udfan

I have not seen SLU play this year, so I can't make specific predictions, but in the absence of good info, I never count out a Majerus coached team against us. Maqjerus loves to slow down the pace and get back on defense before we can run, and that is where Dayton struggles the most. It's the same way that Don Donoher used to frustrate more athletic teams with disciplined play. Someone here said that Paul Williams is "super-athletic. He isn't athletic. He just shoots the 3 really well as a spot-up guy. Juwan Staten is a really good freshman point guard, so that will help us some. He makes good decisions and is very speedy with his first step off the dribble. He has suprising explosion off the floor when he gets close to the basket, even though he is just around 6 foot. He plays through contact well for a frosh. He is not a good 3pt shooter, but he can hit some shorter jumpers.

I know nothing about this whole situation, but I know that these student/faculty courts are at least somewhat common. There was a Xavier player who had an incident on campus that prompted a short police investigation. The police quickly dismissed the charges against him (no criminal offense), but the Xavier student/faculty group deliberated over the fact that he broke the "student code" and they actually voted him out of school. The rest of the story is hazy, but supposedly new evidence emerged and that ruling somehow was reversed. The original vote to kick the guy out of school was reported by the Cincinnati Enquirer beat reporter, and the Xavier fans turned on him like wild dogs. The decision was reversed, and I don't know any of the details of why that happened, but the UD fans who became aware of this situation love to play up the shadiness of the whole thing. I have no idea how much influence the athletic department had on the situation, but some Xavier students were very pissed off by the ruling reversal and planned demonstrations and protests at the basketball games. The university cracked down on that immediately and canceled them for what they said were "student safety concerns". Riiggghhht. That is the juiciest part of the whole story. Their own student paper reported on the battle between students and administration over the planned demonstrations. I know some X fans who were close to the situation, and know a lot of details. One of them told me that the student/basketball player was only guilty of very, very poor judgement. But that is all I could get out of him.

This is an interesting thread for me, especially listening to the thoughts on Dayton. I wouldn't quibble with anyone's take on the Flyers because I am not sure how we are going to be this year, honestly. I know our forwards are very good, but the rest of the starters will be in new roles, making for a very different look for us. There is some debate about who will start at PG for us. Some think it will be freshman Juwan Staten, while others predict junior Josh Parker, the transfer from Drake who becomes eligible next year. The only thing that I have heard about Staten is that he is very quick with the ball in his hands. I heard that he won't be an offensive juggernaught, but someone who just disrupts a lot with his floor game and stop-and-go style. They say he is hard to keep out of the lane, but not a particularly good outside shooter. I saw Parker play in our pre-season scrimmage, and he looked very solid with the ball to me, but that was just one glorified practice. He put up good shooting numbers at Drake. The starting SG will probably be Paul Williams. He has a strong body, but is not particularly dangerous off the dribble. He can shoot pretty well though. His back-up will probably be freshman Brandon Spearman who looks like a decent all-around player to me. Center will either be Devin Searcy or Matt Kavanaugh. Neither seem like anything more than average A10 bigs at this point. The place that we change the most is on defense. All the players who graduated were very good defenders. That was our identity last year. I think we will look very different on that end of the floor. It will take some time for our defense to come together, and we probably won't ultimately get as good at that end of the floor.

Improving the schedule to the level of a Xavier takes years of NCAA tournament success for an A10 team. But even our schedule last year, which was roundly critisized by some A10 posters ended up being #31 in the country in terms of quality according to Pomeroy. Just do one and ones with the best mid-major type programs, mixed with the best exempt tournaments and maybe a two-for-one arrangment with a top BCS school occasionally. There are not many decent teams that challenge themselves during the non-conf, so it does not take much to get you in the upper echelon of non-conf difficulty. I am not a fan who thinks you can thrown yourself on the sword and accept two for ones with the BCS on their terms all the time. That is suicide, IMO. Best to wait until you have the resume to get 1 and 1's with lower level BCS and work your way up. I don't know how our pg's will work out. It's tough playing that position as a freshman, no matter how talented you are. By next year, I think we will be as good as we have ever been at that position though, with an experienced Staten, the Drake transfer (Josh Parker) and Kevin Dillard all available. This year is hard to predict. We have very good forwards, but lots of new faces and other less experienced players who are going to be in the mix.

I'm looking forward to it. We have been a very good OOC team for the last 3-4 years. This year, I think the personality of our team will change a lot. They guys who graduated played significant minutes over their entire careers and made us a defensive power and mediocre offensively. The replacements are generally talented but untested. I think we get worse defensively and better offensively.

This situation certainly has our attention in Dayton. Izzo and Heathcoat are very tight with Gregory and that group has a fierce loyalty. Of course I can't be sure that Gregory would be first choice, but every indication I am getting through those close to the program says he is probably the top choice right now. Izzo is still 50/50 from what I am hearing. I don't think this will drag out beyond Monday, whatever the decision is.

