The Dayton Flyers guard from Chaminade-Julienne High School had good reason to want another number. His dad, Anthony Grant, the seventh-year UD head coach, wore No. 33 during his college career with the Flyers.
Until Friday, when Makai surprised his dad with the switch, Anthony didn’t know his son would wear his number. Grant said he doesn’t pay much attention to who’s wearing what numbers and couldn’t tell you the number of all his players, but this one means something extra.
“We were with a group in the locker room last night, and he spoke up,” Anthony said, “and it was pretty cool.”
Makai wore No. 33 when he entered an exhibition game Saturday against Cedarville University at UD Arena. Four other walk-ons — returners Brady Uhl and Atticus Schuler and freshmen Will Maxwell and Evan Dickey — joined Makai on the court for the last 94 seconds of a 75-40 victory. Maxwell made a 3-pointer on Dayton’s last possesion.
While the walk-ons earned their first playing time of the season, the 12 scholarship players made the most of their last exhibition game before the season begins Nov. 6 against Southern Illinois University Edwardsville.
Here are three takeaways from the game:
1. Dayton shot a heavy number of 3-pointers in two exhibition games: Of Dayton’s 62 field-goal attempts Sunday in a 78-70 loss to Ohio State, 51.6% of them (32) were 3-point attempts. Dayton made 12 of 32 (37.5%).
On Saturday, Dayton again shot close to half its shots from long range (27 of 56) and made 9 of 27 (33.3).
Last season, Dayton shot 37.3% of its attempts from behind the 3-point line. In Grant’s first six seasons, it has never shot more than 44% of its attempts from 3-point range in a season.
While there has been preseason talk of Dayton shooting more 3s this season, it’s too early to tell if it will hover near 50%.
“We have certain measures that we try to say if we can do this, it’s playing to our identity,” Grant said. “Sometimes the opponents dictate that. I think what we have to understand is we have got one of the best players in the country (DaRon Holmes II) that’s always going to have a man and a half to two men on him when he’s around the basket, so that creates opportunities for other people. As long as we’re getting good ones, which I thought we did tonight, I’m comfortable with that.”
Kobe Elvis had the most success from 3-point range, making 4 of 6 and scoring 12 points, Javon Bennett made 2 of 4. Koby Brea missed all seven of his 3-point attempts. Nate Santos shot 0-for-3 for the second straight game. Enoch Cheeks missed his only attempt after making 5 of 6 Sunday.
“We we have a bunch of guys that can shoot the ball really high level,” Elvis said. “Javon is a great shooter. Nate’s a great shooter. Koby Brea is a great shooter. Enoch is a great shooter. DaRon has really worked on his jump shot. There’s so many people that I haven’t named even that can really shoot the ball. It’s just something that comes with our offense now, but we definitely have to emphasize getting to the rim and getting some free throws and getting some easy ones, too.”
Credit: David Jablonski
2. The starting lineup and rotation is becoming clearer: Dayton started the same five players as it did Sunday against Ohio State: Holmes; Elvis; Malachi Smith; Santos; and Cheeks.
Holmes led the Flyers with 18 points on 7-of-12 shooting and grabbed 12 rebounds.
Bennett, Brea and freshman Petras Padegimas were the first players off the bench at the 14:43 mark, replacing Holmes, Smith and Elvis. Zimi Nwokeji entered the game at the 13:00 mark for Elvis. The 10th player to see action in the first half was Isaac Jack.
Dayton played a 10-man rotation until the final 6:49 when the last two scholarship players who had not seen action, Marvel Allen and Jaiun Simon, entered the game.
3. Grant liked the defense’s play: The rims have not been kind to Cedarville in its last two appearances at UD Arena. Two years ago, in a 94-60 loss, it made 5 of 32 3-pointers (15.6%). It made 4 of 36 (11.1%) in this game and was 1 of 28 at one point.
Some of Cedarville’s cold shooting had to do with the Flyers.
“I thought the guys did a good job tonight,” Grant said. “No. 1, I just wanted to see improvement in terms of the habits that we’ve talked about trying to build. I saw some good things on the defensive end. What stands out to me is we were able to play to our identity from a defensive standpoint and keep them off the free-throw line. They’re a team offensively that comes at you with a variety of different shooters. They do some great stuff, offensively. We wanted to see if we could we could make them uncomfortable. I thought our guys did a really good job of that. On the offensive end, I thought we were able to be in attack mode. The guys did a good job of taking care of the basketball. We didn’t have a great shooting night tonight, but I thought we got really good shots.”
NEXT GAME
Monday, Nov. 6
SIUE at Dayton, 7 p.m., 1290, 95.7
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