» MARCH 7 PHOTOS: 100 never-before-scene shots from a great day at UD
It was March 7, the last great day of 2020 for Dayton Flyers men’s basketball fans and one of the greatest 24-hour periods in their lives as sports fans, especially considering what happened to the season five days later and what has happened around the world in the last eight months. As the start of the 2020-21 season approaches and Dayton fans celebrate the first Thanksgiving in a long time that has arrived before the first game, fans at least can look back and be thankful for a day they will replay in their minds for years to come.
On the first Saturday in March, only the most pessimistic fans had started to consider the possibility of the coronavirus pandemic upending the season. Even the idea of teams playing in empty arenas hadn’t taken hold at that point.
» MORE STORIES: UD’s Neil Sullivan, others look back on March 7
The last great day of 2020 was just another great day — one of many in the first 67 days of the year — as it unfolded. The Flyers had won 28 games, including their last 19, while losing only two, both in overtime. They had climbed to No. 3, their highest ranking since the 1950s, in the Associated Press top-25 poll and had a chance to earn a No. 1 seed in the NCAA tournament for the first time. They clinched the Atlantic 10 Conference championship a week earlier but had not cut down the nets or received the trophy.
The coronation would take place the night of March 7 when Dayton played George Washington in the last of 31 regular-season games. First, Dayton and its fans would enjoy the filming of ESPN’s College Gameday at the Frericks Center. That show would start at 11 a.m., the same time the Dayton women’s team played Saint Louis in the semifinals of the A-10 at UD Arena in the afternoon.
» MORE MARCH 7 PHOTOS: Fans share photos from the day
This would be a day to remember in a year full of them, and the best days — the pressure-packed weeks of March Madness — still lay ahead. No one thought it would be the last great day for a long time.
“I remember I was a kid in a candy store,” said Ryan Mikesell, a redshirt senior forward who played his last college game March 7. “It was an emotional day, and at that point, it was kind of the tip of the iceberg. The next month was going to be the best month of my life in terms of basketball. That was the peak of it. We were getting all this attention and support from the fans and the community. Little did we know everything was going to get shut down that next week.”
Credit: David Jablonski - Staff Writer
Credit: David Jablonski - Staff Writer
Early wake-up calls
The story of March 7 started before dawn with alarm clocks buzzing near and far, though really it started weeks earlier as UD and ESPN tried to figure out a date to get GameDay to campus.
The Flyers received national attention all season, starting with their runner-up performance at the Maui Invitational in November. That got them into the top 25. The climb up the rankings continued all season. If not for an overtime loss at the buzzer to Colorado in December, Dayton may have reached No. 1 for the first time. The team’s success coincided with the rise of Obi Toppin as a legitimate candidate for the many national player of the year awards.
ESPN saw all that and wanted to recognize Dayton. Scott DeBolt, the executive director of UD Arena and the person who oversees all the athletic facilities, said the GameDay visit was on and off again for weeks before ESPN decided to visit March 7. Then ESPN and UD had to agree on a location. UD Arena wasn’t an option because the A-10 women’s tournament was being held there.
ESPN wanted to film the show outside on Humanities Plaza, DeBolt said, but UD didn’t want the weather to be a factor. They settled on the Frericks Center, a historic building that used to be known as the UD Fieldhouse. The facility played host to an Elvis Presley concert, a Martin Luther King Jr. speech and, of course, many memorable basketball games in its early years and was renovated in 2016 for the Dayton volleyball team.
The Frericks Center turned out to be the perfect choice. ESPN made its best decision of the year by bringing the show to Dayton, one member of the crew later told UD.
“They really liked the small, intimate setting we were able to create,” DeBolt said.
Buzz in the air
No one enjoyed the atmosphere more than the fans, many of whom made major efforts to get to campus early in the morning.
Chris Moorman left his home in Nashville, Tenn., at 3 a.m. and got to Dayton by 8:30. Mike Kidd awoke at 4 a.m. He wanted to be one of the first fans in line.
Katelyn Hoover, who bleeds red and blue and dreamed of playing for the Flyers when she was little, was one of the first in the line at 4 a.m. with her daughter. There was only one couple in front of them in the non-student line on the west side of the building next to the GameDay bus.
“Everyone had a common goal,” Hoover said, “and that was to be at GameDay, to cheer on the Flyers and have the best day of our lives.”
Holly Kevern, a UD cheerleader, woke at 6, knowing she had to be ready by 8. Jacob Mantle, one of the Blue Men in the Red Scare student fan club, got up at 6:30 and headed to a friend’s house to start painting his body.
“We have a couple cans of acrylic paint,” Mantle said. “We apply it to ourselves like sunscreen. It’s probably not good for our skin, but it’s a lot of fun. It probably takes 25-30 minutes. While we’re painting, we’re listening to music, getting pumped up, getting the blood flowing.”
Sydney Price also arrived early at the Frericks Center early.
“I was standing out there forever,” Price said, “and it was so cold that day. But there was a buzz in the air.”
Some fans pitched tents to save their place in line. DeBolt asked them to go home around 5:30 a.m. and return later. At 6:30 a.m., DeBolt told the students they could start forming a line on the north side of the Frericks Center.
“As soon as we announced that, people just started coming out of the woodwork,” DeBolt said. “Within 15 minutes, they were already lined up all the way to the chapel.”
Photos: Signs at ESPN College GameDay at Dayton @daytondailynews @daytonsports @daytonmbb @CollegeGameDay https://t.co/RktzvprHg4 pic.twitter.com/sL5KirK4dE
— David Jablonski (@DavidPJablonski) March 7, 2020
Signs of the times
Up and down that line, students held posterboard signs. That’s the tradition wherever ESPN’s traveling pregame show goes. At the front of the line, one sign read, “Trey and Ryan glued this sign together,” a reference to seniors Trey Landers and Mikesell, the team’s glue guys.
Trevin Gray, who got up at 6 a.m. to get to campus by 7, remembers the ESPN producers checking all the signs.
“There was one sign that said, ‘Obi is the cure to coronavirus,’” Gray said. “They didn’t let that one in.”
Some signs showed how much thought students had put into them since ESPN’s Dick Vitale had announced GameDay’s visit a week earlier during Dayton’s home game against Davidson. Other signs obviously had been thrown together in seconds.
One sign featured a picture of the Last Supper with the faces of Dayton players pasted over the faces of the apostles, and it read, “Let your Ws be fruitful and multiply.”
Another read simply, “Wear Red, Be Lowd.”
A drawing of an ice cream sundae featured a photo of Toppin and read, “Obi is the Toppin to my sundae.”
Most of the players had signs devoted to them. One read, “Dwayne Train, Choo Choo,” a reference to sophomore guard Dwayne Cohill. Another honored redshirt junior center Jordy Tshimanga. “Jordy’s the man,” it read.
Brendan Pugliese, an art major who said he would have never woke up that early on a Saturday except for something as momentous as GameDay, drew a caricature of Dayton’s starting five. The sign read, “A Zillion Dubs.”
Mikesell heard about the line when his phone started buzzing that morning. The players walked over and checked out the line at one point. Head coach Anthony Grant was driven past the line in a golf cart so he could say hi to the students.
“When you’re in the middle of it, you don’t fully grasp it,” Grant said, “but certainly I came in early that day because of the events of College GameDay. I had a chance to get on campus and see the excitement. As you pulled up into the parking lot, there was a lot of people waiting to try to get in. I probably got here a few hours before the doors opened. And then you go around the corner on the other side of Frericks and you see the line of students out there, so I was able to interact a little bit with them and take the event in.”
The last great day was just getting started.
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