BEVERLY HILLS (MI) -- Within a span of roughly 24 hours, a series of developments transpired that dramatically affected the past, present and future of the UD basketball program.
-- Former Dayton head coach Archie Miller was fired at Indiana
-- The current Flyer basketball season was given new life when UD was extended an invitation to the NIT
-- PG deluxe Ty Ty Washington (a teammate of UD signee DaRon Holmes at Compass Prep in AZ) was offered a scholarship by AG
Let’s take a look at each of these events in greater detail.
Past
Archie’s four year tenure as head dude at IU came to an abrupt close when a single donor (**cough**Mark Cuban**cough**) provided the $10 million (over 3 years) in
"private philanthropic funding" to buy out his contract. The numbers are not pretty:
12-15 in 2020-2021
67-58 overall record
33-44 in the Big Ten
0-7 vs. in-state rival Purdue
Archie departed Dayton on a high note with 4 consecutive NCAA Tournament appearances while passing on a contract extension from Neil Sullivan that actually exceeded what he would get from IU. The grass isn’t always greener on the other side, Arch -- sometimes it’s just Astro-Turf.
The list of potential IU candidates includes former U of M mentor John Beilen, Loyola of Chicago’s Porter Moser, Chris Beard of Texas Tech, Devin Searcy’s HS coach Nate Oats of Alabama, Hoosier native Scott Drew of Baylor and in their wildest dreams, Brad Stevens of the Boston Celtics.
Whither Archie Miller?
Arch might be wise to follow Rick Pitino’s lead. Slick Rick left Louisville in disgrace and coached in exile in Greece for a couple of seasons before he returned this year to lead the Iona Gaels of the MAAC to the NCAA Tournament. Taking a step back in conference size to re-establish his coaching
bona fides makes a ton of sense for one Ryan Miller.
Present
Not a lot of
Flyer Faithful expected the phone to ring when UD was ousted from the A-10 Tournament by VCU. Thanks to programs like Seton Hall,
Xavier, Duke, Louisville and St. John’s deciding against a trip to the NIT bubble in Texas, the Flyers garnered a #4 seed and will face The University of Penny Hardaway on Saturday at Noon on ESPN.
While many questioned the logic of the Flyers’ accepting an NIT bid, you can put
“FTS” firmly in the
“Why the hell not?” school of thinking.
Postseason experience is postseason experience. Young guys like Koby, Zimi, Mustapha and RJ aren’t gonna get it by scrimmaging with each other in the Cronin Center. Seniors Jalen, Ibi, Rodney, Camron and Jordy certainly relish the opportunity to lace ‘em up at least one more time for the Red and Blue.
Duke’s loss is our gain.
Future
The UD recruiting class of 2021 is already ranked #12 by Rivals when you add early arrival Mustapha Amzil to DaRon Holmes, Kaleb Washington, Lynn Greer III and Malachi Smith. DaRon’s teammate Ty Ty Washington recently decommitted from Creighton and reopened his recruitment.
Immediately premier programs like Duke, Kansas, Kentucky, Oregon, Arizona and UCLA pounced on Washington with offers. On Monday, Anthony Grant joined that list by extending the 6’3” #30 ranked player in the country a full ride to UD, which Ty Ty announced on Twitter:
https://twitter.com/tytywashington3/...03049038958592
It’s interesting to note the replies from
https://twitter.com/DaRonagon which is the Twitter handle of one DaRon Holmes.
Watch how well DaRon (#35) and Ty Ty (#3) work together here:
https://twitter.com/BallislifeZona/s...66202059337728
Will it actually happen? Who knows? But if anyone can seal the deal, my money is on AG and Ricardo Greer.
That’s it “From the Swamp.”
You can email me at:
swampy@udpride.com
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St Bonaventure
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SAINT BONAVENTURE
Founded in 1858, St. Bonaventure University is a liberal arts college located on 500 acres in southwestern New York state. SBU offers 43 undergraduate majors, the most popular of which are elementary education, journalism, psychology, accounting, marketing, finance, and management. Total undergraduate enrollment is 2,000. Virtually all freshmen and most undergraduates live on campus. A founding member of the A10 Conference. Famous athletes include Bob Lanier. Historical nickname was the Brown Indians, but later changed to the Bonnies. Their mascot is a wolf. |
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