Newsletter: Game at Loyola big opportunity for Dayton

That said, I bet Chase will remember the incident for a long time. Those are the types of memories that stick. He still remembers getting lost at the Boonshoft Museum in Dayton when he was 3. I remember a tree almost falling on me in the Hocking Hills when I was the same age.

What memories will stand out from this Dayton Flyers season?

• The Nate Santos shot against LSU.

• Koby Brea saluting the fans after getting ejected after a second technical foul in the St. John’s game.

• Javon Bennett almost running into George and Laura Bush at the SMU game.

• Dozens of DaRon Holmes II dunks but also two game-tying misses by Holmes in the final minutes of road losses against Virginia Commonwealth and George Mason.

• Perhaps also the made shot by Makai Grant in the final minute Tuesday against Davidson, even if the basket didn’t count.

The one thing this season is missing is the feel-good moment of the coach’s son scoring his first career points. Anthony Grant enjoyed the seeing the reactions on the bench when Makai made the shot, even if it came after the shot clock expired.

“It’s fun to watch them respond,” Grant said.

Dayton (22-5, 12-3) enjoyed the rare tension-free evening Tuesday in an 80-66 victory at UD Arena. That likely won’t be the case tonight when it plays at Loyola Chicago (20-8, 12-3). The Flyers need the victory to keep their Atlantic 10 Conference regular-season championship hopes alive, to improve their seeding in the NCAA tournament and to prove again they can beat a good team outside UD Arena.

Dayton has played three road games against teams in the top seven of the A-10 standings and lost them all. As good as Dayton has been in winning 22 games, it’s still a team with something to prove in that regard. Richmond in in first place in part because of a 58-56 victory at Loyola on Jan. 9.

Loyola has won five straight home games since that loss. It has sold out the game against Dayton, though I expect the strong alumni base in Chicago will help the Flyers feel somewhat at home.

Former Flyer cheers on team home and away

One of the biggest Dayton basketball fans is Rev. J.D. Grigsby, a 6-foot-4 forward who played two seasons (1971-73) at Dayton. I wrote about him in my book: “The Epicenter of College Basketball: A History of UD Arena,” which is still available for purchase at UDArenaBook.com.

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Here’s an excerpt:

No one who attends games at UD Arena these days dresses with more flair than J.D. Grigsby. He often wears a white suit with a matching white ship captain’s hat. He stands out in the front row or near it just as he did on the court on March 4, 1972, when he had 21 points and 21 rebounds in a season-ending 86-74 victory against Notre Dame. The win helped the Flyers avoid their first losing season at UD Arena. They finished 13-13 that season and 13-13 the following season.

During UD Arena’s 30th anniversary year, Grigsby looked back on the game and wondered about the rebound he missed.

“I had a necklace on, and as I went to grab the rebound, it broke,” he said. “I held it in my hand and tried to grab the rebound, but I didn’t have enough grip on it because I was trying to hold the necklace and the basketball at the same time.”

Grigsby has taken his devotion to the flyers to a new level this season by attending most of the road games. The Flyers need all the help they can get with only one home game remaining.

I imagine many fans have asked for time off the week of March 17, hoping the Flyers get placed close to home in the NCAA tournament bracket.

Here’s a glance at the first-round sites, other than Dayton, where the First Four takes place, in order of their proximity to Dayton: Indianapolis (117 miles); Pittsburgh (256); Charlotte, N.C. (456); Memphis, Tenn., (534); Brooklyn, N.Y. (608); Omaha, Neb. (724); Salt Lake City, Utah (1,638); and Spokane, Wash. (2,084).

A Dayton reunion in the NBA

Five years ago, I brought my son Chase to a Dayton basketball interview session at the Cronin Center. He was about four months old. I sat him on the floor in a car seat while I was talking to Anthony Grant with other reporters. Doug Hauschild, Dayton’s longtime sports information director, kept an eye on Chase.

As I was talking to Grant, I noticed Obi Toppin and Jalen Crutcher, both then in their second years at UD, playing peekaboo with Chase. Andy Farrell, an assistant coach who’s now at Siena, was nice enough to take a photo and video of the moment. The photo’s on our mantle at home.

Shelia Crutcher, Jalen’s mom, commented on the photo on Facebook.

“Jalen loves lil babies,” she wrote. “So sweet.”

Obi and Jalen had a much more memorable moment — for them at least — together this week, posing for a photo while holding the other’s NBA jersey after a game between the Pacers and Pelicans in Indianapolis on Wednesday. Crutcher made his NBA debut a night earlier by playing three minutes against the New York Knicks at Madison Square Garden.

The Toppin-Crutcher story started when they arrived on the UD campus in June of 2024. They became fast friends and led Dayton to a 29-2 season in 2020. Toppin moved onto the NBA as Crutcher finished his college career in 2021, and finally after three years in the NBA G League, Crutcher got his chance at the next level by signing a 10-day contract with the Pelicans last week.

As fate would have it, Crutcher’s path crossed with Toppin in his third game on the bench. The Pacers and Pelicans play again Friday in New Orleans.

Fast Break

Here’s other news that might interest Flyer fans:

🏀 Dayton Athletic Director Neil Sullivan was quoted in an ESPN story by Joe Lunardi this week. Lunardi laid out his case for expanding the NCAA tournament to 80 teams. Sullivan talked about the problem of being Dayton is a sport dominated by the power conferences.

“College basketball,” noted Dayton athletic director Neil Sullivan, who has power conference resources in a next-tier conference, “has reached its practical point of limitations to evaluate teams. It’s not possible to credibly evaluate teams that do not play each other, that do not have common opponents and that do not have a reasonably equal chance to ‘statistically prove’ their strength through competition. A team cannot pass the test if it cannot even take the test.”

🏀 You can now buy “officially licensed University of Dayton 2023-24 men’s basketball trading cards” on Dayton6th.com.

🏀 An ESPN.com story by Neil Payne included this fact about how ranked teams have struggled to win on the road this season.

“Whereas the average winning percentage for Top 25 teams in away games since 2009-10 was 57.0% going into this season, those teams have won fewer than half the time (49.6%) on the road this season,” Payne wrote.

What do you want to know about the Flyers?

I want to hear from you. Reach out to me directly at david.jablonski@coxinc.com with your questions and feedback on the team or this newsletter.

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