After flaming out in the A10 Tournament and missing an opportunity to compete in March Madness, the Dayton Flyers accepted an NIT bid as consolation prize on Sunday night. With the First Four occupying UD Arena this week, the #1 seed Flyers hit the road to play Florida Atlantic and rode the coattails of Javon Bennett's career-high 30pts to win 86-79 and earn another postseason basketball game. UD improves to 23-10. FAU ends their season at 18-16. The Owls finished 10-8 in the AAC this year and a subsequent fifth-place finish. FAU made the magical run to the Final Four…
Outstanding performance by the little guy. Trying to remember another Flyer game by a Flyer like that before. The last 3 with the shot clock at 1 and a defender in his face was amazing.
Early dunk fest and late game fumbles were painful to watch. Was pleased to see the defense finally tighten up and the team play well enough to win. Outside of those two stretches, they played well. Not just Bennett.
Happy for Javon to have such a great game in front of family and friends. He's been our most aggressive player all year.
I’m in general agreement with most of your grades after most of our games, but I think that, tonight, there should be more than a 0.5 point gap between the grades for Posh and Mali.
Per the box score posted on the UD website, Posh had a +8 in 16 minutes of action and Mali had a -2 in 24 minutes of action. And, while +/- can often be misleading, tonight it passed the eye test, as every good play Mali made (like the feed to Isaac for a bucket) was offset by a boneheaded play (like dribbling the ball out of bounds in front of the Flyer bench). In contrast, the offense seemed to flow better tonight when Posh was on the floor.
Will that be the case every game? Probably not. Will we need Good Mali to show up in Chattanooga this weekend to win the game against the Mocs? Probably. But for tonight, it was good that Posh was available, and playing better than he has been playing.
Malachi sucks. Is he uncoachable or untouchable?? His poor decision making and lack of bench time tells me both are true.
FAU looked great in the first half with their shooting. We played well offensively too, but defense left something to be desired. I thought we improved defensively in the 2nd half, and Bennett had an amazing offensive performance to put us over the top. I was disappointed by ball security in the final 5 minutes and our ability to get the ball inbounds. I was especially disappointed in Smith. You can't dribble the ball out of bounds or off your knee in end-of-game pressure situations. I loved Keys aggressive attitude all night. We have tended to be bullied in the middle in the past. He is a bit undersized but knows how to use every bit of what he has to combat physical play.
I heard some of my buddies talking about how they were disappointed in Key-L'Etang, but I felt they did a good job. That was one of the better front court duo's (On FAU) that we have played, IMO. They had size and skill.
I feel our greatest weakness this year has been our defense. A lot of that, IMO, is too many small guards all at once. We can tolerate having a small player out there, but not 3 at a time. Teams move the ball and shoot right over our close-outs without much disruption. It's nice to have quick hands and lots of steals, but it does not make up for the range that we need on defense.
So we play Chat at 11:30 Sat morning.
Their two bigs had 30 pts, and ours very little. Speaking of little, Bennett threw up 30 by himself. Quite the show that should quiet some of the small guard, and Bennett shoots too many threes talk. Rumor is Chris only gave him a 9.5 because Bennett said he could not drive the bus.
I put it on Grant for lack of defense on their two bigs. His playing one of our centers, when they had two was hopeless. Too may times we ended up with a switch and a seven footer dunking over one of our guards. I give Grant a 4 for coaching, as he never tried two of our bigs at the same time.
Hate on Flyer fans for "settling for mediocrity" all you want but if we beat Chattanooga and then hosted Mason in the 3rd Rd, I think a lot of fans would buy a ticket for that. I would. Mason's Robert Traylor 2.0 abused us in the season matchup.
I'll sit at home like I did the last time we hosted an NIT game and that's with free tickets. Not that it will make a difference, but it's a matter of principle.
Hard to get excited about NIT games when there is a real tournament to be played in. Every win in this thing gives the apologists more ammo for mediocrity moving forward.
I try to remember that above all UD basketball is fun. Would I have fun watching them play Mason at home? The answer is yes so I will be there. When the Flyers won the NIT in 2010 I loved it.
It can be. But I also determine whether I get a return on my investment as an entertainment product. Same decisions were made with the Bengals years ago.
The business end of UD needs to realize this. We are paying with money, time, and resources for entertainment. This isn't "we are here to support the education of young men" who happen to be entertaining basketball players anymore. If the receiving end is operating as a pro franchise (their fault or not), it will eventually be treated as such by the fans. I may be ahead of the curve compared to many with my feelings, but many won't be far behind. It's evidenced all over the place on social media and by fans.
UD hoops is at a crossroads, and the outcome of the NIT isn't going to do much of anything to push the needle into the green.
That's nice that Conner, Zack and Alexander gave something to the effort last nite. But we all know that those numbers and level of play most assuredly can vanish from one game to the next.
So will it be Jekyll or Hyde in Tenn? Donno a mystery yet to be resolved.
When I watch games like last night I can't help but feel for the end of the bench. They look at the scoreboard then the assistant close by who gives the thumbs up and they take off their crocks and lace up their sneakers, make sure they are actually wearing their uniform, maybe text their moms. Then like magic, poof, it becomes a close game... The starters owe the bench a soda. :-)