We play at an average pace when you look at the entire game. If you watched the NIT run last year, you can see that we try to fast break off of any opportunity, but if we don't get numbers, we settle into a deliberate 1/2 court game that we weren't so good at last year. I saw some SIU fan on another board mention that we play poor defense or some such nonsense. I think Pomeroy had us rated as the 9th most defensively efficient team in the country at the end of the year, and we hovered around the mark all year long. I don't think we will be that defensively good next year, but by the time Dillard is available in 2011-2012, he won't see a lot of minutes if he isn't playing decent defense, IMO. That is Gregorys M.O.

You must have us confused with Xavier.

I hear we are one of the top teams under consideration for Dillard. I think he once commented that we were his second choice when he commited out of HS. I know he has had some issues with the coach/team, but I feel like our chemistry is stable. I wouldn't mind landing him as a transfer. We could be very solid, if not potentially outstanding at the guard spots with Staten, Parker, Dillard, Williams and Spearman.

There was good reason for fans to be upset with our league play last year. I felt that many things went wrong in all of our close losses. We had some bad luck, but the worst thing was our inability to slow the tempo without ball-handling meltdowns. You could look at it as Gregory's fault for not recognizing that weakness or the pg's inability to protect the ball in crunch time. We needed all of the shot clock just to get a decent shot, and we tried too many times to start the offense with 8 seconds left. The NIT championship run healed a lot of those bad feelings for the more reasonable fans, IMO. We did a lot of it on the road in tough places to play, which was another supposed bugaboo for us. We needed that run in the worst way. I think that another factor in Gregory staying was his belief that the tournament field would expand to 96. I think if we are going to hold onto him for much longer, that has to be happening or on the horizon. We are always operating on the bubble with the current 65-68. I think that this year you will see a significant shift towards a better half-court team with a decent number of skill guys in the mix. I am specfically thinking of the freshmen forwards (Ralph Hill and Devin Oliver), Chris Johnson, Luke Fabrizius and a more well-rounded pointguard duo. We will still sub like crazy, so even though we have great starting forwards in Chris Wright and Chris Johnson, Hill and Oliver will get some minutes. Both Hill and Oliver have perimeter games that should help us diversify our offense. I don't see us being as good as last year on defense. Even though out pg's last year had their problems, they were the key to out pressure defense, and they could jump start our fast break effectively. The loss of Marcus Johnson and Kurt Huelsman will be felt defensively too.

I look for UD to be a good team with Wright returning. We lost a lot of experience, and a lot of good defensive players, but not much offensive talent. Wright coming back or leaving was the difference between reloading or rebuilding next year to me. You can never be sure exactly what you have with new players until they arrive, but we do have maybe the most highly rated pg we have ever recruited coming in Staten, so that makes me feel better about losing all of our pgs to graduation. I have seen Josh Parker play, and I think he is going to be at least decent. He has the ability to shoot, which is going to be the big difference you see in dayton next year. We are losing proven defenders who had trouble shooting for guys who can shoot, but need to learn to play BG defense. True frosh Josh Staten is a talented pure pg. His strength is his quickness. He is small, but has the athleticism to dunk easily. He is only a sufficient outside shooter, but excels at creating for other players, and he can normally blow by his defender off the dribble. Junior transfer Josh Parker physically reminds me of Holloway for X. He will play back-up or starting pg for us. He has a better handle than both London Warren and Rob Lowery, but I think he will need time to make good decisions at pg. He can shoot the 3 well, and he is quick enough to attack off the dribble. He is very athletic and physically strong, but his size hurts him a little when contested near the rim. I don't think he will approcach the defensive ability of London Warren or Rob Lowery. He does not have their length. I think that Gregory is trying to decide if there is a player still available to fill the 3rd string pg spot left by the troubled Jesse Berry's open scholarship. Gregory would most likely look for a combo-guard if such a player is available. If not, I think true freshman sg Brandon Spearman might be the 3rd string pg. Other options are possibly Paul Williams and maybe even freshman Devin Oliver, who despite being 6-6, can handle, shoot the three and pass well. All of the other starting positions are likely to be returning players. SG - Paul Williams, SF - Chris Johnson, PF - Chris Wright, C - Devin Searcy. To me, calling BG's substitution patterns poor in-game coaching is the flavor of the month. If you watched the NIT, he was praised for using the depth of the bench throughout that championship run. It just depends on whether we are winning or losing close games. Last year, we lost almost every close one. The year before, the opposite was true. The coaching philosophy was the same. I do think that now that SLU has the talent, that Majerus' coaching style gives us problems. We are not really a high tempo team though. We are only high tempo if your defense does not get back before our attempted fast breaks. If we don't get an open floor fast break shot, we use a lot of clock and we definitely slow other teams down by putting on a nuisance press and playing good defense. So our game tempo is actually average unless you cough the ball up a lot on offense. You guys are very patient on offense and hit 3-pointers well against us. You didn't panic when going deep into the shot-clock offensively. And you did a great job of getting back on defense, and were very stout in the half-court. Those were keys to beating us last year, IMO.

