Christmas arrives in nine days. All the things fans of the Dayton Flyers want the most aren’t available at Target or on Amazon.com.
• A NCAA tournament berth in 2023 for their favorite team.
• Health for the injured players.
• A quick escape from the UD Arena parking lot after games.
While most of my gift expertise centers around the wants and needs of a toy-obsessed 4-year-old, I looked beyond the Thomas and Friends Trains & Cranes Super Tower and the Hot Wheels City Mega Garage Playset to find some ideas for Dayton basketball fans.
For the wannabe booster: Paying players, something that would have put the program on probation just two years ago, is now a big part of college athletics. While fans can’t just walk up and hand the players a bag of cash, they can contribute to the financial wellbeing of the players through a new collective called the Dayton 6th. Visit Dayton6th.com.
“Your purchase of a ‘ticket’ through Dayton 6th is NOT an actual ticket to an event — live or otherwise,” the Dayton Sixth website reads. “The word ‘ticket’ is used by Dayton 6th to tie your financial contribution to the longstanding history of the Flyer Faithful and their support of the men’s basketball program through ticket sales. This decades-long tradition extends back to the days where the Flyer Faithful packed the on-campus Fieldhouse to watch the nationally-ranked Flyers of the 1950s and 1960s. More recently, fans have supported women’s basketball through the best attendance in the Atlantic 10 conference. Your ticket provides Dayton 6th the opportunity to compensate men’s and women’s players for a variety of community engagements throughout the 2022-2023 basketball season.”
For the fan of coffee-table books: The Dayton Daily News book, “29-2: The story of the 2019-20 Dayton Flyers,” is available on Blurb.com.
For the fan of autobiographies: Harold Schoen, who played for Dayton from 1960-63, wrote a book in 2017 titled, “Growing Up: Farm Life & Basketball in the 1940s & ‘50s.” It’s available for $9.99 on Amazon.com.
For the Mike Sharavjamts fan: Mongolian flags, which have been spotted in the Red Scare student section and at UD road games all season, are available for as cheap as $7.95 on Amazon.
For the Malachi Smith fan: Smith’s “Humble Beast” T-shirts cost $22.99 and are available on a number of apparel websites, including T-ShirtAt.com.
For the Scoochie Smith fan: Malachi’s brother, the former Dayton point guard Smith has had his own website selling T-shirts, hoodies and sweatsuits for years: Shopss11.com. A complete sweatsuit costs $109.99.
For the fans of Bronx Flyers: Koby Brea and Smith have profiles on Cameo.com. Fans can get a personal video from Brea for $70 or one from Smith for $100.
For the T-shirt collector: BreakingT.com has a number of Dayton-related shirts. A “Deuce” shirt paying tribute to DaRon Holmes II costs $28. There’s a “Blakney Called Game” shirt honoring R.J. Blakney’s game-winning dunk against Richmond last season. Even former UD walk-on Drew Swerlein has a shirt: “Drew for Two.”
For the most optimistic fan: The chance to see Dayton — maybe — win its first Atlantic 10 Conference tournament championship in 20 years comes in March. A complete book of tickets for the A-10 tournament at the Barclays Center in Brooklyn, N.Y., costs $285 and is available for purchase on SeatGeek.com.
For the well-read fan: A digital-only Dayton Daily News subscription costs only $9.99 a month. We publish a special digital-only page after every game.
What advanced stats say about the Flyers
Speaking of my 4-year-old, I gave Chase the day off from preschool on Thursday so we could visit EnterTrainment Junction in West Chester. It’s got the biggest Thomas & Friends toy collection in the world and what it bills as the world’s largest indoor model railroad display.
We then drove north to Dayton for basketball interviews at the Cronin Center. This experience didn’t live up to the fun Chase had earlier in the day, but UD graduate assistant Tyler Carter gave Chase a box of Nerds candy, which he then proceeded to scatter throughout the lobby as myself and the other local reporters talked to Zimi Nwokeji, Mustapha Amzil and Anthony Grant. I think I picked up all the tiny bits of candy, but if Dayton loses out on a recruit, who is disgusted by a dirty floor at the Cronin Center, everyone can blame Chase.
