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FTS Tour of the Magazine Rack
FTS Tour of the Magazine Rack
Jim Meadows
Published by Swampy Meadows
11-01-2010
FTS Tour of the Magazine Rack

BEVERLY HILLS (MI) -- It’s that time of year again, when “FTS” loiters around the magazine rack at Borders to see what the College Basketball Yearbooks (CBYs) have to say about the 2010-2011 University of Dayton Flyers. Las Vegas is giving 10:1 odds that there will be fewer column inches devoted to UD this year vs. last, when everyone except one guy (yeah, I’m looking at you Jeff Goodman of FoxSports.com) had the Flyboys in their Top 25. Okay, so perhaps that whole “hunted” vs. “the hunter” thing didn’t work out so well during the A-14 campaign. That should not be an issue this time around, it appears.

Lindy’s

A-10 Prediction: TU/X/Rich/UD/SLU/UNCC/Duq/URI/GW/UMass/SJU/LaS/SBU/FU

A-10 in the NCAA: Temple, Richmond, UD and X

UD Prediction: NCAA at-large bid; 4th in A-10

Other Teams of Interest: #6 UNC and #9 Illinois -- hey, didn’t we beat both of those guys last year?

Other Stuff: The A-10 has moved up to the #7 ranked conference.

Chris Wright is ranked the #9 PF: “Good for a highlight dunk or two every night.”

CW is 1st team All A-10; Juwan Staten is “Newcomer of the Year”; Chris Johnson is noticeably absent.

Good News: “The 2010 NIT Champs welcome back an NBA prospect in Chris Wright.”

Bad News: “Four key guards were lost to graduation, meaning the Flyers will be putting the ball in the hands of some young guys.” Junior PG Josh Parker says hello!

Our Call: “After not living up to expectations last season, the Flyers surprise in 2011”

Newcomer Who Will Have the Most Impact: “Dayton landed one of the nation’s best point guards in Juwan Staten. Staten is an absolute blur with the ball and has the talent to be an All-League player. Look for Brian Gregory to give the ball to his talented freshman right away and Staten should be more than capable of making his coach look very good.” Hence his nickname: “the Blur.”

Newcomer Likely to See an NBA Uniform First: “Of all the recruits in the league, only Staten projects as a potential early entry candidate. He is the type of athletic and strong PG that the NBA teams love and on top of his physical gifts, he has the mental desire to get better. Once his jump shot becomes consistent he could have a strong pro future.”
Biggest Miss: “Dayton was hoping to pair Staten with local star and AAU teammate Adreian Payne. However, it didn’t work out for the Flyers or Xavier, which also recruited Payne very hard, as the ultra-talented PF took his game to MSU to play for Tom Izzo.”

Flyer Atlantic 10 Honors: Newcomer: Juwan Staten; Most Entertaining: Chris Wright

Top 100 Recruits: Juwan Staten is #49

Top 100 Seniors: Percy Gibson and “Buckets” say hello.

Newsflash: Lindy’s has Jim Jabir’s Flyer squad ranked #22 in their pre-season Women’s Top 25. “No flash in the pan” is the comment.

Swampy Sez: Did you realize that Lindy’s CBY was named after an actual guy -- publisher Lindy Davis. Who knew? Something tells me that “Swampy’s” would not do very well on the newsstand.

Athlon

A-10 Prediction: TU/Rich/X/UD/SLU/URI/Duq/LaS/UNCC/GW/UMass/SJU/SBU/FU

A-10 in the NCAA: Temple to the “Sweet 16”; Richmond and X “2 and out” and UD in the “First Four.”

UD Prediction: “First Four” at home vs. UCLA!

Other Stuff: “8 Coaches on the Hot Seat” list includes Mick Cronin at UC and Karl Hobbs at GW. Conversely, OP at DePaul and Clemson’s Brad Brownell are both listed under “Best New Hires.”

