DaytonDailyNews.com

Here's how Brian Gregory sees his unbeaten Dayton Flyers basketball team:

"We're not a flashy, bright lights type team," the coach said after the Flyers pushed aside Troy 87-70 on Tuesday night, Dec. 2, at UD Arena. "We're a blue-collar team."

I beg to differ.

There's a little bit of a "Dancing With The Stars" quality to this 7-0 bunch. Think not? Then consider:

Charles Little — who led UD with 17 points and 10 rebounds — is in a ballet class this semester.

Chris Wright — who leads the team with 13-point and 8-rebound averages this season — is studying tap dance this term.

As Warren Sapp, Emmitt Smith, Helio Castroneves and other pro sports stars have shone lately in the popular reality TV series, athletes make for pretty good dancers.

Football legends Lynn Swann and Herschel Walker used to take ballet in their NFL heydays to improve their flexibility and balance.

"Michael Jordan took ballet, too," Wright said as he sat in front of his dressing stall in the Flyers' postgame quarters. "People take ballet and tap as being feminine, but they don't know. Once you get into it, you understand it's a form of art. My teacher is 65 years old, and he can do a handstand for two minutes without getting dizzy.

"Tap is really difficult to do, but it pays off. After my ankle injury last year, it really helps with my flexibility and footwork."

Little — the 6-foot-6, 247-pound senior who is having his best season as a Flyer — shrugged and said ballet may have a little something to do with the good start.

While he admitted he doesn't know a grand jeté from a fouetté en tournant — "It's all in French," he pleaded — he's already seeing some benefits from just learning the basics:

"It is helping with my flexibility. I think I already had good body control, but I do think it helps me get out of the way of a charging foul."

The 6-foot-8 Wright is a little more confident with his dancing capabilities:

"On a scale of 1 to 10, I'd say I'm a 6. Hey, if Warren Sapp can dance, I can dance."

Some others appear to see a dancer in him as well.

"I remember walking in the tap-dancing store and saying, 'Can I get the biggest tap shoes you got?'

"They said, 'You got to be kidding.' They didn't know I was taking tap. I told 'em, 'I'm not joking.' And a little girl who was there — she was 6 — she asked her momma, 'Is he a tap dancer, Mommy?'

"Her mom said, 'Yeah, he's a tap dancer.'

"I had to tell her, 'No, no, I actually play for the University of Dayton basketball team. I'm just doing this for my class and I really enjoy it — I think it helps me to be in a different environment, a different setting — but, truthfully, I'm more of a basketball player."

As for Little, he's warming — a bit slower — to ballet:

"It's still kind of weird being one of only two dudes in the class. But I heard some football players took it before. And I didn't really want to be in dance class with Chris anyway."

And he finally admitted there's one other reason he's not in tap:

"Chris wears a size-14 shoe, but I wear a 17. They don't make tap-dancing shoes in my size."