The Atlantic 10 is going to have one of its best seasons in recent memory. Four undefeated teams and two more one-loss teams, but one team I’ve been intrigued by and finally watched them for the first time yesterday, is Dayton.
In their game against Georgia on Monday, they dominated their way to an 80-61 win in the first round of the Maui Invitational.
The Flyers are an extremely strong team, headlined by the star power that they have in leading scorer Obi Toppin, who has averaged 24 points per game this year for the 4-0 team, and had 25 of them on 9-11 shooting on Monday, as part of a season where he has shot a ridiculous 72.5% from the field. He has household name potential and it seems to be more and more increasingly likely that has is going to get selected in the NBA Draft in June.
It’s not just Toppin that can be very good for their team. He has a very good complementary piece next to him in Jalen Crutcher, who can play very well with him and be the guy when Toppin has to be off the floor for rest. Crutcher is an above-average shooter who shoots nearly 30% from behind the three-point line, and that’s even a dip to start the season as he shot 36% from three last season as a sophomore. He also benefited hard from the soft rims of the Lahaina Civic Center at the end of the first half, where his buzzer-beating three bounced softly off the rim more than once and ended up falling in to give the Flyers a 43-25 lead at the break.
It’s not just those two guys either. They are a very deep team that can play nine or ten guys per game, which is something that you don’t see too much anymore in today’s college basketball, when so many teams are star-driven. That’s not the case with Dayton. On top of Toppin and Crutcher, Rodney Chapman, Ryan Mikesell, Trey Landers and Ibi Watson all average over 20 minutes per game and they all can contribute to the team’s success and that depth is a big part of why they have done so well at the beginning of the season. Chase Johnson and Dwayne Cohill also see a decent amount of time off the bench, 13 and 17 minutes per contest respectively.
Anthony Grant has done a great job developing talent on both sides of the ball and is has shown in a big way on the floor. I was thinking, before the game against Georgia got started, if they could hold potential #1 overall pick Anthony Edwards to only 10 or 12 points, they had a chance to win the game. They came out and did much more than that, holding Edwards to just six points on a terrible 2-10 shooting and went 0-5 from three. Holding him to that low of a point total and the defense forcing him to have that poor a game on the defensive side, and then doing that well on offense, was what really allowed them to win that game and do so by the margin they did.
They have two more games in the Maui Invitational, starting tonight with a matchup against Virginia Tech in the semifinals after they shocked the college basketball world with their upset against Michigan State. I don’t expect them to win the tournament, especially with Kansas looming in the other semifinal game. However, if they can beat Virginia Tech and get the opportunity to (likely) play Kansas, that’s a win for them in and of itself. BYU will be the probable sacrificial lamb against Kansas in that semifinal game.
The Atlantic 10 is going to be run by VCU this year, that’s basically a given. However, in a league with a handful of strong teams that is expected to receive multiple NCAA Tournament bids, if they can get close the level of success that VCU is projected to have, the Flyers are a team that people should have their eyes on come March.
AJ Hoops 