DAYTON (OH) -- For the last seven seasons, I haven't looked forward to the 'stretch run'. No matter how hot the Dayton Flyers start the season, they cool their jets by late January and slump into the A10 Tournament on a bum wheel. I'm not suggesting that successes weren't accomplished along the way, but am I nonetheless saddled with frustration that hanging fruit ripe for the plucking continues to slip through Dayton's fingertips.
The last half of the conference schedule has not been kind. The players change, the home court alternates, the scheduling order remains fluid from year to year, and the pods re-adjust every two seasons. None of that has mattered however in terms of wins and losses. Under
Brian Gregory's tenure, Dayton is 37-19 in the first half of the A10, and 26-30 in the last half. Just when UD wants to put its best foot forward and create league separation, the program hits the guardrail while other teams leapfrog. In the last seven seasons, UD has failed to finish above .500 over the final half of the A10 race. Historical finishes of 4-4, 4-4 3-5, 4-4, 4-4, 4-4, and 3-5 dating back to 2003-04 undermine the frustration of season ticket holders. Perhaps even worse however, the annual fades have turned off a lot of regional and national news agencies that fear Dayton Flyer stock operates only in a bear market. We've seen it in the national polls: Dayton rarely gets the benefit of the doubt and when they do there are no second chances to make up for a stumble.
I've looked for excuses to explain why Dayton can play basketball four games under .500 in the latter half of the same league and in the same seasons they can play 18 games over .500 to open up conference play. Maybe the best the teams have been scheduled later in the season? Maybe we play more conference road games later in the season? Injuries? Bad luck? Solar flares? I'm running out of ideas and hair on my scalp.
Were it just one or two seasons, perhaps fans could cast off the tail slide as coincidental and nothing more, but seven years is enough empirical data to draw basic conclusions. Here are a few of mine:
We are who we are. Sounds simplistic but that's exactly where I'm headed with this. Our conference record evens out over the course of the season as our talent and potential evens out based on a larger sample pool of results. Like flipping a coin, more flips yields more data to prove all sides land face-up 50% of the time. Throw out the highs and lows of the league season and our final record falls squarely in the middle.
Scouting and predictability. As the conference season beats on, league foes dial in on our strengths and weaknesses by watching tape. Those teams provided with the luxury of playing us later in the season can match our play against common foes already faced inside the league. League members connect the dots and game-plan a way to impede our style of play. Dayton emphasizes defending and rebounding -- which is always a good thing. But does it come at the expense of other facets of our game? Too often, Dayton's offensive and defensive sets look one-dimensional and are run from the bench rather than adjusted dynamically based on how opponent's choose to react. Dayton doesn't counter-punch. Instead of mixing things up by showing teams things they weren't prepare for, UD chooses to win the battle of wills by standing firm on principles. As well-intentioned as they are, principles can and do break down, and when they do, other principles or points of emphasis must be found to attack a weak spot on the other team. Not every Plan A or B is going to work. Opponents give out scholarships too.
Contrition by Attrition. Gregory's practices are legendary for being caged death matches. This is one of the personality traits that endears me to our coach the most. The fella doesn't like sissies and neither do I. Fans suffered through far too many calamity-level seasons in the early 90s because the Flyers were as soft as Charmin. But are those wars on the practice floor costing us at year-end because our tanks have runneth dry? We have some of the best-conditioned athletes in all of college hoops. If we're running out of gas, it's not because we're out of shape. Instead, we're hitting the proverbial wall. Every athlete has one. Watch the last two miles of the Ironman and see what the wall looks like in its most unapologetic glory.
Talent. Are the Flyers overachieving in the non-conference and early A10 schedule, only to crash land back to their true selves by January 25th? Are the Flyers hitting accurate performance marks then under-performing over the last eight games of the regular season? Either way, talent or lack of talent is either holding UD back or making lemonade out of lemons.
I'm not smart enough to coach Snagglepuss or Grape Ape in the Laugh Olympics, nevermind college hoops. My chair sits eight rows up and from there I only know what I see. Every year however we need the paramedic Drain-O. The arteries clog up, we lose a pulse, and are fighting for every last breath. That's not to say we failed to live a good life, but we're much too young and able-bodied to reach septic shock every year. Our meds need adjusted, our exercise routine stands a good looking at, and we're not getting enough sleep. Overall, we're healthy but living with bad habits; they are slowing us down from becoming the person we ought to be.
Much of the same can be said for Flyer basketball. There's so much to like. But if it doesn't receive a late-season coronary soon, the
Flyer Faithful will be the ones keeling over from aortic stress.