Archie Miller: Dayton Flyers showing maturity in practice

UD coach likes team’s attitude during five-game winning streak

Credit: David Jablonski - Staff Writer

Credit: David Jablonski - Staff Writer

The Dayton Flyers have performed well under the lights in the last five games in part because of how they’ve done outside the spotlight.

That was one of the themes touched upon by Dayton’s coach on the Archie Miller Show on WHIO Radio with Larry Hansgen on Monday.

“They’re preparing to play well in practice,” Miller said. “We’ve matured into a group of people who have great purpose when they’re not under the lights.”

RELATED: Dayton hopes to avoid letdown at UMass

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Miller complimented everyone from freshmen Kostas Antetokounmpo, who started practicing in December but will sit out this season, and Trey Landers, who isn’t playing much, to the seniors. He said Kyle Davis is the MVP in practices, and Kendall Pollard is practicing and playing as well as he has since his sophomore season when he was last full healthy.

“If you have those two personalities giving good effort, it’s hard for everyone else to not give good effort,” Miller said.

Here are other highlights from the Archie Miller Show:

On the five-game winning streak: "I'm really proud of our group. We continue to deal with adversity and injuries and guys being in and out. I'm really pleased to see our team continue to come together and continue to keep working with one purpose in mind and that's to be ready to play the game and to try to win the game regardless of circumstances.

On two victories last week: "A big win at St. Bonaventure against what I would consider one of the best backcourts we'll see. A tough place to play. I thought our guys took a punch early in the game and then stayed with it. Clearly, Scoochie (Smith) was a big reason we were able to win that game. Then to come back on Friday night in primetime in probably the marquee game of the early part of the Atlantic 10 on national television against a really talented Rhode Island team that's having an excellent season and we were able to grind that one out with a great home environment and clearly Scoochie again was up to the task with winning plays. His Atlantic 10 player of the week was hard earned and well deserved."

On lack of A-10 weekly awards for UD players because of the team approach and balanced scoring: "That's probably part of the reason guys like Scooch haven't gotten more accolades, but I don't think anyone's won more than him. That's been our approach from day one, to build a foundation of a team that can beat you in a lot of different ways.

On Wednesday's opponent, UMass: "They're cornered a little bit. They've gotten off to a slow start, and they've played a difficult schedule, probably the hardest of any team in the A-10 in the first two or three weeks."

On Darrell Davis: "Darrell may not be shooting the ball as much or scoring, but he is as impactful as a player we have in his role. If you remember back to his freshman year, we could hardly keep him out here on defense. Now I look at Darrell and trust him as much as any guy on the team on defense. That's a credit to who he is. I think he'll start to get back into shooting the ball again as conference play keeps going, and I think he's really going to be a guy who's extra valuable to what we're doing."

On John Crosby: "He really rebounds the ball for a point guard. I think he had six defensive rebounds in one game. He blocks out. He's not afraid to get it. The other thing is he's not turning the ball over. We don't want to turn it over more than 10 times a game. We're trying to keep it as low as we can."

On Josh Cunningham: "Josh is doing great. He's ahead of schedule in his rehabilitation. We were very fortunate to get this gift, which is a weightless treadmill. Josh slowly but surely is starting to walk on that. I think he was on the treadmill for 55 minutes today. He's not close to being on the court, but he's getting closer. There's a buzz coming from Mike (Mulcahey), our trainer, and there's also a confidence in Josh. He's on a mission to return to the court. That's the most important thing: the kid being motivated. He's never down. Even after the injury, everybody had their heads down and he was sort of being himself on the plane. He was fine. He's a great kid. He's a positive kid. He's also a professional. If he's supposed to be there at 10 o'clock, he'll be there 20 minutes early ready to go. I don't know how it will all work out for him. At the end of the day, we're preparing full steam ahead without him. Maybe by the end of January or February, we'll get a good gauge. I talked to him today during practice and said, 'How do you feel?' He said, 'I feel good.' I said, 'What does it feel like? An ankle sprain right now?' He said, 'Yeah, it feels like I'm coming back from ankle sprain.' He's lost conditioning, which is the big thing."

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