GW Recap: Seniors Rejoice!

Saturday’s 75-59 win against George Washington was sort of a microcosm of each senior’s career at Dayton: 

• The most important seniorChris Johnson led all scorers with 19 points, connecting on four three-pointers from his favorite spots in the corner. An interesting tidbit from the game – CJ is the first player in 20 years to finish his career with over 1,500 points, 800 boards and 200 3’s while shooting 80% from the foul-line. Johnson is the best all-around player I’ve ever seen in a Dayton uniform. He will be missed. 

• Paul Williams had a reserved ten points. Pretty sure he shrugged after every make. PW finished the regular season shooting just 32.4% from the floor. Yikes. However, Williams isn’t the only Flyer on the roster to shoot less than 40% from the field this season. 

• The other sub-40% shooter is Josh Parker, who jacked up nine shots in just seventeen minutes against GW – finishing with seven points. Parker and Williams will be in a contest to see who is forgotten the fastest. I got money on Parker. 

• No one’s senior day reflected their career at Dayton more than Luke Fabrizius. Fabrizius, who lost his starting position weeks ago, was relegated to a scant eleven minutes in the blowout. Luke connected on a wide-open three, his only made basket of the game, with just over a minute to go and the place erupted like the retarded kid finally found an Easter egg. Jason McElwain was embarrassed by the crowd’s reaction. 

Dayton has another matchup with GW this Tuesday at the Arena. With a win against the Colonials, UD heads to Atlantic City to face the Overlords on Friday night. That game will hold a little more intrigue than usual, as the loser heads to the NIT and the winner is likely a win against Saint Louis away from serious tournament contention.  

(h/t to VJW for the CJ clip)

UMass Recap: Walk in the Park

That was the type of beating Italian husbands dispense on the weekend. Chris Johnson once again came to play, with a game-high 20 points and 12 rebounds, and UMass barely bothered to show up. End result – Dayton 76, UMass 43.

If he was smart, Derek Kellogg wouldn’t have allowed any of his players to shower afterward. Instead, he should have forced the entire team to sit around and watch while he showered. That’s the only way to get through to these kids nowadays.

UMass’ key cog Chaz Williams picked up his second foul midway through the first half and the wind went out of the Minutemen’s sails shortly thereafter. UD went into the half with a ten-point lead and picked up where they left off during the final twenty minutes of the contest. CJ hit a three out of the gate and the Flyers were up 15 at the first media timeout.

The Minutemen had one run in them, cutting the Flyer margin to just six points on a Freddie Riley three-pointer with 13:50 left in the game. That was as close at UMass got, as the Dayton lead ballooned to 17 points with around eight minutes to play. Kellogg’s club laid down and allowed the game to get completely out of hand – the Flyers ran off to a 31 point edge before Kid Yuma mercifully put the team’s black walk-on into the game with under a minute left.

This game was a must-have, with a pair of similar important games still left on the docket. Let’s hope CJ and Dillard have enough left in the tank to win these next two.

Fordham Recap: No Refunds

That was the Chris Johnson I thought we’d see this season. CJ was seemingly everywhere on the court this afternoon: hitting clutch threes from the wing, finishing on the break, playing stellar defense and grabbing a bushel of rebounds (including a vicious leap which resulted in a somersault over a presumably lifeless Luke Fabrizius late in the game). The senior from Columbus broke out a vintage performance, 22 points and 13 rebounds, to pace the Flyers over Fordham, 72-70, in overtime. UD, losers of four in a row, were desperately looking for a slump buster. In Fordham, the Flyers were presented with a 35 year-old divorced mother of two, in town for a Career Coaching seminar.

Yes, it was against the lowly Rams, and yes, it was a little too late as far as the season is concerned. However, it was comforting to know that Johnson still has that type of execution left in his barrel. That was Super Sophomore CJ out there, not Sluggish Senior CJ. Who knows if Dayton can recapture some of the magic that catapulted it to the top of the league standings early on, almost certainly not, but with consistent play from CJ anything seems possible (I’m really pouring on the optimism juice).

