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Arch: Loss of freshmen a blow, yes, but UD will be better off

By Tom Archdeacon, Staff Writer Updated 8:12 AM Wednesday, March 23, 2011

Some 30 minutes after the Dayton Flyers lost the Atlantic 10 tournament title game in Atlantic City last week, I stood with Brian Gregory on the edge of the Boardwalk Hall court talking about the season and various players. When we got to Juwan Staten, he admitted:

“I’m not going through another year like this one.”

It was obvious the bloom was off the rose when it came to his highly touted freshman point guard.

As the season wore on, it had become obvious Staten wasn’t happy here. You could see it in his body language on the court and especially when he was relegated to the bench. You could hear it in the hollowness of some of his answers afterward.

And you could certainly hear it from his ever-protective dad, Bill Staten, who wasn’t shy about voicing opinions on how he felt his son was being improperly used in Gregory’s system.

A by-product of all this was an erosion of team chemistry — a dysfunction that showed in the up-and-down play of this team — and finally the resolution by the coach that there would not be another year like the one just past.

And 10 days later that thought is now certain.

Staten announced Monday night he was leaving the Flyers program, and Tuesday his roommate and fellow freshman Brandon Spearman announced he was transferring as well.

Whether Staten walked out on UD or Gregory told him he was not welcome back is a matter of debate.

Staten and his dad met with Gregory on Monday, and it’s thought they demanded changes be made in the way Juwan was handled or he was leaving.

Gregory held firm, and by meeting’s end the two sides decided it was in everyone’s best interest to end the union.

It’s a monumental decision that, regardless of whose side you take, will, in some ways, be a blow to the program.

When one of the most-trumpeted and certainly longest-courted recruits in UD basketball history — a player who was figured to be a cornerstone of your program — leaves after just one season, there are going to be questions.

Could Gregory have been that off base on his recruitment of Staten?

Did the Statens badly misread the program they were joining?

Or was this like a lot of teen marriages that fail? There’s a big difference between starry-eyed flirtation and actually living together day after day after day.

Next year — even with the addition of transfer point guard Kevin Dillard — there could be some bumps on the court. Staten played the second most minutes of any Flyer, led the Atlantic 10 in assists and was third in UD scoring at 8.5 points per game.

There also may be some blowback when it comes to recruiting. Rivals can point to the Flyers’ highly touted freshman class. Of the four guys who came in, two left and a third, Ralph Hill, almost never played.

And yet I don’t think this will be as devastating a blow as when point guard Trent Meachem bailed out for Illinois six years ago. Considering the chemistry issue here, I think the Flyers will be better off next season.

Even Staten admitted there were real issues behind closed doors.

Thurgood Marshall coach Darnell Hoskins — himself a former Flyer guard — had Staten speak to his state tournament-bound basketball team Monday.

Staten led the Cougars to the state tournament his junior season, after which he left the school for Oak Hill Academy in Virginia.

“When he talked to our guys, he explained the significance of being a team,” Hoskins said. “Referring to the Flyers, he kept saying, ‘We didn’t love our team more than we hated the people we were playing against.’ ”

“He kept reiterating that statement,” Hoskins said, “and I thought it was pretty profound.

“What he meant was that basically, ‘We didn’t band together as a family. We didn’t go to war with that much togetherness so that despite what was going on with us, we could beat the opponent.’

“And I think you saw that this year. Last year there were guys who didn’t care about themselves as much as they did the team as a whole. This year’s team was more about me than us. It’s the wrong concept.”

While there have been Internet rumors that the chemistry got bad enough that there was a late-season fight in the dressing room, two players Tuesday — senior Chris Wright and freshman Devin Oliver, who, by the way, said, “I’m a Flyer forever” — claimed there was never an altercation.

Neither player would get into specifics about a lack of team chemistry — especially if it was triggered by Staten’s unhappiness.

Gregory — who was out of state recruiting Tuesday — also chose his words carefully when contacted by phone:

“I’m disappointed this didn’t work out, but I’m not going to get into a (debate) with Juwan and his father here. All I want now is for him to be happy and have a good career wherever he goes.

“Truthfully, I thought he was having a good freshman year and was ahead of schedule. He’s a competitive kid, though, and that’s part of it here.”

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