Dayton hosted its annual Education Day at UD Arena Wednesday morning for area schoolkids and a crowd of 12,598 — a program-record — showed up to see the Flyers fall, 72-61, to Atlantic 10 powerhouse George Mason.
And that brings us to the near record.
The Flyers had a whopping 25 turnovers against the Patriots, one shy of the most they committed in a game this season.
Throughout Wednesday’s high-decibel, party-like atmosphere for students from 77 participating schools from the Miami Valley area, a roving game host worked her way through the arena asking students — in a question-and-answer exchange during timeouts that was shown on the big video scoreboard above the court — various math questions.
Get the answer right — or not — either way the row you were sitting in got free pizza.
But you didn’t need to be a wiz with numbers or even know much about hoops to realize bumbling the ball away 25 times would doom the Flyers, who have the worst turnover margin in the 14-team league.
“We have 25 turnovers and they score 35 points off them,” a not-so-pleased Tamika Williams-Jeter said as she marched up the steep ramp from the court to the dressing room after Wedneday’s game.
“You’re playing against a team that’s owned the conference the past two seasons and played in the postseason the past three years. Against a team like that, you have to take care of the ball.”
Against the Patriots — who are now 11-1 in Atlantic 10 play and 16-7 overall – the Flyers had one of their best starts to a game this season.
Midway through the first quarter, they led 18-10.
Williams-Jeter than spelled the starters with a second five off the bench, but that group did little and George Mason cut the margin to 18-14 by the end of the quarter.
In the second period, the Patriots “turned into who they are,” Williams-Jeter said. “They applied pressure at both ends of the court.”
The Flyers turned the ball over eight times in the second quarter and trailed 35-27 at the half.
“After we went on that run, following the media (time out,) they came out more physical and forced us off our line,” Flyers’ graduate point guard Nicole Stephens said. “That forced us to make some high-risk passes and the turnovers started to happen.”
Because she is small and not shake-and-bake flashy, Stephens is sometimes underrated by the uninitiated.
But, as was the case again Wednesday, she’s one of the best things the Flyers have going for themselves this season.
She’s in her sixth season of college basketball, though her first year at Columbia was a wash because the season was canceled by COVID and another season was cut short seven games in with an injury.
Over three seasons at Columbia, she played in 61 games, but started just one. She did get her Ivy League degree and then transferred to Dayton — just a little over an hour from her hometown of Pickerington — and now has started 48 of 54 games and will get her master’s degree in the spring.
‘A real warrior’
A lesser person would not have started Wednesday’s game and, if they had, they may not have finished it.
“She was sick beforehand. She was nauseous and really didn’t feel good,” Williams-Jeter said. “But she’s tough… A real warrior.”
She proved that early in the four quarter. She had gotten her wrist badly jammed by a George Mason player when she tried to cut off a screen and then she took a hard charging foul from GMU’s 5-foot-11 Zahirah Walton that left her splattered on the court beneath the basket.
Unable to bend her wrist or even squeeze her hand shut, she was taken out of the game and Flyers medical personnel first X-rayed her wrist and then, finding nothing broken, began a heavy tape job.
Just under four minutes later she returned to the game, and managed to help UD stem the bleeding, so an 18-point deficit ended up 11 by the final gun.
Stephens made 7 of 11 field goal attempts Wednesday to lead the Flyers with 16 points. She’s the team’s second-leading scorer this season behind Nayo Lear, who had 11 points against the Patriots while Olivia Leung had 10.
Credit: David Jablonski
Credit: David Jablonski
“My team needed me, I had to play,” Stephens said. “We just have a limited number of games left and we need to get the highest seed we can going into the A-10 Tournament.”
The Flyers – 13-12 overall, 6-8 in the A-10 – had been playing better lately. They were coming off two victories during last week’s trip to Philadelphia (LaSalle and Saint Joseph’s) and had had single-digit turnovers in four of their last eight games.
“The last five or six games we’ve been on an upward trend, and we want to peak at the right time … Just as we go into tournament,” Stephens said.
“Look at N.C. State’s men’s team two years ago and what they did,” she said about the No. 11 seed making the Final Four.
“It makes you realize anything is possible.”
And that brings us back to that first record Wednesday.
‘We fizzled out’
The students at the game were all of grade school and middle school age and, as Williams-Jeter put it: “For all of them to be able to experience higher education is great. Kids don’t know what they don’t know.
“They saw what being part of the college experience is all about. It can be about clubs, organizations, athletics. Not everybody will play college athletics, but they saw how it can be a big part of a college campus.
“This was a learning experience for kids.”
And Wednesday, they learned a lot:
- Partying with over 12,500 of your peers can be a lot of fun.
- Pizza tastes really good when you get it for free.
- And finally, art doesn’t always imitate life.
The Flyers’ coaches and players all wore shirts with artwork done by students from Southdale and Smith elementary schools. Those kids joined the UD team on the court for the national anthem before the game.
Williams-Jeter’s shirt bore the hand scrawled message: “You’re on fire.” Looking down at it before disappearing into the dressing room afterwards, the UD coach shrugged:
“Yeah, we were on fire in the first quarter and then we fizzled out.
“Somebody threw water on us.”
Truth is, with 25 turnovers, the Flyers drenched themselves.
About the Author