With Chase watching his iPad in the back of the car, I finished off a story in the front seat after the interviews. The piece focused on what Morocco’s World Cup semifinal run meant to Amzil, whose dad is from the country, and also what the advanced stats say about Dayton through 11 games. Someone from the website, CBBAnalytics.com, gave me a free trial. It’s a site that will drown you in numbers. I tried to pull out some interesting stats for the story that ran in the paper Friday.
Here are two big areas where Dayton needs to improve:
• Dayton commits turnovers on 18.9% of its possessions, ranking in the 10th percentile.
• Dayton ranks in the fourth percentile with 28% shooting from 3-point range. It has been better in the last five games when it ranks in the 29th percentile with 32.1% shooting. Dayton is tied for last place in the Atlantic 10 Conference in 3-point shooting percentage with Rhode Island, which is also shooting 28%.
Flyers seek first victory at United Center
I’m flying to Chicago on Saturday morning for a game that evening between Dayton and Wyoming at the United Center. I love the Windy City. It was my late grandma Eileen’s hometown, and her dad, Edward Smith, was a Chicago policeman who was shot and killed in the line of duty by a 15-year-old boy on Memorial Day in 1931. He was later acquitted because “he was hopelessly influenced by movies and books about gangsters,” according to the Officer Down Memorial Page. Grandma always told me when I was a kid she didn’t want me to be a journalist or a police officer when I grew up because her mom found out about the death from a Chicago Tribune reporter who showed up on their doorstep.
I believe Grandma softened on that stance as I made my way in this career. She’d be happy to know my work has taken me to Chicago many times since she died in 2003.
This will be my third visit for Dayton basketball. The first two trips have not gone well for the Flyers. They lost to Northwestern in 2016 in what was a homecoming game for seniors Kyle Davis and Kendall Pollard. They might have climbed to No. 1 in the polls in 2020 if not for an overtime loss to Colorado in December at the United Center. That was the last defeat for the 29-2 team that starred Obi Toppin and Jalen Crutcher.
The 2016-17 Flyers earned an at-large NCAA berth despite that loss to Northwestern, and the same would have been said for the 2019-20 team if the tournament had been played that season. On the flip side, the 2022-23 team could win Saturday and still not be close to earning an at-large bid. For the Flyers, this is merely the last chance to win away from UD Arena before Atlantic 10 Conference play begins and the last good chance to build some momentum for the 18-game league schedule.
Fast Break
Each week, I’ll spotlight news from around the A-10 or other news that might interest Flyer fans.
🏀 I moved Purdue to the No. 1 spot on my AP top-25 ballot this week. The Boilermakers received 25 first-place votes. Virginia received 19. Connecticut had 15. Tennessee had one. I also ranked Virginia Tech and UNLV, two of the teams that have beaten Dayton. They’re a combined 21-1.
🏀 The winningest A-10 team this season is Fordham, which has built an 11-1 mark with six victories against teams ranked 300 or below in the Ken Pomeroy ratings. The Rams do have victories against No. 87 Tulane and No. 169 Harvard, two teams ranked higher than any of the teams Dayton have beaten. First-year Fordham coach Keith Urgo talked about the season on the first episode of his new podcast, released last week.
🏀 Another surprise team in the A-10 is Duquesne, which lost its last 17 games last season but is off to an 8-3 start this season. The Dukes, who play Dayton in the A-10 opener for both teams on Dec. 28 at UD Arena, beat DePaul 66-55 on Wednesday. It was Duquesne’s first victory against a Big East team since 2002.
What do you want to know about the Flyers?
I want to hear from you. Reach out to me directly at david.jablonski@coxinc.com with your questions and feedback on the team or this newsletter.
Also be sure to follow our Flyer Nation Facebook page for the latest news on the team. I’ll have updates, photos and videos on Twitter, as well.
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