When Jim Jabir took over the Dayton Women's Basketball program 12 years ago, there was a lot of upside. Problem was, there was nowhere to go but up. The Jaci Clark experiment -- a successful coach at Bowling Green before arriving at Dayton -- never worked out and the job of picking up the pieces fell to Jim Jabir, a coach that needed a second chance as much as the Flyers needed a new approach.
With successful stops at Buffalo State, Siena, and Marquette, Jabir had the chops to build a program into an NCAA tournament team. But he left Marquette just as things got rolling, choosing to leave the comfort of yearly postseason expectations for the opportunity to coach in the Big East against the likes of Connecticut, Rutgers, and Notre Dame. And when the Providence job opened up, he took it.
Despite improving the Friars into a far more competitive product, six losing records in six seasons on the heels of nightly beatdowns to NCAA title contenders proved too much to overcome. He was let go and took an assistant coaching job in Boulder, CO, to help the Lady Buffs. But he knew he wanted to be a head coach again, and this time he knew if the right place would take him he'd ride it to the end of his coaching career. Jabir said on more than one occasion that leaving Marquette was one of the dumbest things he ever did -- a mistake he wouldn't make twice. Sometimes home is where your heart is, not where others feel you're career path should take you.
After moonlighting at Colorado for one season, Dayton called and he answered. He took the job knowing it was a dumpster fire in need of an entire overhaul. Talent was down, coach/player relationships were estranged, and the once-proud and dominating program had been left rudderless and directionless for the better part of two decades since moving from AIAW D-II to NCAA Division-I.
In Jabir's first season, the Flyers went 3-25. There was something magical about his personality that immediately drew me closer however. He had a way with communicating that made everyone in the room feel better about themselves in spite of the constant losing. He focused on player development and demanded nobody watch the scoreboard -- that would come later after the Flyers could walk and chew gum.
John Churan and I approached Jabir in that first season and asked for -- at the time -- unprecedented access to the team. This was before Twitter and Facebook and YouTube. Our goal was to follow the coach and his team from pre-game stretching to post-game locker room speech and expose the process of building a program from the ground up. Surprisingly, he agreed and the Cincinnati home game was our ticket to ride shotgun as his shadow.
His pre-game speech focused on what Dayton needed to do to be successful. While they scouted the Bearcats, the opposition's personnel and schemes were secondary concerns. UD was simply too short on talent to focus an ounce of concern elsewhere. Jabir created good work habits and developed a mindset that would lay the groundwork for teams in later years.
I can still remember standing under the UD Arena tunnel as we asked Jabir what he thought about the UC game that was 20 minutes from tip-off. Then we asked him again, "what do you
really think?" He said it was a victory if the Flyers kept the score within 20pts. Dayton lost 62-40. The path to getting better is not always a straight line.
Dayton would suffer more drubbings in that first season, but things slowly got better. Three years later UD cobbled together a 17-12 record and were half-way competitive in the Atlantic-10. Players like Stephanie Miller and Jennifer Strong were the first players to buy in, and a small but meaningful recruiting break-though happened when California-native Nikki Oakland committed to Dayton not long after Jabir's arrival. His first recruit to score 1,000 points as a Flyer, Oakland bridged the divide between the old way and the new direction for UD women's basketball.
As UD continued to win more games, the recruits returning phone calls became more talented. Canadian Kendel Ross arrived in 2006 -- a player Jabir still describes as the first legitimate recruit the Flyers didn't deserve. But Ross bought into the salesmanship and a year later Ohio prep star Kristin Daugherty bought in too. A year later, fellow Versailles superstar Justine Raterman said yes. Three program-changing players in three years would set the table for what UD WBB is today. To separate their contributions from today's success is a major oversight.
After a small taste of the postseason in the WNIT, UD finally reached pay-dirt in 2010 with their first-ever D-I NCAA Tournament appearance, capped off by an improbable 20-pt comeback win over Texas Christian in the First Round -- courtesy of a last-second shot by Brittany Wilson that remains one of the wildest program-defining wins in history.
Things have been program-defining ever since that bank shot off the glass. A trophy case of A10 regular season and A10 tournament titles now exists. The Flyers have appeared in six straight NCAA tournaments, capped off by this weekend's first ever trip to the Sweet-16 with a 99-94 thriller over #2 seed Kentucky.
While the TCU victory buried old skeletons of basketball irrelevance, Sunday's victory over the Wildcats shattered a goal that's been taped to the locker room wall for four seasons -- making it to the second weekend of the Big Dance.
Two players -- two future UD Athletic Hall of Famers to be more precise -- are responsible for it. Seniors Ally Malott and Andrea Hoover were two local HS products that turned down more glamorous offers to stay home and play for the Flyers. Malott was a McDonald's All-American at Middletown-Madison HS, while Hoover flew under the radar at non OHSAA-sanctioned Spring Valley Academy in Centerville. One public-school kid. One private-schooled Seventh-Day Adventist. They are now roommates and best friends. They are also two of the most talented players to ever suit up for UD.