I think this is going to be a very close game. Your style is a great equalizer, and I expect your home court to be ready for us. And teams that have a great tactician like Majerus, give us some trouble. A disciplined defense always keeps a game close. Our team is only run and gun for spurts if given a good opportunity to run. Otherwise, we actually play a slow half court game where we use a lot of shot clock.

I know that UD charters a lot of private jets, selling other seats to big boosters. It was a big push of Gregory's because he was concerned about missing excessive classtime and wearing kids out on the commercial flights. And you can't argue too much about our academic success with the men's basketball team and all of the other sports really. We are always near the top of the national performance. Even with the private flights, it's a grind for the athletes, IMO. If SLU were to charter flights too, it should only be an extra 60 to 90 minutes of flight time in each direction, right? I am pretty sure that we only drive to Xavier.

It was all the rage to blame Gregory for injuries that year, led mostly by Xavier fans. Their intentions are never pure. But that is behind us. There is no reason I need to point out that he is laying a nice foundation at Dayton. Why defend the obvious? I have said many times, that I think Majerus is doing the same thing for Saint Louis. You just have to have patience if you do it the right way. Congratualtions on beating Richmond. I think this is the year that things start to get very dicey in trying to pull off wins against you guys, not that our win at UD last year wasn't dicey. I just expect that you are a better team this year. And I don't see Gregory using hair product this year, unless it is "Touch of Gray".

Gregory has been recruiting in the Chicago area successfully in the last few years, so this is an interesting situation that could affect us. It must be brianstl, if I remember correctly.

I think Gregory has turned down that job twice now.

These are all terrible ideas more likely to encourage our team to victory considering the ineptitude of the smack.

Student attendance has been spotty for UD in the last few years, which is very disappointing to me. We have a large student section, and in most games, it is only half-full. Big games are great with students overflowing into nearby sections, but our home schedule outside the A10 has been weak for a few years. I think there are a few factors that hurt student attendance in recent years. First, UD is just regaining some swagger as a power in the A10. Next, the students have been unhappy with the system of ticket distribution. It is based on points accumulated from attending other UD sporting events. The "Red Scare" group of organized student fans is large and incredibly loyal in their attendance. We have a large and very supportive student pep band too, but they combined only fill half of the section. The other students only pack it in when the games start getting bigger during the A10 schedule or if we have a headliner opponent. The need for busing also must hurt attendance. I'm not sure why, but I still see a large number of students walk to the Arena on cold days, and last year the bridge between campus and the Arena was out during a rebuild, so, unless they wanted to swim, that was no longer an option for the year. This year, a new bridge is in place. I think this is the last piece we need to fall into place for our home games. When the student section is full, the Arena is capable of really rocking. I don't believe that a new Arena would be placed on the newly aquired land between the current campus and the Arena. I spoke with a university employee earlier this year, and I think they have plans for new university buildings there and even some commercial development. I think when a new Arena does eventually go up, and I think it is a long way off, it will sit on the same site as UD Arena. That land is landfill next to the river that was donated to the university for the Arena construction in 1969. That area has been developed in recent years with a new football practice facility, a new baseball stadium and a new softball field. Also, a hotel was built across from the Arena as a convenient location for visitors to Arena events. It seems like the whole area is now set aside for athletics, and because it is right next to an on-ramp for I-75 and the I-35 connection, it is an ideal location to disapate 13,500 fans as quickly as possible after the game. If the Arena was on the other side of the river on the new land, the bridge would be a big bottleneck, I think.

