Feb. 2, 2007
Complete Notes in PDF Format
The University of Dayton Flyers return to the road Sunday to take on the Saint Joseph Hawks in Philadelphia. Game time is 12 noon EST. The Flyers are hoping to pack some momentum from Wednesday's win over Atlantic 10 Conference leader George Washington. UD is 14-7 overall (matching last season's win total). SJU is 12-9. Both teams are two of the four teams tied for sixth in the A-10 with a 4-4 conference record.
THE FLYERS Dayton is 13-0 at the University of Dayton Arena this season, which is the second-best winning streak in Arena history, The flip side of that is that the Flyers are seeking their first win on an opponents' home court this year (UD is 0-7 on the road, and 1-0 on neutral courts). The Flyers are led by one of the premier players in the Atlantic 10 Conference, Brian Roberts. Roberts leads UD in scoring (19.3), minutes (35.0), three-pointers per game (2.7), FT% (.908, 99-109) and 3-pt. FG% (.467 56-120). He is among the top ten in the A-10 in six categories, including sitting first in FT%, second in scoring and third in minutes.
Dayton has eight players averaging at least four points a game, including junior forward Jimmy Binnie and junior guard Andres Sandoval, who have started the last four games. Sandoval scored a college career high 21 points in the GW win, while Binnie is averaging 8.0 points and shooting .533 (8-15) from three-point range. In the last seven games, senior Monty Scott has had his six double-digit scoring performances, averaging 12.1 points, 5.9 rebounds and 2.4 assists, while shooting .525 (32-61) from the floor.
THE HAWKS After winning its first three Atlantic 10 Conference games, Saint Joseph's has only won one of its last five conference contests, including a 73-67 loss at home to Saint Louis on Thursday. The Hawk starting front line are all averaging in double digits. Sophomore center Ahmad Nivins leads SJU in scoring (17.1), rebounding (7.3), FG% (.621, 118-190), minutes (34.5) and blocked shots (1.3). Forwards Pat Calathes (13.6) and Rob Ferguson (12.4) are right behind Nivins.
SERIES STUFF UD leads the series, which goes back to the 1939-40 season, 14-10. Last year, Dayton won the regular-season matchup 77-69 at UD Arena on February 1, and St. Joe's beat UD 67-55 in the A-10 Tournament on March 8. SJU has won the last three games played on Hawk Hill (last UD win was 66-62 on January 29, 2000).
UP NEXT The Flyers' next game is at home on Wednesday, February 7 against Fordham at 7:00 p.m. EST. SECRET SMILES AUCTION A BIG SUCCESS UD coach Brian Gregory's dedicated cause is a charity called "Secret Smiles," a program that delivers beds and bedding to children of families who cannot provide for them. Since 2002, Secret Smiles of Dayton has assisted more than 600 families in living up to their slogan "Because Every Child Needs A Bed." After Dayton's win over George Washington, Gregory participated in Secret Smiles' sixth annual "Flyer Feedback Auction" live on the post-game radio show hosted by Mark Adams on WHIO Radio. This year, the auction raised $19,000.
HOME SWEET HOME Dayton has won 13 straight games at home, equaling the second-best streak in University of Dayton Arena history. Here are the best Arena win streaks: 15--December 17, 1984 to March 3, 1985 13--January 13, 1990 to December 15, 1990 13--November 24, 2002 to February 22, 2003 13--November 11, 2006 to .....
FINDING THEIR SHOOTING EYE After shooting 42.2% from the field (284-673) in non-conference play, the Flyers are shooting 50.4% (212-421) in their eight Atlantic 10 games. B-ROB B-GOOD One of the premier players in the Atlantic 10 Conference, Brian Roberts leads UD in scoring (19.3), minutes (35.0), three-pointers per game (2.7), FT% (.908, 99-109) and 3-pt. FG% (.467 56-120). He is among the top ten in the A-10 in six categories, including sitting first in FT%, second in scoring and third in minutes. His 22.9 points per game in conference play is the best in the A-10. Roberts has scored double digits in 19 of the 21 games this season. He got his first career double-double (17 points, 10 rebounds) in the Western Carolina win. He was named Pre-Season All-Atlantic 10 Second Team in a vote of the league's coaches and selected media. Last year, Roberts was the first Dayton basketball player to be named All-Atlantic 10 (second team) and Academic All-A-10 (first team) in the same season. UD's 2005-06 MVP led UD in scoring (16.0), minutes (33.4) and three-pointers (68) and was seventh in the league in scoring.
