The transfer portal opened Monday and now has 1,431 names in it, according to the list kept by VerbalCommits.com. Three Flyers entered the portal on Monday and Tuesday: Malachi Smith; Isaac Jack; and then Marvel Allen.
None of those decisions were surprises. Jack struggled to find playing time this season. Allen has not played the last two seasons because of injuries.
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As for Smith, he gave four years to Dayton and deserves praise for fighting back from multiple injuries to enjoy a healthy redshirt junior season. His dad, Elliot Rosado, called me on Tuesday, the day after Smith made his announcement to explain the decision.
First, Rosado wanted to say that Smith was happy at UD and with the coaching staff.
“Everything went great,” Rosado said. “We have no complaints about anybody.”
Smith loved the university, the community and the city, his dad said. One of Rosado’s favorite memories came from a summer basketball camp at UD where Smith was an instructor.
“A lady came up to me,” Rosado said, “and she was like, ‘You know what we love about Malachi? When he’s walking home from class, when he’s walking home from the store, he always stops to talk to the kids when they’re on their way home from school.‘”
There are a number of reasons Smith, who will graduate from Dayton this spring, decided to explore his options in the transfer portal, Rosado said. For one, Smith didn’t get a true recruiting experience when he was a senior in high school. The pandemic cut his junior season short and played havoc with his senior season. He committed to Dayton in August of 2020 without having taken a recruiting visit to the campus, though he had been to UD to visit his brother Scoochie years earlier.
Rosado said going to Dayton was “still the best decision” Smith ever made, but now he has an opportunity to experience a new program with a new coach and a new system. As with any job, that should make Smith better. I had three internships in college before landing a full-time job. I learned new things at each stop.
Smith also should be able to capitalize on the new era of colleges paying athletes directly, not that he wouldn’t have been able to do that at Dayton, too. Many players are entering the portal to see what type of offers they get.
A number of Power 5 schools reached out to Smith after he entered the portal, Rosado said. It will be interesting to see where he lands. The portal is only open for 30 days, but players can take as long as they want to pick a new school. Standing out in the crowd will be difficult, though.
We could still see more Flyers enter the portal. A source told me Thursday that UD should know more about the decisions of the remaining players by the weekend. I do know Jacob Conner will return for his senior season and second season with the Flyers. I will try to get updates on Javon Bennett, Jaiun Simon, Hamad Mousa and Amaël L’Etang in the days ahead.
A lackluster ending for Dayton
Credit: David Jablonski
Credit: David Jablonski
My 6-year-old son Chase has a new word: “Sus.” As in “suspect.”
Chase did not like the fact that I took a spring break without him last week. One night in South Florida — Deerfield Beach, specifically, not far from Boca Raton, where Dayton beat Florida Atlantic in the first round of the National Invitation Tournament. Then one night and two days in Chattanooga, Tenn., where Dayton lost to Chattanooga on Saturday.
Chase had to stay home even though he was off school for spring break. He had day camp all week at his elementary school. Still, he missed two fun trips and only got a couple of keychains and stuffies from his dad.
“Sus,” he would say.
That could also describe Dayton’s play against Chattanooga. The Flyers trailed from start to finish. I didn’t think Dayton would win that game. Chattanooga won the Southern Conference championship. It’s a strong program. It had the homecourt edge Dayton will never get in the first two rounds of the NIT. The Flyers just didn’t have it, as we all saw a few times this season.
Dayton coach Anthony Grant created the most drama during the game with a late-game fit after the officials missed a foul against Bennett. Multiple coaches took turns trying to guide Grant back to the bench. I thought the officials might kick him out for a second.
By the time I talked to Grant after the game, he had calmed down. Fans asked me multiple times throughout the season to ask Grant if he was returning for the 2025-26 season. One of the popular anonymous coaching search accounts on X (Twitter), one with almost 33,000 followers, reported in February that “Anthony Grant will likely retire at year’s end.”
I didn’t buy it because that account reported the same thing two years ago. The chance to coach his son Makai for two more years is one of many reasons I thought Grant would return.
I never directly asked Grant if he was coming back because there was no real indication that he wouldn’t return, other than many critical fans talking themselves into the possibility that he might leave, and Dayton isn’t going to move on from a coach who won 23 games and reached the NCAA tournament last year. I just asked him about his thoughts entering Year 9 on the job. What he said told me everything I needed to know.
“We’re going to put our best foot forward,” Grant said. “It’s a different way that you build rosters now. To me, it’s about a process. The first step in the process is we’ll get these guys back to town, and we’ll set up some meetings and try to evaluate the current roster. And then obviously as other things start to transpire outside of what’s going on on our campus, then we’ll look at it and kind of see where we are. It’s just a process that we go through now on an annual basis.”
Dayton has at least eight spots on the roster it can fill this spring. I don’t think it will fill them all. The scholarship limit is increasing from 13 to 15. Some of the walk-ons at the end of the bench last year could now become scholarship players while playing the same role as the guys who help the starters and regular rotation players prepare for games.
Dayton needs to land an Atlantic 10 Conference first-team caliber player if it wants to return to the NCAA tournament next year. It probably needs a second-team player as well. The Flyers are losing five of their top seven scorers. If Bennett and L’Etang return, they still need major pieces to achieve the goals the program has every season.
Fast Break
Here’s other news that might interest Flyer fans:
🏀 The newest coach in the A-10 is VCU’s Phil Martelli Jr., whose dad once called me out of the blue to tell me a Curb Your Enthusiasm story.
🏀 James Haring, who was Dayton’s director of basketball operations from 2019-21, is back in the A-10 as an assistant coach on new La Salle coach Darris Nichols’ staff.
🏀 Former Flyer Koby Brea is back in action tonight. Kentucky plays Tennessee in the Sweet 16.
🏀 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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