This is why he’d come back home.
When he played at Alter, he had had a couple of big games at UD Arena, including a state semifinal game against Akron SVSM where he blocked a record nine shots.
But after high school he headed to Marshall University, where in two years he played in 55 games and started 32 of 33 contests last season.
The firing of head coach Dan D’Antoni prompted his entry into the transfer portal where his dad, Craig, said over 50 schools reached out to him. He narrowed his list last spring — visiting three schools while two other colleges coaches came to visit him at the family’s Bellbrook home — and he finally chose Dayton.
He’d known the Flyers coaches for several years — UD recruited him when he was in high school — and he was an Alter teammate of UD’s Brady Uhl, but his decision was based on more than that.
More than familiar faces, it was the Flyers’ not-so-familiar pitch that struck a chord.
“Jake had a lot of places tell him, ‘You are going to be The Guy here,’” said his mom, Meredith, now a teacher at Alter, but once a standout player at Miami University where she set field goal accuracy records in a 95-game career in the mid-1990s.
She said Dayton head coach Anthony Grant had a different approach when he spoke to her son:
“He said, ‘Here’s the depth chart. There’s a spot on it for you to work toward.’
“Jake’s never been scared of hard work, and it was that idea — of being a part of something bigger than himself — that drew him here.
“He was like, ‘Dayton’s a major program at a mid-major school. He said there’s nothing mid-major about what Dayton does. Everything here is top notch and you’re taken care of. It’s all you can ask for as a player.”
He had known some of that from afar.
Deep connection
Growing up here — in Beavercreek before the family moved — he attended Flyers summer camps and twice was named Camper of the Week, a designation that got him called to the front of the group by then coach Archie Miller for some “atta-boy” acknowledgement.
“We have a picture of Jake from camp with Scoochie Smith and Devin Oliver,” Meredith said. “And we have shirts from those days that are autographed.”
Conner remembered a camp where Jordan Sibert and Dyshawn Pierre coached his team.
And his dad remembered the game — when their son was brought to UD Arena as a designated recruit — and they sat right behind the Flyers bench:
“We were one row back, right behind Obi (Toppin) and got introduced.”
He remembered his son whispering to him: “Oh my gosh, this is so awesome!’”
All those memories built a foundation for Conner that few other UD players have when they first join the program.
“I know Jake understands a little better than most how important and how deep the connection is here between the players and the fans,” Meredith said.
Craig agreed: “He knows what the program means to the city and the area.”
You witnessed that Monday night — after the Flyers had dispatched of Saint Francis, 87-57, in their season opener at UD Arena — and Conner spoke about the importance of the players wearing a commemorative patch on their jerseys to honor the late UD legend Don Donoher, who died last April.
And later – after he’d taken a few minutes at the postgame press gathering to talk about the game and his 10-point, three-rebound effort off the bench – he spoke more expansively in private about his connection to UD and some of the most indelible memories.
He recited the roster of Elite Eight team from the 2014 NCAA Tournament and recounted each of the final games.
And then last month, he found himself on the court in a Flyers uniform, playing in the exhibition games against Xavier and Ashland.
They didn’t go quite as he had hoped.
Playing just over 11 ½ minutes against the Musketeers, he missed his only shot and picked up four fouls.
Six nights later he played 14 minutes against Ashland and missed his three attempts from three-point range. He was the only scholarship player in uniform not to score in the two preseason games.
“Obviously he struggled a little bit in the exhibition games, but none of that counts in the statistics,” his dad said. “Before the game tonight, the only advice I gave him was, ‘Man, you’ve done the preparation. You’ve worked so hard to help the team win, now just go and have fun.’”
And that’s just what happened, though as everything transpired both Craig and Meredith used the word “surreal” when they talked about the night and seeing their son take the court for the official start of his Dayton career.
They sat with many of the other players’ families in the courtside section next to the pep band. Their youngest son Matthew was with them — older son Brady is a 6-foot-7 senior at Alter and had basketball practice — and so was Craig’s mom Sheila, who often was his travelling companion when he made the midweek, 2 hour and 40 minute treks to the Marshall home games in Huntington, West Virginia.
As a teacher, Meredith couldn’t make those trips so she said she and Brady sat in the basement of their home and watched the ESPN+ broadcasts. She did make the weekend games, but now — with just a 15 minute drive to get home — she’ll be a UD Arena regular.
‘I got chills tonight’
Craig had a video camera Monday night, but as he captured the moments, he said his vision ended up getting a little blurry:
‘I’ll be honest, I got chills tonight and Meredith said the same thing.
“I’ve got to say, when you watch your kid out there, it hits you, and I found myself welling up a little bit. I had some proud tears in my eyes. It was like ‘Wow! That’s our son!’
“It seems like just yesterday you were rocking him in a rocking chair when he was a baby. Now he’s 20 years old and 6-foot-10….And he’s playing his dream out.”
Conner went into the game with 14:28 left in the first half and a little less than four minutes later he got the ball deep in the corner and ripped the net cords with a three-pointer.
“It was good to finally see my shot go in,” he admitted. “It was a relief really. I’d put the work in and when they didn’t drop in the exhibition games, there was a little frustration. But tonight, once the first one went in, I was just playing loose, playing free.”
With 11:51 left in the second half, he hit the second shot he took – also a trey – and was fouled by Victor Payne.
That prompted Saint Francis – now down by 25 – to call timeout.
Undaunted, Conner hit his free throw when play resumed. And then 32 seconds later he made his third straight three-point shot and the crowd roared with approval for one of its own.
After the game, as he came off the court, kids clamored for his autograph or a photo. They did the same for the Flyers’ other standouts of the night: Zed Key, who finished with a team-high 14 points; Enoch Cheeks who had 13 points and 10 rebounds; Javon Bennett with 13 points and Malachi Smith with 11.
“I told my husband tonight, all these little kids from the Dayton area can look at Jake and can look at Brady Uhl and say ‘Man, I can do that, too. If I work, I can reach that level, too.’
“To me that’s super cool. And that’s part of what being home is, too.”
No one understood that more than Conner.
As he talked about the team, with so many new faces getting to know each other and mesh their talents, while, at the same time the fans are getting to know them — all while in that high-decibel, often-electric, always connected crucible that is UD Arena on game nights — he summed it up perfectly:
“This is a great time to be a Flyer.”
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