1/19/2025
Ask any Daytonian about the Wright Brothers, and they’ll proudly claim Ohio as “The Birthplace of Aviation.” They’ll contextualize North Carolina’s “First in Flight” tagline. Both states would laugh at France’s place at the table.
Well, pardon my French, but Amael L’Etang laid quite the claim at UD Arena Saturday.
The 7-foot-1 forward finished Malichi Smith’s 55-foot alley-oop just before the buzzer sounded, defeating Loyola Chicago, ending the Flyers’ three-game losing streak and momentarily injecting joy into Daytonians’ puttering hearts.
I hope that by season’s end, college basketball nation will forget the Flyers’ losses to George Washington, Massachusetts and George Mason as completely as America forgot the French were the first to send a man up in a hot air balloon.
Mason knocked off Dayton Wednesday night, ending the Flyers’ 26-game home win streak and fulfilling the pessimistic prophecy I alluded to in last week’s column. I was prepared for a complete meltdown Saturday after Dayton surrendered a 13-point lead in the second half.
But what differentiates Dayton from France is powered flight—the ability to propel and direct oneself. Power is what gets a plane to the runway and keeps it from crashing into a field. A Loyola win at UD Arena would have very much been the barren field for the Flyers.
I’ll take one day to be grateful to Smith and L’Etang for landing the plane.
Ohio may have invented the airplane, but Saturday night a Frenchman proved Dayton’s highest flyer.
1/11/2025
Great week for Dayton Flyer fans. Both their college football teams advanced to a national championship.
That will split Ohio Catholic households like a Pete Rose discussion.
They’ll nearly forget the Flyers’ Atlantic 10 woes.
After Dayton’s 76-72 loss at UMass Wednesday night, the Flyers (11-5, 1-2) are firmly on the NCAA Tournament bubble with momentum careening them in the “bursting” direction.
Dayton’s record at Massachusetts’ Mullins Center falls to 8-12 all time. This may be the Flyers’ last visit for a while because UMass is leaving the A-10 for the Mid-American Conference in 2025—a move much more about football than anything else. Which, again, is also the reason for Dayton grads’ joy this week.
I think I went to two Dayton football games in my four years, which is approximately two more than the average alumnus.
I do find it funny that Ohioans attending schools that don’t try to copyright the most common word in the English language are as loyal to the Buckeyes as the marijuana leaf sticker industry. The state pride is admirable, I suppose, and I did reticently root for Ohio State Friday night, but that may be because I simply wanted to feel again what it’s like to win.
Dayton’s two-game skid against A-10 opponents is its first in two seasons. Just when Anthony Grant earned favor with Flyer fans in the non-conference slate, his team’s lackluster showing plopped him right back in hot water on Dayton Twitter. Grant has lost to sub-NET 200 teams 15 times in his 7+ seasons. The previous two coaches had six such losses across 14 combined seasons.
The Flyers run back to Dayton with their tails between their legs looking to preserve a 26-game home win streak Wednesday against George Mason (11-5, 3-1). The last team to beat the Flyers at UD arena was…George Mason (Feb. 25, 2023).
I guess we’ll smile again when toe meets leather.
1/5/2025
When I walked into the Charles E. Smith Center Saturday morning, I laughed. The 5,000-seat arena looked like a high school gym, and it was full of Flyer fans. Some of the few George Washington fans confused by the visitor’s support sat behind me. “Where even is Dayton?” one of them asked.
Dayton, it turned out, had stayed in Ohio.
GW jumped out to an 8-0 lead and maintained a double-digit advantage over the Flyers for nearly the entire first half. “Did Dayton fly into D.C. an hour ago?” a frustrated fan tweeted.
In the first half, Dayton shot 30% from the floor and only 2-for-8 from three.
Slow starts are not foreign to Flyer fans this season, but until Anthony Grant hires actors to play a fake first half against his roster before the real game starts, the pattern is not sustainable.
The Revolutionaries made 46% of their field goals and 15 of 31 3-pointers. Much like Han Solo in the cantina, GW simply shot better.
