DAYTON (OH) -- They shoot horses, don’t they?
That’s the reaction I had once the 2010-11 Flyer basketball season abruptly ended in Charleston, SC, with a first round exit in the NIT. The defending champs were out, the NCAA tourney hopes already vaporized, and the roller-coaster season finally over. But not before things went completely off the rails this week with the announced departures of Juwan Staten and Brandon Spearman, two recruiting coups in a freshmen class that were supposed to take UD to the proverbial next level. In some ways it was a fitting exclamation point to a season that seemed irreparable from the start. The chemistry was poor, the execution suspect, the game plans tired, and the patience of 13,000 fans completely used up. It was a season in need of a mercy killing, but the patient was left to suffer on the operating table until the bitter end. Why and how it went so wrong is the question we’re all asking.
Rewind five months. The Flyers were once again a team worth talking about in the preseason, not just from the Kool-Aid drinkers in red and blue, but national analysts and bracketologists as well. The consensus: UD lost a lot in the offseason with the departure of a large and talented senior class, but the returnees and reinforcements would keep Dayton relevant. The lack of experience would be offset by the addition of more balanced skill sets.
Chris Wright was a fierce competitor and Chris Johnson was MVP of the NIT. There were concerns, but those concerns were tempered by the collective thought among just about everyone that Dayton had a chance to be special.
Fast forward five months. By year-end, the 2010-11 season was another Groundhog Day among the score counters. A solid non-conference, followed by an abysmal A10 record closed the door on any shot of an at-large berth to the NCAA Tournament. Once again the Flyers were picked in the upper third of the conference and never came close to meeting (or exceeding) that expectation. Even more disturbing, UD lost four games at home -- nearly as many games in the prior four seasons combined.
The maladies that caused the failures were equally familiar: poor perimeter shooting, poor foul shooting, no conventional post presence, a lack of fundamentals, stagnation in individual skills, a lack of complimentary skill sets, no go-to player, and zero dynamism or diversity in the game plans. Like a bad actor reading a script meant for Sean Connery, things got worse the louder and more demonstrative it played out. Outside influences compounded the problem and poured gasoline on an inferno that was already beyond the firebreak. There is culpability everywhere.
While the Flyers chalked up another 20+ win season and received their fourth post-season bid in a row, much of that chest-pounding feels as hollow and tired as the repetitive .500 or worse A10 records, futility in Cincinnati, and inability to be a better product at the end of the regular season than where things started in November. The senior class graduated with the most career wins, but stats like that twist history. Blackburn and
Donoher never coached 35-37 games a year, let alone 30.
The Juwan Staten soap opera turned into theater of the absurd. In some ways,
Brian Gregory was a victim; in other ways he slept in the bed he made. Regardless, it was a distraction of the highest magnitude. There are two golden rules of the parent-coach relationship: the coach never discusses Xs and Os and the coach never discusses playing time. It’s the only way a staff can insulate themselves and protect other players from outside corruption that don’t have everyone’s interest at stake. If there’s a problem, it’s the player’s responsibility to make the point. The un-raveling of late was just a microcosm of the dysfunction that existed all season however, with collateral damage everywhere.
All of this led to a frustration point within the fan base that is hard to ignore. It’s been talked about in newspapers and on fan forums like UD Pride. To ignore it is to ignore a problem exists at all, because Flyer fans are some of the most patient and optimistic souls in college basketball – perhaps to their detriment. The tension within the program (and fan base) wasn’t created overnight however; it’s been aggravation by a thousand small cuts, softened on occasion by random moments of sheer excellence.
That’s the paradox the
Flyer Faithful seem destined to live with -- in perpetuity -- unless something changes. This year was not unlike most other seasons. Were it an aberration or act of God, fans would digest it easier and cast it aside as a fluke; things happen and sometimes the wheels come off for any number of reasons. But the wheels come off every year when it counts – in the league and in the final eight games of the regular season when the best teams are hitting their stride. By mid-February, the only stride UD hits is the stride of irrelevance and another 8th place (or worse) finish in a non-BCS conference.
Something’s gotta give.
For five of the last six seasons, UD has failed to finish in the upper half of the A10. In each of those six seasons, the Flyers failed to exceed preseason conference expectations. Were the Flyers picked first every year, the chances of meeting expectations would be far more difficult. Dayton is generally picked in the upper third however, with plenty of room to finish higher. I’m no statistician, but it appears to me something needs to change for the results to change. Only one of three things can be true to explain the annual league disappointments: the players aren’t good enough, the coaches aren’t good enough, or a combination of the two. Basketball is a simple game. Let’s not enter paralysis from analysis. The Kung-Fu grips on high expectations were held by Flyer fans, the A10 media, national analysts, and bracketologists. Everyone expected more.
