Archdeacon: The one commandment Dayton’s Enoch Cheeks can’t keep

Dayton's Enoch Cheeks dunks in the second half against Northwestern on Saturday, Nov. 9, 2024, at UD Arena. David Jablonski/Staff

Credit: David Jablonski

Credit: David Jablonski

Dayton's Enoch Cheeks dunks in the second half against Northwestern on Saturday, Nov. 9, 2024, at UD Arena. David Jablonski/Staff

He was the last to leave the locker room.

Some 50 minutes after the Dayton Flyers had come back in rousing fashion to overwhelm Northwestern, 71-66, at UD Arena on Saturday night, Enoch Cheeks stepped out into the Donoher Center hallway with his head mostly hidden by a dark hoodie, but nothing masking his faint, but well-earned smile. It bore the glow of satisfaction.

After every game — and before each one, too — the muscular 6-foot-3 guard spends considerable time in the training room going through stretches, massages, stim treatments, ice treatments and other things, including a visit with the team doctor.

“It’s just upkeep on my body to stay ahead of things,” he’d explain. “This is my fifth year. I’ve been through a lot.”

That was never more the case than Saturday and that prompted the first question.

With a biblical name like Enoch — the patriarch of Noah — he must know of the Ten Commandments.

“Yeah, sure,” he said. “But I don’t know their order.”

Not the eighth commandment?

He started to grin and said he knew where this was going: “I bet it’s, ‘Do not steal.’”

The affirmation made him laugh and he admitted — on the basketball court — that’s one commandment he cannot keep.

He stole the ball six times from Northwestern. He stole from their biggest guy, their smaller guys and three times from their star.

He’s the big reason the Flyers were able to overcome a 10-point deficit midway through the second half — it was their second double-digit comeback of the night — and turn a Northwestern team that started the game with a Big Ten, bully-boy attitude into a gun shy and unnerved bunch thanks to Cheeks and his fellow band of thieves.

After the game UD coach Anthony Grant talked about his team’s ability to “create havoc” with the press and even when the opposing team thinks it’s survived the Flyers full-court gauntlet of defenders and is trying to settle into its half-court offense.

The Flyers have plenty of skilled pickpockets. Besides Cheeks, there’s Javon Bennett, Malachi Smith and Posh Alexander.

Credit: David Jablonski

Two seasons ago, Bennett — then a freshman at Merrimack — led all of Division I basketball with 99 steals.

Alexander — new to the Flyers this season after leading the Big East in steals four years in a row — was 16th in the nation last season and set Butler’s single season record for thefts. And he was just as light-fingered in his three previous seasons at St. John’s.

And back in 2021-22, Smith’s 59 steals were the most ever by a UD freshman and fifth best effort by any Flyer, anytime

“That’s our secret weapon,” Cheeks said. “We have many guards who can defend and pressure the opponent’s guards. That’s what happened today. We wore their guards down and forced their forwards to make decisions they don’t usually have to.”

As the Flyers came back from 10 down in the second half, Cheeks scored nine points, including the go ahead dunk after a steal from Wildcats’ standout, Nick Martinelli.

Cheeks finished the game with 16 points on 7-for-10 shooting and had four rebounds, two assists, a blocked shot and those six thefts against three turnovers.

Nate Santos also had 16 points for the Flyers. Smith had 14 and Zed Key added 11.

The 6-foot-7 Martinelli scored 32 points on 12-for-16 shooting and added 14 rebounds for Northwestern.

It was Cheeks’ 112th college game — 78 of them came in his three seasons at Robert Morris — and he’s now scored a combined 1,141 points.

Last season, DaRon Holmes II, who’s now in the NBA, called Cheeks “the heart and soul of our team.”

Nothing has changed.

“He’s one of the hardest working players —if not the hardest worker — and he has all those intangibles,”said Key. “He plays hard. He steals the ball. He’s locking up their best player….all the little things. And he can score…And he’s athletic. He’s just a great player.”

‘You had to be tough’

Cheeks said it goes back to the way he learned basketball in Providence, Rhode Island, after spending his early years in Minnesota.

“Growing up I always played with older guys, and we always played on blacktop” he said. “You had to be tough. You had to show that you could play with the big boys. One thing I was good at was stealing the ball. I had a sense of anticipation.”

That gritty, give-no-quarter style helped him fit in and then stand out.

He’s the first-generation American son of Liberian immigrants who had to prove their own meddle.

Dayton's Enoch Cheeks steals the ball against Northwestern on Saturday, Nov. 9, 2024, at UD Arena. David Jablonski/Staff

Credit: David Jablonski

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Credit: David Jablonski

His mother Josephine once told me how she fled war in Sierra Leone and then the Ivory Coast, where she met Enoch’s father. They both spent five years in a refugee camp in Ghana before coming to America, where she gave birth to Enoch.

He starred at Robert Morris, but the Colonials had three straight losing seasons, winning just 28 of 84 games. He transferred to Dayton before last season and soon made his name as a quiet leader — “he leads by example,” Smith said — who mixes his physical gifts with an inordinate sense of furtiveness.

“Mali and Von (Bennett) are more direct with their steals, they’re going to reach right in in front of you and try to beat you to the spot,” Cheeks said. “Posh is as mix of styles and I’d say I’m more stealthy, more sneaky.

“I might come up behind you. If the big man’s holding the ball at the top of his head, I might pick at it.

“It’s about gambling a little bit and that puts the pressure on me. If you don’t get it, AG’s (Grant) right there, eyeing you down. It can cause a breakdown of the defense.

“But sometimes you have to risk it. You need the energy it provides. But yeah, it takes courage and bravery to do that.”

‘Chip on his shoulder’

“People ask who most impresses me and I always say Cheeks,” said Smith. “Just because how hard he works.

“Last year I thought he was snubbed when he didn’t get the defensive team (All Defensive Team of the Atlantic 10.)

“I think he’s playing now with a chip on his shoulder.”

Last year Holmes, Koby Brea and Santos all received All-Atlantic 10 postseason awards for their play.

Cheeks got nothing.

“I came in mad after that, for sure,” he said. “Everybody was kind of feeling for me and I thought I should have got it (All Defensive team) along with Deuce, but I knew we had bigger things to focus on, so it was a short-term memory deal.”

Although it’s just two games into the season, he’s already making an impact. He had a double-double — 13 points and 10 rebounds with two steals — in the season-opening win over Saint Francis.

Then came Saturday night’s show.

“He had his footprints all over this game tonight,” Grant said with admiration afterward.

Asked which steal he was most proud of, Cheeks thought a moment and said the ones against Martinelli: “Taking them from their big guy. He killed us tonight, so taking them from him felt good. When I got the one and then dunked on him. I was sending a message: ‘Hey, I got you!’”

He smiled as he remembered the sequence.

The way Enoch Cheeks sees it, there’s one commandment that’s meant to be broken.

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