The Revolutionaries, by the way, is the new moniker for the team formerly called the Colonials. Apparently celebrating a revolt against Britain is less controversial than acknowledging our tea-drinking brethren once taxed us without representation.
And much like in 1775, the 2025 red-clad visitors stood no chance.
The Flyers emerged from halftime energized and trimmed a 17-point deficit down to three with just over 12 minutes remaining. The comeback attempt fired up the Ohio heritage festival in the stands.
Dayton never tied the game, though, and absolutely deflated down the stretch. The Revolutionaries closed the game on a 13-0 run, completing a putrid 82-62 victory.
I think the British retreat across the Atlantic felt more bearable than my Metro ride to Alexandria.
Now 1-1 in the Atlantic 10, the Flyers have little room for error. They play at Massachusetts Wednesday night. Let’s hope the Flyers make the trip with a bit more verve, but if you see some random lanterns in northeastern windows this week, the Minutemen might be ready for them.
12/28/2024
Each year, my family hosts a Christmas Eve dinner. And each year, even well into my 20’s, I’m told to sit at the kid’s table. The placement is more a space issue than a lack of maturity on my part, or so I like to think. Yet, it’s always a bit disheartening to be banished to an auxiliary table after making cocktails for the mature adults in the dining room.
Dayton (10-3) now makes the same move. After keeping up with the big dogs in the nonconference slate, the Flyers open an 18-game Atlantic 10 schedule Tuesday against LaSalle. But Dayton is only competing against children in the same way an “Are You Smarter Than a 5th Grader” contestant is. The Flyers may feel formidable on the big stage, but their abilities will certainly look suspect when pitted against feisty underdogs that are good at specific things.
And what child actually knows that the northernmost Civil War battle took place in Vermont?
The last team to beat Dayton at UD Arena? George Mason. The Patriots might not have a quality win this year, but you just know the Flyers will struggle against GMU in their Jan. 15 matchup in Dayton.
Dayton also struggles with the Rams. All of them. Virginia Commonwealth, Rhode Island and Fordham share a conference, a mascot and a penchant for annoying Flyer fans.
Dayton plays each once and VCU twice—the season finale at UD Arena, which in past years has turned into the impromptu A-10 regular season championship game.
What’s in it for the Flyers? Not much.
The A-10’s top contenders (St. Bonaventure, VCU and Rhode Island) all sit outside the NET top-50, meaning the Flyers might not play another quad 1 game until (hopefully) March Madness.
The conference’s vague, tacky slogan rings loudly this time of year, like a fading Mariah Carey Christmas anthem: Great People, Great Places, Extraordinary Opportunities.
I can’t disagree much, Atlantic 10.
Great people (especially the Ohioans)
Great places (if you like northeastern cities in the winter)
Extraordinary opportunities (unless you’re Dayton looking for quality wins)
12/21/2024
Dayton scored just 17 points in the first half of Friday night’s loss to Cincinnati—the latest in a streak of cold opens that would rival “The Office.”
Notably, the Flyers fell behind by double digits to Virginia Commonwealth, Nevada, Northwestern and Marquette in the last two seasons before comeback wins. They trailed by as many as 18 points in the second half Friday and cut the Bearcats’ advantage to four late in the game, but Dayton never got closer.
The Flyers will enjoy 10 days off after playing three games in seven days. Following the emotional win over Marquette, Dayton went to-to-toe with UNLV and overcame a trappier matchup than a teenager against Snapchat’s discover page.
The 22nd-ranked Flyers scored 27 points in another flat first half against the Rebels. Dayton built a lead in the second half, but UNLV retook control in the closing minutes. Malachi Smith channeled his older brother Scoochie in the Flyers’ last possession and converted an and-one layup to give Dayton the lead with eight seconds remaining.
Though the magic did not persist Friday, Dayton closes its nonconference season with a strong resume. All three of its losses (to North Carolina, Iowa State and UC) came against NET top-50 schools, and none at home. The Flyers also won statement games against three top-70 opponents (Northwestern, Connecticut and Marquette).
After last weekend’s victory over Xavier, UC cemented itself as Ohio’s best college basketball team—a distinction I’m sure the entire state cares about this weekend. The only other thing on the sports calendar was some unnamed bowl game in Columbus.
