For a couple of weeks in March, 2014, Dayton basketball became America's sweetheart. Videos and pictures of UD students celebrating the team's three NCAA Tournament wins were shown on every major network news and talk show in the country. Archie Miller became something of a household name, and people who previously couldn't have told you what the Dayton mascot was began wearing Columbia blue and red.
The Dayton Flyers aren’t back, they never left
The team that pulled off the most remarkable run of the 2014 NCAA Tournament might be in the midst of the most remarkable run of the 2014-15 regular season.
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Still, the Flyer phenomenon always felt more about America’s need to have a love interest in March than Dayton being an appropriate fit for that role. Sure, UD was a No. 11 seed that made a surprising run to the Elite 8, but it’s also an Atlantic 10 program with one of the most under-appreciated basketball cultures in the country.
Everything you need to know about the basketball society in the city of Dayton lies with the fact that in 2001, the NCAA never planned on it being the permanent home of the First Four (or play-in game or NCAA Tournament opening round or whatever). Both the university and the city of Dayton embraced something that the rest of the country was rolling its eyes at, and wound up pumping millions of dollars into an event that now has 70 sponsors, has been attended by a sitting US President and British Prime Minister, and which was sold out for the first time in 2013. None of this is possible without a community that simply adores college hoops.
As for the UD hoops program itself, Dayton has played in a national championship game (1967), they consistently rank in or around the nation's top 30 in attendance, and they are 45th in wins on the sport's all-time list. The Flyers had been to two regional finals and six Sweet 16s before they crashed both rounds again last year.
Basically, Dayton might not be South Bend Central, but it’s also a far cry from being Hickory High.
Bracketology Time
Despite a rich history and an enthusiastic support system, it’s understandable that a younger generation of college hoops fans may not have been all that familiar with the Flyers before last season’s postseason run. After last crashing the Elite 8 in 1984, Dayton had won just two NCAA Tournament games over the succeeding three decades. UD had been nationally relevant for a season here and there, but the program’s inability to keep coaches like Oliver Purnell and, to a lesser extent, Brian Gregory to stick around kept it from being able to attain an appropriate level of consistency.
Many expected that trend to continue nine months ago when Miller became one of the most oft-discussed names in the coaching world. Instead, the fourth-year head coach spurned the hoards of high major programs who would have come calling in favor of signing a deal that would keep him at Dayton through the 2018-19 season.
"It was huge," Dayton star Jordan Sibert said during the Atlantic 10's media day in October. "It showed how loyal Coach Miller is to the program. It was definitely a relief having him back because when you start something like that, you want to build on it. You don't want to start something and the next thing you know the person who was putting it all together is gone. We got the new jerseys, the new logo and it's just good to start the new era with him at Dayton."
There have been times since he signed the extension where Miller has probably second-guessed himself.
First came the news in June that Khari Price, the team's starting point guard in 2013-14, was transferring. He ended up at Southern Mississippi, where he's sitting out this season per NCAA transfer rules. In September, incoming freshman center Steve McElvene was declared a partial qualifier who would have to sit out the entire season.
Miller had plenty of time to adjust to the holes left by Price’s departure and McElvene’s ineligibility, a luxury he didn’t have when more bad news struck the program in December.
One week before Christmas, Miller announced that that he had dismissed starting center Devon Scott and backup big man Jalen Robinson from the team after the pair had been involved in a trespassing incident in which they allegedly stole money. The exits of those two players, who were averaging a combined 12.4 points and 9.8 rebounds per game, left Dayton without a single player who stands taller than 6'6. To put that in perspective, if Dayton were to run up against Kentucky at some point in the postseason, the Wildcats' two starting guards would be as tall as any Flyer frontcourt player who would see the floor in that game.
Toss in a pair of players with lingering injuries, and Dayton has been playing the last month with six scholarship players. Six.
What those six players, their walk-on teammates and their coaches have been able to do over the past four weeks may fall short of being miraculous, but there’s no question it’s been impressive.
Despite being noticeably undermanned and undersized in every game, Dayton has reeled off seven consecutive victories and is off to a 4-0 start in the Atlantic 10 for the first time in more than a decade. That alone would be applause-worthy enough, but the Flyers haven’t just been beating teams since booting Scott and Robinson, they’ve been destroying them. During the current seven-game winning streak, Miller’s team has just once won a game by less than 11 points, and its seven victories have come by an average of 15.1 ppg. Included in the streak’s graveyard are Ole Miss, Georgia Tech, Boston U. and a quartet of A-10 teams.
Dayton's student newspaper, the Flyer News, has dubbed the team the "Small Ball Seven" since Miller rarely goes with more than two guys off his bench. Those two guys are junior forward Bobby Wehrli -- who had scored a total of 3 points in his college career before this December -- and true freshman guard Darrell Davis.
So how in the world is Miller’s team pulling this off? Perhaps the biggest reason is an increase in production from its best players. Sibert, the star of Dayton’s tournament run and a first team preseason All-Atlantic 10 selection, has been sensational in the new year, averaging 19.2 ppg since the dismissals of Scott and Robinson. Dyshawn Pierre, the team’s second-leading scorer, has scored at least 15 points and grabbed at least six rebounds in each of the team’s last six games.
The Flyers have been remarkably efficient on the offensive end, because really, what other choice do they have if they want to win? Just 34 teams in Division I have turned the ball over fewer times than Dayton, which is now also doing a better job of getting cheap points off their opponents’ mistakes. It’s a formula that played a large part in the team shooting 83 percent in the second half of its win over Fordham, the second-best shooting half in the 106-year history of UD basketball.
With no outstanding non-conference wins and an Atlantic 10 that is probably weaker than it’s been in any season over the last decade, it’s probably not safe to pencil Dayton in as an NCAA Tournament returnee just yet. It’s certainly time to start paying serious attention to the Flyers again, though.
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