Dayton Recaps with Humor - By Steve Miller

3/9/2025

The last time the Dayton Flyers had momentum going into the postseason, the pandemic brought it to a screeching halt, dumped gasoline on it, set it ablaze, put the ashes in a capsule and launched it into space. 

I’m looking forward to the Flyers doing something with their momentum this year. But I don’t want to speak too soon since I can’t guarantee there’s no tournament-stopping virus being cooked up in an overseas research lab right now.

Dayton finished the regular season with four straight wins after a furious second-half comeback against Saint Louis Tuesday and a Friday night win at Virginia Commonwealth.

The Flyers and I escaped with our lives at VCU. Dayton almost coughed away an 8-point lead with less than a minute to go, and I left my jugular exposed to an arena full of black and yellow as I shouted at VCU’s Joe Bamisile to miss a free throw. He did.

I don’t want to take credit for the Flyers’ win, but I certainly won’t shy away from it if it comes. 

Dayton’s win clinched the 3-seed in the Atlantic 10 Tournament, which means the Flyers would not face the 1-seed VCU again until a potential A-10 Championship game. Dayton is 0-4 all-time against VCU in the conference tournament.

Of course, the Flyers would have defeated the Rams in 2020 should they have met in the tournament. And then Dayton would have run the table and won it all. And a national championship would have attracted all the five-star recruits. And then I’d have nothing to complain about. 

But as it is, the Flyers are still searching for their first A-10 Tournament championship since 2003 when they beat something called “Temple.”

That reminds me, I need to pray for three more wins. And if they get those, six more. But I’ll never stop complaining about 2020. 

3/2/2025

The itsy-bitsy Spiders (10-20) went up to UD Arena. Down came no rain, though, and the Flyers’ shooting dried up (21-for-60) so that’s where my poetic analogy ends.

Dayton let Richmond hang around in an absolute gutter of a basketball game Saturday afternoon. They did finally let the Spiders out in double overtime with more of a trickle at the free throw line than an offensive downpour. That the Flyers required clutch shots and any extra time to beat one of the A-10’s worst teams is a travesty to Dayton basketball and poets everywhere. 

I’ll give the Flyers the benefit of the doubt. It’s March! So maybe Jaiun Simon let Richmond take the lead so easily in the final seconds of overtime just so Nate Santos could provide a game-tying buzzer beater for the home fans. But if the Flyers were inspired by the calendar month, let’s hope the rest of March inspires them to score more than 48 points in regulation. 

Dayton’s last two regular season games feature its bitterest rivals—Saint Louis and VCU—matchups that carried more emotional weight when the A-10 was a multi-bid league. 

But no matter how disappointing this A-10 season, I’ll never take for granted a chance to beat the urine-stained Rams on their high school gym of a home floor.

2/23/2025

The 2025 Dayton Flyers have a fascinating talent: the unique ability to wrench their fans’ guts multiple times on a single night. 

Friday, I abandoned hope when the Flyers found themselves down 12 midway through a feckless second half. I only allowed myself to feel human feelings again once they tore back to within two points of Loyola Chicago and seemed to have all the momentum in the closing minutes. 

But the Flyers pierced my heart again with turnovers and shots more reckless than a college student at a tequila bar. 

Loyola’s Pop-Tart mascot handled the ball with more precision than Dayton’s Jaiun Simon and Jacob Connor, who combined for 28 minutes and five points. 

The berry Pop-Tart, by the way, chucked a basketball into the stands after his introduction.

In fact, the most intriguing flyers all night were both teams’ bigs, jumping up for dunks and alley-oops with inconsistent effectiveness. At least Dayton fared better in Chicago than St. Bonaventure two weeks ago, who let the Ramblers jam like a grandmother with a fresh blackberry harvest.

The Bonnies lost by 20; the Flyers lost by 4.

In fact, the only team to beat Loyola in the Windy City this year is VCU, who owns the conference’s best record. 

The Flyers are in a virtual tie with St. Joe’s and Saint Louis for the conference’s fourth seed, though Dayton has wins over both schools.

If Dayton wants a double bye in the A-10 Tournament, they’re skating on ice thinner than Lake Michigan after a warm week in February.

In the meantime, I’ve made the poor decision to attend the regular season finale at VCU. So you may only hear from me a few more times before I get burned at the stake by some art majors wearing urine-colored t-shirts. 

2/16/2025

USA’s commentators reveled in the tight Dayton-Duquesne game Saturday. The Atlantic 10’s three through 13 seeds were separated by just two and a half games, and the color commentator said the bunched-up conference boasted rosters “equal in ability.”

For Dayton fans looking to dominate the mid-major conference, such an observation was irritating. It’s like growing up with three brothers, thinking you’re the handsomest, and then having the nice Korean barber lady tell you how you all look so similar. 

The Koreans cut men’s hair like no one else. In my hometown, the most efficient, consistent experience is at Song’s Barber Shop. In my current town, I found Kim’s—basically a carbon copy. If I were to write a sitcom of my life, I’d use Kim’s to recreate Song’s essence without plagiarizing its specifics. 

Dayton needs a Kim’s to its 2014-2017 Song’s. 

The Flyers made the NCAA Tournament all four of those seasons, mostly with an undersized roster. You can see Anthony Grant’s attempts to match Archie Miller’s mid-major success. Zed Key sometimes bulldozes in the paint like Kendall Pollard once did. Heck, Grant recruited Scoochie Smith’s actual little brother, Malichi, but Scoochie never would have turned the ball over twice in the final minute like Malichi did Saturday. 