THE TOLEDO RIFLE Brian Roberts became the 39th member of UD 1,000 Point Club on January 4 during the Charlotte win. He is currently 30th with 1,167 points. He is projected to reach Dayton's Top 20 in scoring by season's end, and has a more than solid chance to finish in the Flyer Top Five by the end of his career. Roberts is the only UD player in the school's top five in career 3-pt. FG% and FT%. His .428 (165-385) from behind the arc is second on the Flyer career lists. His .842 FT% (224-266) is third.
THIRTY-GURTY MAN Brian Roberts is the first Flyer to have two 30-point games in a season since Chip Hare had three in 1992-93.
BRIAN'S BURSTS Brian Roberts has demonstrated a knack for scoring his points in short amounts of time. He has already scored at least ten points in a half 19 times this season, which is one more than what he did all of last season.
MR. ROBERTS=MR. EFFICIENCY Brian Roberts scored his 34 points in the La Salle game in just 28 minutes of playing time, and he did it by taking just 14 shots from the field. He was 9-for-14 from the floor (including 5-for-8 from three), and made a career-high 11 free throws (in 12 attempts). In the GW win, Roberts scored 23 points with only nine field goal attempts. He was 6-for-9 from the floor, 4-for-4 from three-point range and seven-for-seven from the line. In A-10 play, he is averaging almost two points for every FG attempt (1.81).
MONTY, MONTY, MONTY UD's only senior, Monty Scott is second on the team in scoring (10.1), rebounding (4.4), minutes (28.4) and 3-pt. FG% (.380, 35-92). He also leads the Flyers in blocked shots (0.8), third in FG% (.479, 80-176) and FT% (.727, 16-22). He was UD's second-leading scorer (11.2) and rebounder (4.3) in 2005-06, despite missing six games and being limited in practices and games for much more than that with a stress fracture in his left foot. UD's MVP and an all-conference selection two years ago, there is little coincidence that the Flyers fast 8-3 start in 2005-06 came with a healthy Scott starting, and UD's struggles came after the injury.
DOWN THE STRETCH HE COMES Like a miler who goes into his finishing kick when he sees the tape, senior forward Monty Scott is poised to finish his UD career with a flourish. In the last seven games, Scott has had six double-digit scoring performances, his top two rebounding efforts of the year and his top three assist games (including a career-high-tying five assists at Duquesne). In that stretch, Scott is averaging 12.1 points, 5.9 rebounds and 2.4 assists, while shooting .525 (32-61) from the floor, .441 (15-34) from three-point range and .857 (6-7) from the line.
CLIMBING THE CHARTS Brian Roberts became the 39th Flyer to reach the 1,000 point mark in his career in the Charlotte win. He now has 1,167 points (30th on the UD charts) and is seven points behind Frank Case. Monty Scott joined Roberts and became the 40th member of the club at Xavier. He is now 38th in career scoring with 1,018 points, seven points behind Coby Turner. Roberts is fifth in career three-pointers (167). Norm Grevey is fourth with 208. Monty Scott is ninth (151), two behind Coby Turner.
LITTLE BIG MAN At 6-foot-6, 244 pounds, sophomore Charles Little might be the most inaccurately named player in the country. He has scored 167 points and is shooting .580 (69-119) in the last 18 games. He is third on the team in scoring (8.9), and leads UD in FG% (.553, 78-141). Little's 20 dunks (18 in the last 13 games) are more than twice as many as anyone else on the team, and more than half of UD's 34 dunks this year. He had career highs in points (21) and rebounds (9) at Duquesne.
