To help make up for the fact that athletes on the men’s and women’s basketball teams have seen so little of their families during the pandemic, UD has included them in pregame introductory videos and the senior ceremony videos.
“Our marketing department has been really great with trying to find ways to not only keep us motivated during the season,” Whalen said, “but just trying to put the nice personal touches on things, which has been really, really cool to see.”
Three seniors on the women’s team were honored Feb. 20 after a 64-57 loss to Saint Louis: Whalen, a 6-foot-1 guard/forward from Charlotte, N.C.; Jenna Giacone, a 6-1 guard from Delmar, N.Y.; and Araion Bradshaw, a 5-6 guard from Boston.
Giacone has been with Dayton for five seasons. Bradshaw played her first season at South Carolina and then transferred to Dayton, where she has played the last three seasons. Whalen played her first two seasons at Vanderbilt, transferred to Dayton in April 18 and has played the last two seasons for the Flyers.
“I was talking to my parents about how it’s just crazy how your environment really just shapes everything,” Whalen said. “I couldn’t imagine being at any other school, being around any other people. From our coaches to the team and all the other departments, it’s just been crazy the support that we’ve all received and I’m so happy to be at Dayton.”
Whalen, a public relations major, graduated last year and will earn a graduate degree in communications in the spring. The NCAA announced last fall this season wouldn’t count against anyone’s eligibility because it knew many athletes would miss games because of COVID-19 postponements. That’s been the case with Dayton, which has twice been shut down by positive cases, and Whalen will think about coming back next year.
“I’m definitely considering it,” Whalen said, “and it really just depends on how the season kind of plays out. I just I think we have such a good team right now, and we’re very hopeful for the NCAA (tournament) and things like that.”
The pandemic cost Dayton a chance to play in the tournament in 2020. It won the Atlantic 10 Conference tournament at UD Arena on March 8, and the men’s and women’s NCAA tournaments were cancelled four days later. Dayton finished 25-8 and 15-1 last season, and it’s 12-2 and 11-1 heading into a game at Davidson on Sunday.
Whalen averaged 12.2 points and 4.8 rebounds last season, her first on the court for Dayton after sitting out the 2018-19 season. She’s averaging 13.9 points and 5.0 rebounds this season. She has increased her 3-point accuracy from 34.2 to 42.7.
“Three-pointers is kind of the thing that I’ve always really focused on,” Whalen said, “so it’s good to see that going back up. Being senior year, you’re just trying to leave everything on the court.”
Until the loss to Saint Louis, Dayton had not lost since either of its COVID-19 shutdowns. It went 1-1 in non-conference games and didn’t play between Dec. 6 and Jan. 1. Then it won its first five A-10 games. A 17-day layoff followed, and it won 11 straight games after returning to action.
Those two extended breaks were still difficult, full of individual workouts in their rooms with players recording themselves doing push-ups and other exercises and sending the videos to their strength coach, Rich McLoughlin, and sharing their results in group chats.
“I am so competitive and just want to play,” Whalen said, “and obviously it’s our senior year so we want to get as many games in as you can. But I think our team’s just been really resilient. We’ve just tried to make the couple shutdowns we’ve had be something of an advantage, which kind of sounds a little crazy, but we just used the time to kind of work on ourselves and get better as a team.”
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