Archdeacon: Dayton basketball ‘just shut them up with the scoreboard’

That includes denying the inbounds pass, bird-dogging the player trying to bring the ball up the court, springing half-court traps whenever possible and hindering anyone driving to the hoop by trying to force a ball-handling error or taking a charge or, if all else fails, blocking the lay-up attempt.

The other way to mug is to trade your hoops skills for hockey goon tactics or the antics of a WWE heel:

You push your opponent to the floor after the whistle, or you grab a rival rebounder by his arm and spin him away from the ball.

Other times that might mean bodychecking a guy coming down the lane or raising an elbow, chicken wing style, to catch an offensive player running past with a shot to the chest or chin.

The Dayton Flyers chose the first way Tuesday night and won in a rout, 97-69.

With their trademark defensive pressure, they stole the ball from the Seminoles 11 times, forcing them, as UD coach Anthony Grant noted afterward, to turn the ball over on 24 percent of their possessions.

UD scored 22 points off turnovers — Florida State managed nine — and held the Seminoles to eight 3-pointers, which tied the visitors’ fewest trey attempts in a game this season.

FSU attempted 27 shots from beyond the arc, and that’s the fewest long-range hoists they’ve had in a game this year. Three days earlier, they had 41 against UMass and three weeks ago they threw up 49 against Georgia Southern.

On the flip side Tuesday, the Seminoles chose the other way to mug.

They fouled 31 times — five of their players fouled out — and collected three technical fouls and one flagrant foul.

They often talked — “chit-chatted” is the way UD’s De’Shayne Montgomery coyly put it — and every now and then they tried outright intimidation.

“One guy even came in our huddle,” Montgomery said with a laugh.

That strategy backfired and FSU ended up using its signature tomahawk chop on its own foot.

UD made 40 of 47 free throws and both numbers set new UD Arena records. The Flyers paired that with arguably their best defensive effort of the season, holding the Seminoles to 16 points below their average.

While Dayton raised its record to 9-3, FSU dropped to 5-6 after losing its fifth game in a row.

“We knew coming in this was a team that was going to come in with a chip on its shoulder,” Grant said. “They weren’t feeling good about the outcomes they had the last few games.

“They were somewhat playing from a desperate standpoint, so whatever they brought we needed to be prepared: whether it was verbal, physical, whatever. At the end of the day, the most important thing was the scoreboard.”

And if you followed that all night, you would have seen that UD led for over 39 minutes of the 40-minute game

FSU led for 21 seconds.

Flyers guard Jordan Derkack said he and his teammates were prepared for the moment because of the way they practice.

He said his team takes its cue from Grant, who stresses toughness while being aware of the “thin line” between aggression and the wrong kind of mugging.

Credit: David Jablonski

Credit: David Jablonski

Early on, when FSU tried to double team the Flyers with muscle and menace, Montgomery didn’t flinch and that helped steel the rest of the team.

Before coming to UD this season he starred at Mount St. Mary’s as a freshman and then played at Georgia last season.

“I loved what they were trying,” he said. “I came here from the SEC and before that I played my freshman year in the MAAC (Metro Atlantic Athletic Conference). That prepared me for any kind of physicality.

“In the MAAC, they don’t call fouls, so you’ve got to play through them.

“And in the SEC everybody is big and strong, so I felt I was prepared.”

And he was. Along with point guard Javon Bennett — who had a game-high 25 points and went 12-for-12 from the free throw line — Montgomery led the Flyers attack with 20 points, a game-high four steals and two blocked shots.

Offensively, he again had highlight reel moments with alley-oop dunks and a breakaway that he finished off with a spin and a backwards, over-the-head slam.

“I know those plays really (p---) them off because they can’t do nothin’ about it,” he said.

“That frustrates them so they just keep trying to be more and more aggressive and they just kept fouling us.

“We didn’t care what they were sayin’. At the end of the day, we knew we were going to win the game. We just shut them up with the scoreboard.”

‘A tough spot’

After the Seminoles lost to UMass, 103-95, their first-year head coach Luke Loucks — who played at FSU and then overseas and in the G League before serving as an assistant coach with two NBA teams, Sacramento and Golden State — had been publicly critical of his team.

He said they were in “a tough spot” because they played with “inconsistent effort and fight.”

The FSU players responded the wrong way to that challenge Tuesday night.

In the first half guard Lajae Jones raised an elbow to catch Montgomery under the chin as he cut through the lane. The blow sent the UD guard sprawling.

In the second half, Jones crosschecked Derkack who already had been fouled coming down the lane.

Derkack hit the floor and hopped back up, ready to confront Jones until his own teammate, Keonte Jones, wrapped his hands around him and backed him up.

Montgomery jumped up from the bench, but was held back by a manager.

“I don’t like it when people pick on my teammates,” he explained,

While Lajae Jones got a technical for his antics — as did Loucks for being vocal with the refs — it was forward AJ Swinton who most hammered his name onto Santa’s naughty list.

He flung Flyers’ 7-foot-1 Amaël L’Etang to the court at the 9:07 mark of the first half in what was ruled a flagrant foul. Five minutes later he picked up a technical.

By game’s end, he, Jones, Marlin Somerville, Roberty McCray V and Cam Miles all had fouled out for the Seminoles.

Just as Loucks was vocal Tuesday night with the officials, so was Grant.

“I think the refs do as good of a job as they can protecting guys and making sure there is no unnecessary stuff and no injuries,” Grant said.

“It got chippy out there, no doubt about it. You always want to protect your guys, so I was very vocal with the officials, making sure (they) understood what potentially was at stake if they didn’t get it under control a little more. And I think they did.”

Credit: David Jablonski

Credit: David Jablonski

‘We’re going to keep rising’

Derkack was asked if he thought FSU was surprised by the amount of defensive pressure UD put on them.

“I would think you’d probably see it on film. We steal the ball at an epic rate,” he said.

“Do I think it surprised them? I think it’s hard to prepare for something like that with a scout team. We have De’Shayne, Keonte (Jones) and Von (Javon Bennett) in a real game. I don’t think you’ll have a scout team that aggressive. It’s pretty hard to prepare for that.”

UD leads the A-10 in steals and turnover margin. Montgomery is second in the league in steals (2.8 a game) and Jones is third (2.0). The past two seasons Bennett has led the Flyers in steals and freshman year at Merrimack, he led the nation in steals.

“We have some old guys that have great leadership in different ways,” Derkack said. “We’ve gotten exponentially better the last couple of weeks. You can see it in practice, and you can see it in games. We’re not going to plateau. We’re going to keep rising.”

He said the team will do that by ratcheting up its defensive pressure as players get to know and trust each other more and more.

When that happens, he intimated UD will be a different team — a better team — than the one you saw Tuesday night.

Just as UD may well end up being different, it’s guaranteed Saturday’s opponent, Liberty, the private evangelical school founded by Jerry Falwell, will be different than FSU.

“One thing about Liberty, they’re not gonna be out there cussin’ on the court,” veteran radio broadcaster Stu Mason said with a chuckle to the UD players during Tuesday night’s press conference.

Derkack nodded in agreement:

“Yeah, it’ll be maybe a little different game.”