Miller coached the Dayton Flyers to five NCAA tournament victories, four NCAA tournament appearances and two Atlantic 10 Conference regular-season championships in my first four seasons on the beat. The last six seasons, in which Dayton has won one A-10 championship and earned one NCAA tournament berth (in a year the tournament was cancelled), have shown just how big of an achievement that four-year run was for Miller and the program.
The book includes the story of Miller’s last game — and also his last victory with the Flyers — at UD Arena. Here’s an excerpt:
The Miller era peaked on March 1, 2017, as the Flyers celebrated their second straight A-10 regular-season championship with another victory against VCU on Senior Night at UD Arena. This time, they didn’t have to share the championship with anyone. With one game left in the season, the winningest senior class in school history engineered a 79-72 victory. No one knew at the time it would be the last victory for Miller at Dayton. That would have spoiled the image of Kyle Davis climbing on top of press row after the final buzzer. He grabbed Miller in a good-natured headlock after Miller grew tired of waiting for the seniors to climb the ladder to cut down the net and cut the rest of the net himself after the underclassmen had taken their snips.
“Those guys took too much time,” Miller said. “I wasn’t going to stand down there all night and wait for those guys to cut it. When you win a championship, you climb the ladder. You cut it. You give it to a teammate. He cuts it. He gives it to the next guy. He cuts it. Then when you get to the seniors and they aren’t going to climb the ladder, the coach says, ‘All right, it’s time to go.’ But they know what they’re doing. They were enjoying themselves out there. For me, I felt great humility. We talked a lot about that when we first got the job, what it would be like to win a championship here. Outright for the first time is a little more special than last year.”
Miller will return to UD Arena as the second-year coach of Rhode Island for a 12:30 p.m. game Saturday. I think he’ll get a warm welcome. Any boos will be drowned out by applause. Then he will be taunted throughout the game by the student section as he should be — that’s their job.
Anthony Grant, for one, hopes the fans cheer for Miller.
“He’s a heck of a coach,” Grant said. “I think, for our fans, it’s an opportunity to to show him an appreciation for the time that he was here and what he did.”
Dayton’s top-25 ranking shows value of AP poll
Credit: David Jablonski
Credit: David Jablonski
Rhode Island will fly into Dayton on Friday just two days after losing 99-64 at St. Bonaventure. It was the most lopsided loss in Miller’s two seasons with the Rams.
Dayton, on the other hand, has not lost since November. An 11-game winning streak landed it in the top 25 this week at No. 21 for the first time since early in the 2022-23 season. I first voted for the Flyers on Dec. 18 after their victory against Cincinnati, and this was the fourth straight week I cast a vote for them. Other voters were slower to catch on to how well Dayton was playing.
***
We don’t get many guidelines from the Associated Press about voting, but one of them cautions us not to be a homer. I was careful to not be the first person to vote for Dayton. That was Dave Preston, of WTOP Radio in Washington, D.C., who voted for the Flyers in the Dec. 11 poll.
This week, I knew Dayton would enter the top 25, but I didn’t want to have it higher than anyone. I put it at No. 17. Six voters had the Flyers between No. 11 and No. 16.
People love to rip the poll and say it’s meaningless, but judging by the reactions of Dayton fans this week, the poll still has as much value as all the other computer rankings, just in different ways.
• The poll has value as a historical tool because it has existed since the 1950s.
• It has value as a publicity tool. The AP sends reporters and photographers to every game involving a top-25 team, bringing those teams more attention on the national level. ESPN highlights top-25 games on its score ticker, and the first scores you’ll see on the ESPN app on your phone involve top-25 teams.
What the poll does not do is influence the NCAA tournament selection committee, and the NCAA tournament is all many fans care about.
Picking the top 25 is an inexact science, especially when 15 teams in the top 25 lose in one week, as happened last week. I thought about, as a joke, just ranking the top 25 teams in total points scored just to say I based on it logical reasons, but it’s hard to find much logic in separating teams most weeks.
