Cold weather arrives
2008 World AIDS Day
Canine Christmas
Get latest headlines via RSS feeds
NewsVine
Del.icio.us
Digg
Facebook
Furl
Reddit
StumbleuponThe audible commentary
Promising hoops season ready to unfold locally
Saturday, October 11, 2008
Looks as though this might be a banner year for Division I basketball in the Miami Valley.
The University of Dayton, Wright State and, as always, maybe Miami University could make it to the NCAA tournament.
I say this because I'm impressed with UD's freshman class, Wright State coach Brad Brownell is so good that he doesn't need a load of talent to win the Horizon League tournament and Miami coach Charlie Coles is always a threat in the Mid-American Conference tourney.
Back to UD. The Flyers seem to have too much talent for their hopes to be dashed by an injury to one player, as happened last season.
Coach Brian Gregory has four interesting freshmen. Chris Johnson, a 6-foot-5 swingman, averaged 26.2 points for Columbus Brookhaven, shooting 63 percent from the floor. He was named first-team All-Ohio.
Paul Williams, a 6-4 shooter from Detroit, was among the four finalists for Mr. Basketball in Michigan. Luke Fabrizius is a 6-9 catch-and-shoot forward and Dunbar's 6-9 Josh Benson is an ESPN top-150 player. As a senior, he was named Division II first team All-Ohio.
And, of course, there is Chris Wright, a super sophomore from Trotwood-Madison.
At Wright State, Brownell has juniors Vaughn Duggins (6-3) and Todd Brown (6-5), two-time junior college All-American Cory Cooperwood (6-7) and transfer Scott Grote, a 6-6 sophomore from Centerville who had 15 double-figure games at Duquesne. They're all agile and could be ready for the big dance.
Contact this reporter at (937) 225-2160
or gsimms@DaytonDailyNews.com.
