It is hard to believe that it was less than four years ago that Oliver Purnell had five scholarships to fill at this time of the year. UD had just made it into the NCAA Tournament for the first time in a decade but there were plenty of holes to fill. UD still awaited the final penalty from the NCAA concerning the loan to Chuck Hall and it continued to hang over their heads like the blade of a guillotine. Who knows what Purnell would be able to add to the mix? Within the next month, players started dropping from the rafters. Purnell not only filled the five scholarships, but added another one just for fun. He had six signees.

Do the names Jason Osborne, Lamar Hill, Stan King and Nucleus Smith ring a bell? Hill was a JC transfer that went back home before he saw the floor. King got himself in some unconfirmed trouble although there was a good chance that smoke was involved and he was gone after only one appearance. Smith thought that Purnell lied to him and never even showed up. Osborne sat around for a year trying to get healthy and shed some baby fat and was gone before he would score his first basket. You just have to wonder what would have happened to the program had these four stuck around.

There were two others that also signed during that flurry of commitments: Ramod Marshall and Sean Finn. Finn was a tall skinny kid that just wanted to play. Purnell probably wouldn’t have landed him if he had not agreed to forget about the redshirt year Finn so badly needed. Marshall was a kid who finished high school and then proceeded to spend two more years in prep schools. Of the six, who would have thought that these two would be the keepers?

Purnell had a habit of signing kids that just weren’t good enough to play at the level necessary for Dayton to compete. Because of the sins of his predecessor, Purnell took what he could get and hoped that his coaching could get the job done. After struggling through his first few years, this belief came to fruition. The Flyers began to win and win with regularity. Twenty win seasons became commonplace. So common that the ACC came calling. With that, the Flyers were once again looking for a new coach.

After a very brief, yet thorough search, Ted Kissell found his man. Brian Gregory came to UD with an impressive resume’ and the pedigree that promised to lead UD into the future. True to his roots, Gregory has done just that. The Flyers are on their way to Buffalo and a second consecutive trip to the big dance. Gregory has the potential of being a great coach, and he could have coached until he was blue in the face, but if he didn’t have Marshall, Finn, and a throw-in redshirt walk-on from five years ago, he would have been looking up at the Xaviers and Richmonds instead of the other way around.

Ramod Marshall, Sean Finn, and Keith Waleskowski do not know what it is like to not participate in a post season tournament. They don’t have a clue what it is like to lose 26 games in one year. They don’t even know what it is like to not win 20 games. This group of seniors, along with fellow senior Frank Iguodala, have led UD to 24 wins this year and over 90 in their short stay at the university. They will not easily be forgotten.

Marshall and Waleskowski will total 1,500 points each and Finn will accumulate around 1,000. Waleskowski will be one of only seven players in the history of the university to have over 1,000 points and 1,000 rebounds. Marshall has won nearly 80% of his games as a starting point guard. Finn will hold the records for most blocks in a career and career shooting percentage. If Purnell is the artist that sculpted the rebirth of the Dayton Flyers, Finn, Marshall and Waleskowski are his clay. Without them, Dayton would be Duquesne.

These players came here to prove that they were good enough and they have. They have helped restore the soul to a program long in tradition. They will forever be remembered as a group that worried more about the W and the L than their own stats. This is the type of player that Tom Blackburn would have recruited. These players would have played hard for Don Donoher and bought into his every instruction.

In a way, this is the end of an era at the University of Dayton. There is a new leader, in Brian Gregory, with a new vision. Beginning in 2004-2005, the fans will see for the first time, the type of player that Gregory feels will be needed to take Dayton even higher in the pecking order of major colleges.

Gregory came in with a great deal of energy and a vision of the future, borrowing from his past. He loves interchangeable parts, players that can move. Players that can defend. Players with hops. Flyer fans will hope to see the same type of success that Tom Izzo has enjoyed with this philosophy at Michigan State. This could very well be the dawn of a new age in Flyer basketball. This is a change that truly was needed.

The question is, would any of the three players so entrenched in the new history of Dayton basketball have been included in this vision? Waleskowski has trouble jumping over the chalk line that a little girl would draw for hopscotch. Marshall bounced around like a superball. Finn was tall and lanky and certainly would never be confused for an interchangeable part. This group didn’t get anyone’s attention when it came to putting together the top 100 recruits. Yet, they helped take the program to where it is today. Let us all hope that the new wiz kids that will be leading us into the future can give us what these three have.