The Last Great Day (Part 2): Dayton the ‘epicenter of college basketball’ on March 7

A day that would end with the Flyers celebrating the Atlantic 10 Conference championship at UD Arena began with fans getting in line outside the Frericks Center on campus and filing into the building at 9:30 a.m. for the filming of ESPN’s College GameDay.

Shannon Chawk, a UD cheerleader from 1991-94 during some of the darkest days in Dayton basketball history, walked right in with her husband Frank, also a 1994 grad, and daughter Siobahn after only a 20-minute wait. Her daughter was considering whether to attend Dayton at that time and is now a UD freshman.

The thrill of seeing GameDay in person and the men’s game later that night helped solidify her decision, showing the enthusiasm Dayton fans have in the best of times and also in the worst of times as Chawk discovered during her college days when Dayton’s program hit a low point.

“It didn’t matter if we won or lost,” Chawk said, “the fans were there no matter what. That is the heart of Dayton. The spirit of Dayton is so strong.”

Energetic crowd

That attitude was evident throughout the filming of GameDay. Seconds before the show began, the host, Rece Davis, told the crowd, “I just want to tell you, I am freaking stoked for this show.”

Jay Bilas, Seth Greenberg and LaPhonso Ellis joined Davis on a stage in the middle of the court, which is mostly used by the Dayton volleyball team these days. Hundreds of students packed the stands behind the stage. On the other side of the court sat thousands of non-student fans. Almost the entire Dayton football team, 75 players plus head coach Rick Chamberlin, filled one set of bleachers.

The ESPN hosts revved up the crowd throughout the show.

“The love for the program has been handed down from generation to generation,” Bilas said.

“Does Dayton make the final four?” Davis asked Ellis, who starred at Notre Dame from 1989-92. “You know you want to say it, Phons?”

“I think they’re equipped to make the Final Four,” Ellis said.

“I don’t think the tournament is wide open,” Bilas said. “Not everyone can win. Everybody can lose. But not everybody can win. But Dayton is one of the nine teams that can win this thing.”

Through it all, the Frericks Center never stopped buzzing.

“Once I got inside, I’m like OK, I have a knack for being the guy in front of the camera,” Dayton fan Mike Kidd said. “I wanted the front row. I was scooting down to the front row next to the guy with the camera. Right before they started, the guy panned over to me and put me right on ESPN. Seeing Jay Bilas and the whole crew and all the signs, it almost brought a tear to my eye.”

Molly Mudra, who got in line at 6 a.m. with her husband Dan and their daughter Allison, who’s now a UD freshman, said, “it was fun to watch the students get so excited and be so energetic and enthusiastic and hyped for the season and the game and, of course, the upcoming March Madness, which didn’t turn out quite like we hoped.”

“It was so loud you couldn’t hear yourself think,” said Sam Stolly, a former UD student manager. “It was just such a cool atmosphere. That was the first time GameDay had been on campus like that. It was really cool seeing how the production goes down. To cue the crowd up, they were like, ‘Here we go, 3, 2, 1,’ and they’d get everyone wound up. It was one of those once-in-a-lifetime things. You can’t really miss that.”

Something special

One of those can’t-miss moments came when the camera captured UD coach Anthony Grant and his former coach, Don Donoher, the winningest coach in UD history, standing next to each other and marveling at the scene.

Midway through the show, the Flyers themselves made an appearance. Obi Toppin led the team from behind a curtain as smoke rose on each side. He filmed the scene in front of him as he walked onto the court.

Bilas then took a walk with Toppin around the court — a segment he called “94 feet with Obi Toppin” — as he peppered him with questions.

“When was the first time that you ever dunked in a basketball game?” Bilas asked.

“My first game of my senior year in high school,” Toppin said.

“Was it a windmill, or did you just squeak it in?”

“It was a regular one-hand dunk.”

Bilas and Toppin then stopped where Grant was standing with Davis, and the interviews continued.

“Anthony, this is your school,” Davis said. “To come back here and this quickly have this type of atmosphere, how does this compare to your expectations when you returned?

“This is a special place, man,” Grant said. “There’s a great history here. Coach Donoher, some of the coaches that have come before, this place for decades has been one of the epicenters of college basketball. It’s a great environment. We’ve got the best fans in the country: the Red Scare, our students. I knew coming back there was a passion here for basketball and if we could put together a staff, put together a team that saw what I saw that we could do something special.”

Davis then asked Grant to compare this Dayton team to the NCAA championship team he helped coach at the University of Florida in 2006. What qualities did the teams share?

“I think the biggest thing is they love each other,” Grant said. “They play for each other. It’s a great group that understands the things myself and my staff have told them what we need to do on both sides of the ball offensively and defensively to become the best versions of ourselves. We’re going to take it one game at a time. We’ve got a big game tonight against GW. Hopefully, we can get that win as we head to Brooklyn for the A-10 tournament.”

Saturday matinee

Two large trophies sit in the lobby of the Dayton women’s basketball coaches offices at the Cronin Center these days. There are always trophies of some sort there because the program is such a consistent winner. Coach Shauna Green, now in her fifth season, has become an expert net cutter.

Green’s Flyers cut down the net March 8 at UD Arena after a 52-48 victory against Virginia Commonwealth at UD Arena in the A-10 tournament final. That was the last great day of 2020 for her program, which like the men’s team did not get to play in the NCAA tournament.

A day earlier, the UD women beat Saint Louis 58-50 in the semifinals. That game started at 11 a.m., the same time GameDay started.

“That whole week, there was just a vibe on campus,” Green said. “Everyone was ramped up. With the men having the success they had throughout the year to that point, knowing that was the night that they could capture the championship, knowing that GameDay was there, there was just so much excitement.”

Green didn’t get to experience much of the atmosphere on campus because she was preparing for a game at the arena.

“That was a really big game for us,” Green said. “To win that day meant we were going to play for a championship. That was our goal. You’ve got to first get to that championship game before you can win it.”

Dayton built a 20-point lead in the first half and, for the most part, coasted to a semifinal victory. Jayla Scaife led the Flyers with 25 points. Green spent the evening preparing for the championship game while keeping an eye on the men’s game, wishing she could be there but knowing she had important work to do.

That work paid off the next day as Green’s team secured the league’s automatic NCAA tournament berth and capped a perfect weekend for the university.

“You couldn’t write a better script for the university and for Dayton basketball in general,” Green said, “other than we both go on and make deep runs in the tournament. Obviously COVID took care of that, but it was just a magical weekend.”

STORY CONTINUES IN PART 3