Disappointing End
 

This had LITTLE to do with Obi injury. We simply returned to form and did not play well against a VERY AVERAGE team. Turnovers by our guards again killed us. Offensive rebounds by our opponents have been always huge. Hopefully, with next years recruits coming in, both of these problems will be resolved. I appalud this team for exceeding my expectations. and yes, if they get into the NIT, I'll watch and cheer for them

Best post of the night! Next year Bess, Foreman and Isabell will be gone and St. Louis may get paybacks as the Flyers will have quality subs to put in the game. 16+ turnovers again tonight were unacceptable and were crucial in all 11 of our losses this season!

That being said, this team exceeded my expectations and I will watch the NIT as well! Obi was ticked off after the game tonight and I expect him to make up for it and play well against whoever we may play!

The announcers said it all night long. The 50-year old SLU practice body said it---"enforce our will on Dayton."


- SLU controlled the boards
- SLU got to the line more
- SLU pressured Crutcher all night long
- SLU took Mikesell (our glue guy) completely out of the game
- SLU made Obi/Josh non-factors


One play in the first half summed it up for me. There was a loose ball under our basket with three white shirts within three feet. A black shirt went to the floor to get the ball; all the white shirts were bent over.


Game over

Very good commentary, donnie. The Obi injury may have cost us 4 points or so, but it was obvious that SLU wasn’t going to let him get free for any of those highlight-reel dunks. And, unfortunately, the team we faced tonight was the one that stole our lunch money over a month ago, and the Flyers who showed up tonight were the ones who allowed it to happen.

I too am hopeful for next year. I’m hopeful that the Redshirt 5 can all produce, at least to some degree. I’m hopeful that the threat of losing playing time motivates Crutcher to play better defense and with a higher sense of urgency; motivates Davis to work harder to get open shots; motivates the whole team to BOX OUT better. I’m hopeful. We’ll know in time if that’s blind hope, or if it’s rooted in the true building of a program. We’ll see.
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I know we are all in a major funk with disappointment. The only saving grace - the Xavier choke job versus Villanova. Gotta find happiness where you can. We may just see them in the NIT.

Hey, when we can’t win our own tournament games, it’s nice to know that Dr. Schadenfreude is still around.
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I don't know how many times I yelled at the tv, when Crutcher was on the left side, he never once penetrated by driving left, instead just lobbing a pass to the center, as we passed it around the perimeter. Why did he never drive to the basket from the left side of the court? It was mind boggling.

Three critical plays in the game:
1. The one loose ball you mentioned
2. Obi's fake foul
3. Very early in the game; I believe the score was 7-3. The Flyers were gaining momentum and then Crutcher came down on a three on two fast break and pulled some wild-a$$ behind-the-back nonsense and threw the ball away. I believe STL came down court and hit a three. The momentum was gone.

Because he doesn't make the decisions of a true PG because he's not one. He does not have any of the inate and inherited tendencies of one. If the lob to obi ain't there not much else is.

The Soft Dayton Flyers
 

got manhandled by SLU. Dayton's inability to guard a poor offensive team and get a defensive rebound cost them in March playoff basketball. I don't want to hear about how great UD will be next year. Next year's team must earn it following last night's set back for
the Dayton program and Anthony Grant. This year's edition of the Flyers fell short on most of their big challenges all year long.

It's hard to be a Flyer Fan . . . they are always just good enough to disappoint. Been that way for years.

Here's what I am hoping for in the off season (as I am not convinced they will get an NIT bid). . .


Obi stays and quits reading his press reports
Our guards work on their passing
Josh graduates and does well in life
The team works on the mechanics of the "block out" which usually are taught in high school
Our transfers are limited to players whose loss will not be a handicap and they do well in their next life
UDScott gives up on the Flyers and becomes a Xavier Fan

Flyers didn't play well. Win as a team and lose as a team.

With you on the first two. I hate seeing those high/s;ow passes. Early in the season our passing was pretty good. I also agree with your last one as well, but don't see that happening. Someone needs to get him !@*) . Maybe it would change his disposition.

I said this earlier in the season-our guard play this year was very average. If it wasn’t for Obi, Ryan and to a certain extent Josh we would be lucky to have 8 wins this year. Next year the troops come in.

You know pointing to some other instance of failure does not make our failure less of one. Even if that someone else is sh!tface _avier.

Sorry just doesn't make me feel any better about last nites loss. :rain:

You are 100% correct. Every challenge went unanswered. (except just a little bit of one @ Davidson and only barely at that!)

All year long this team has exhibited the same traits, soft in the post, soft in rebounding, soft passes, TO happy, yet plays hard for the last 7-10 minutes of the game.

The team never showed much willingness to play hard most of the game clock. You just can't win a challenging game playing 10 of 40 minutes ... it just doesn't work that way.

And here I thought that getting the double bye was a fan goal this year. Finishing third when projections had us 6-8 was another failure, being in the conversation for a Dance bid this late in the season, another failure. 21 wins, another failure. Maybe we should just close up shop given all the failures this year.

There were precisely four proven players on the roster coming in to this year and two were sophomores. What the hell were the expectations for this team?

But hated x came on strong while we faded. I think they’d roll us like St L did
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The 50-year old SLU practice body is an absolute stud. I've played with him a number of times.

