Miller moved on to Indiana and then Rhode Island after a six-year stint at Dayton, but in his last four seasons with the Flyers, he did what no UD coach had done before or has done since by guiding the program to four straight NCAA tournament berths.
Miller talked to the Dayton Daily News about the 10-year anniversary of the 27-win team of 2014-15 at Atlantic 10 Conference Media Day in 2024, and when the opportunity to talk about the 10-year anniversary of the 2015-16 team came up this season in Pittsburgh at Media Day, Miller again didn’t hesitate to share his memories. Maybe it’ll be a similar story on the 10-year anniversary of the 2017 team a year from now.
Dayton finished 25-8 overall in Miller’s fifth season at Dayton. It won a share of the A-10 regular-season championship for the first time in his tenure. It earned a No. 7 seed in the NCAA tournament, which was then the highest in the Miller era, though the Flyers would match it a season later.
All in all, it was a memorable season in many ways and one worth celebrating 10 years later.
“That year, we were coming off of back-to-back tournaments,” Miller said. “We had won games in the tournament. The year prior was very difficult. It finished great, but it also was one that could have went a lot of the ways for a lot of reasons. As we were coming back, we were really anticipating maybe our deepest team that we had ever had. We had experience. We had guys that played in the tournament — a core group that had been together for a while."
That core consisted of senior forward Dyshawn Pierre, junior guards Scoochie Smith and Kyle Davis and junior forward Kendall Pollard. All those players had big roles in five NCAA tournament victories in the previous two seasons.
Joining that veteran mix was guard Charles Cooke, who sat out the previous season after transferring from James Madison.
Dayton also had youth. Guard Darrell Davis, a future 1,000-point scorer, was a sophomore. Center Steve McElvene debuted after sitting out his freshman season as a partial qualifier. The four-man freshman class — Ryan Mikesell, Xeyrius Williams, John Crosby and Sam Miller — would contribute to the team’s success as well.
“We had some pieces in place,” Miller said. “We thought we could be pretty good. But, like every season, there are highs and lows. We were able to compete that year in a brutal non-conference schedule. As we got into league play, we were intent on winning a regular-season championship. That would have been the first time we had that opportunity.”
Here’s a look back at that season:
MVP: Cooke led Dayton with 15.6 points per game. He improved his 3-point shooting percentage from 29.8% in his sophomore season at James Madison to 39.9% two years later in his first season at Dayton.
Cooke made the A-10 first team and the all-defensive team.
“He’s just what we needed,” Miller said that season. “Right from the start this year, Charles’ impact on this team has been immense.”
Credit: David Jablonski/Staff
Credit: David Jablonski/Staff
Top rebounder: Pierre averaged a career-best 8.5 rebounds in his final season. He averaged 12.6 points, just off his junior year average of 12.7.
Pierre did not play in the first 11 games. He was suspended by the university following a sexual assault allegation by a female UD athlete. Pierre denied the accusation. No charges were filed. He returned to the team on Dec. 20 and made his season debut in an 85-81 overtime victory against Arkansas on Dec. 30.
Pierre ranks 25th in UD history with 1,423 points.
“The thing I’ll remember most about Dyshawn is how unselfish he was,” Miller said after the final game that season. “We would not have won our regular-season conference championship if his decision wasn’t to come back, and we would probably not have made the NCAA tournament. He’s always been unselfish, but the guy really sold out and gave everything he had to the program. He’s a big reason we are where we are right now.”
Best playmaker: Scoochie Smith improved his assist numbers in each of his four seasons. He averaged 4.3 assists per game as a junior to go along with 11.7 points per game.
Best defender: Kyle Davis could have won this award in any of his four seasons, but it’s hard to ignore what McElvene, a 6-foot-11 center, did in his first and only season on the court with the Flyers. His death, at age 20, from an enlarged heart less than two months after the season, makes his performance all the more memorable.
In many ways, the 2015-16 season will be long remembered because of McElvene and his tragic death. Miller said he still thinks of McElvene, who was nicknamed “Big Steve,” all the time.
One McElvene moment stands out for Miller. On Senior Night at UD Arena, McElvene raced to the corner to defend a last-second 3-pointer by Virginia Commonwealth’s Melvin Johnson. The shot missed, and Dayton won 68-67 in overtime.
“You never forget Big Steve in the corner challenging the last 3-point shot,” Miller said. “He’s extended. He looked like he was going to touch the top of the roof.”
McElvene set UD’s single-season blocked shots record with 55. DaRon Holmes II surpassed that mark in each of his three seasons with the Flyers.
Dayton named its annual best defender award after McElvene in 2019.
Best true freshman: Miller averaged 3.2 points per game and had the slight edge over Mikesell, Crosby and Williams. All four averaged between 2.0 and 3.2 points per game and between 8.0 and 10.0 minutes per game.
