In between averting that home court failure and facing the challenges in Florida is Thanksgiving and a holiday meal in Fort Myers with turkey, ham, kabobs and all the fixings, said Flyers’ coach Tamika Williams-Jeter.
With that in mind, three of the prominent figures in the Flyers’ victory over Canisius – senior guard Nayo Lear, graduate transfer Maliyah Johnson and Williams-Jeter – were asked what they had to be thankful for this year.
Lear came out of the postgame dressing room first Thursday night and right off you noticed she wasn’t wearing that bulky ice bag she had had strapped to her left shoulder following the game four days earlier against Belmont.
But during the Canisius game you could see a polka dot presence on her shoulder – silver dollar circles of discoloration from a cupping therapy she had gotten beforehand. The marks came from heated cups that are used to create suction and supposedly increase blood flow and relieve muscle tension.
She said she’s been bothered by a sore shoulder from the strenuous weightlifting sessions she seems to like.
The 5-foot-10 guard from South Holland, Illinois, outside Chicago, was the main reason the Flyers came back against the Golden Griffins. She was the one-woman wrecking crew of their upset bid.
Along with a game-high 19 points, she had seven rebounds, four assists and seven steals – tying Kelley Austria for second most in a game in program history. (Top honors in that category belong to Beverly Crusoe who had 12 in a 1979 game against Michigan.)
Lear’s energized play against Canisius came with a few battle scars.
With 11 seconds left in the first quarter she was elbowed in the mouth by Griffins forward Ileana Feliz and dropped face first to the UD court.
The blow cut her upper lip and she was bleeding, but she said the UD trainers staunched the flow.
“They rubbed some kind of chemical on it,” she said in a non-scientific explanation. “It stopped it.”
Later she got a bloody hand in another skirmish and that too was tended to quickly.
Williams-Jeter said Lear is “playing the best basketball of her career right now. I think the game has slowed down for her.”
The Flyers coach has a special kinship with Lear and walk-on senior Eleanor Monyek. They are the only two players who have been with her since she took over the UD job before the 2022-23 season.
They were here that first year when the roster was decimated by transfers and injuries and the team started the season 0-10, a streak of misery that included an overtime loss, a double overtime loss and another by one point.
That season ended 7-21 and since then Williams-Jeter has been building the program back, an ascension that led to last season’s 18-13 finish.
Lear has been there for all of it and she’s putting her signature on this season.
In the final 35 seconds Thursday, she crushed the last gasp efforts of Canisius by stealing the ball, making two free throws, getting a rebound and ending the game by blocking a three-point attempt by a Golden Griffin guard.
“She’s the energy starter for us and she helps people get on board with her,” Johnson said. “She plays her role very, very well.”
After three seasons mostly coming off the bench, Lear is now a prime figure in the Flyers attack. And that prompted a question about Thanksgiving and for what she was thankful:
“I’m thankful for all this,” she said. “I’m grateful for my team and the school and all of the opportunities that come from being here at Dayton.
“And I’m thankful for my family. I love my family more than anything.
“I’ve got so many blessings, I’m thankful for all of them.”
Credit: Erik Schelkun
Credit: Erik Schelkun
‘I feel truly happy’
Johnson, who won two state titles with Africentric High in Columbus, started her college career at Pitt and after two seasons transferred to Houston.
Last year – after a summer spent getting in prime shape for her senior season – she tore her ACL while turning to take a shot in practice. She had surgery in October (of 2024) and the comeback has been an arduous process she said.
“It was definitely more of a mental battle for me than a physical one,” she said. “I had worked so hard in the summer and wanted to end my senior season to end with a bang and then I got hurt.”
Eventually she decided she wanted to be closer to home and around a team that would treat her like family as she finished her rehab and tried to return to the form she once knew.
She knew Williams-Jeter from before and when she entered the portal the connection was remade.
She wasn’t ready for game action when the season began, but recently she joined the pregame lay-up lines – fitted with a big brace on her right knee – just to get the feel of the court again.
The 6-foot-1 guard finally made her debut last Sunday against an athletic Belmont team and scored four points in 14 minutes of play.
Against Canisius she again played 14 minutes but doubled her production, scoring eight points and grabbing two rebounds.
“I’m definitely excited to be out there again,” said Johnson, who has now played in 89 college games. “I’m really getting back in my groove a little bit. I’m not there yet, but I’m taking it one day at a time and playing as hard as I can.
“I have a lot to be thankful for. There’s my family and there’s being able to play again with my knee. It’s a real blessing just to be able to get out there again because there was a time I wasn’t sure that was going to happen.”
She paused for a second and then added one more Thanksgiving thought:
“I can honestly say this is the first team I’ve been on where I feel truly happy. It’s really family-oriented. That’s the culture Coach Meek builds.
“I never had this before. Nothing against the other places I was at – I enjoyed both of them – but they never established something outside the court. There wasn’t the same family type deal. Everybody was out for themselves and building their self up.
“Here it feels like everybody cares for us; cares for reach other and they want to see everybody on the team do well.”
‘Thankful for growth’
Williams-Jeter was the last to leave the Flyers’ Donoher Center quarters.
She knew her team hadn’t played like it could – or should – but it had won against a team whose dynamic she knew well.
“Once we were Canisius,” she said in reference to that 0-10 start four years ago.
The Golden Griffins – 0-6 when they left UD Arena – had been roughed up early this season, losing by 60 to Michigan, by 31 to Eastern Michigan and 24 at Syracuse.
Their games against Cornell and St. Bonaventure had been close and they led UD by seven points in the second quarter and trailed by just two with 2:40 left in the game.
“I know what it feels like for their coach (Tiffany Swoffard) to be over there coaching her butt off and still knowing you’re going against bigger and more athletic players who are going to wear your kids down and beat you in the end,” Williams-Jeter said.
“So I’m thankful for the place we’re in as a program because I remember being where Canisius is right now.
“And I’m thankful for growth of my own family and the growth of our UD family.”
As she thought about her team, one blessing rose to the surface:
“I’m thankful for Nayo and Eleanor. They’ve been with us the whole way. They are two quality people and after this season we’re going to send them off into the world.”
And the world, she said, would be better for it.
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