Anthony Bonner, Billiken legend and respectable NBA career. Great guy.

The expectation was probably similar to how we finished but that's before we knew obi was an absolute stud. Therefore, expectations changed and we fell short. Why does everyone want to gauge how good of a season we had based off of a gut feel from last summer?

I don't think it was a terrible season overall and we could certainly have done worse. I'll still be cheering and pulling for us to do well in the NIT, and not that it's a consolation, but if we do well I'll be happy. But as Browns said having higher expectations than pre season because of what we saw on the floor, especially from Obi, did make yesterday and the failure to make the NCAA's very disappointing in my eyes.

The goal is to get to the NCAA tournament. If we start hanging A10 double bye banners, maybe it is time to close shop.

If this is all true how did this team win 21 games only playing 10 minutes per game?

Actually, it's pretty easy. JUST LOOK AT OUR SCHEDULE. 13 of our 21 wins were against garbage teams

1. UNF 16-17
2. Coppin State 8-25
3. PFW 18-15
4. Detroit 11-20
5. WMU 8-24
6. Presbyterian 18-15
7. Richmond 13-20
8. GW 9-24
9. UMass 11-21
10. UMass again
11. Fordham 12-20
12. LaSalle 10-21
13. St. Joes 14-19

Throw in a couple slightly tougher ones: Duquesne at home; Ga Southern at Home. But don't tell me you expected us to lose those home games.

So that's 15 EASY wins for a program of our stature. We only needed to go 5-12 in all the other games to get 20 wins this year.

Add a couple average/decent wins: 16-16 Butler on neutral court, St. Louis at home; @ St. Bonny; @ Duquesne. @ 18-14 Rhody

We had one really good win: At Davidson

Throw in the fact we gave away home losses to Rhody (offsetting the road win), and George Mason.

Expectations? It depends on whether or not you like AG as our coach or not. If you like AG as the coach, you understand that literally everyone and everything would have had to gone perfectly, career years for everyone and no injuries- and if that were to happen UD would be an at large bid no matter what they did in the A10 tournament. But nobody would in their right mind expected that to happen. Most knew that this was still a rebuilding year and if the Flyers were even in any tournament considerations- that is still a successful year.

But then you have the few that hate the AG hire- and with those people, anything less than a sweet 16 is abysmal failure AND AG is the worst coach of all time. Also add that no matter what, Archie Miller is a superior coach (despite the fact that HIS IU Hoosiers lost 12/13 games at one point this season - go review the IU boards for their fan sentiment).

This team, while they did disappoint yesterday- has met most of the Flyer fan base expectations and most are satisfied with the general progress because they understand that AG is only going to bring in high character individuals and not put up with dumb and dumber type players and all the other shenanigans that goes with winning at all cost.
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Flyers are "...good enough to disappoint."
Huh!!!!
I'll go out on a limb and guess your not a Cubs fan.

McKillop is getting smoked by 20pts by the #6 seed. And his team is better than ours The guy needs to go.

I am unsure too, it is so hard to say what will happen, people should not have a melt down manana if we are left out, it could happen.

We are right on the edge of the historical cutoff line.

When teams play physical - we play soft. Then the fouls go toward the aggressor. SLU hammered us the whole 2nd half, but because we went up soft or faded away we didnt get the calls. Then we hung our heads and played softer. Vicious cycle.

Why do our reboots always seem to take longer than our peers?

Butler went to the round of 32 last year with a hc with 1 year of experience at Milwaukee, where he had a losing record. They won their round of 64 game last year by double digits.

VCU gets a new hc and has 1 down year, but now is back on top.

Xavier may go to the NIT with a rookie hc after losing a loaded senior class last year that got a 1 seed. They lost 5 guys that averaged 15 minutes or more last year.

Team exceeded expectations.....Ref udscott ... short roster especially with Matos going down. Strength of schedule.... were in the A10... live with it or go away!

i didn't expect 21 wins in the regular season.

No they don’t. I refer you to none other than Indiana.

McKillop whatever. Mark Few from the #1 team in the country, Gonzaga, lost by 13 points in the conference championship. This guy needs to go.

And here you go a very pertinent question/thought. I took this from another thread and though it should be read by everyone following this team. (If you haven't and if you have, you should read it again.) An outsider with possible no skin in our game but with a clear view of the programs question marks.

I do not believe he is talking ONLY about this year. I think he is thinking of the program as a whole.

For all you folks commenting about the fan base, the facilities, the whatever and how we should be in the whatever other conference, there is a deeper issue than all that we need to analyze.

The players have changed, the coaches have changed, the AD has changed, even the facilities have changed. Time has come and gone.

The mantra "wait till next year" has not! :eek:

SO yes an improvement over last year. Yes maybe better than most expectations. Yet those are not the aspirations of a Gonzaga, ST.Mary's, and any number of similar sized schools in similar sized conferences that make the NCAA each year, that play in the finals of their conference championship game almost every year.

SO we are not and why not? I can't answer that question. I really wish I could. :(

Or OSU or Butler or dozens of other examples. BG went to NCAA his first year as I recall and so did JOB. Maybe we can see if we can get one of them back if 1st year success is so important. Maybe if we on UDpride whine about it with more solidarity we can get this thing done before summer.
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