UD needed everything Johnson gave them, as the rest of the Flyers struggled to find offense throughout the contest. The lone exception was Josh Parker, invisible in the first half, who managed 14 points on the afternoon. Parker hit a pair of crucial threes in the second half and played rather flawlessly with the ball in his hands. Kevin Dillard penetrated into the lane to force overtime on a heady drive to the basket with just under 30 seconds to play in the game. Ralph Hill played twenty-four minutes. Twenty. Four.

A Matt Kav kicked ball along the baseline, picked up by Josh Parker, sealed the win for the Flyers. A missed violation by the officials was an appropriate manner in which to end the game, as the refereeing in this game was, to be kind, inconsistent.

The Flyers, now 15-9 on the season (just 5-5 in league play), come back home to the waiting arms of UD Arena to face down a modest Charlotte squad on Wednesday night. Feign excitement.

Duquesne Recap: Punch of Reality

Another painful loss for the home team as the Flyers were outclassed by Duquesne at the Arena, 83-73. The defeat drops UD to an even 4-4 in the league, 14-8 overall. For a program that prides itself on defending its backyard, back-to-back home losses (third in a row) do not inspire confidence in the rest of the 2011-12 campaign. With five of its last eight games on the road, an even split would register as a positive result.

The Dukes jumped out to a sixteen point lead and sucked all of the energy out of the building early in the first half. UD managed to cut the edge to nine points at the break, a minor victory in and of itself. The Flyers went on a run of its own in the second frame, using a 13-3 spurt to close the gap to two points midway through the half. The Flyers actually took a 57-55 lead at one point, but Duquesne went on another run and closed UD out rather emphatically down the stretch.

Kevin Dillard did all he could, scoring a game-high 22 points and 7 assists. Matt Kavanaugh was like a drunken uncle at Thanksgiving, playing against his autistic nephews on a Nerf hoop in the basement. Kav could pretty much do whatever he wanted, whenever he wanted. Which is why his not getting a shot in the last thirteen and a half minutes of the game was kind of…odd? Nevertheless, the Boofer did manage to drop seventeen points on the night.

The Flyer season has been like a Wes Anderson movie. The beginning draws you in, the characters are intriguing, and the second act sets the stage for what should be a fantastic ending. Then, the close of the film drags until its uneventful end, leaving you with a feeling that the whole thing could have, should have, been so much more. Something that began with so much promise had no business ending on such an imperfect note (and please, I beg of you, please, no more Anjelica Huston).

Two big picture questions to consider:

• What do we lose by limiting Paul Willie’s minutes at this point? Williams is sort of like a moribund fifth-year senior QB on a college football team that just eliminated itself from bowl contention.  Time to give the underclassman some reps. There’s no point in furthering the Paul Williams experience. We’ve seen it, we’ve felt it, and we’ve somehow survived it. Not saying he should be buried on the bench, the team’s depth makes that impractical, but how about switching his minutes with Oliver? Archie has a lot more to gain by getting increased minutes for the sophomore than continuing the bleeding with PW.

• Who experienced a more disappointing senior season, Chris Wright or Chris Johnson? Granted CJ’s season hasn’t come to a definitive conclusion yet, but we are at a point in the season where it’s fair to draw a ballpark estimate. This isn’t to say that Johnson is having an appalling season, far from it. He is averaging around eleven points and grabbing approximately six boards a game. The senior from Columbus is shooting a more than respectable 44% from the floor, 41% from three and 82% from the line. That’s a statistically solid season, nothing to be ashamed of.  But you would be lying if you said you weren’t disappointed with CJ’s output this season. Personally, I expected him to finish his senior year with 15-17/7-8 production. Not going to happen. Chris Johnson, Chris Wright, Marcus Johnson, Tony Stanley – the curse of the Flyer senior season continues.

