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Saturday, January 17, 2009
Road win puts Flyers back on track
“Let’s go, Ravens … Let’s go, Ravens!”
Dayton players and coaches were pulling away from Pittsburgh on a charter bus cheering for visiting Baltimore in the AFC Championship game, not to wish the Steelers any ill but to give radio broadcaster Bucky Bockhorn a hard time.
Bockhorn went to UD with Chuck Noll, the architect of that Steel Curtain dynasty of the 1970s, and is an ardent Steelers fan. The team actually was showing its affection for the Flyer legend with the ribbing, and he took it with a smile and a quick retort, telling the team to stuff it. (Or something to that effect.)
The Flyers were in an upbeat mood after a 78-69 road win over Duquense. Just when many message-board regulars were predicting their demise — despite a 15-2 record — the Flyers answered with their best performance since upsetting Marquette in November.
“I was not, at 15-2, going to be discouraged with our team,” UD coach Brian Gregory said. “And I’ve got to make sure our guys aren’t, either. We’ve never talked about the record. We’ve never talked about wins and losses. We talk about improvement and energy, and that’s what we did today.
“We played a really, really good team. And they have a senior (Aaron Jackson) who has taken control of that team. If they can stick with it, they’re going to be a force in the league as the season progresses. That ain’t the Duquesne people think of. Those times are gone.”
I was sitting on press row next to Mike Lopresti, a columnist for USA Today who was in town for the AFC Championship and decided to check out Duquesne because of its resurgence under coach Ron Everhart. After one of the Flyers’ seven slams, he asked if this was the “dunkingest” Dayton team ever.
Well, it soon will be. The Flyers have 61 dunks in 18 games and need just one more to break the school season record.
But UD was losing confidence and visibly pressing after starting A-10 play by losing on the road at UMass and then squeaking past Fordham, the league’s worst team, by one at home.
But a road win over Duquesne has the looks of a slump-buster.
“Sometimes you hear things and put pressure on yourselves,” Gregory said. “We never did that before. You can’t do that. … The only expectations we need to meet are ours.”
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Balanced Flyers roll to road victory
PITTSBURGH — Rob Lowery had 16 points to lead five players in double figures as Dayton rolled to a 78-69 win over Duquesne on Saturday.
The Flyers (16-2, 2-1 Atlantic 10) led by just one at halftime but scored the first seven points in the second half and pulled away down the stretch.
Chris Wright had 15 points, Marcus Johnson and Luke Fabrizius 11 each and Chris Johnson 10. The Dukes (12-5, 3-1) had their seven-game winning streak snapped.
