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UD's Coach Gregory spars, inspires

By Tom Archdeacon, Staff Writer Updated 10:56 PM Saturday, February 6, 2010

The Dayton Flyers had returned from the court to their temporary dressing quarters in UD Arena for their final pregame instructions.

In a few minutes, they would be knocking heads with Xavier, their longtime, often-bitter rival in front of an over-amped sellout crowd and a national TV audience.

As they waited for Brian Gregory, their ever-intense coach, to enter and impart some final thoughts, they heard music thumping.

“I thought, ‘What? We’re about to watch a highlight film right before the game?’ ” said Flyers forward Chris Wright, still a bit incredulous about what transpired. “I recognized the music from back in the day. It was LL Cool J’s ‘Mama Said Knock You Out.’ ”

And with that, in came a guy — wearing a long, hooded red-and-white fight robe and boxing gloves — who began firing off volleys of punches at each player as he bobbed to the music:

“Don’t call it a comeback

“I been here for years

“Rockin my peers and puttin suckas in fear

“Makin the tears rain down like a MON-soon

“Listen to the bass go BOOM

“Explosion, overpowerin

“Over the competition, I’m towerin.”

Some five minutes before the Saturday, Feb. 6, game with Xavier, Brian Gregory went fistic.

Stacy Schretzman, the team’s administrative assistant, had stayed up much of the night making the kind of robe you see fighters wear into the ring. Early Saturday came a pair of boxing gloves from Drake’s Gym downtown.

For much of the season the players have embraced the fight game gospel, but in the most pivotal game of the season — a game where the Flyers needed to re-establish themselves as an Atlantic 10 power — Gregory took a last-second gamble and mixed fists and fun in hopes his team would land a haymaker.

And sure enough UD rocked Xavier early and often before leaving its rival flat on the canvas with a 90-65 triumph, the sixth-largest margin of victory for the Flyers in 151 meetings with the Muskies.

“He really surprised me,” Wright grinned. “I mean, you usually see him in a suit buttoned head to toe. He’s not missing a button. There’s not a piece of lint on it. But he came in fired up ... and he’s got a couple of moves. Well, at least with his arms. If he had to move his feet, he might be off the beat. But it sure worked — we all went crazy.”

The Flyers shouldn’t have been that stunned. Last season before a game, Gregory donned a mask worn by Mexican pro wrestlers.

“I had (ticket manager) Gary McCans get me one of those masks from that wrestling movie — what was it, El Nacho?” Gregory said of the Jack Black flick, “Nacho Libre.”

“We had played George Mason the year before and they kicked the crap out of us on the boards. So I put the mask on and told the guys we had to turn it into a wrestling match.”

The Flyers controlled the glass and dumped the Patriots, 66-62. On Saturday, the Flyers looked nothing like the team that had lost eight of its last nine games to Xavier, including a four-point setback in Cincinnati three weeks ago.

“Coach is one of the most competitive, focused dudes I ever met,” said senior guard Mickey Perry. “To see him so relaxed like that loosened us up.”

Junior Devin Searcy agreed: “We feed off his energy and today it worked out just perfect.”

Not quite perfect, teased Wright.

“BG’s always talking trash about how LL Cool J is the greatest rapper of all time. Well, maybe back in the day he was good and influenced a lot of people. I don’t know about now.”

And yet that 90-65 scoreboard might just say otherwise.

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