For a short time, in middle school, I cared about the NBA and the Chicago Bulls but didn’t follow college basketball. When Xavier and then the Cincinnati Bearcats took off in the early 1990s, I shifted toward the college game, though I followed the Bulls throughout the Jordan days.
Jordan, of course, played once at UD Arena in an exhibition game in the 1990s. The list of NBA greats who have played at the arena is a long one, and on that list is Marquette’s most famous player: Dwayne Wade. He scored 17 points on 8-of-23 shooting in a 92-85 overtime loss at Dayton on Jan. 4, 2003.
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Twenty one years later, Marquette will play again at UD Arena at 7 p.m. Saturday. The sixth-ranked Golden Eagles once again have a standout guard, Kam Jones, a 6-foot-5 senior who had a triple-double in a victory against Purdue in November and scored 32 points against Wisconsin in Marquette’s last game Saturday.
Dayton had trouble stopping two of the nation’s best guards in the Maui Invitational. North Carolina’s RJ Davis scored 30 points against Dayton in a 92-90 victory. Iowa State’s Keshon Gilbert had 24 points in an 89-84 victory.
Jones will be just as difficult to defend.
“He’s a great player,” Dayton guard Enoch Cheeks said Thursday. “They just have a great team in general. They’re a top-three defensive team in the country. It’s a big opportunity again for us to display what we can do against top-level opponents and top-level players like that.”
A Dayton great enters the Hall of Fame
Credit: Erik Schelkun
Credit: Erik Schelkun
I was supposed to take some time off this week with no mid-week game for the Flyers. That didn’t really work out. One of the things I had to do was fill out my Baseball Hall of Fame ballot. I’m a first-time voter after 10 years in the Baseball Writers Association of America.
My picks for the 2025 class were: Ichiro Suzuki; Billy Wagner; Alex Rodriguez; Manny Ramirez; Andy Pettitte; Chase Utley; Andruw Jones; Bobby Abreu; Carlos Beltran; and CC Sabathia.
You don’t have to make your ballot public, but I’m used to the scrutiny after voting in the Associated Press top-25 polls five years now. I posted my ballot everywhere yesterday: X; Facebook; Instagram; Bluesky; and even TikTok. Surprisingly, my TikTok video got the most response with more than 27,000 views as of Friday morning.
Fans love to scrutinize the ballots and debate the choices.
“The Hall of Pretty Good,” one fan wrote of my choices.
“Great ballot,” another wrote. “I’d personally swap King Felix (Hernandez) and Utley, but there’s a reason I sit on my couch and watch baseball instead of writing about it.”
“Well, you got three correct,” another wrote.
What does this have to do with the Flyers? Well, I was sad to miss Scoochie Smith’s Hall of Fame induction last week. I couldn’t skip my extended family’s Christmas gathering — well, I would have if Marquette had been the opponent last weekend — and was not there to witness one of my favorite Flyers join the Hall of Fame.
Smith is the first Flyer from the 12 seasons I’ve covered the team to be inducted. I’m not sure how the order works, but Smith would have been inducted last year if he could have attended. He didn’t know until days before the ceremony that he would be able to attend, but his team in Serbia gave him permission to miss a game.
Smith is the only Flyer who has interviewed me. Nearly eight years ago, I wrote this after I helped him with a class project.
Scoochie Smith turned the table on me today. After four seasons of me asking the questions — the 2013-14 season was the first UD season for both of us— Dayton’s senior point guard interviewed me on camera for Roy Flynn’s broadcasting class at the home of Flyer TV at Kennedy Union.
It’s one of the last classes Smith will take at UD. He’s majoring in media production and will graduate in the spring. He hopes to play in the NBA and also wants to start his own business.
Scoochie, who I have a hard time referring to as Smith even if it is proper journalism, is well known for his poise under pressure on the basketball court, and he did a fine job with this interview. He came prepared, which is the most important part.
A homecoming of sorts for Marquette’s coach
Credit: David Jablonski
Credit: David Jablonski
The last time I saw Marquette coach Shaka Smart at a game, I was sitting in press row at the Big East tournament in 2023 at Madison Square Garden, taking a break from the Atlantic 10 Conference tournament in Brooklyn. Marquette beat Connecticut that night but lost to Xavier the next day.
In 2015, I was there when Smart and Virginia Commonwealth beat Dayton in the A-10 championship game in Brooklyn. That was the last time he coached against the Flyers. Dayton didn’t play Texas during Smart’s six seasons with that program.
Smart brings his fourth Marquette team to Dayton this weekend. The trip will bring back memories for a coach who played college basketball in Ohio at Division III Kenyon College and spent two seasons (2001-03) on Oliver Purnell’s staff at Dayton early in his career.
Smart told a story on his weekly radio show Thursday about one of his jobs with the Flyers in those years.
“I learned a lot,” Smart said. “I worked in this little, small room called the AVID room. At that time, that was the video technology we used. One of my jobs was to record every basketball game that came on TV anywhere in the country, and so I had 12 different VCRs. I would set the VCRs, and I would set the cable, and on Saturdays, I’d have to do it twice because the games started about 11 a.m., and they would go until midnight. By the end of the year, I’d have a video library of about 1,600 VHS tapes. I’d keep them in the closet, and I had it all cataloged — alphabetical and by date. One year we made the NIT and one year we made the NCAA tournament, and we would find out who we were going to play. That was the moment of truth. I went to my video library, found out how many games I had, and usually we were in good shape, and then we could go right to studying the other team.”
Fast Break
Here’s other news that might interest Flyer fans:
🏀 Rhode Island’s 9-0 start was spoiled by Brown in a matchup of in-state teams. Archie Miller’s Rams lost 84-80 in double overtime.
🏀 The last unbeaten A-10 team is 8-0 Loyola Chicago, which faces its biggest test Sunday against San Francisco. Loyola beat South Florida 74-72 last Saturday and is off to its best start since 1962-63.
🏀 My book, “The Epicenter of College Basketball: A History of UD Arena,” went on sale a year ago. It’s now available on Amazon at this link.
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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