Maybe Jill Burdette could come in for a few lectures. They seem to be working on her husband John.
Let me explain.
After the Dayton Flyers women’s basketball team — with four players on the bench in street clothes because of injuries — suffered a heartbreaking 76-72 overtime loss to No. 23 Duquesne on Sunday at UD Arena, Jabir was asked to assess the game his team could have, even should have, won.
That thought in itself would have been almost inconceivable beforehand if you considered the way this season has turned and, especially, if you looked at the last time these two teams met in early January.
By then, Dayton was without the services of senior guards Kelley Austria and Amber Deane – two of the stalwarts from the Flyers’ run to the NCAA Tournament’s Elite Eight last season.
Defensive specialist Austria had played just seven games and was lost for the year with a torn ACL. Deane, who has scored 1,194 points, was sidelined after nine games with a quad contusion.
Also out then was Celeste Edwards, who played in just two games before her career ended with recurring concussions.
Coming into that Jan. 3 matchup in Pittsburgh, UD had beaten the Dukes six straight times. It had been nearly five years since Duquesne had beaten the Flyers
But they made up for it with an 89-58 rout of Dayton. It was the Flyers worst loss since they were thumped by No. 2 Connecticut, 78-38, in November 2011.
The Flyers – who also had Andrijana Cvitkovic out with an ankle injury — looked like a different team for much of the game Sunday.
They jumped to a 22-11 lead early in the second quarter and then as the Dukes began to live up to their billing – they came into the game 23-3, had a RPI rating of 21 and were 23rd in the USA Today Coaches’ Poll — and retook the lead, the Flyers fought back.
Three times during the game, UD (13-12) refused to fold and reclaimed the lead.
Often the one keying the Flyers’ comeback was Jenna Burdette — Jill and John’s daughter — a 5-foot-8 sophomore point guard.
She spent much of the day diving on the floor for loose balls, taking charges, scrapping inside for 10 rebounds and especially setting up her teammates. Her 14 assists tied a UD record.
Add in the 18 points of freshman guard Lauren Cannatelli and the double-double – 13 points, 14 rebounds – by 6-foot-5 Saicha Grant-Allen and you had the makings of an upset.
But then there was the downside.
The Flyers had some crucial defensives lapses. They made only 17 of 30 free throws in the game and just two of eight in overtime.
And with 2.8 seconds left in regulation and the scored knotted 61-61, they inbounded the ball inside to Grant-Allen, who tried to pass the ball back out rather than turn and shoot and maybe draw a foul.
The ball veered out of bounds and that brought overtime.
“It’s disappointing,” said Jabir, whose team had opened the season 6-1 and beaten the likes of Vanderbilt, Wisconsin and Louisville before the injuries hit. “Today we were the better team, but we were so mentally weak in many cases. We had chances to win the game, plenty of chances, but we just weren’t tough enough.”
One person who does show a toughness game in and game out is Burdette, who leads the team in scoring (11.4 points per game), minutes played, assists, and three-point accuracy (39.8 percent).
She’s doing all this while playing with the added pressure of fellow guards Austria and Deane out of the lineup and with recurring physical problems of her own.
Burdette has such persistent calf and shin trouble that Jabir said she often doesn’t do many of the drills in practice. Cannatelli has some of the same issues.
As is typical, Burdette said she had a 45-minute session in the training room before the game and would spent another 30 minutes there afterward getting treatment.
“She is tough,” Jabir said. “She fights and she works. She does a great job for us.”
So where does her toughness come from?
For that I found the contingent who had come from her small southern Ohio town — Coolville, population 496 – and other points to see her play.
Her mom and her dad — who was her coach at Reedsville Eastern High when the Eagles won the Division IV state crown in 2014 – as well as her brother, grandparents, other relatives and former teammates and even her dog, Charlotte, had come to Dayton this weekend.
John was asked where his daughter got her grit and after a moment of silent consideration, he grinned and nodded toward his wife:
“She has to get her grit from her mother because that’s the way her mother treats me.”
When Jill heard that she rolled her eyes: “He needs it!”
Asked the same question, Jenna suggested her toughness came from her brother, Jonathan, who is three years older.
“Growing up he picked on me,” she said. “We’d play one-on-one in our backyard or at the hoop we had in out barn and he’d try to push me around.”
Later Jonathan amended that thought: “By about junior high she could make a move on me and get to the rim.”
Against the Dukes, Jenna struggled from the floor – making just one of 10 shots – but that’s not indicative. You can go back to the state tournament semifinal game when she single handedly derailed Fort Loramie, making 12 of 19 shots for 38 points, tying a state record.
This season she’s shooting 41.9 percent from the floor.
“I was horrible today,” she said.
Like the rest of her team, she said she’d try to build on the effort so the Flyers can get some momentum in their final two regular season games going into the Atlantic 10 Tournament.
They key is the mental toughness, Jabir said: “It’s a maturation thing. People have to mature, let (bad) things go and move on. Hopefully, we can do it.”
Then again they could bring in Jill Burdette, though it looks like she may still have some work to do at home.
Especially after John was asked how long he and Jill had been married.
“Well, let’s see,” he said. “Aaaah…well……maybe about 20 years. I’m not sure.”
About the Author