Greer, the associate head coach for the Dayton Flyers, played a big part in recruiting Toppin, a native of New York like Greer, in the spring of 2017 when he was a member of new head coach Anthony Grant’s staff and Toppin was an unranked recruit.
Eight years later, Greer and Toppin remain close, just as Toppin remains loyal to his college team. Toppin will return to Dayton in July for the fifth straight year for the CareSource Obi Toppin Basketball ProCamp.
First, Toppin will play in the biggest games of his five-year NBA career. He and the Indiana Pacers face the Oklahoma City Thunder in Game 1 of the NBA Finals in Oklahoma City on Thursday. When Toppin enters the game, he’ll be the first former Flyer to play in the NBA Finals since Johnny Davis, who got the opportunity as a rookie with the Portland Trail Blazers in 1977.
Greer and everyone who got to know Toppin well during his three years at the University of Dayton will be watching closely and rooting for Toppin to reach the pinnacle of basketball five years after he was denied that chance in his final year of college basketball. Toppin’s Flyers had won 20 games in a row and were ranked third in the country when the pandemic ended their season in 2020.
“You think about Obi getting to the Finals,” Greer said. “You think about Ryan Mikesell (a fifth-year senior in 2020) getting to the semifinals in the German league. They had opportunities to get to the NCAA tournament. You never know what could have happened. Just to see (Toppin’s) face, his happiness, and speaking to him, it’s amazing for me as a coach watching his growth but also seeing the success.”
Andy Farrell, a member of Grant’s staff for six seasons and now the director of basketball operations at Vanderbilt, loved seeing the photos of Toppin celebrating the Eastern Conference championship with his 3-year-old daughter Remi.
“Obviously, as a basketball player, I think it’s such an accomplishment, such a feat,” Farrell said. “It’s a dream that everybody has. For Obi, the person, you can’t help but cheer for him. I look back on five years ago and all the NBA teams calling saying, ‘Tell me about Obi.’ The first thing I would say to everybody is, ‘Hey, I could tell you about Obi Toppin the basketball player, but it wouldn’t do justice to how great of a young man he is.’ It’s the same thing with this.”
James Haring, now an assistant coach at La Salle, was in his first year as Dayton’s director of basketball operations in the 2019-20 season. He said everyone’s happy for Toppin, who scored 18 points in Game 6 of the Eastern Conference finals Saturday as the Pacers beat the New York Knicks to clinch their first NBA Finals appearance since 2000.
Toppin has played for playoff teams in four of his first five seasons.
“I feel like the casual fan may measure success by being a superstar or getting a max contract or whatever,” Haring said, “but in our eyes, success is winning and being a sustainable player at that level, and that’s what he’s done.”
Toppin, the No. 8 pick in the 2020 draft, has averaged 8.5 points and 3.4 rebounds in 17.2 minutes per game in his career. He has never ranked higher than seventh in minutes played on his teams in his five seasons. That’s where he ranked this season with the Pacers, averaging 19.6 minutes.
Toppin is capable of 20-point games — he had one against the Cleveland Cavaliers in Game 4 of the Eastern Conference finals — but he’s more often a role player. The Pacers’ success proves just how important those players can be.
“He’s an unbelievable example,” Greer said. “You’re talking about a guy that was the player of the year in college basketball and now in the NBA, he’s a perfect role player. He does everything and anything that the coaches are asking for him. He does it at a high level. Doesn’t complain. Just goes out there and does his job.
“I think the whole Indiana Pacers team has that mindset. You don’t know who’s going to give it to you every day, but guys just play all together. They love playing with each other.”
Credit: David Jablonski
Credit: David Jablonski
Darren Hertz, a member of Grant’s staff from 2017-24 and now the head coach at Wittenberg, saw glimpses of what makes Toppin special during the recruiting process eight years ago. Toppin was the second recruit, after Jalen Crutcher, the new staff landed in 2017.
“We had some film on him,” Hertz said, “and you saw little bits and pieces of what you’ve seen over the next almost decade now. It got your attention. It was kind of like, ‘Wait a minute. Why is nobody really recruiting this kid?’ There was some academic stuff. He was going to have to redshirt. For us, it was year one, and if you can bring talent into your program and a great kid, it just makes sense. But I do recall watching some film and just saying, ‘Man, there’s something a little different about this guy — the way he moves, the way he runs, the way he jumps, his energy."
Toppin’s energy is one of his underrated attributes, Hertz said.
“He has incredible energy on and off the court,” Hertz said. “He has time for everybody. He’s always enthusiastic, happy to see you, pleasant. Then on the court, he has just tremendous energy. That’s a skill. Not everybody has that. He’ll bring that every single day, not just when the lights come on for the game. He brought everybody’s energy up. That’s a heck of a skill.”
Toppin has returned to UD Arena for games several times over the last five seasons. He spent extensive time in Dayton during The Basketball Tournament in 2022. He surprised Grant with a $20,000 donation to Jay’s Light Fund, a mental health and suicide prevention initiative, before an exhibition game against Ohio State in October 2023.
“He understands that when he came here — not only the basketball team, but the community — everyone had open arms and loved him,” Greer said. “That means the world to him. He feels like this is his home. He’s here all the time. Now that he’s in Indiana, he’ll come down and hang out at our practices or go golfing. He’s so involved with Dayton.”
Farrell saw Toppin at his basketball camp last summer in Dayton. Farrell was still looking for a job at the time after losing his job at Siena College after the 2023-24 season. Farrell’s daughter Giulianna, 6, and Toppin’s daughter played as Farrell and Toppin reconnected.
Toppin invited Farrell to stay at his house in Indianapolis and come to training camp if he was still looking for a job in the fall.
That kind of connection runs deep among members of the 2019-20 team. Toppin, Crutcher, Mikesell, Watson, Trey Landers, Rodney Chatman, Dwayne Cohill, Jordy Tshimanga, Jhery Matos and the other members of the 2019-20 team took the program to rare heights. Toppin may have the same bond with his Pacers teammates years from now.
“We’re always sending each other messages on social media,” Farrell said. “My daughter wore No. 10 for soccer, so I sent a picture of her to Jalen, who was going crazy about it. My son wore No. 2, and I sent it to Ibi, and he was like, ‘He already knows who his favorite guy is.’”
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