12/16/2024
In the battle of Notre Dame applicants’ safety schools, Dayton defeated No. 6 Marquette at UD Arena Saturday in its biggest home win since it beat No. 6 Pittsburgh in 2007. Monday, the Flyers (9-2) made their season debut in the AP Top 25 at No. 22.
That the Catholic, Jesuit school Marquette booked a trip to UD Arena in the first place was a treat for Flyer fans, who are used to buying games against low majors in the non-conference schedule. The Catholic, Marianist school Dayton now has wins over the Big Easts’ top two teams (it defeated Connecticut in Maui) and its strongest non-conference resume in recent memory.
Head Coach Anthony Grant was on his game (and the court) Saturday night. He earned a technical foul in the first half for passionately arguing when freshman forward Amael L’Etang was undercut on a dunk. Though Grant cooled down and retained his right to coach, the Flyers were in the midst of a cold first half in which they made just nine field goals.
Once down by 13, Grant dialed up the necessary aggression after halftime.
Javon Bennett and Zed Key willed the Flyers back to life. Bennet with backcourt pressure and Key with emphatic paint play. Malachi Smith dished 11 assists in a huge effort.
Despite Marquette’s rank, Dayton’s win was hardly an upset. Most spreads closed at zero or favored Marquette by a point.
Soon after the emotions of Saturday’s win subsided, Flyer fans found reason to grumble because Tuesday’s game against UNLV is streaming exclusively on Peacock.
The Flyers stay in Ohio Friday, taking on Cincinnati at a neutral site—the Queen City’s Heritage Bank Center. Cincinnati won its Crosstown Shootout with Xavier Saturday.
The Cincinnati-Dayton rivalry (48 miles of Interstate 75 separate the schools) does not have an official name. It once could have been called “The Touchdown Jesus Rivalry,” after the can’t-miss Monroe, Ohio statue along the route. But after it was struck by lightning and overcooked in 2010, the replacement features the Christ figure with outstretched arms below the shoulders, presumably to preclude another divine smiting. Ohioans now dub it the “Five-Dollar Footlong Jesus.” But even if we wanted to name the UC-UD game after that, I’ve been told the “Subway Series” is already taken.
11/30/2024
The Dayton Flyers defeating No. 2 Connecticut in the Maui Invitational was hardly on any Flyer fan’s bingo card before the tournament got underway. The upset win being more cathartic relief than jubilation was even less likely.
But after halftime leads against No. 12 North Carolina and No. 5 Iowa State slipped away, the Flyers’ torrid second half in the seventh-place game against UConn felt more like an exorcism of Hawaiian demons than a historic upset.
It was, though, Dayton’s first victory against a top-two opponent since 1974.
UConn lost all three of its Maui games against unranked opponents and dropped to Kenpom No. 28.
In the stacked tournament field, Dayton held its own. But it ceded a 21-point second half lead to UNC in the first round. The Tar Heels shot 59% from the floor after the break and took the lead in the final two minutes.
Iowa State lost a double-digit lead of its own before it met Dayton in the losers’ bracket. The Flyers led at half, but again let their opponent shoot 60% in the second half. Dayton missed seven free throws in the game it lost by five points.
Finally, the Flyers took advantage of a snowballing UConn team to send the Huskies home from Hawaii with fewer wins (0) than Coach Danny Hurley had technical fouls (1). UConn lost its first two games by a combined three points before the Flyers reeled off the 18-point statement upset.
Dayton enjoyed Butler transfer Posh Alexander’s best performance of the season. The redshirt senior guard scored 16 points and grabbed five rebounds across 24 minutes off the bench.
Senior guard Enoch Cheeks continued his stellar season with 20 points, shooting 3-for-5 from three against UConn.
Dayton fans will be happy to have the Flyers back on the continent so they can watch basketball before midnight eastern time (or later, in the case of the UConn game). Dayton plays four straight home games at UD Arena starting Dec. 3. The homestand includes a matchup with undefeated No. 10 Marquette on Dec. 14.
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