Bottom line, a thirty game season has a way of evening itself out. Dayton experienced some unforeseen highs and will more than likely close out the season experiencing some predictable lows (which would seem to include another loss down in Cincinnati). So with shifting expectations, what’s a realistic goal at this point? A home tournament game in the first round of the A-10 tournament is still very much attainable. Given Dayton’s conference tournament performance last year, and its apparent proclivity to get hot at a moment’s notice, it’s a worthwhile aim.

Five in Five

Dayton’s performance on Saturday was turrrible. UD was a 13.5 point favorite against a hapless Rhode Island squad still looking for its first conference victory. After falling behind early, Dayton battled back and looked like it would pull out an underwhelming, yet crucial, win. As soon as a Kevin Dillard layup pushed the Flyer lead to 75-72, Jim Baron burned a timeout and rallied his troops. Following the stop in play, and after what must have been a resounding pep talk, the Rams scored the game’s next nine points and closed UD out on the road. When reflecting on the season it may just be the straw that broke the camel’s back

I was asked more than a few times this weekend: was this one of the worst losses in recent memory? Not even close, dear friends.

When evaluating the dreadfulness of a defeat, one must consider not only the overall beating itself but the importance/implication of the loss as well. It’s a sliding scale.

So here you go – my personal, yet completely infallible, list of UD’s five worst losses over the past five seasons (please leave any omissions in the comments). Why five years, five losses? I didn’t want to do substantial homework, that’s why. 

(2/13/08) Duquesne 63 Dayton 61: Brian Roberts’ senior season was full of highlight victories – including wins over Louisville and Pittsburgh, a pair of games we will still be hearing about twenty years from now.  The Flyers ran out to a 14-1 record before hitting some setbacks in conference play (since known as the “Gregory Special”). UD was 4-5 in the Atlantic Ten entering their home clash with the Dukes in mid-February. With seven league games remaining, and a stellar resume to that point, UD still had a lot to play for. Certainly a home game against the middling Dukes would surely have been the catalyst to a 10 win conference record and a probable NCAA bid.

Not so much. Dayton toyed around with Duquesne for 35 minutes, or maybe it was the other way around, but was never able to land a knockout punch. The Flyers had a chance to win or tie the game on the last possession of the game, but an Andres Sandoval three-pointer at the buzzer came up woefully short. UD would eventually finish 8-8 in league play, 21-10 overall on Selection Sunday. 

(3/6/10) Saint Louis 71 Dayton 66: Dayton was an eleven and a half point favorite as the Bills visited the Arena in early March. The game was the conference closer and the Flyers were coming off a close loss at Richmond. A victory over Rick Majerus’ squad would mean a 9-7 finish in the league. The Flyers came out slow, going into halftime down 34-19. UD managed to cut the margin down to just four with over two minutes left, but couldn’t get any closer. It was a capper on a very frustrating season in which the Flyers managed to lose eight conference games by an average of just 3.5 points per game. But fret not; as the t-shirt you are probably wearing right now indicates, UD went on to win the NIT Tournament. 

(3/2/11) Saint Louis 69 Dayton 51: Almost the same exact situation as the previous game on the list, UD once again came out flat and fell behind 35-19 at the half. Unlike the aforementioned contest, the Flyers were never able to get back to within striking distance. Petey Zestermann came in with two minutes left, a breakfast burrito still churning in his stomach, and the season was all but done. A game Dayton absolutely had to win ended in appalling fashion. It was both Chris Wright and Brian Gregory’s last game at UD Arena, how apropos.  

(11/30/11) Buffalo 84 Dayton 55: Archie’s first undressing. Not a season killer by any means, but a shocking result nonetheless. Dayton was still riding some good vibes after winning the Old Spice Classic. After a two-hour pregame commemoration ceremony, in which Archie was awarded a gold-plated blazer and the Old Spice trophy was passed around the entire Arena, the Flyers came out rather flat. The Bulls jumped out to a 32-11 lead and the universe’s best fans hit the exits at the break. It was the first indication that maybe allowing the other team to score on every possession wasn’t the best strategy. Revolutionary? Yes. Effective? Hardly.

