Jordan Davis shows off outside shooting touch for Dayton

Guard leads A-10 freshman in 3-point percentage

The outside shooting of freshman guard Jordan Davis has emerged as one of the brightest spots in an up-and-down season for the Dayton Flyers.

Davis took one 3-pointer in Dayton’s first two games and missed it. In the next seven games, he made 17 of 32, putting his season percentage at 51.5. He ranks third in the Atlantic 10 Conference in 3-point shooting percentage, and he’s the only freshman in the top 10.

“We knew coming in just based on what we saw this summer and in the preseason he had a knack for scoring the basketball,” Dayton coach Anthony Grant said. “He’s done a really good job of that. His teammates have done a good job of creating those opportunities for him as well. Jordan’s a young man who’s got a chance to over the course of every game we play continue to learn and grow and get better. As he gets more comfortable and understands the game more, he can be more aggressive and assertive in terms of his ability to score and provide our team with that gift, that weapon.”

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Davis led Dayton’s five-man freshman class in scoring in the first nine games with 7.3 points per game. He took only 11 shots inside the arc, making six. He has also did a better job of avoiding turnovers than the rest of Dayton’s roster. He had 11 assists and four turnovers.

Davis scored 1,659 points in his career at Dutch Fork High School in Irmo, South Carolina.He’s the school’s all-time leading scorer. He averaged 22.3 points per game as a senior.

Davis developed his shot in high school with the same basketball shooting machine Dayton uses. They call it the gun. It uses a net to collect made and missed shots and then fires the ball back to the shooter, allowing a player to take hundreds of shots in a short time.

The goal over the summer, Davis said, was to make 500 shots a day.

“It’s just repetition,” Davis said.

The origins of his success started at home, Davis said. His dad Michael gave him advice, and Davis worked on his shot for years in their driveway at home. There was enough room for him to take shots from long range.

“I guess I’m kind of a natural shooter,” Davis said, “but I always worked on it.”

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