Then earlier this week, as I was flying a new Christmas present, a drone with a camera, the hoop in our driveway blew over. The plastic backboard hit me in the back of the head. I didn’t see it coming. Somehow it also left me with a bloody scratch on my nose, and that was my only injury.
It could have been worse, but for the record, that’s how I want to go out. Getting killed by a basketball hoop would be a fitting way to go out for someone who makes his living sitting near them.
***
Speaking of disasters, the Dayton Flyers flirted with one Wednesday in their Atlantic 10 Conference opener against Fordham. Dayton never trailed and was never in serious danger of losing but let a team that has never won at UD Arena stick around for most of the game.
With a 63-56 loss, Fordham fell to 0-18 at UD Arena. The only current A-10 programs that have suffered more losses at UD Arena are Duquesne, which is 5-30 with 12 straight losses; and Saint Louis, which is 8-24 with 11 straight losses in Dayton.
The big news of the day was Dayton’s injury report. In the first week the A-10 published player-availability reports on its website, Dayton had two players sidelined, Amaël L’Etang; and Malcolm Thomas, plus Jaron McKie, who’s out for the season.
Thomas hurt his ankle 11 days earlier in a 64-61 loss to Liberty at UD Arena. It wasn’t a surprise he missed the game. He wore a protective boot on the bench.
L’Etang suffered an injury in practice Monday.
“It’s always tough when anybody goes down,” Dayton guard Jordan Derkack said, “but when a big fella like that goes down, it’s a big tree falling. We just have his back right now, and we’re just making sure that he’s in a positive state of mind.”
L’Etang got around the arena on crutches before the game Wednesday but wasn’t using them after the game as he left the court with his teammates.
Anthony Grant gave his standard answer when asked Wednesday about the prognosis for both: “No timetable for return.”
Dayton will try to survive for the time being without its tallest starting player and one of its key reserves.
The injuries affected Jaiun Simon’s role the most Wednesday. He did not play in the previous two games against Florida State and Liberty and saw a career-high 23 minutes against Fordham, scoring 11 points.
Simon stayed with Dayton after redshirting in the 2023-24 season and playing limited minutes last season. He’s averaging 12.6 minutes this season and may see that number rise fast if Thomas and L’Etang remain sidelined for long.
“You never know when an opportunity will present itself,” Grant said.
Saint Louis looks part of A-10 favorite on opening day
Credit: David Jablonski
Credit: David Jablonski
I bought my 7-year-old son Chase his first pack of basketball cards for Christmas. Amazingly, he pulled a card of a player who played peek-a-boo with him when he was 4 months old: Obi Toppin.
Toppin remains sidelined after undergoing surgery to repair a stress fracture in his foot in October. Without Toppin and star guard Tyrese Haliburton, who will miss the season with an Achilles tendon tear, the Pacers have the worst record in the NBA (6-28) one season after losing to the Oklahoma City Thunder in Game 7 of the NBA Finals.
Injuries, or the lack of them, have so much to do with the success of a team. The 2019-20 Dayton Flyers, who won 29 games and avoided significant injuries, are a good example of that.
It’s not surprising that the only A-10 team that didn’t have a player on the availability report for the first game of conference play was Saint Louis, which is looking more and more like the overwhelming favorite in the conference race.
Saint Louis (13-1) beat Saint Joseph’s 102-79 on Wednesday. The Billikens set a school record by making 19 3-pointers on 32 attempts. They have scored 100 or more points six times and rank sixth in the country in points per game (95.0).
“We played awesome offense,” second-year coach Josh Schertz told the team in the locker room after the game, according to a video shared by the official SLU social media accounts. “We shared the ball. We spaced. We shot it incredibly well. We played fast. We played for each other. We made very few bad decisions. ... Our offense was juggernaut-esque.”
Saint Louis has yet to beat a juggernaut, though. Saint Joseph’s (8-6) was picked to finish seventh in the A-10.
The Billikens are favored in every game the rest of the way by KenPom.com except their next one. They have a 43% chance of winning Wednesday at Virginia Commonwealth. Saint Louis is 0-10 at the Siegel Center in Richmond.
VCU (10-4, 1-0) opened A-10 play Wednesday with an 89-82 victory against St. Bonaventure (11-3). That’s a big victory for VCU because no team in the A-10 has given it more trouble than St. Bonaventure.
VCU has won three straight games against St. Bonaventure to tie the all-time series at 11-11, but the Bonnies won six of seven games before this stretch.
Four of the seven road teams won in the first two days of A-10 play: Duquesne won at Davidson; George Mason won at La Salle; George Washington won at Richmond; and Loyola Chicago won at Rhode Island.
Only the Loyola result was somewhat of a surprise. The Ramblers were the worst team in the A-10 in non-conference play but have won two straight games and will be a tough team for Dayton to beat at 2 p.m. Saturday in Chicago. The Flyers have suffered two straight losses at Gentile Arena.
I’ve got a 9 a.m. flight to Chicago on Saturday, and I fly home the same day, departing at 9 p.m. It’s the start of my 13th season of travel in the A-10. I could draw every media room by heart, but I’m not much of an artist.
Fast Break
Here’s other news that might interest Flyer fans:
🏀 The controversy over Baylor signing a former NBA draft pick, James Nnaji, led the NCAA issuing a statement that it “has not and will not grant eligibility to any prospective or returning student-athletes who have signed an NBA contract (including a two-way contract).”
🏀 I wrote Thursday about former Flyer DaRon Holmes II finally getting a chance with the Denver Nuggets. He scored a career-high 11 points Wednesday in his fourth appearance of the season.
🏀 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.
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