Now It Gets Really Interesting

BEVERLY HILLS (MI) – Heading into the homie vs. VCU Friday night in prime time on ESPN2, the UD Flyers find themselves 4-0 and sitting atop the A-15 standings. Owners of a seven-game win skein and a streak of like-numbered contests where they have held opponents to under 60 points, the Sons of Anthony Grant are finally looking like the squad that was a consensus Top 25 preseason pick.

The Red and Chapel Blue have managed to dig themselves out of the NET Rankings abyss they found themselves in after the Blacksburg beatdown. They fell to #187 after that Va Tech tilt and have climbed all the way back to #55 after dispatching Fordham:

https://www.ncaa.com/rankings/basket...l-net-rankings

Here is where the schedule starts to get interesting – @ home vs VCU and Davidson; on the road @ GW and Archie Miller U; back home vs. Richmond and Loyola; then @ SBU and VCU. Every game from here on in will be featured on a big boy national network – no more of that ESPN+ stuff!

As always, the secret is: One game at a time.

Elsewhere in Flyerland:

– This is how you start a ballgame on the road:

https://www.daytondailynews.com/spor...-d5a19167f4f5/

– Toumani made #1 on Sports Center’s Top 10 with this posterization:

https://twitter.com/parlaypyle/statu...54615884386304

– Hall of Famer Hal McCoy with his game summary:

https://pressprosmagazine.com/2023/0...olmes-barrage/

– Ken Pom now lists Deuce as #10 in his POY rankings:



– This dunk by DaRon vs. Fordham was very reminiscent of the backdown throwdown by Obi in his last appearance at UD Arena:

https://twitter.com/DaytonMBB/status...86687952506882

– Speaking of Obi, it’s fun to watch his reactions to the second half Flyer dunkfest:

https://twitter.com/JJustinB/status/1613014560486694912

And yet another reminder of why Obi is #1:

https://twitter.com/DavidPJablonski/...29463964409856

Jablo also tweeted that Toppin spoke to the team after the game; that Mustapha Amzil played in front of his dad and brother for the first time in his college career and that AG told him Malachi Smith and Kobe Elvis have returned to practice doing non-contact drills.

Good news all around!

That’s it “From the Swamp.”
You can email me at: swampy@udpride.com

	Richmond UNIVERSITY OF RICHMOND Founded in 1830, the private liberal arts university in the Commonwealth boasts 2,800 students in 57 majors within its picturesque 350-acre campus. The Robins School of Business is one of the Top-20 business schools in the country. Nickname is the Spiders and are fellow A10 Conference members.

	St Bonaventure SAINT BONAVENTURE Founded in 1858, St. Bonaventure University is a liberal arts college located on 500 acres in southwestern New York state. SBU offers 43 undergraduate majors, the most popular of which are elementary education, journalism, psychology, accounting, marketing, finance, and management. Total undergraduate enrollment is 2,000. Virtually all freshmen and most undergraduates live on campus. A founding member of the A10 Conference. Famous athletes include Bob Lanier. Historical nickname was the Brown Indians, but later changed to the Bonnies. Their mascot is a wolf.

	Fordham FORDHAM Fordham University is an independent Jesuit university established in 1841 as St. John's College on old Rose Hill Manor in the village of Fordham, then part of Westchester County in the Bronx, NY. The name Fordham is derived from the Anglo-Saxon words "ford" and "ham," meaning a wading place or ford by a settlement. Rose Hill is the name given to the site in 1787 by Robert Watts, a wealthy New York merchant, in honor of his family's ancestral home of the same name in Scotland. The College was originally staffed by diocesan clergy. The name was officially changed to Fordham University in 1907. Fordham's 10 schools enroll 14,448 students. There are 7,652 undergraduates, of whom 3,842 live in University-managed housing either on-campus or in the local community. Fellow members of the A10 Conference. Nickname is the Rams. Athletic claim to fame is consistent mediocrity in nearly all sports and few A10 title winning programs.