Mikesell would be the only one to spend his entire career at Dayton. He started for the 29-2 team in 2019-20 and finished his career with 847 points.
Best former walk-on: Bobby Wehrli played such a big role as a walk-on in the 2014-15 season, Dayton awarded him a scholarship midway through that season. Wehrli was thrust into the rotation because Dayton had only six scholarship players available much of that season.
In the 2015-16 season, Wehrli played limited minutes but did have his moments. He scored five points in 23 minutes in a 52-49 overtime victory at Saint Louis on Feb. 23, for example.
November tournament summary: Dayton beat two top-100 teams, Iowa and Monmouth, before losing 90-61 to Xavier in the AdvoCare Invitational championship game at the HP Field House at ESPN’s Wide World of Sports.
It was Dayton’s worst loss in the series since a 46-12 defeat in 1931-32. Xavier took over the game with a 21-0 run in the second half.
“The emphasis was just to try to play hard and compete,” Smith said. “That’s what we were trying to do throughout the game. They were playing a lot harder than us. We’ve just got to compete all 40 minutes.”
Credit: David Jablonski/Staff
Credit: David Jablonski/Staff
Best non-conference victory: Dayton built a NCAA tournament resume by beating six teams ranked in the top 100 of the Ken Pomeroy ratings. The best of those six victories, considering it came on the road, came against No. 21 Vanderbilt in Nashville on Dec. 9, 2015.
Dayton won 72-67. Pollard led the Flyers with 21 points. Five points by Pollard in a three-minute span gave Dayton a 52-47 lead with 12:07 remaining. The Flyers didn’t trail again.
Miller hoped the victory wouldn’t lead to a top-25 ranking.
“I just think it causes added clutter in our locker room, added clutter on our practice floor, added clutter in our film room,” he said after the game. “It means absolutely zero. We’re better off with a chip on our shoulder. We’re better off being the underdogs. If they put us in the top 25, I’ll take it, but all that does is give our fans a chance to tell our guys how good they are, and they’re not very good right now.”
Worst non-conference loss: Miller got his wish because Dayton lost its next game 61-59 to Chattanooga at UD Arena.
Greg Pryor hit two free throws with 5 seconds to go, and Scoochie Smith missed a shot in heavy traffic under the basket in the final seconds. A 26-game home winning streak ended.
“Losing at home hurts,” Miller said then. “We have a good group of older guys who understand it’s a long year. Our younger guys just experienced something they weren’t expecting. It’s a wake-up call. We’re going to have a lot of these.”
Worst A-10 loss: Dayton lost 61-57 at La Salle on Jan. 9, 2016. It was the only victory in a 17-game stretch for the Explorers, who ranked 266th in the Ken Pomeroy ratings. The loss came six days after Dayton entered the top 25 for the first time.
The Explorers played six men and slowed the pace to a crawl, waiting until 12 seconds remained on the shot clock to run the offense and until less than five seconds remained to take a shot.
“I don’t necessarily know if you’re ever accustomed to playing a team holding the ball for 40 minutes and running an offense with 10 seconds on the clock,” Miller said then. “Each basket they made toward the end of the shot clock felt like a million points just because you’re standing around. Give them credit. They wanted to slow us down, keep us out of transition. They did a nice job.”
Ugliest game: In the game at Saint Louis, the Flyers committed 17 turnovers, shot 24 percent (6 of 25) from 3-point range, made 8 of 15 free throws, scored 14 points in the first half and somehow rallied to win 52-49 in overtime at Chaifetz Arena.
The Flyers had lost the two previous games to Saint Joseph’s on the road and to St. Bonaventure at home.
“I’m more happy we won this game than any game this season,” Miller said then. “We’re not a confident group right now. We got knocked to the mat. We’ve had some guys who were down for the first time in a long time. Starting that game, we were unsure of ourselves. We stayed with it. We hung tough. This game means more to us than most we played all season because we were able to find a way to win when things weren’t going well.”
Credit: DaytonDailyNews
Biggest shot: Dayton won 78-76 at Rhode Island on Feb. 16 thanks to a go-ahead 3-pointer by Darrell Davis with 21 seconds to play.
“I’ve been at the gym after practice working on my shot with Archie,” Davis said after the game. “He told me my time was coming and to stick with it.”
Dayton won at the Ryan Center for the first time in 11 years, ending a six-game losing streak at the arena.
Longest winning streak: Dayton won nine straight games after losing to La Salle, improving to 21-3 and 11-1 in the A-10 with the victory at Rhode Island.
Best A-10 victory: Dayton entered the final game of the regular season trailing VCU by a game. Up until that point in UD basketball history, the program had won two A-10 West Division championships but no other regular-season titles. A loss at La Salle in the final regular-season game in 2015 left Dayton a game behind Davidson in the standings.