(11/27/10) Cincinnati 68 Dayton 34: The “Doubled Up” game. The Flyers scored 19 points in the first half, 15 in the second. Statistically speaking, the game was over with 14:30 still left to go in the game. I’m not a UD basketball historian, although telling girls that I am has led to oral favors in the past, but this defeat must rank near the top of the worst losses in Dayton’s 100+ years of semi-competitive basketball. Supposedly in 1907, back when UD was known as St. Mary’s Institute, the school lost 65-6 to the Oakwood Albino Academy. The Albinos, as legend would have it, were just very light-skinned black guys. Unfortunately, this charge cannot be substantiated (nor denied). Suspicions, however, were raised during the postgame showers. 

Xavier Recap: Beating the Man

As impressive a victory as could have been hoped for, Dayton wins their first clash with Xavier this season, an 87-72 throat punching (and really, it didn’t even seem that close) at the Arena. This is UD’s first back-to-back win over the Overlords since it happened all the way back in 1991. The red-headed cheerleader was barely alive at that point.

Today’s success means Dayton takes over sole possession of the Atlantic Ten, moving their conference record upward to 4-1. Three of UD’s four conference wins have come at the expense of Saint Louis, Temple and Xavier – which were thought to be the ruling triumvirate this season. At this unripe stage I’m not prepared to comment on whether Dayton’s ascension says more about the Flyer’s resilience or the strength/weakness of the league itself. Time will surely tell.     

Here’s the dirty little secret about this year’s Musketeers: For all the bluster and bravado, they aren’t a tough group in any sense of the word. Defensively, it’s about as tentative a group I’ve ever seen wear the X uniform. The overall defensive effort put forth by Xavier today left much to be desired; the Muskies had issues with pick-and-rolls and mismatches throughout the game, appearing lost and unaware for much of the contest. The Flyers were granted open looks from both beyond the three-point line and down low all day long.

Regardless of Xavier’s defensive struggles, you cannot fail to underscore how impressive UD’s offensive output has been this season. Dayton came into the game leading the conference in scoring, three-point percentage, offensive efficiency and points per possession. The Flyers performance against X emphasized those strengths, as UD scored 87 points on 50% shooting from the floor.

Paced by Kavanaugh’s 20 (he followed up a 23 point effort against La Salle last weekend with today’s output. Is this real life?) as well as Dillard/Parker’s 16, Xavier didn’t have enough firepower offensively to keep up. The Muskies are so reliant on Holloway and Lyons to create on the offensive end it’s almost like the rest of the team just wants to get out of their way. While the Xavier pair are surely offensive standouts, the Overlords are going to have to find a way to get some more offensive production from their lesser knowns to turn the tide.

No one in the Atlantic Ten seemed to do less with more than Brian Gregory. The story of Archie Miller’s first season at the helm is his ability to seamlessly make something out of next to nothing. Dayton was expected to float somewhere in the middle of the pack, due to a lack of depth and talent, hoping to develop some chemistry for what appears to be a very promising 2012-13 season. Nevertheless, after some decent performances in Orlando, and a solid win against Alabama, the Flyers were poised to play somewhere this postseason.

However, after Josh Benson’s season-ending ACL tear, which came before A-10 play had even tipped off, it appeared those hopes were completely derailed. Yet, since the Ole Miss game Josh Parker has averaged 13 points per game, Kavanaugh has chipped in 15 per contest, and Luke Fab has scored 10 an outing over that five game period. The Flyers needed everyone to step up their game offensively and Archie, using Miller voodoo, has got them to do just that. Even Ralph Hill has chipped in some not-embarrassing minutes as of late.     

All of this success has set the table for a rather encouraging few months. As previously stated, UD has come out of the gate and quickly built itself some room for error. The Flyers have already experienced what will likely be their toughest five-game stretch and came away with a 4-1 record and sole possession of first place in the conference. Dayton fans are not used to being the lead dogs in the league race, we have been conditioned to look ahead and hope things somehow fall into place. Not this season. The Flyers, finally, control their own destiny. What a difference a year, and a coach, makes.  