LIVING UP TO HIS INITIALS, NUMBER AND TEAMMATE Freshman Marcus Johnson's "basketball karma" has to be off the charts. He has ties to the last three generations of great NBA players. His number is the same as another famous Johnson, who was simply known as "Magic." His initials call to mind one of the greatest winners in the history of the league. And in high school, Marcus Johnson had the pressure of becoming the next star at Akron St. Vincent-St. Mary's after LeBron James took his game to the NBA. And none of this matters unless you can play, and have the makeup to handle such alliteration. Luckily for the Flyer Faithful, it appears that Johnson has both requirements covered. He scored 23 points in his first game as a Flyer, the most by a Dayton player in his debut game. Johnson is one of five Flyers averaging over seven points a game (7.4), and one of six averaging at least three rebounds a game (3.6).
MORE MARCUS Marcus Johnson has scored in double figures five times this season, including 14 at North Carolina and his first double-double (11 points/10 rebounds) in the Yale win. In the win over Western Carolina, Johnson scored 13 points (5-6 FG) and grabbed six rebounds. He also had two assists, a steal and a blocked shot and drew the primary assignment of guarding Western Carolina's leading scorer, Antonio Russell. Russell came into the game averaging 17.9 points and shooting 57% from the field, but finished with five points, and a percentage-killing 1-for-14 from the floor. For the season, Johnson is shooting .440 (59-134) from the field, but inside the arc he is shooting fifty points higher (.490, 47-96). In conference play, he is shooting .455 (5-11) from three.
BEING "KURT" TO THE OPPOSITION Freshman Kurt Huelsman tied the UD freshman record for blocked shots in a game (and the most in a first game as a Flyer) when he swatted four in the Austin Peay win. Huelsman tied Keith Waleskowski, who had four against George Washington on February 17, 2001 during his redshirt freshman season. Huelsman also grabbed nine rebounds to lead the Flyers in the game. He is second on the team in blocked shots (0.7) and fourth in rebounding (3.8). Huelsman was the primary defender in holding Pittsburgh's seven-footer, Aaron Gray, the preseason Big East Player of the Year, to a season-low five points. In two games against Gray and North Carolina All-American Tyler Hansbrough, Huelsman had 12 points, seven rebounds, two assists and two blocked shots.
KONFERENCE KURT Freshman post player Kurt Huelsman has picked up his play virtually across the board in A-10 action. In conference, he is averaging 4.9 points, 3.5 rebounds, 0.4 assists and 20.4 minutes, while shooting .500 (15-30) FG and .643 (9-14) FT, compared to 4.0, 3.9, 0.5, 19.3, .439 and .616 in non-conference competition.
GLASS CLEANER Freshman Kurt Huelsman pulled down 26 rebounds in his first three games as a Flyer. That's more than the two most recent Flyers to get 1,000 rebounds in their careers. Ryan Perryman grabbed 24, and Keith Waleskowski had 21, respectively in their first three college games.
STORMIN' NORMAN Norman Plummer leads the team in rebounding (5.0), and is fourth on the team in scoring (8.2). He is also second in FT% (.772, 44-57) and FG% (.481, 52-108). He scored a game-high 19 points (6-8 FG, 7-8 FT) in the Holy Cross win and a team-high tying 13 (5-7 FG) in the Creighton win. He had 11 rebounds in the Miami win. Against Charlotte, he had 11 points, a game-high seven rebounds and was five-for-five from the line (including a game-clinching pair with 18 seconds left). He scored 14 points at Xavier. Last year, he was UD's leading rebounder (6.5), was third in scoring (10.0) and second in minutes (26.5).
BIG START BINNIE A strong contributor off the bench for most of the season, junior forward Jimmy Binnie has started the last four games and has scored UD's first three-pointer in all four games (and the Flyers' first points in three of the four). In those four games, Binnie is averaging 8.0 points and shooting .533 (8-15) from three-point range. In the Richmond game he outscored the Spiders in the first half (9-8). He scored the first six points of the game and finished with a season-high 12 points. Against Louisville, he had eight points (two more than he had in the previous four games combined). In the Creighton win, he had eight points, three assists and two rebounds in 13 minutes. After shooting .241 (7-29) from three-point in non-conference, Binnie is hitting .455 (10-22) in A-10 play. His 1.53 assist-to-turnover ratio is the best on the team.