Smith tied the game against VCU on a layup with 11 seconds left in the second half to send the game to overtime. He scored a career-high 29 points on 8-of-17 shooting.
In overtime, a layup by Kyle Davis with 16 seconds to play turned out to be the winning shot in a 68-67 victory. The Flyers shared the A-10 championship with VCU and St. Bonaventure.
“It’s really big,” Smith said, “especially losing to this team last year and trying to get back and do it all for the seniors, Dyshawn and Bobby. It will boost our confidence going into the NCAA tournament.”
Best stat: Dayton ranked 15th in the nation in adjusted defensive efficiency, according to KenPom.com. They ranked 38th in the country in points allowed per game (65.9).
A-10 tournament summary: No. 1 seed Dayton beat No. 9 Richmond 69-54 in the quarterfinals but lost 82-79 to No. 4 Saint Joseph’s in the semifinals, continuing a run of disappointing A-10 tournament performances that continues to this day.
Dayton still has not won the A-10 tournament since 2003, and it has never won the event outside UD Arena. The Hawks knocked the Flyers out of the tournament for the second time in three seasons.
Dayton made 6 of 21 3-pointers (28.6 percent), while the Hawks made 10 of 27 (37 percent). That was the biggest difference, along with free throws. Saint Joseph’s made 22 of 25. Dayton made 13 of 18.
Experts still considered Dayton a lock for the NCAA tournament despite the loss.
“You can’t take much for granted, but our resume speaks for itself in terms of the entire body of work,” Miller said then. “From the seed perspective, if the committee is looking at attempting to do what they ask you to do, which is non-conference scheduling and road wins and RPI wins, this year’s resume is really good. I hope we get rewarded with a good seed.”
Biggest postseason spoiler: This was the year of the leaked NCAA tournament bracket. The team gathered at Miller’s house to watch the Selection Show. Halfway through the two-hour show on CBS, someone on Twitter leaked the entire bracket. It slowly dawned on everyone that it wasn’t a hoax.
The Flyers knew they were the No. 7 seed and had a date with No. 10 seed Syracuse at the Scottrade Center in St. Louis.
“A couple people walked in and said we’re playing Syracuse,” Miller said. “I said, ‘How do we know that?’ They said there’s a leaked bracket. I rolled my eyes, and I got 30 text messages in the next 10 minutes that said we’ve got the Cuse in St. Louis. Once they started to announce the rest of the bracket, our players were saying, ‘It’s right. It’s right.’ When they announced our name, it was an unusual celebration. Last year, they didn’t want us in. This year, they told us early.”
Credit: David Jablonski/Staff
Credit: David Jablonski/Staff
NCAA tournament summary: After beating Syracuse 55-53 to earn a Sweet 16 berth in 2014, Dayton lost 70-51 to Syracuse in the first round in 2016.
It was the fifth loss in nine games for Dayton after a 20-3 start.
Syracuse led 30-28 at halftime and then outscored Dayton 26-5 in the first 12 minutes of the second half.
“I’m disappointed,” Miller said then. “I’m really down for our guys. The tournament’s harsh. We’ve experienced the highs. We’ve experienced the thrill. This is different for us.”
Credit: HANDOUT
Credit: HANDOUT
Postscript: The whole team gathered in May in McElvene’s hometown, Fort Wayne, Ind., to pay respects at his funeral. Miller spoke at Abundant Life Church with Smith, Cooke, Davis and Pollard standing behind him.
“Everyone was proud of you, Steve,” Miller said. “You came such a long way against odds that most people can’t fathom. Not many people gave you a chance, in my opinion. Maybe that’s why we ended up together. We needed you. You needed us.”
Just a week before McElvene’s death, Miller had met with McElvene on campus, and they talked about the “monster jump” they expected in his second season. Instead, McElvene’s passing hung over the following season. The sadness lingered, but the memories also inspired the team, which claimed the outright A-10 championship for the first time in 2017 and earned its fourth straight NCAA berth.
The Flyers ran onto the court before a NCAA tournament game against Wichita State in Indianapolis in 2017, slapping hands with a cardboard cutout of their late teammate. They wore a patch with his No. 5 on their jerseys all season.
Cooke was especially close to McElevene because they both sat out the previous season together as redshirts.
“He had a ton of potential,” Cooke said in the summer of 2016. “It’s just tragic. We all think the same thoughts when it comes to something like that. It’s sad, but at the end of the day, I feel like I’m doing himself and myself a disservice if I think about it that way. I had too many great moments with Steve to just be sad. I’m not going to sit there and look at it and hold my head down and be sad all the time. I’m going to still feed off the memories I have of Steve.”
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