The pair make a great tag team.
They might not be the Legion of Doom with Animal and Hawk, or the Dudley Boyz, or the Wild Samoans, but Deuce and the Maniac, as they are known, did spell doom for St. Bonaventure on Friday night.
The Dayton Flyers put the Bonnies down for the count, 76-71, thanks mostly to the efforts of Duece Holmes, who at times tagged out to Maniac Jack, and for one, nearly three-minute span in the second half, the pair jumped into the fray together.
Instead of drop quicks and atomic elbows, they used dunks, swatted shots, and forced their Bonnie counterparts to flail away at them until they fouled.
The 6-foot-10 Holmes tied his career high with 34 points, 25 coming in the second half which he signed off on with his signature move — a mighty, fly-through-the air, two-handed slam on a breakaway dunk with 2 seconds left.
St. Bonaventure’s two big men — 6-foot-10 Chad Venning and 6-11 Noel Brown — couldn’t stop him on this night. Both fouled out trying, although Jack gets an assist in their ouster. Two of Brown’s fouls came trying to stop him.
“We had a hard time with Holmes,” St. Bonaventure coach Mark Schmidt said after the game. “He’s a difficult cover. We couldn’t guard him. He’s real special in the A-10.”
And when Holmes himself got in foul trouble — picking up his third personal at the 15:33 mark of the second half — he tagged out and the 6-11 Jack roared in and further bruised the Bonnies.
Although he played just 11 minutes, 21 seconds, he made all three shots he took, sank both of his free throws, and finished with eight points and six rebounds.
“He gave us some great minutes,” Grant said. “He was huge in a lot of ways. Obviously when DaRon picked up his third foul, we wanted to make sure we could have him available down the stretch and I thought Isaac came in and gave us some really, really valuable minutes on both sides.
“And we had a stretch where we were able to play the two guys together and they did a great job.”
After the game, the Flyers two big men were brought into the media room, and they sat down next to each other at a front table.
Three times as he was being asked to talk about his career night, Holmes deflected much of the praise to Jack.
“Isaac had a great game,” Holmes said. “He did a very good job inside, being a monster inside.”
Jack saluted Holmes in similar fashion:
“He was scoring every time. I loved it. You see the work he puts in in the gym and it pays off every day. I knew it was gonna happen.
“Every day we go against each other in practice and it’s a battle. We’re both competitive. That energy, we feed off each other. We get better every time we play against each other.”
Credit: David Jablonski
Credit: David Jablonski
‘Knowing your role’
As you watch the two big men interact and listen to them talk, you sense their appreciation of each other. That comes because of who they are and what they come from.
Both were raised by parents who understand the college experience and college athletics.
Isaac’s mom, Anna, was the two time NCAA discus champion at Brigham Young, where she’s in the Hall of Fame. She’s long been a high school coach back in Port Alberni on Vancouver Island in British Columbia where she and husband Al raised Isaac and his brother.
DaRon’s parents were both accomplished high school athletes. His mom, Tomika, went to Kansas as a student and his dad, DaRon Sr., graduated from Notre Dame. DaRon was raised first in Nashville and then Arizona.
Both sets of parents helped pave the path that landed their sons far from home in Dayton.
Holmes received offers from Power 5 schools across the nation, but chose Dayton, in part, for the guidance of head coach Anthony Grant, the full embrace he’d get from the Flyer Faithful, who sell out UD Arena every game, and for the development and success former Flyers’ big man Obi Toppin found here that eventually led him to the NBA.
Jack started his college career at Buffalo, where as a freshman last season, he played in 31 games, started 20 and averaged 5.6 points and 4.2 rebounds a game.
When he entered the transfer portal, he drew interest from numerous colleges – especially Vanderbilt and Clemson – but chose Dayton because of the opportunity he felt it presented, the camaraderie and the embrace of the fan base.
Holmes is the marquee player, not only of the Flyers but the Atlantic 10 and five days ago he was named as one of the 20 finalists for the Wooden Award, which goes to the nation’s top college player each year.
While Jack doesn’t get the playing time he did last season —16.3 minutes a game at Buffalo; 9.6 now — his mom told me a while back she and her husband stressed one thing to him:
“Quality over quantity.”
Make the most out of the minutes you get.
At present, he’s the team’s most accurate shooter (except for walk-on Atticus Schuler who’s made the only shot he’s taken) having made 34 of 44 attempts for a 77.2 percent.
“It’s about knowing what you’re good at and sticking to it,” Jack said. “I can rebound and make lay-ups. My teammates get me open, and I’ll finish it for them. It’s about knowing your role.”
‘We’re like brothers’
That attitude has made Jack a crowd favorite. Fans appreciate his blue-collar effort, energy and enthusiasm.
And the crowd loves Holmes because, like Toppin, he’s leading his team to great success and is helping put Dayton basketball on the national map and doing it all with a smile on his face.
He, in turn, appreciates the crowd, which for the 11th time this season, was a sellout. That’s a not-so-secret weapon that has helped lift the Flyers to an 11-0 mark at home, an 18-3 record overall and a No. 21 ranking in last week’s Associated Press poll.
“Our crowd is amazing,” Holmes said. “I think it’s the best in the country. It doesn’t get enough attention like it should.
“The thing I like about our crowd is that they’re positive. They don’t talk too much smack to the other team, but they support us and they’re loud. That’s the right way to go. They’re with class.”
Talking like that, if Holmes were a wrestler, would label him a baby face. A good guy. Not a heal.
But if you stop by a Flyers’ practice, you’d see that when it comes to a voice, he and Jack aren’t all vanilla.
“I love our relationship,” Holmes said. “We’re like brothers. We have great chemistry. We’re goofy all the time and laugh a lot.”
“But in practice we talk a lot of smack to each other. Like a lot,” he said with a laugh. “We go at each other…and those are big boys.”
When Jack was asked if he can match Holmes when it comes to trash talk, he quickly swatted any doubts:
“It’s if he can hang with me, that’s what it really is.”
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