These two individuals came to UD and chose to lay their own trail of breadcrumbs rather than parlay success on the heels of current or past program glory at another school. Their stated goal was a Sweet-16 appearance and they never wavered from this publicly or privately. They took the road less traveled by and at times it was more difficult and less-rewarding. Despite annual NCAA appearances, the Flyers had trouble getting out of the First Round. The better the seeding, the worse the results. And when they did reach the Second Round -- one coming after a dramatic First Round 2OT thriller at St. John's -- the wheels fell off and the power punch of higher-seeded opponents left UD relatively uncompetitive against Tennessee and Kentucky.
This year, their senior year, would be the last chance to make those dreams a reality. But the seeding Gods once again under-seeded the Flyers despite a fat RPI, 25-6 record, and no bad losses. Dayton earned the #7 seed with a First Round date with #10 Iowa State out of the Big-12. UD's quickness and height caused problems for the Cyclones and some hot perimeter shooting busted a tight game into a comfortable double-digit lead in the second half. Iowa State made one late run, but Dayton countered well and moved on to the second round vs. #2 Kentucky on the Wildcats' home floor.
Two seasons ago, the NCAA 2nd Rd meeting was unkind to the Flyers as Kentucky's pressure defense forced countless Dayton turnovers that resulted in an 84-70 loss. This time, UD would have to overcome the same full-court pressure but do it in front of Kentucky's fans in Kentucky's home gym where they were winners of 54 consecutive non-conference matches.
What ended up as one of the all-time great wins in UD Athletics history, Dayton topped Kentucky 99-94 despite being out-scored 22-3 on 24 Flyer turnovers. How did they do it? Dayton shot 57% from the floor, 11-18 from behind the arc, and sank an amazing 28-31 free throws -- including clutch freebies down the stretch to seal the win. Even more remarkable, Andrea Hoover sat the last 9 minutes of the game after fouling out with just five points. Starting PG Jenna Burdette and starting C Jodie Cornelie-Sigmundova joined her not long after with 5 whistles too.
That's when Malott took the game over, hitting shots from everywhere on the court en route to 28 points and 13 rebounds. Junior defensive stopper Kelley Austria took over PG duties in Burdette's absence and hit a late trey and some huge FTs to help seal the deal. Amber Deane -- the Microwave off the bench -- added to Austria's 17pts with 23 of her own, including a dagger trey from the left corner as the shot-clock was about to expire to extend the Flyer lead to 93-89 with under a minute remaining. Even senior PG Tiffany Johnson, overwhelmed in the first half by turnovers, made four monster free throws in the waning moments that were as important as any points registered all day.
When the final whistle sounded, the Flyers scorched Kentucky for the most points in regulation surrendered by a Wildcat team in 14 seasons. The bench was uncontrollably celebratory, while Andrea Hoover ran to her coach for a sneak-attack bear hug as he walked to center court for the post-game hand-shake with Kentucky coaches and players.
Sunday offered no more mulligans. Dayton had one bullet left in the chamber and hit dead-center mass like no other team in program history. It will forever be remembered as one of the most-clutch performances by a team in UD Athletics lore, helped in part by three seniors -- two ballyhooed stars and one unheralded transfer -- along with a collection of players that embraced their roles to perfection. Every time someone needed to step up and make a play, a play was made. Cornelie-Sigmundova registered six blocks and drained a couple huge jumpers. Austria frustrated Kentucky guards with three tie-ups/blocks of her own. She and Deane drew blood from the perimeter to help with the scoring. Jenna Burdette, thrown to the wolves as a true freshman, made clutch acrobatic baseline layups. Saicha Grant-Allen made 3 of 4 shots and grabbed 5 rebounds. Collectively, the Flyers out-boarded Kentucky 42-34 despite losing the battle on the offensive glass 15-5. There weren't many caroms on Dayton's end of the court -- most shots tickled twine.
To do it with Andrea Hoover sitting on the bench, fouled out with 5 points, speaks to the grit embodied by her teammates -- and her roommate.
Jabir would say after the game that aside from the birth of his kids it was the best day of his life, and judging by the players' reactions in the locker room, it was one of their best days too. The post-game emotions were less about the prior 40 minutes and more about the long journey getting there. Jabir spent 30 years coaching basketball to enjoy this moment, while his seniors -- hell-bent on living up to a promise -- made good on their word when all the chips were pushed to the center of the table. Now Jim Jabir must submit himself to the tattoo parlor, a promise he made if the Flyers reached the Sweet-16.
It's a far cry from a 3-25 season where moral victories are the only victories to celebrate. The program is in a different place now. Instead of submitting to nightly beatdowns, the Flyers are throwing haymakers.
They uncorked a Mike Tyson upper-cut on Sunday afternoon in Lexington. When your heart is in the right place, magic happens.
Flyer WBB Delivers On a Promise
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