The first step in recovery is recognizing a problem. The second is taking ownership. Third is finding a way out. It should be obvious to everyone in the room that something is broken when January 1st arrives every season. The ridiculousness even leaves opposing fan bases apoplectic in UD’s ability to snatch disappointment from the jaws of potential.
Dayton basketball needs a course correction and if there was any poster child from central casting to underline the point, the 2010-11 season resonates louder and clearer than any other -- not because it stood out, but because it stood alongside others just like it. What that course correction entails is of less concern to me than the correction itself. The secret sauce has soured. Change the recipe or change the dinner menu, otherwise nothing will ever taste better.
From my chair, I see no magic bullet answers; more like a complex set of reasons that, in their totality, define the current state of the UD basketball program. Too many square pegs and not enough round holes, exhausted game plans that neither fool the opposition nor fit the personnel, a lack of complimentary pieces, and one-dimensionality on both offense and defense.
More than anything however, I see a program that is not details-oriented. The most basic pieces of winning seem out to lunch. The Flyers need remedial courses in the building blocks of basketball. We celebrate the fast-break dunk and ignore the quality chest pass that set up the guy that set up the guy for the easy jumper off the glass in the first six minutes of the game. Our yearly free throw shooting woes are well documented. The post players don’t post up well, nor our guards pass well into the post. Those that dribble exceedingly well lack proper form on a jumpshot. Those with a deadly jumpshot cannot put the ball on the floor. Do I fault the players for not working hard in the offseason, or the staff for not developing the skills? Once again, I find culpability everywhere.
Fans know this: despite the disappointments, Dayton rarely loafed on the court. Even in the darkest minutes of poorly played basketball, Brian Gregory has a way of getting his team to play as hard as any team around. Playing hard is a skill not unlike shooting or defending. To that end, this program remains an unqualified success story. There is no doubt that every member of the program wants to win and we see that in their work ethic.
That said, working hard isn’t nearly enough. The Flyers must also execute, out-flank, and out-clever the opposition. Effort alone cannot overcome all the shortcomings we have at times. Just as we celebrate out-working opponents on the glass, we must start celebrating the out-execution of opponents in our passing, shot selection, post moves, free throw shooting, dribbling, composure, instincts, and game plans. We need basketball players that are also athletes, and athletes that also happen to play basketball. Too many of one or the other is a serious problem. We must allow players to perform off the scripted page if the alternative is better than the script.
Case in point, we are not a pressing team, but if the opposition in-bounds the ball into the coffin corner, the freedom to allow players to make a judgment call based on time and place to trap and punish must be allowed. These are basketball basics. We’re not changing what we are or who we are, only how we exploit a weakness.
At times it appears we’re so afraid to exploit the obvious, UD ends up running a scripted play the opposition has covered – if for no other reason not to be publicly castrated for disobeying an order. We’re missing out on opportunities to punish opposing teams for mistakes because we’re too focused on our own posture. Duke and Kansas have that luxury, but I’m not convinced we’re talented enough to mind our own business, run our own stuff, and let the opposition kowtow to our machismo every night with a total disregard for moving the chess pieces around with a bit of gamesmanship and strategy.
Whatever shakes out in the offseason, Flyer basketball cannot continue reading from the same manuscript. The plot has been played out and the ending has no suspense. Even the bellowing, Scottish voice of James Bond himself cannot overcome the tattered bones of a boilerplate ending. The silver lining is this: every new day is a chance to turn it all around. Some new faces next season, new attitudes, new approaches, new angles……a new start.
Starting to sound better already? We’ll see. The Flyer Faithful have purchased that plot of land before, sight unseen, and are now skeptical of putting down a deposit every November, expecting a bumper crop that doesn’t grow. Anything knew is always something better – that’s the typical angle of a sports fan. New would be good, but new and improved would be even better. Brian Gregory has his hands full and quite frankly I wouldn’t want the job. If coaching doesn’t burn you out after 10-15 years, a heart attack might. Guys like BG get paid stupid money, but the pressure and hours are equally neurotic. From our ivory towers we swoop down, holding all the answers to the game of basketball without qualifying our resume’ or assuming an ounce of risk.
Not that our expertise matters, just as long as we matter. That’s our horse, and it’s worth fighting for.