The Dayton Flyers are back on a roll after defeating Duquesne 82-62 Tuesday night in Pittsburgh. The Flyers recently emerged from an overtime thriller, having beaten Loyola Chicago 83-81 on Saturday in front of the home Dayton crowd off a buzzer-beater by freshman Amaël L’Etang. These two victories come after the Flyers’ worst stretch of the season, during which they lost three consecutive games, all to Atlantic 10 teams.
Senior Enoch Cheeks has been on a tear, averaging 24.5 points, 6.5 rebounds and three assists per game these last two contests. After the Loyola game, Cheeks detailed his ability to overcome his offensive slump.
“I was just going back to basics, back to my routine, blocking out the outside noise, getting lots of rest, staying true to myself, and just trying to contribute in other ways to the game,” Cheeks said.
Head Coach Anthony Grant, who is in his eighth season with the program after playing and graduating from UD in 1987, highlighted how Cheeks is contributing in other ways.
“He’s a worker,” Grant said. “Tonight, he had five steals and (seven rebounds). His imprint on the game is far more than the points that he scores. So, let’s not restrict who he is to how many points he scores.”
This winning streak could not come at a better time, as it seemed like the wheels were falling off a team that showed so much promise at the beginning of the season.
The Flyers started the season strong at 5-0 before heading to Hawaii for the Maui Invitational in late November. In their first game of the tournament, UD took the North Carolina Tar Heels down to the wire, who at the time were the No. 12 team in the nation, and lost by two. They followed that up with a tough game against Iowa State Cyclones, ranked No. 5 at the time, where the Flyers fell 89-84.
Dayton concluded its trip to Maui by facing the back-to-back national champion UConn Huskies, who had struggled in Maui by unexpectedly losing their first two games. The Huskies were nearly eight-point favorites, but that night, they were no match for the Flyers, who won by almost 20 points, 85-67. The Flyers averaged 86 points per game during the tournament and established themselves as one of the top teams in college basketball.
The success continued into December when the Flyers hosted, at the time, No. 6 Marquette. The Golden Eagles were the highest-ranked team to play at Dayton since 2007. Flyer fans packed into the Dayton Arena and willed the Flyers to a 71-63 comeback win. December ended with the Flyers going 4-1, with a loss to Cincinnati and in the driver’s seat of the A-10. Then January hit. Dayton started the new year with three straight losses, all to A-10 teams, including its worst loss of the season by 20 at the hands of George Washington University, when Dayton was almost 10-point favorites.
This loss snowballed into a four-point loss four days later to UMass when UD was almost 11-point favorites and, finally, a loss a week later by eight to George Mason at home. The offensive juggernaut that Dayton had been to start the year in November and December was nowhere to be found. Over this three-game stretch, the Flyers averaged a mere 64 points per game, 20 fewer points than in Maui. What caused this abrupt offensive slide? After the George Mason loss, Dayton’s first loss at home in 26 games, senior Nate Santos recently gave his thoughts on the difference between November and now.
“Our urgency, just like our overall effort,” he said.
He later added, “At the beginning of the year, we were being the attacker, now coming into A-10, a lot of teams are trying to come at us, and it’s kinda something we’re not used to.”
Santos and redshirt Junior Malachi Smith described the offense issues as a slump they need to get past. Grant showed signs of hope, though after the heartbreaking loss.
“You’ve got a bunch of guys in there that want to win. They want to play well, and so we’ve got to stay the course,” Grant said.
It wasn’t just dips in offensive quality during this three-game struggle. Throughout these three games in January, the Flyers gave up 75 points per game. In December, UD gave up 65 points per game. The absence of transfer guard Posh Alexander may answer this defensive lapse. Alexander suffered a foot injury in the UMass game, which sidelined him for the remainder of that game and against George Mason. Alexander started his playing career in the Big East at St John’s and Butler. He led the league in steals all four years he was there, and when he transferred to UD, he received preseason A-10 honors and made the All-Defensive team. Losing a defensive player of this caliber requires a drastic change to your game plan.
“From a personnel standpoint, we tried some different looks today,” Grant said. “We tried some different things in terms of trying to get a little bigger to help us on the defensive end.”
Not only are the Flyers playing without Alexander, but a back injury sidelined Ohio State transfer Zed Key early in the Loyola game with a back injury, and he did not play against Duquesne.
“He wasn’t able to practice the last couple of days and was still experiencing some soreness, so I felt like it was best to let him continue that process of healing,” said Grant on Key.
Dayton is back on track after the Duquesne win. Grant believes the defense is getting back on track and even “set the tone” during the game, which is a complete 180 from how the veteran coach felt last week. The offense is also clicking again.
“Offensively, we were able to flow,” Grant said. “I thought the ball movement tonight was really, really good. We had a lot of different guys who were able to take advantage of that.”
With the return of Key and Alexander looming, the Flyers look to become attackers again in the A-10 and go on a run to end the season into the conference tournament and into March.
