DAYTON (OH) — In the words of NFL head coach Dennis Green, “We are who we thought they were!” In the words of Jim Mora, “Playoffs? Playoffs?”

After Thursday night’s loss to the Richmond Spiders vanished into the ether where all the other nail-biting losses reside, one can only hope there is an end and the end is near. My cardiologist is opening a tab, my hair is falling out, and my patience is running thin. But I suspect most Flyer fans are smarting form the same ailments with one regular season game left to play in the 2009-10 basketball season.

Like Green and Mora, I too saw the writing on the wall before the season opener against Creighton. I made the 12-hour drive to Minneapolis to see the Flyers play their best basketball game of the season in a first round NCAA win over West Virginia. But I also knew in spite of 25 victories we were NCAA-bound by the hair on our chinny chin chin. Without the win over Richmond in the A10 Quarterfinals, we probably don’t go. Without Rob Lowery going coast-to-coast for a layup with two seconds left against hapless Fordham, we probably don’t go. Without six George Washington players on the court in Foggy Bottom, we probably don’t go. Without Marcus Johnson’s rebound dunk with one second left against Lasalle, we probably don’t go. The Flyers were one play away on five or six occasions from playing in the NIT, yet good bounces, some timely plays, and even circumstances bordering on the bizarre kept us alive. We were Fat Albert dangling over hot coals by a strand of dental floss — but somehow lived to tell about it.

Fast forward to 2010 and the situation is headed in the opposite direction. By my count that’s seven straight losses by four points or less, four losses on the road after leading at halftime, and a 2-6 overall road record in the A10. Look closer at those two road wins against St. Bonaventure and Fordham. The Bonnies played without stud Andrew Nicholson, their best player and one of the best in the league. That’s like UD playing without Chris Wright. As for Fordham, Madison Square Garden served as host, making the gym as much of a home crowd as road games possibly get. Were the Flyers playing horseshoes or tossing hand grenades, Brian Gregory’s team might be unbeatable, but close doesn’t count and never has.

When comparing last year’s team to this year’s squad, I see much of the same thing. Minus Charles Little, nothing changed. Little’s career was like his vertical: up and down. With five seniors, this year’s team should have been able to overcome his departure and in many ways I think they have. But the Flyers still suffer from the same holes and trip-ups that put them near the brink of NCAA despair last season. The stars and planets aligned just right to let us briefly forget the bugaboos, but relying on astronomy is like relying on astrology: sooner or later you figure out the charade. At least opponents have, and Dayton has failed to counter.

I don’t believe this year’s team is markedly different in talent or potential, but last year’s team had divinity in the back pocket. It was a good team made very good by winning every close game by every imaginable and unimaginable way. After the loss at Richmond, we’ve demonstrated how to lose those same games in every imaginable and unimaginable fashion. We knew most players had glaring weaknesses in key areas, but hiding them has proven difficult this year. Every night the theme is all too familiar: poor shooting, turnovers, inconsistent free throw shooting, maniacal indifference to time and score, or a combination of all four have put a cork in Dayton’s preseason national ranking and first place conference prediction. More aggravating has been the hot and cold play of the five seniors. When the Flyers have needed them most, most of the time they have not answered. How and why is another subject for another article perhaps.

As the St. Louis game nears and so too the end of the A10 regular season, I digest the overall league race in terms of meeting, exceeding, or failing to reach expectations. Richmond and Temple have mildly surprised, while LaSalle and St. Joseph’s have wet the bed. Historically, the Flyers have proven to be underachievers in the eyes of the conference. That’s not me talking, that’s the league’s preseason expectations matching wits against UD’s regular season finish.

Under Brian Gregory’s tenure, the Flyers have finished higher than their preseason conference prediction just once — in their first year with a collection of Oliver Purnell’s players. The 2003-04 squad was pegged to finished second in the A10 West and ended up winning the division. Since his first season however, the subsequent six seasons have met preseason league expectations twice and failed to reach them four times.

In 2004-05 UD was picked 3rd in the A10 West and finished 3rd, in 2005-06 (the return of a single division), Dayton was picked 5th and finished 12th, in 2006-07 picked 6th and finished 8th, in 2007-08 picked 6th and finished 8th, in 2008-09 picked 3rd and finished 3rd, and this year picked 1st and on the cusp of finishing as low as 7th. It would be one thing if Dayton were picked first every year — there’s only one way to go and that’s down. But Dayton has been picked in the middle of the pack as often as the upper third but the vast room to demonstrate upward mobility in any one season remained impossible to come by. This is not to say those teams were poor or did not win some big games, but league coaches and media personnel have never sold Dayton short. That tells me Flyer basketball is a book that’s far too easy to read. When the opposition knows what we have as much as Flyer fans do, that makes Dayton basketball an easy study. Or, Dayton is simply overrated by virtue of 10,000 season ticket holders turning UD Arena into one of America’s toughest home courts. But UD Arena can’t hide all the warts of playing on the road. NCAA teams don’t go 2-6 on the road in this league no matter the opponents and no matter the pod strength.

I’m not smart enough to point to the problem as a coaching or personnel issue, nevermind suggest a specific fix. All I know is rarely do Flyers fans end the season saying “you know, I didn’t expect Dayton to be quite this good, but I’ve been pleasantly surprised.”

I like Brian Gregory. I like him as my coach. I like him representing my school and my basketball program. He’s won more NCAA games than Oliver Purnell has ever won at Radford, ODU, Dayton, and Clemson and for that I’ve got his back side. The wait since 1990 is no more because of BG. I like how hard his teams play. I like his willingness to educate himself on Flyer history and embrace the tradition. I like his charitable work and his family. I think he’s a good fit and the right guy for the job. But he has work to do. There’s a hump on the horizon and it involves getting better as the season progress, not hitting a late January wall and going .500 over the last six weeks. That’s where this program is. He knows it, we know it, and he knows that we know it.

Many coaches and analysts say its a “guard’s game”. I think there’s some truth to that. Name any Sweet-16 program and they all have the same thing in common: guards with dynamic ability to take over. Some think Juwan Staten is that kind of guard. Some suggest Josh Parker. That talk is about next season however — a season that will offer its own share of personnel challenges. Until then, fans can only root for what’s on the floor right now. As painful as it’s been, the body of work should not come as a surprise to the well-studied fan. As Dennis Green and Jim Mora suggested, sometimes reality is a dish best served alone, in a padded room, with a lot of alcohol. There we can all commiserate together, and toss the horseshoes or grenades at each other rather than at a 22-year old kid forced to take the abuse under a gag order.