Jayda Johnson was having a six-minute span like few other players have had in UD women’s basketball history.
Like usual, of late, the 6-foot-1 redshirt freshman began Wednesday night’s game on the bench.
It was Senior Night — the last home game of regular season — and the Dayton Flyers were hosting mighty Saint Joseph’s, who came into UD Arena with a 21-6 record three of the top 12 scorers in the Atlantic-10 Conference, including likely Player of the Year, Laura Ziegler, a 6-foot-2 force from Denmark who led the A-10 in scoring and rebounding and was so comfortable beforehand that she laughed and danced along with the UD fans as she stood at midcourt in front UD Arianna Smith, her opening tip rival.
Thanks to Saint Joe’s swagger and talent and UD’s still swirling emotions from the Senior Night ceremony, the Flyers were instantly reeling.
In just over five minutes of play, they turned the ball over five times, the Hawks hit five straight three-point shots, and Dayton trailed, 20-2.
The Flyers finally righted themselves a bit — thanks to the moxie on offense and defense by senior Rikki Harris — and trailed 22-14 at the end of the first quarter.
That’s when coach Tamika Williams-Jeter sent Johnson into the game.
She was UD’s secret weapon.
She hadn’t scored in the Flyers’ last seven games, two of which she never even got off the bench. The last time she’d played was a week earlier at Saint Louis when she got in 33 seconds. She hadn’t hit a three-point shot in five weeks and was averaging just 1.9 ppg this season.
But the stats don’t tell her story.
She’d been an AAU and high school standout back home in Connecticut and that got her to Boston College last season, although she took a redshirt season because she was still recovering from an ACL tear in her right knee that occurred early in the first game of her senior season at Hamden Hall Country Day.
She entered the transfer portal at season’s end and Dayton signed her with the idea she’d be a tall, lean shooting guard.
And Wednesday night — for the first time ever this season — that’s exactly what she was:
Less than a minute after she got in she made a driving layup.
Two minutes later she made her first three pointer.
Two minutes after that, she made another.
Her third trey came just over a minute after that.
And then came the “black out” fourth, some 56 seconds later.
With just over two minutes left and the Hawks lead cut to four, 35-31, UD guard Ivy Wolf found herself trapped with the ball out front with the shot clock nearly drained.
She flung a desperation pass to Johnson, who didn’t have time to set up her shot.
“Honesty, I kind of blacked out a little bit,” she said. “There was only a couple of seconds left and I just shot it…And it went in…again!”
The UD Arena crowd and the Flyers bench erupted in incredulous delight. Saint Joe’s players looked shellshocked.
Johnson — having scored 14 points in 6 minutes, 16 seconds — lit it up as she looked at Wolf, then shrugged and started laughing.
The Flyers would lead by halftime, and they never let up after that. They led by as many as 14 in the second half and won 74-65.
“This was a big win for us, for our seniors, for the season, for the whole program really,” Johnson said.
This was the most stirring performance the Flyers have had in Tamika Williams-Jeter’s three seasons at the helm.
That fact was underscored when you saw UD president Eric Spina come out of the stands afterward and hug his coach on the court.
After two bumpy seasons, the blackout had lifted for everyone.
Credit: Erik Schelkun
Credit: Erik Schelkun
Finding a new home at UD
When Williams-Jeter played at UConn, her older sister Tangy — who had played at Bowling Green — got a job in Connecticut working for Otis Elevators.
She ended up dating Brian Johnson, who had starred at Sacred Heart University in Connecticut and played pro ball in Germany and Puerto Rico.
Eventually, they went their separate ways and Johnson married, divorced and remarried. He and Melissa Nixon had a daughter, Jayda, who went on to become one of the best prep players in the state.
With her dad coaching her, she starred on elite AAU teams and at Hamden Hill and also played for the well-known New York Gauchos.
Williams-Jeter said Brian had kept in contact and told her he had a daughter who was “pretty good.”
When Jayda was being recruited by Power 5 schools, Williams-Jeter was coaching at Division III Wittenberg, so they were in different hoops worlds.
Although Boston College had stayed firm in its commitment after her ACL surgery, Johnson said it just turned out to be “not the right fit for me,”
She entered the portal and drew considerable interest and that’s when her dad called Williams-Jeter and sent some videos of his daughter in action.
“I didn’t know that much about Dayton, but I did know Coach Meek was an incredible coach and person and obviously a great player,” Jayda said.
“UD was my second visit and once I met the rest of the coaching staff, I saw they all had playing experience or had coached at a high level, and you can’t beat that.
“I knew I was going to get better if I came here.”
When she did, the Flyers told her they wanted her to be a shooting guard. To do that she had to shoot and that was something she initially was reluctant to do.
“In high school I was never a big three-point shooter,” she said. “I was more of a slasher who tried to get to the basket. I had to get used to my new role.”
Credit: Erik Schelkun
Credit: Erik Schelkun
Self-talk pays off
Although many people talked to Johnson this season, their good advice didn’t always register.
“I’d tell her, ‘Where else are you going to go where the coach is telling you to keep shooting?’ said Williams-Jeter.
In the previous 23 games she had played for the Flyers this season, Johnson attempted 25 three pointers and made six. She’d never made more than one in a game.
Although she started 12 games from mid-December to Feb. 1, she had never scored more than six points in a game and her defense had never stood out.
Williams-Jeter attributed it to the fact she hadn’t really played since her junior season of high school.
Last weekend Johnson said her dad visited. She didn’t get in the game against Fordham and afterwards she was riding in the car with her dad when he asked how she was feeling:
“I told him I was frustrated, and he said, ‘It’s all part of your college journey. Every freshman goes through it. Just try to stay consistent and work as hard as you can in practice.’”
That’s what happened, and Williams-Jeter noticed it.
Before she went into the game, Johnson finally listened to one conversation. Here’s what she said she heard:
“When you get in, be aggressive. Shoot when you get open. Trust your training. You knock them down everywhere else. You’re an overthinker. You overthink a lot. Just go do it like you have before.”
So who got through to her?
“That was me,” she smiled. “I self-talk before games. And this time I felt good when I went in.”
She felt good about her team, as well.
“When the coaches kept the starters in through that first run, I knew they’d recover and throw a punch of their own. And when we came off the bench, we threw another punch, and they started to fall back.”
As much as she shined on offense, her defense was just as remarkable. She guarded Ziegler and with the help of teammates they held the Hawks’ star to just six points, 13.5 below her average and her lowest output of the season.
She also limited Ziegler to six rebounds, five below her average.
The Flyers were led by Rikki Harris with 16 points. Johnson had 14. Arianna Smith had 13 points and 11 rebounds and Nicole Stephens added 10 points and five assists.
Although Ivy Wolf was held to six points, she had six assists. And Nayo Lear added nine points off the bench.
After the game it was some of the UD players who danced at midcourt.
Williams-Jeter then walked out onto the floor, grabbed a microphone and thanked the crowd and her seniors.
She wore a bright red suit. The jackets had two big splashes of diamond-like stones coming off each shoulder.
“I usually like to break it up, but I couldn’t find my black pants,” Williams-Jeter said. “I thought, ‘All red? That’s a little loud for me.’ But then I said, ‘Why not? It’s Senior Night!”’
She pointed to the stones and grinned: “They look like diamonds, but they’re not. They’re just shiny stones, shiny gems.”
Kind of like her players on this night.
After the blackout, they all lit up.
About the Author