is one of the best in the country and folks, he is the #1 reason why the Dayton Flyers will be dancing again in March!

The Inaugural Podcast

2009-09-28T18:04:00.001-04:00

A new day has dawned. It is the beginning of a new era. It is other cliches about things starting. Tim and I did a podcast. Click on the link below. There will be sweet audio on a regular basis -- assuming this thing works. There will also be content (the kind you can read) posted here. This is, as you can obviously tell, a work in progress.

Let us know what you think.

http://www.sendspace.com/file/bbt7yd

Coming Soon to an Internet Near You

2009-09-12T15:23:00.000-04:00

Coming October 1st, another Dayton Flyers basketball blog joins the already oversaturated market. It's UD Flyer Nation, featuring podcasts, guest interviews, latest news, live blogs and the best in UD basketball opinions and analysis.

Follow us on Twitter at UDFlyers.