St. Bonaventure Recap: Andrew Nicholson Is A Grown. Ass. Man.

Several years ago, I had the longest panic attack of my life driving home from my girlfriend's house at 3AM. About a mile into the trip the gas warning light came on. According to the good people at Toyota, I had 17 miles worth of gas in the tank and roughly 20 miles left to drive. I didn't have my wallet with me, and I had no change in the cupholder. This is how horror and rape fetish porn movies start. I drove 50 MPH in the right lane of I-675 and drafted merging traffic whenever I could. 13 miles...12...11...my heart was pounding.

I got off the highway with the meter saying 1 mile, and 3 miles left to drive. I brazenly coasted through two separate red lights, not wanting to raise the RPMs accelerating. As I approached my street the gauge read zero. Somehow, someway I made it to the crest of the hill just as the car lost all power, and I was able to coast the last hundred yards or so. Home sweet home. To this day I have no idea how I did it.

This was the plight of our dear U of D this evening in Olean. With an already depleted roster and Chris Johnson back on campus, Kid Yuma was left hoping against all hope that his 8 man army had enough in the tank to get out of Deliverance with a win. Things started out pretty well for the Flyers as they hit five of their first seven threes, allowing them to control most of the first half. A final minute mini-surge by SBU cut the Flyer lead to 3 at the break.

The Bonnies came out hot after the break, running out to a six point lead before Josh Parker (Yes, Josh Parker) channeled his inner Brian Roberts and dominated for a 3-4 minute stretch. Da'Quan Cook took advantage of the attention given to Andrew Nicholson, and UD responded with a really nice two man game with Dillard and Kavanaugh.

UD went into the final TV timeout only down two, and that's when it happened. The tank was bone dry. The Flyers fell into the tired trap of long jumpers, and predictably they all fell short. Nicholson and the gang smelled blood in the water, and unleashed their best 3 minutes of execution to take control. Bonnies hit their free throws to seal the win, 81-73.

Andrew Nicholson led SBU with an all too familiar performance, 30 points, 13 boards and 6 blocks. Da'Quan Cook and Demitrius Conger added 14 apiece, and something called Charlon Kloof added 12. Josh Parker led UD with 19 points on 4-7 from deep. Dillard, Boof, and the Big Frog added 10 each.

A tough loss, sure, UD had a chance to win with 4 minutes left, but given the roster situation, it's not all that surprising. The Bonnies are a decent team, and it was a road conference game against a non-Fordham team. This loss alone won't keep UD from reaching whatever it is they can reach come March. I refuse to talk about the four letter event until at least February 1st.

UD returns home on Saturday to a huge matchup with a surly LaSalle team. Just like we all predicted in October. Stay away from the white girls. Especially you, Luke.

Put Those NIT Hopes on Hold!!

As you've probably heard by now, Josh Benson tore his ACL and is done for the year. An obviously huge blow to the Flyers' somewhat indiscernible prospects. This is Benson's second major injury, the junior suffered from a torn labrum before his freshman season and redshirted.

Things will get very entertaining quickly, as Kav, Luke Fab and the Big Frog will now split significant minutes up front. God help us all.

Recon: The University AT Buffalo

To all the folks writing, tweeting and hitting me up on JDate: December 7th, and not a moment before then, is when you will know if this UD team has cold-blooded cobra plasma or not. That night, former Flyer Tony Grant will bring his Alabama squad to the Arena looking for necks to bash and checks to cash. The Tide are unapologetically athletic, play a fearsome brand of defense and smirk at back-sass. If you aren’t an ardent believer at this point in time, a card-carrying member of the Kid Yuma sect, a victory over Bama will seal the deal.