HERE COMES THE SAND MAN Junior point guard Andres Sandoval had a breakout game in the GW win, scoring a college career-high 21 points (previous UD high was nine, and Richmond high was 15) and adding six assists and six rebounds. He was expected to be out 4-6 weeks with a broken bone in his foot, but apparently he didn't get the memo. He was back on the court exactly 19 days after his surgery to place a titanium screw in the foot. He played nine minutes in a shakedown cruise against South Carolina State on November 28, and has averaged 22.3 minutes in the 12 games since then. He had seven points and three steals vs. Miami. At Rhode Island, he scored nine points, had five rebounds and four assists off the bench and had nine points, three assists and three steals in the La Salle win. He has started the last two games. At Duquesne, he scored seven points (4-4 FT) and tied his college career high with seven assists. On the year, he leads the team in steals (1.0) and assists (3.0).
TEAM EFFORT Dayton's road to a 14-7 record is a "sum of the parts" kind of blueprint. The Flyers have just two players (Brian Roberts at 19.3, Monty Scott at 10.1) averaging in double digits, but six others average at least 4.0 points a game. They are Charles Little (8.9), Norman Plummer (8.2), Marcus Johnson (7.4), Andres Sandoval (4.6), Kurt Huelsman (4.3) and Jimmy Binnie (4.0). In conference play, eight Flyers average at least four points a game -- Roberts 22.9, Scott 10.9, Little 9.4, Sandoval 7.4, Plummer 7.1, Binnie 5.6, Huelsman 4.9 and Johnson 4.8.
EYE 75 ON THE SCOREBOARD The Flyers are 18-3 under head coach Brian Gregory when they score at least 75 points.
DOING IT WITH DEFENSE Earlier this season, the Flyers held six straight opponents to 55 points or less, the first time that had happened at UD in 56 years.
OUT OF THE BLOCKS UD's 10-1 start matched its best start to a season since the Flyers won their first 14 games in 1955-56. UD's 10-3 non-conference record marked just the third time in school history the Flyers have reached 10 wins before January 1.
GRAD RATES GREAT IN DAYTON Dayton was listed as one of the nation's leaders in the 2006 NCAA Division I Graduation Rates Report. The Flyers' GSR is 96, up two points from last year and 18th out of 320 schools Division I school rated. UD's 91 percent graduation rate for its men's basketball program is best in the A-10. Men's basketball is one of 15 (out of 17) Flyer athletic teams with GSR's of 90 or better. Last year's report also noted that every one of the 229 scholarship student-athletes who entered UD from 1988-89 to 1997-98 and completed their eligibility at UD graduated. The A-10 was fifth as a conference. Nearly two-thirds (303 of 473) of all Flyer student-athletes carry a cumulative GPA of 3.0 or better.
TOURNEY TOWN The NCAA Division I Tournament will make its start at UD Arena this season for the sixth year in a row. The NCAA Division I Men's Basketball Committee has announced that the University of Dayton Arena will host the NCAA Opening Round Game in 2007. UD has hosted the game since its inception in its current form in 2002. When the 2007 NCAA Tournament is over, UD Arena will have been an NCAA site in 21 of the last 38 years and will have hosted 73 NCAA Tournament games. That will make UD Arena the third-most prolific NCAA Tournament venue behind Municipal Auditorium in Kansas City (83) and the Huntsman Center in Salt Lake City (81). The Arena is also one of four 2007 NCAA D-I Women's Regional sites.
FLYER FAITHFUL For years, UD has claimed it has had the best fans in the nation. In 2001, The Sporting News conducted an unscientific poll of college basketball coaches, media and SIDs. In the January 8, 2001 issue of the magazine, UD's fans were tabbed as college basketball's best. And they prove it to everyone the Flyers play. UD Arena has 76 sellouts in its 34-year history. UD's last 116 regular season home games have had attendance of at least 11,000 fans. In the last 13 years, 99% of UD's home games have drawn at least 10,000 (334 of 357), including the last 152 regular season games. UD averaged 12,422 last season, 2,500 higher than any other A-10 team and 23rd in the country.