If you understand what Gregory had when he came to Dayton, (And I mean if you look at each class he had when he came in, not just the seniors.) I don't think you can make a case that he was underacheiving with his roster over the first 4 years. Dayton didn't have a very good group behind his Senior class. Gregory has recruited well almost every year and slowly brought the level up. He came to Dayton saying that he was going to build slowly with 4 year players and he did it. He had transfers in the early years, and it's stabalized considerably now that he has guys who have bought into his system and see success in it. I don't expect that UD will be an NCAA team every year, of course, but they will be very consistantly successful while Gregory is still around, IMO. I think a lot of A10 fans underestimate the time required to build somehting really good in this league. X didn't exactly explode on the scene. You have to have a coach who can keep capitolizing on past successes by recruiting slightly better players. And the big guys that you get in this league normally take 2 years to develope into "factor players". As far as facilities, I like the SLU Arena, but I think a lot of fans underestimate UD Arena purely because of it's age. X fans are especially guilty of this. The shiny new arenas are nice, but the things that make a basketball venue terrific have very little to do with the date of construction. And the Donoher Center, which was added to UD Arena in 1998, replaced the old Arena locker rooms, film rooms, training centers, offices, etc. In 2002, UD added luxury boxes, more premium seating, a restaraunt and a lounge for premium ticket holders on the 2nd level above each basket. Also included were large new concessions areas under the stands and new restroom facilities. So really, there isn't much in UD Arena that isn't updated or new. The University considered building a new Arena before the 2002 renovation, but decided everyone was too happy with the current facility and it had many good years left. UD built a new on-campus student PAC, and turned the old PAC into an on-campus practice facility for basketball as well. The new PAC is beautiful, and sometimes serves as a summer location for team pick-up games. I would be suprised if any team in the A10 has something on Dayton with the quality of facilities.

A lot of teams play poorly against us and wonder how we beat them shooting so poorly. In general, it's our extreme athleticism combined with very gritty determination on defense. Your guys were one of the few teams who matched our intensity for the whole game. I think your guys looked tired of losing, and put it all out there last night. The Marcus Johnson alley-oop is a regular thing in our offense. I think he may be a better athlete than Wright, and he definitely turned in one of his finest defensive efforts. All that being said, that game could have gone either way so easily. I did think that the officiating was the best I have seen all year in our A10 games.

Wow, just got back from the game, and i was really impressed with how the Billikens played tonight. I have not read this whole thread, but I am assuming you have not played that way the entire year, or your record would be better, IMO. Despite the low scoring, I thought the quality of play was outstanding on both sides, and Majerus manuevered his troops well. I thought we were going to lose when Chris Wright fouled out, but fortune smiled on us in the end.

I sat through a long rebuilding process at UD when Brian Gregory arrived. He was left a stellar class in his first year, and went to the NCAA, but the 3 classes behind that were sub-A10 caliber for sure. So this situation reminds me a lot of what we had to go through for 3 years. Even really good freshmen classes are going to take time to accumulate in your system in order for the team to become a really competitive team in the A10. And defections-injuries are going to happen during this rebuild that stunt things somewhat. IMO, it's a 3 year process before you really can start to get dominant again, and 4-5 years before it can be considered complete. Just my opinion.

I might have to reply to this in pieces. Someone on this board suggested that a typical UD non conference schedule is unusally easy, leading to poor performance in the conference season. I disagree for several reasons, but I will get into that later. Like it or not, RPI SOS calculations at the end of a full season are a pretty good measure. I chose to use the system that is prefered by the NCAA selection commitee. It doesn't prove anything, but if you want to talk about the quality of a non-conference season in review, there isn't a better place to start. I have no stock in the RPI, but only responded to one of the posters here who attempted to discredit the measure by linking an out of date opinion written by a UK fan. Pomeroy himself says that the RPI is a nice measure for the selection commitee. Both UD and Xavier are in SW Ohio. I don't expect anyone here to know too much about UD, or want your program to be like the UD program. I hope you do well with your new coach. I don't know much about SLU recruiting. I hope it is going well. I'll have to finish later.

Thanks for the reply Taj. It's probably better that we have this little thread rather than abusing a different one. That way, not everyone has to pay attention. You covered a lot of ground. I will respond to this as soon as I have the time.

I agree with most of what you say. I think that the UMass road loss will not be a bad loss by the end of the season. I don't think the Creighton road loss will ever be considered bad. You are right about the RPI not being a very accurate measure near the middle of the season, when a lot of opponents have played brutal losing road schedules that have inflated their RPI's. That is why I used RPI in the context of full complete seasons in my initial post. In my opinion, by the end of the season, RPI is a pretty good measure of team quality. Also, with Majerus cleaning house, I think you will find that it will take him 3-4 years to put together the quality of roster that is required to be a very good team. Freshman and sophomores are rarely going to take you right to the top of the league unless they are very special. Gregory was hired too late to recruit in his first year, and beyond the senior class that was left him, there was low talent on the roster. So, in his second year, he was playing with a ton of freshman, just as you are now. His progress was delayed some by the departures of some key recruits in their sophomore and junior years, so if Majerus doesn't have those issues, maybe he can have a winner in a shorter time. A lot is made of last years good team going in the tank during the conference schedule, but if you take an objective look at how many players we had disabled, it makes sense. I'm not making any big predictions on this Flyers squad, I only took issue with the statement that UD typically schedules softies in the non-conf schedule, leading them to play soft in the conf schedule. I would challenge a poster who makes that claim to give me an example of a year where that occured for the Flyers.