We all realize, I assume, that the victories in the Old Spice Classic, though encouraging, will not earn Dayton many glamour points at the end of the season (glamour points are not just for debutantes, friends). Wake Forest will assuredly finish dead last in the ACC again. Fairfield, a MAAC team, won’t have many more opportunities to build a solid profile (and unless something unexpected occurs, Iona will take the league’s sole NCAA bid). Minnesota was expected to finish in the middle of the sea of mediocrity that is the Big Ten conference. With Trevor Mbakwe done for the year, the Gophers will likely end up in the cellar, fighting off ne’er-do-wells like Penn State, Nebraska and Iowa.

For a minute, let’s forget about what we don’t know and instead focus on what we do. (1) Minneapolis journalists are not enamored with Dayton fans, (2) Kevin Dillard’s mugshot adds to UD’s waning street cred, and (3) the Flyers have the Buffalo Bulls coming to town.

Overview:The University AT Buffalo comes into Wednesday night’s game with a 3-1 record, their lone loss coming at the hands of Dan Geriot’s Princeton Tigers. The Bulls are members of the MAC conference, which for whatever reason wasn’t met with the fiery derision usually reserved for college sport malalignment these days. Although the idea that Dick Vitale would take the time to pour scorn on Buffalo joining the MAC is about as ridiculous as the character Vitale plays on ESPN every week.

Buffalo isn’t a deep squad; with the majority of minutes spread across eight players. A decent rebounding team, the Bulls are pulling down just over 36 boards per game. Buffalo likes to push the pace and their output reflects that – lots of turnovers (16 per game) and poor perimeter shooting (28% from three-point land). The one thing I will say about the Buffalo Bulls: they get to the line at a shocking rate, damn near thirty times a game, they ground and they pound. Buffalo has a free-throw rate of 47% (Free Throws Attempted / Field Goals Attempted), which is a staggering figure.

Javon McCrea is the one on the leftMeet and Greet:The Bulls are led by sophomore forward Javon McCrea, the Mid-American Conference’s reigning Freshman of the Year and an All-MAC Honorable Mention team selection. McCrea is 6-foot-7 and 245 pounds of delicious man meat and currently leads Buffalo in scoring (16.8 ppg), field goal percentage (.605) and rebounding (6.3 rpg).Don’t expect to see McCrea drift away from the paint often, the dude is a banger. Starting in the frontcourt with McCrea is 6’10” forward Mitchell Watt, who is currently averaging 14 points and 6 boards a game. Watt and McCrea are the epicenter of the Buffalo hurricane. If the parking lot is full of nothing but displaced red sweaters and pictures of unsightly grandchildren, this duo will be to blame.

Buffalo features a three-guard alignment: Zach Filzen, Jarod Oldham and Dave Barnett. Filzen, a senior guard, dreams about three-pointers and sexy robots in his sleep. Statistically the sharpest of sharpshooters in the MAC last season, Filzen is good for about 13 points a night. Dave Barnett is a wing, known primarily for his rebounding and ceaseless defensive intensity. His favorite movie is Hook. Jarod Oldham looks a lot older than his alleged age of 19 years old; let’s just leave it at that.

Who are Titus Robinson, Tony Watson and Auraumn Nuiriankh? If you said the names of three of the Nation of Islam’s bodyguards, you’d probably be correct. You’d be even more correct if you guessed that they were Buffalo’s top guys off the pine. Robinson is the man to watch out of this trio, the only benchwarmer capable of making a considerable contribution.

Prediction:There just has to be a bit of a hangover after returning from Orlando, right? You just don’t go down to Orlando, run roughshod over two, count ‘em two, BCS opponents on the way to the prestigious Old Spice Classic title without experiencing some resounding letdown. Dayton wins a close one, 71-66.

Miami Recap: Welcome to Mavunga

It’s confession time, kids. I did not watch a single solitary second of UD’s triumphant season opener against Western Illinois. I did, however, read Blackburn’s recap and checked out the box score online, so I feel quite qualified to make broad, sweeping generalizations about this year’s version of the Flyers.

For me, the victory over the Fighting Leathernecks provided more questions than it did answers. For example, will Matt Kavanaugh challenge Tu Holloway for Atlantic Ten player of the year this season? (Almost certainly.) Will Luke Fabrizius ever miss a shot again? (Doubtful.) And will Blackburn finally admit that Billy Staten is his father, thus exposing his pro-Staten, anti-Kav agenda once and for all? (Never!)