25 Impact Transfers: Josh Parker from Drake to UD. “Sweet shooting guard averaged 10.7 PPG while hitting 43.2% for 3 as a sophomore at drake in 2008-09. Parker can handle the ball but will likely start at SG with highly-regarded freshman Juwan Staten expected to take over at the point.” Paul Williams says hello!

Quote/Unquote: “In 2008-2009, UD was 6-1 in A-10 games decided by 5 or fewer points. Last season? The Flyers were 0-9 in those games.” Ouch, don’t remind us!

Thus Sayeth BG: “One thing last year’s team had was that they were not afraid to play anybody. That was also a weakness because they thought they could beat everybody. (No team can do that) in January and February and that’s where our consistency needs to improve.”

BG on CW: “I saw a light come on in the NIT run. We need that to continue. He also needs to become a better rebounder.”

BG on KH: “For four years we had the luxury of knowing that if an opponent had a 16/10 post guy, he was going to get 10/4 because Kurt Huelsman was going to hold him down. We called it “The Huelsman Factor.” That’s going to be a challenge this year.”

Recruits: Top 100 Class of 2010: #70 Juwan Staten (???)

Next 200 Overall: Jesse Berry, Dayton (?); Ralph Hill, Brandon Spearman

Class of 2011: Percy Gibson and “Buckets” dissed once again.

Swampy Sez: While Athlon predicted that UD and UCLA would meet in the “First Four” before the NCAA announced that UD would host those games, Flyers vs. Bruins would be a mega-fun tilt, no? Jesse Berry’s press agent musta neglected to inform Athlon that he was headed to Ball State instead of UD. Probably too busy promoting “The Jesse Berry Song” in Muncie.

The Sporting News

A-10 Prediction: TU/X/UD/Rich/SLU/URI/UNCC/DU/GW/SJU/LaS/UMass/FU/SBU

A-10 in the NCAA: Temple, X, UD and Richmond are all in the Big Dance

UD Prediction: #9 seed

Other Teams of Interest: Purdue #3, pre-Robbie Hummel ACL; #10 UNC; #15 Illinois (once again, did we not beat these bozos last year?)

Other Stuff: “Transfers Eligible This Season” lists Josh Parker; “Transfers Eligible Next Year” does not include the former Illinois Mr. Basketball, Kevin Dillard.

Atlantic 10 Honors: CW is 1st Team All Atlantic 10 and is listed as the “Best Athlete.” BG is acknowledged as the “Best Recruiter.”

Top A-10 Freshman: Jay Canty at X, but then TSN goes on to say that “Juwan Staten will win A-10 POY before his time at Dayton is done.” Huh?

Roy Williams on UD: “Their pace of play is impressive; substitutions are impressive. I substitute a lot, but they substitute a heck of a lot more than we do.”

TSN on CW: “A dunkmaster in transition who put his name into the pot for the NBA draft, then withdrew, citing unfinished business.”

CW on CW: 3 goals: “Graduate, raise the national profile of the program and put myself into the position to play at the highest level. I’m excited about achieving all three of these goals.”

Recruiting: “Losing Jesse Berry will hurt, but Juwan Staten could be the best newcomer in the league and Brandon Spearman adds great toughness on the wing.”

Top 150 Seniors: Once again, no love for Percy Gibson or “Buckets” altho PG’s Detroit Southeastern HS squad is picked to be the #24 team in the country.

Swampy Sez: Of the three College Basketball Yearbooks, TSN gave UD the most love last year. This time around, not so much. The back page of TSN’s CBY is a full page, four-color ad for the lowly Northeastern Conference. Yo, Bernadette!

Elsewhere

-- UD is among the “teams getting votes” in the pre-season USA Today Coaches Poll:

http://www.usatoday.com/sports/colle...l/usatpoll.htm

-- While Hoops Report has UD at #48:

http://thehoopsreport.com/article.aspx?id=544

-- The A-10 coaches predict UD to be #4 in the conference:

http://www.atlantic10.com/sports/m-b...102110aaa.html

http://www.daytondailynews.com/dayto...10-983157.html

-- RushtheCourt.com says the same thing:

http://rushthecourt.net/2010/10/30/r...7-atlantic-10/

All of this was before Brad Redford went down and Justin Martin sat down at that school down south. To my feeble mind, that warrants dropping X to 4th and bumping UD up to 3rd.