THE COMPANY YOU KEEP UD recruit Chris Wright is one of the best 20 high school basketball players in the country selected to play in the 2007 Jordan Brand All-American Classic on Saturday, April 21 at Madison Square Garden. It will be shown on ESPN2. Among the players selected to this year's game are O.J. Mayo, Derrick Rose and Eric Gordon. Recent participants include NBA stars Carmelo Anthony, LeBron James, Amare Stoudemire, Dwight Howard and Chris Paul.
FLYERS LAND TOP A-10 CLASS UD landed what Scout.com considers the top recruiting class in the Atlantic 10 on November 8 with the signings of 6-8 forward Chris Wright of Trotwood-Madison (Trotwood, OH) High School, 6-9 forward/center Devin Searcy of Romulus (MI) High School, and 6-1 guard Stephen Thomas of Indianapolis Cathedral High School. As a group, the newest Flyers chose UD after getting scholarship offers from schools that included members of the ACC, Big Ten, Big 12, SEC and Atlantic 10. Considered one of the top candidates for Ohio's Mr. Basketball, Wright will be the second member of his family to play at UD. His uncle on his mother's side, J.D. Grigsby, played at UD from 1971 to 1973. A consensus top 50 player, Scout.com has named him the top player in the A-10 for this recruiting class. Searcy is another recruit who will put the "Fly" in "Flyers." Not only is he an athletic 6-9, he has a 37-inch vertical leap and a seven-foot fingertip-to-fingertip reach. He is the fifth Romulus player in the last four years to earn a Division I scholarship. A heady player with a classic Hoosier-guard outside shot, the Indianapolis Star named Thomas one of its two annual Players of the Year. Thomas was the Indianapolis Player of the Year, and national player of the year Greg Oden was named Marion County Player of the Year. The Bob Gibbons All-Star Report has three Top 150 players heading to the A-10 from the fall signing period, and two (Wright and Thomas) are future Flyers.
AND DOES NOT INCLUDE THE LATEST ADDITION Phillip "Mickey" Perry transferred to the Flyers from the University of Wisconsin on January 8. Perry, a 6-2 guard who graduated from Proviso East High School in 2005, will become eligible to play at UD after the fall 2007 semester. He will have two-and-a-half seasons of basketball eligibility remaining. After averaging 20.0 points, 7.1 assists and 5.0 rebounds a game as a senior at Proviso East, Perry redshirted the 2005-06 season at Wisconsin. In seven games this season for the Badgers, he averaged 3.0 minutes, and 1.0 points a game.
GAME #21 -- DAYTON 84, GEORGE WASHINGTON 69 A late second-half surge and a career-high 21 points from junior Andres Sandoval propelled homestanding Dayton past George Washington on Wednesday, 84-69. Junior Brian Roberts led all scorers with 23 points as Dayton improved to 13-0 on its home floor this season. UD ended the game on a 19-4 run over the final 4:07 to break a 65-65 tie. Sandoval, who shot 6-of-9 from the field, scored 10 of Dayton's final 16 points. He also recorded six rebounds and six assists, while shooting 8-of-9 from the charity stripe. The Flyers finished 28-of-50 (.560) from the floor after opening 9-of-12. UD cashed in on 10-of-16 three-point tries, led by Roberts who connected on all four of his attempts. Senior Monty Scott and sophomore Charles Little each added 10 points as UD matched its win total from all of last season (14). Dayton's win snapped George Washington's five-game win streak.
DID YOU KNOW ? UD won more games than any other school in both the 1950s and `60s. UD won 435 games between 1950 and 1969 and ranks among the top teams of the 1950s and 1960s in Division I history. The Flyers' .763 (228-71) winning percentage in the 1950s ranks fifth in the decade. Their .729 (207-77) winning percentage ranks eighth in the 1960s.