As for the game itself, I went in with absolutely no clue what to expect from the Flyers. Note: this is going to be a recurring theme; everything about this UD team is a question mark. What I came away with was some sort of weird mixture of frustration, optimism and sheer disgust. Only during a Flyers game can you experience all three of those emotions almost simultaneously.

The RedHawks prevailed 72-67 in overtime in a game that the Flyers really had every chance to win. It seemed as though every time UD would inch out in front, Miami found an answer. After an extremely quiet first half (2 points, no field goals), Miami stud Julian Mavunga turned it up in the second half and overtime to finish with 17 points and a game-high 11 rebounds. Penn State transfer Bill Edwards chipped in with a double-double of his own and, if he can develop more of an outside game, Edwards could be a nightmare matchup for future MAC opponents.

Paul Williams led the way for UD and seemed to be the only Flyer to show up for large chunks of this game. Paul Willie hit 4 of his 6 three-point attempts to finish with a cool 20. Kevin Dillard had an uneven game (and that’s putting it nicely), finishing with a roller coaster stat line of 11 points, 6 rebounds, 6 assists, 6 turnovers and 4 steals on just 4-of-12 shooting.

The Flyers came out of the locker room with a two point lead and started the second half on fire. UD connected on its first eight field goal attempts of the half, including 7 quick points from Williams, but could manage only a five-point lead. Archie’s men continued to gain the slightest of leads throughout the second half only to see Mavunga and company erase the advantage each and every time.

Josh Benson gave Flyers fans some hope with a baseline lay-up with 1:26 left only to see Mavunga answer with two free throws to tie it back up. After seeming more than content to settle for jump shots and perimeter play early on, Mavunga spent large portions of the second half torturing Benson and Matt Kavanaugh as he scored in a variety of ways. Benson got some measure of revenge on Miami’s last possession of regulation when he played stellar defense, forcing a Mavunga turnover and giving the Flyers a chance to win it at the buzzer. Dillard’s half court heave was well off the mark, though, and the game headed to OT.

In overtime it was more Mavunga. The big man hit a three with 3:00 to play to give the RedHawks a 65-61 lead. Dillard answered with a quick drive to the basket, but two points was as close as UD would get the rest of the way. KD had a chance to give the Flyers the lead after he blocked a shot and hoisted a three at the other end. It was not to be, though. The jumper found only iron and the RedHawks made enough free throws down the stretch to put the game away.

For the Flyers, it was another disappointing outing from Chris Johnson. CJ1K played just two minutes in the first half before picking up two quick fouls. In the second half, he was more active but finished with just six points in 17 minutes of action.

Another area of displeasure for Kid Yuma will no doubt be his team’s turnovers. After committing just eight in the opener, the Flyers gave it away 22 times against Miami, including 11 turnovers from their primary ball handlers Dillard and Parker.

The most positive thing I’ve seen through two games is the fact that Archie Miller seems to have a nine-man rotation and plans to stick to it. (Having only ten scholarship players does make that an easier task.) Dillard, Parker, and P-Will are going to divide up the backcourt minutes. It’s CJ and Devin Oliver at the three and Kavanaugh and Benson in the frontcourt. The Big Frog is there off the bench when either of the other big men is in foul trouble or needs a breather. And Fabrizius will be used when the matchup is favorable and/or desperation sets in.

I’m very hesitant to call one loss in November a “big loss,” and I don’t think that’s what this was. It was, however, a tough one to swallow considering UD led or was tied for the lead almost throughout. I don’t think I’m breaking any new ground when I say that these Flyers aren’t the most talented bunch so when you have a chance to steal a win on the road against a team that’s pretty close to your equal, you have to pounce on it. UD failed to do that tonight, missing a few chances to put the RedHawks away in the second half. Instead, the Red and Blue drop to 1-1 on the year with a game against UNC Wilmington on the horizon.