I’m not necessarily looking for the best 25 teams. Teams having great seasons in lesser-ranked conferences can earn my vote, even if I know they aren’t a top-25 team in talent or resume.
Head-to-head results are a good way to rank teams, until they aren’t. Typically, any team that loses will fall in my ranking, but not always. Purdue stayed at No. 1 for me this week despite a loss because it had built up a big enough of a cushion over the teams behind it. Many voters moved UConn to No. 1 even though they have the same record as Purdue and Purdue has a better resume just because Purdue lost last week and UConn didn’t. That’s fine. There is no wrong way to vote. There’s room for all opinions.
Another memorable chapter in the DaRon Holmes story
My 5-year-old son Chase likes to race me up the staircase at home. Every time. We race down the stairs as well. I’d keep track of the wins and losses, but he says he wins every time, no matter who reaches the top or bottom step first.
I’m faster than Chase, but he’s got more interest in winning these daily battles. DaRon Holmes II has shown a similar desire on the court throughout the season, but especially in Dayton’s last two games: a 72-62 victory Friday at Duquesne and a 70-65 victory Tuesday against Saint Louis.
Holmes took over in the second half of both games — right at the point where Dayton needed someone to step up in a close game. In a five-minute stretch against Duquesne, Holmes scored 14 of his 33 points. Against Saint Louis, he scored 16 points of his 29 points in the last six minutes.
Holmes referred to me as Mr. Jablonski in the postgame press conference Tuesday. I got a kick out of that because so many fans yell “Jablo” at me from the stands in hopes I’ll take their picture and I’m not used to such a formal address. Holmes doesn’t need to ask for photos. He’s approaching Obi Toppin levels in terms of creating memorable images on the court. I keep updating the photo gallery I have of Holmes. It includes 50 shots from throughout his Dayton career.
Tom Archdeacon has his own collection of Holmes columns. He wrote another one great one this week. It included a great quote by Saint Louis coach Travis Ford, who was a little wary of talking to two Dayton Daily News reporters outside the locker room because his sports information director had already left the area. He hesitated and then agreed and took a question from each of us.
Arch just wanted to get the opposing coach’s thoughts on Holmes’ performance.
“I see a young man that’s got a lot of basketball character,” Ford said. “I don’t know him as a person, but what I mean is — you go out and score four points in the first half and then come back and literally will your team to a victory. He likes the big moment. He understood what it took to win.”
Fast Break
Here’s other news that might interest Flyer fans:
🏀 ESPN’s Joe Lunardi predicts Dayton will earn a No. 5 seed and play Saint Mary’s in the first round of the NCAA tournament in Spokane, Wash., in his latest Bracketology update. I think UD fans would take any site if it meant their team was in the NCAA tournament, but with closer first-round sites in Indiana and Pittsburgh this year, the Flyer Faithful will root for a short drive. Of course, there are too many potential landmines ahead in A-10 play for fans to start making reservations.
🏀 The NBA trade deadline is Feb. 8. The Indiana Pacers already made one big move, acquiring Pascal Siakam from the Toronto Raptors. A sports writer I know in Indianapolis thinks former Flyer Obi Toppin could be on the move again after being traded from the New York Knicks to the Pacers last summer. Toppin has been on a roll in January, shooting 54.3% (19 of 35) from 3-point range in 10 games.
🏀 Dayton ranked 16th in a weekly power rankings by The Athletic this week.
“Anthony Grant has a squad again,” Kyle Tucker wrote. “One of the most depressing things about the COVID-19-canceled 2020 NCAA Tournament was not getting to see what 29-2 Dayton and star Obi Toppin could do in March. Maybe that’s why the basketball gods gifted Grant and the Flyers another superstar in 6-foot-10, 220-pound DaRon Holmes II.
What do you want to know about the Flyers?
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