-- Rivals.com has the A-10 as the #6 conference and UD as the #3 team in it, once again that was probably written pre-Opie and Martin going down and out, respectively:

http://collegebasketball.rivals.com/...sp?CID=1144553

-- The Pre-season AP poll has UD at #47:

http://sportsillustrated.cnn.com/201...html?eref=sihp

-- Blue Ribbon has launched a new website; still holding my breath for some free content on UD from their excellent yearbook, however:

http://blueribboninsider.com/

-- Finally, no review of the published predictions for the 2010-11 Flyers would be complete without this excellent profile of Chris Wright, courtesy of the first hoops recruiting site that I boot up every morning, RushtheCourt.com:

Chris Wright – Senior, F – Dayton. Usually when you hear how a college basketball player primarily described as a “great athlete,” it’s a reflex to immediately think, “So what’s wrong with his basketball skills?” We all know that player. Incredibly quick, ridiculous vertical, creative dunker. And then there’s the downside — bad temper, no handle, can’t shoot outside of two feet, has hooves for hands. Then, there are players like Dayton’s Chris Wright. His athletic gifts were obvious since high school, but there was no glaring immaturity, no bad hands, no baggage. Just potential. This is not to say that his basketball skills are now fully formed; the shooting mechanics need some fine-tuning, the ability to put the ball on the floor and score needs some improvement, and so on. But Chris Wright would probably be the first person to tell you these things, and he’ll probably be the first guy in the gym each day working on them. That’s who he is. Everyone from his college coaches to NBA advisors and general managers loves to talk about how grounded and mature he is and all were impressed with how he handled the process of flirting with the NBA over the summer. Despite his selection to the Atlantic 10′s first team last year and the fact that he led his Flyers in scoring (13.7 PPG), rebounding (7.3 RPG), and blocks (1.4 BPG), all while playing just 28.4 MPG (oddly, also a team high), he listened to the authority figures who told him that a return to Dayton for his final season would help his NBA readiness and he subsequently returned to school. And what’s he told everyone about coming back as a Flyer for the fourth year? “I can’t wait for next year.” Between the NBA Draft withdrawal and the Dayton autumn, Wright made a stopover with a little group of guys called the NBA Select Team that got to practice with the NBA players preparing for the FIBA Championships. In other words, he was the best player on his college squad last year, was first team all-conference, got to spend the summer working out with NBA advisors and receiving honest recommendations about his game, got to improve those skills against a group of world champion group of NBA stars, and he’s got a great attitude about his upcoming final year of college? Flyer fans – and certainly Dayton head coach Brian Gregory — have every reason to therefore be excited, too. Oh, and it’s not like that pure athleticism of his has just been fading away. Everyone knows about his powerful, highlight reel, high-flying dunks (his 68 of them last year was a school record), and even though we’re ready to see how those aforementioned basketball skills have improved, we’re also looking forward to some serious slams again this year. He might be the best in the college game at it.

Amen, brother, amen.

Let the season begin!

That’s it “From the Swamp.”
You can email me at: swampy@udpride.com
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  #1  
By UACFlyer on 11-01-2010, 07:08 PM
First Four...

If UD were to be in the First Four,...playing on its home court,....in my opinion 2011 will be the last time UD (or any other school) ever hosts the First Four. If it would be against UCLA can you imagine the uproar by Bruin fans?

As for Staten in the NBA.....there have many really good point guards his size who did not make it in the NBA for one reason...too small. There aren't many NBA teams (compared to Div 1 schools)....and there are many very good point guards that come out every year. The NBA surely prefers those that are 6` 4", or so. That doesn't mean a six footer doesn't have a chance....but being on the small side surely isn't a plus. Let's hope he is so good that his size doesn't matter one bit.
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