Key finally produced a breakout game (18 points and six rebounds) Saturday after he spent much of the conference schedule bearing as much weight as the ‘s’ in Duquesne.

But Grant’s rosters lack the tenacity and consistency Miller’s did. 

The good news for Dayton: a March Madness appearance would require a conference tournament win and result in a 10-12 seed. That’s momentum and doubt—two things the Flyers of yesteryear fed off. 

Now they just need a hot towel and someone gossiping about them in a foreign language and maybe they’ll have a chance. 

2/8/2025

Dayton wore red

But now I feel blue

How do you allow 21 offensive rebounds

To freaking VCU?

I’ll be traveling over Valentine’s Day weekend, so there you have my romantic poetry submission. And by “romantic,” I mean Romeo and Juliet style romantic where the story ends by self-inflicted wounds.

After Dayton built its biggest lead (five) with five minutes remaining Friday night, VCU ripped off 12 straight points in a comedy of errors for the Flyers—inbound laziness, backcourt turnovers and poor rebounding.

The Rams capitalized on that cocktail the whole night to stifle every Dayton run.

The Flyers looked strong at brief points. Javon Bennett threw an off-the-backboard alley-oop to Zed Key in the first half, proving the team sometimes exhibits chemistry. 

Key slammed a few dunks and ignited the crowd with his signature celebration—throwing his arms skyward like a jiggly woman in a Dove deodorant commercial.

But on other possessions, the Flyers wouldn’t even sniff the key until five seconds remained on the shot clock. They looked more reluctant to penetrate than…well maybe it’s time I stop these romance references.

Sixteen Dayton turnovers (too many of them in the backcourt) silenced the anxious fans at UD Arena, who were left searching for a rhythm like an English poet forced to use any pentameter other than iambic.

There, that one was cleaner.

The Flyers did pull off a Tuesday home win over Davidson, but they now sit a game back from Loyola for fourth in the conference. So when the Flyers and Rams meet again in Richmond next month, Dayton’s seeding hopes may depend on how they tame the black and yellow shrew. 

2/2/2025

Welcome to February: when football season ends, baseball season’s hope springs eternal, and the Dayton Flyers play for (checks notes) a four-seed in the Atlantic 10 Tournament.

I’d say the Flyers’ at-large hopes are dead after a 22-point loss to St. Bonaventure, but crazier things have happened. If they secure a top-four spot in the A-10, they earn a double-bye in the conference tournament and have a non-zero chance to play their way into March Madness.

Some of my friends tried to console me about Dayton’s Olean smackdown, claiming that my undergraduate school playing my graduate school was a win-win. But that’s like telling a parent that their second-favorite child bludgeoning their favorite child was really a no-lose situation. 

I’m not a parent yet, so I can’t completely relate to this. 

Dayton stayed on the road between Tuesday and Friday to practice and “bond” in the St. Louis area. The Flyers led wire-to-wire at Saint Louis Friday night, staving off a 21-point effort by the Billikens’ Gibson Jimerson, who missed his calling to play lacrosse and take out daddy’s boat on the weekends. 

Jimerson, despite his silly name, is the A-10’s career 3-point leader.

Also, that the university chooses to spell out “Saint” (even though the city doesn’t) just adds to the frivolity of a school that brands itself with a mythical chubby goblin mascot and a leading scorer with the name of a Keebler elf. 

Importantly, it turned out that the Flyers practicing and bonding on the road for three days worked wonders for team cohesion. Their 10 offensive rebounds and 23 points off turnovers at SLU beg the question: What would have happened if they’d practiced in October?

We’d probably be talking about a different kind of four-seed—one who would elicit national attention and irresponsible wagers from frat boys with pastel shorts and names like Gibson Jimerson.

1/25/2025

I don’t know what true catharsis feels like. Daniel Snyder selling the Washington pigskin team was good. Finally reaching the bathroom after a round of gas station chalupas and uphill hiking in central Texas was better.

Dayton running up a 30-point lead in the second half against Duquesne Tuesday might be the best. The Flyers are back to winning, as God intended.

Ohio State also won, but I can’t in good faith say God intended that.

Something must have hit Dayton over its 10-day Christmas hiatus. I doubt anything as pointed as the avian flu or the Laredo Taco Company plagued the Flyers, but the atrocious start to conference play was puzzling at best and resume-crippling at worst. 

The “Dayton Daily News’” David Jablonski pointed out that the team assisted on 25 of 32 field goals against Duquesne, whereas in the preceding loss to George Mason, the Flyers had just nine assists on 22 made shots. 

Coaches emphasized sharp passing and ball-sharing in the interim, which has resulted in two impressive wins.

“When we do that, we’re really hard to beat,” Enoch Cheeks told Jablonski.

Imagine that. Passing, assisting and scoring wins more games than not doing those things.

Friday night, Dayton led St. Joseph’s start to finish. Though a 19-point lead evaporated to three by the closing minutes, Dayton won by five at home.

Are the Flyers back? One can hope. The remaining games against Virginia Commonwealth and Saint Louis will be the real tests. But if this week foreshadowed, maybe the tournament committee will err on the side of “Dayton fans travel well” to keep the Flyers in. 

The Buckeyes’ championship may have been the Ohio rallying cry Dayton needed. Or maybe it was the side of ranch I got with my fries as Dayton downed St. Joe’s (much to the horror of an east coast dining companion). This might not be catharsis, but my gastrointestinal tract and the Dayton Flyers have at least reached equilibrium.

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.