Anthony Grant used the same joke I’ve used more than once when talking about Halloween during a media session Wednesday at the Cronin Center. He said he was going to hand out carrots at his house. At least one TV reporter believed him, at which point Grant had to say, “I wouldn’t do that to the kids.” Grant enters his eighth season as the head coach of the Dayton Flyers with the hope of providing more treats than tricks for the Flyer Faithful this season. Dayton plays St. Francis University, of Loretto, Pa., in the season opener at 7 p.m. Monday. The game will air on ESPN+. St. Francis is the typical season-opening opponent for Dayton. It’s a team that Dayton should beat easily. As of Wednesday, Grant hadn’t even started studying the Red Flash. “Hopefully, we’ll be able to start that sometime this weekend,” Grant said Wednesday. “We’ll (practice) today. We’ll be off (Thursday). Once we finish this week, then I’ll start to prepare for them.” Dayton will seek its 20th straight victory on opening night. It has beaten 18 different opponents since a 2004 loss to Eastern Kentucky. There have been a number of close calls along the way, most memorably last-second victories against Purdue University Fort Wayne (IPFW) in 2013 and Ball State in 2017. Even the best Dayton team of his century, the 2019-20 team that won 29 games, survived two 3-point attempts by Indiana State in the final seconds before escaping with a victory. Here’s the list of mostly forgettable opponents: 2005: Dayton 81, Tennessee Tech 60. 2006: Dayton 78, Austin Peay 62. 2007: Dayton 78, East Tennessee State 74.
Sad news for Marvel Allen I talked to all of the returning Flyers in June and July for a series of offseason stories. No one gave a better interview than Marvel Allen, the guard from Florida who redshirted as a freshman last season. Allen talked about the injury that sidelined him at the beginning of last season and the surgery he underwent in early June. At that time, he expected to return to the court in August and be ready for the season. “I haven’t played organized basketball in a minute,” Allen said. “So, yeah, I might get emotional. I don’t really know yet, but I’m ready for the moment.” Allen’s wait continues. UD announced Friday that he will miss the 2024-25 season because of a left knee injury. He’ll undergo one surgery today and another one in December on the same knee. My annual story, “A short history of UD injuries,” has another sad chapter. The news is not surprising because Grant said after the Xavier exhibtion game that Allen had setbacks in his return and said Saturday after an exhibition game victory against Ashland that Allen would likely need another procedure. It is a big disappointment for the Flyer Faithful, who have wondered for two seasons now what could have been for Allen — or what could be. Presumably Allen will have to appeal to the NCAA to get a medical redshirt this season, allowing him to have up to six years in college basketball. When, or if, Allen ever plays for the Flyers, I think he could be a fan favorite. He’s got that type of personality. But it’s a long road back from here.
What to make of the Ashland game Eight years ago, Dayton avoided an embarrassment a week before the season opener, rallying from a 16-point deficit to beat the Findlay Oilers 76-69 in front of the first sellout crowd (13,455) to see an exhibition game at UD Arena. “What happened out there tonight quite frankly is not good enough to beat anybody on our schedule,” then Dayton coach Archie Miller said. That performance did not prove to be any sort of barometer for the team, which soundly beat Austin Peay in the season opener the following week and then won a key non-conference game at Alabama in Week 2. The senior-led Flyers won the Atlantic 10 Conference championship outright that season and returned to the NCAA tournament for a fourth straight season. Unlike that game, Dayton was in no danger of losing its exhibition game to Ashland on Saturday. The Flyers led by double digits for most of the game but were outscored 29-25 by the Division II program in the second half. The final score, 65-56, was the closest victory for Dayton against a lower-division opponent since that Findlay game in 2016. Dayton lost focus at times, committing five turnovers in the first three minutes of the second half. Three of the turnovers were because of bad decisions and/or bad passes. • Javon Bennett jumped to try to throw a pass over a defender to Zed Key, but the defender blocked the pass with both hands and got the steal. • Enoch Cheeks dribbled into the paint and threw a bounce pass to Zed Key, who was blanked by two defenders. One defender knocked the ball to the other. • On what should have been a simple pass, Cheeks threw an errant pass to Nate Santos, and the ball bounced out of bounds at half court. Just as I wouldn’t predict great things for Dayton after a 30-point victory in an exhibition game, I wouldn’t make too much of the single-digit victory. We’ll know a lot more about the team’s potential after the two games next week. The Flyers play Northwestern six days after the game against St. Francis. “The first two games, winning really wasn’t a priority,” Grant said Wednesday. “It was more about, ‘What habits have we built up at this point? What do we need to be able to do as a team?’ We wanted everybody to see different combinations. Now we get a little bit more laser focused in terms of what we got to be able to do as we head into the regular season.”
Here’s other news that might interest Flyer fans: 🏀 Former Flyer Mike Sharavjamts is with his third team in three seasons. He started his career at Dayton in the 2022-23 season. He played at San Francisco last season. Now he’s at Utah, where he started an exhibition game Tuesday and had five points and five assists in 22 minutes. 🏀 Anyone who wants to watch college basketball in person on the opening day of the season Monday and doesn’t have tickets to the game at UD Arena won’t have to travel far. At Athletes in Action’s John Wooden Family Fieldhouse in Xenia, Valparaiso plays Liberty at 5 p.m., and Indiana State plays Florida Atlantic at 7:30 p.m. in the Total Athlete Tip-Off. There’s also a women’s game between Valparaiso and Liberty at 1 p.m. 🏀 Fourteen of the 15 teams in the A-10 play on Monday, the first day of the season. Richmond opens the season Wednesday. The best game Monday involving an A-10 contender is Saint Louis against Santa Clara in the Field of 68 Showcase in Sioux Falls, S.D. Santa Clara ranks 94th in the preseason Ken Pomeroy ratings. Saint Louis is No. 105.
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