In that time VCU is 5-0 against Dayton with three of the victories coming in the tournament’s title game, losses that kept the Flyers out of the NCAA Tournament.
No, what seemed to sadden the Flyers’ coach the most was when he sat there and listened to senior Jordan Derkack talk about the sense of unfulfillment he felt knowing his college career would end and he’d never experience the NCAA Tournament.
Grant knew Derkack, who transferred to Dayton this season from Rutgers, in part, because he thought the Flyers afforded him the best opportunity to make the NCAA Tournament in his final season of college ball, was also speaking for fellow senior transfers, Jacob Conner and Keonte Jones, who would not get the ultimate March Madness experience either.
VCU’s 70-62 victory over UD — in a game where the Flyers never led — killed the NCAA Tournament dreams for those final year players as well.
While late Sunday evening UD would accept a bid to play Bradley in the NIT on Wednesday in Peoria, Ill., not one Flyer after Sunday’s disappointment mentioned the NIT or seemed to even think about it.
“The ultimate goal when you play basketball is to make March Madness — the Big Dance — and do some damage,” Derkack said as he stood in an empty hallway alongside fellow senior and good pal Javon Bennett.
“When I came here and met with the coaches before I transferred, I thought that was a clear goal that we could make the tournament. But we didn’t.
“I’ve been in college four years and to not make it is tough to swallow. Yeah, there’s a hole .. It’s just ... ahhh...”
The emotion started to rise and his voice momentarily left him.
Grant feels for players like Derkack because he knows the other side of the coin.
Credit: David Jablonski
Credit: David Jablonski
He experienced the NCAA Tournament as a head coach (VCU, Alabama and UD) — and as an assistant coach at Florida (eight trips in 10 years, including a national title.)
And he especially remembers it as a UD player. As a freshman, he was part of the Roosevelt Chapman led team that made it to the Elite Eight and the following year the Flyers again made the field.
“I know what it means to guys just to have that experience and (I know) the impact an NCAA Tournament bid can have on the community and the university,” he said as he stood outside the dressing room. “I know the opportunities it can create for players to be part of something like that.
“When you grow up playing basketball you dream of opportunities to play in games like that. It’s hard for that dream not to come to fruition.
“I know it means a lot to the fan base and to the community but that pales in comparison with what it means to those who put in the work.
“For guys to go to college and not get a chance to experience that you feel they got cheated a little bit.”
Grant disappeared into the dressing room and once he got back to Dayton, the disappointment likely was magnified.
He’d return to a town aswirl in NCAA Tournament fever as eight schools — with their teams, fans and dreams — would come in over the next two days to take part in the First Four.
Making it even tougher, the two neighboring schools — Wright State and the Miami RedHawks— both made the tournament.
Miami has become a national story, a sympathetic Cinderella — at least to the everyman, if not some pundits — for the way their regular season’s perfection became a piñata for sports talk debate.
When the RedHawks take the UD Arena floor in Wednesday night’s nightcap against SMU, the partisan crowd will treat them as the hometown team.
‘I’ve got none of that’
When Bennett and Derkack were freshmen at Merrimack College they helped the team win the Northeast Conference regular season and tournament titles but the school — which hadn’t completed the reclassification process from Division II to D-I — was denied the league’s automatic bid to the NCAA Tournament.
Fairleigh Dickison, the team they beat, went in their place and after topping Texas Southern in the First Four here, they went on to stun top-seeded Purdue in one of the NCAA Tournament’s biggest upsets ever.
That snub ate at the Merrimack players and prompted Bennett’s transfer to Dayton.
Derkack stayed another season, was named the NEC Player of the Year and then left for Rutgers before joining up with Bennett here.
From the moment Derkack got to Dayton the two talked of righting the wrong and making the NCAA Tournament together.
Bennett had been lucky to get to UD when he did. The DaRon Holmes II-led team made the NCAA Tournament that 2023-2024 season and pulled off the biggest comeback in six years as it erased a 17-point deficit in the final 7:39 to eke out a thrilling 63-60 win.
Bennett played off the bench in that game as he did two days later in the 10-point loss to No. 9 Arizona.
As he talked about how that Nevada game gave him a memory that would last forever, Derkack listened silently.
“Yeah, I’ve got none of that,” he said later.
He shook his head and went silent again.
‘Everyone’s dream’
Keonte Jones had played at three other schools — two junior colleges and last year at Cal State Northridge — before coming to UD.
He said he came more for “the love I felt from Dayton,” than anything else, though he admitted, “they had faith in me to help them get farther than they had in the past.”
And he hoped that would be the case:
“Man, it’s everyone’s dream who is playing D-I to get to the Big Dance ... but now.”
He didn’t finish his thought: “I’m just at a loss for words right now.”
When he finally emerged from the dressing room, Jacob Conner — the former Alter High standout who started his college career at Marshall — said he transferred to Dayton because he thought he’d have a better chance at postseason play here.
Credit: David Jablonski
Credit: David Jablonski
“My ability to play in the (NCAA) Tournament was one of the reasons I transferred here.
“I was about six years old when I started to realize how big the tournament was and I wanted to be part of it.
“I grew up a Flyers fan and followed everything they did. I went to games and I remember their big moments in the tournament. I knew about all the players.
“Our whole family would get into the NCAA Tournament. As soon as the Selection Show happened, we’d print out the brackets and put the schools in we thought were going to win.
“Every year at least one of us would pick Dayton to win it all.
“We did it just for bragging rights and yeah, I did pretty good.
“When it came to our NCAA Tournament deal back then, I won all the time.”
That was the thought he took with him as he headed to the bus and the four-hour ride back home to a different reality.
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