Where are they now: Mark Ashman looks back on Dayton career

“He’s a little different type of player,” Ashman said. “He should be a good one.”

Holmes still has a long way to go to match Ashman’s career. The 6-foot-10 center from Saint Mary’s High School ranks 23rd in school history with 1,449 points. He was inducted into UD’s Athletic Hall of Fame in 2011. More importantly than the individual numbers, Ashman played a big part in Dayton’s turnaround under coach Oliver Purnell. The Flyers ended a 10 year NCAA tournament drought in 2000, Ashman’s senior season.

“That’s that’s the main reason I went to Dayton,” Ashman said. “I was a fan when I was younger. My dad would take me to a game or two a year.”

As a fan, Ashman experienced the joy of seeing the Flyers reach the NCAA tournament in 1990 and also the disappointment of the program hitting rock bottom in the seasons that followed. He knew it should be better. He wanted to help.

“I wanted to kind of give back a little bit,” he said.

Ashman committed to Dayton in October 1995. He was considered the best senior in Ohio behind Jason Collier, of Catholic Central High School in Springfield. What Ashman said this January about wanting to help the Flyers get back to prominence was what he said 27 years ago.

“I’m excited about taking a step to a higher level and playing in the A-10 (Atlantic 10 Conference),” Ashman told Bucky Albers, of the Dayton Daily News. “I want to help turn the (UD) program around. They’ve always been my favorite team. I really like coach Purnell. I think he’ll turn the program around.”

Dayton played its first game in the A-10 three months after Ashman picked Dayton. That 1995-96 team broke a three-year streak of losing seasons by finishing 15-14, but Dayton slipped to 13-14 in Ashman’s freshman season. He averaged 8.6 points on a team led by junior Ryan Perryman (14.0 points per game) and senior Darnell Hoskins (14.1).

As a sophomore, Ashman averaged 11.7 points per game for a team that finished 21-12. It was the first Dayton team since the 1989-90 season to win 20 games. Ashman averaged a career-best 15.2 points per game as a junior in the 1998-99 season, but the team finished 11-17.

The games that stand out for Ashman from his career were the Xavier games.

“We beat them every year at home,” he said, “and we lost every year down there. Senior year, we were so close. We lost in overtime. That was a hard one to take.”

That 65-64 loss in 2000 was Dayton’s 15th straight defeat the Cincinnati Gardens. It was also Dayton’s last game there because Xavier opened the Cintas Center the following season.

Still, the 2000 season goes down as the best for Ashman. He averaged 13.1 points and a career-best 6.4 rebounds, starting all 31 games for a team that finished 22-9. The ending still hurts. The Flyers lost 62-61 to Purdue in the first round of the NCAA tournament.

In that game, Ashman scored 16 points on 8-of-16 shooting. Dayton had a three-point lead with 2:54 to go and cut the deficit to one point with 6.7 seconds left on a free throw by Brooks Hall, who then missed the second free throw. In the fight for the rebound, the officials called a foul on Ashman.

”The ball went off the rim on the opposite side of the lane from me,” Ashman said after the game. “It was bouncing around above outstretched arms and fingers, and (Brian) Cardinal started to lose his balance as the ball got near him. He kind of slapped the ball back and Tony (Stanley) got it and then, all of a sudden, I hear the whistle. I didn’t even touch him, but the ref finally said I grabbed him by the jersey and flung him down.”

Instead of Stanley having a chance for a putback and go-ahead score, Cardinal went to the free-throw line with 3.2 seconds left. He missed the front end of a 1-and-1. Ashman got the rebound and called a timeout. But Dayton’s last chance was a desperation shot by David Morris that was off the mark.

“Getting to that NCAA tournament, that was our goal as a team,” Ashman said. “We got there and were so close. It’s a tough game to talk about — just knowing what they did in that tournament. They went to the Elite Eight, and we were one point away.”

Despite that disappointment, life is good these days for Ashman, who lives not far from his hometown in Maria Stein. He has worked as a realtor in the area since 2003 or 2004. His company is PlusOne Professionals Real Estate in Saint Mary’s. He and his wife Michelle have five kids: Kate, 13; Luke, 11; Megyn, 8; Sylvester, 6; and Josephine, 2.

“We’ve got a full team,” Ashman said. “That’s where we stopped.”

Ashman coaches his oldest daughter on the seventh-grade girls team at Marion Local. He tries to get down to Dayton games when he can and saw the Flyers lose to Austin Peay in November at UD Arena.

“Just seeing the talent on the court, you knew it was just a matter of time,” Ashman said. “They’re all young. You knew they’re gonna gel. This could be a pretty good three or four years, hopefully.”