The Dayton Flyers have had stretches of struggle this season. You can point to several reasons this may be happening, but after watching the games and looking at the stat sheets, rebounding stands out.
Almost every team usually struggles on one end of the floor when it comes to rebounds, but the Flyers have a serious problem at both ends. The Flyers can’t cut opponent possessions short, pulling in only 24 defensive rebounds per game, which ranks 224th in the nation. The Flyers are also having trouble keeping possessions going with second-chance opportunities, grabbing just nine offensive rebounds per game, which ranks 260th in the nation.
Dayton has played 24 games so far, and in 11 of them, they have not won the rebound battle. That is almost half of their games, and they could not outrebound the opponent. This includes losing it twice during their worst stretch of the season, where they lost three in a row in the A-10 after winning their first conference matchup.
Whenever a team gets beat on the boards, you can usually look at them as being outmatched in the frontcourt, but this is not the case for the Flyers. The leading rebounder for UMass in the Flyers loss was 6-foot-6 guard Daniel Rivera (11.8 ppg) with 12 rebounds, and the leading rebounder for George Mason, 6-foot-4 guard Jared Billups (5.1 ppg), with six rebounds.
Guards for other teams can put up big numbers on the boards against the Flyers because of their lack of size in the backcourt. The average height of a Division I backcourt is 6-foot-2 to 6-foot-5, while Dayton’s guard rotation features players at 6-foot and 5-foot-10. Junior Malachi Smith (9.8 ppg) averages 2.7 rebounds a game, and junior Javon Bennett (10.5 ppg) averages 2.5 rebounds a game. Rebounding is a five-man job, not just the responsibility of one or two big men.
The inability to rebound has cost the Flyers games this season. Take their matchup against VCU on Feb. 7 as an example. Dayton was outrebounded 44-34, with five of VCU’s 44 rebounds coming in a single possession right before the final media timeout. With just over a minute and a half to go, the Rams led by two with the momentum off a Dayton turnover, and the Flyers needed a stop. VCU had three offensive rebounds on this possession, bleeding nearly 30 seconds off the clock and converting a layup, extending the lead to four and ending the game.
“When you can’t rebound the ball… when they get 18 more shots than you, it makes it really hard to win.” Flyers head coach Anthony Grant said.
Before even looking at the stat sheet, you can often tell who won the rebound battle, and a sure sign of that is which team was more physical and who imposed their will on the other.
“Just hitting somebody, boxing out, and going after the ball, we have to be physical and box out, that’s what solves that.” Senior Nate Santos (14.5 ppg) said.
Grant was visibly frustrated after the VCU game, saying it was disappointing that Dayton did not control what they could control and that they needed to be better if they wanted to put themselves in opportunities to win games. “The stat sheet tells the story.”
“Block out, block out, go get the ball,” Grant said. “We have to be better; we have to be better… Zed has to be better; everybody on the team has to do their job better.”
Grad student Zed Key (9.4 ppg) has received limited minutes with a back injury but is starting to be in the rotation more often. Grant is yet to put him back to the workload he had at the beginning of the season, but one could make the case that Grant is turning to 7-foot-1 freshman Amaël L’Etang (7.0 ppg) in hopes of ending the rebounding struggles. Key is an undersized big man at 6-foot-8, averaging under four rebounds in 22 games played this season.
Is the issue heart, personnel, or practice? That is for Grant and the Flyers to decide, but to win games in late February and into March – especially against more talented teams – you must give yourself as many chances as possible to win. Those chances dwindle fast if you can’t rebound on the offensive or defensive end.
Dayton needs to turn this problem around quickly, heading into its final six games of the college basketball season.
