Who Gon’ Stop Me
Dayton 82-Davidson 67; 27–2, 16–0, Outright A-10 Champions
I went on a search for this song after demolishing Davidson because after not missing a two-pointer for nearly a full game you start to wonder who can stop this team. The YouTube version is behind a paywall because Jay and Ye and the Illuminati need more money. This led me to this Kobe (RIP) highlight video with the song in the background. It is perfect. The video features zero misses from Kobe. There are layups, dunks, and jumpers from everywhere. Not a miss in sight. Nobody could stop him. The next highlight tape looks mighty similar.
Twenty-seven consecutive made two pointers. The best eFG% performance in Dayton’s KenPom era. The best 2FG% recorded by any team in any game since at least 2010.
Absolutely nobody in the conference stopping this team. Now outright A-10 champions, they refused to cut down the nets because they want to be undefeated A-10 champions.
WHAT ARE YOU DOING?? Bob McKillop has been coaching at Davidson for 31 years. He knows more about basketball than I ever will, and I have a lot of respect for him and his fake hair. Having said that, what the hell was that defensive gameplan? They doubled Obi way too late and chased behind on every ball screen instead of icing or denying the handoff. The roll man’s defender was abandoning the dribbler so early to cover Obi that everybody was granted free access to the rim. Watson, Chatman, and Cohill took advantage of this repeatedly.
If Brajkovic is going to leave that early you need to have a backside defender stopping Cohill in the lane. Then you need the other two backside defenders to be super athletic guys who can scramble and cover three offensive players for a couple seconds. Davidson doesn’t really have the athleticism to make that work. In this play, once Cohill gets Lee on his hip off the screen it’s already over. My dream NCAA tournament scenario is a round of 32, Sweet 16, and Elite 8 games with that exact gameplan against us.
Obi cruising. Since playing at VCU (his worst game this year), Obi has been on an absolute tear, averaging 23.3 points and 8.7 rebounds on 21-28 (75%) shooting from 2 and 6–11 from 3. The excitement that builds when Obi is alone on a fastbreak is the most unique and breathtaking thing I’ve ever experienced in UD Arena. Everybody stands up to see showtime. This is an arena filled with old people who haaaattttteeeee standing (I am constantly yelled at to sit down by these people). In a season of insane Obi accomplishments, getting old people to stand prior to the dunk show is up near the top.
Chatman’s shot is officially back. After shooting 2–3 against Davidson, Chatman is now shooting 8–14 (57%) from 3 in his last 7 games. That’s after a big slump to start A-10 play when he was 4–21 (19%). He’s up to 36% on the year and I’m now frustrated when he passes up anything that’s semi-open. Let it fly man!
The clampdown. Davidson is a really good offensive team and until they caught absolute fire late in the game we completely shut them down. A final flurry of threes (43% for the game) still only got them to 1.08 points per possession. Those threes make our overall defensive performance look like just a meh one. Make no mistake though, this game was over after a first half in which Davidson made a bunch of tough shots and still only had 24 points.
EMOJI CAMERA OPERATORS LOOK HERE. For those that don’t know, there is an emoji cam in the 2nd half of every game that looks at the crowd and places emojis over their faces. This defeats the purpose of putting people’s faces on the camera because you cannot see them. What they should do, instead of panning the crowd, is put opposing players or coaches on the cam and put crying faces on them when UD is winning. Or maybe put clown faces on refs after a particularly bad call. There is a way to make emoji cam work. The current way sucks. I realize I may care about this much more than is rational.
Which Rams do we play next? URI is up next which will undoubtedly be our toughest game and environment since the SLU game. If Fatts goes off then maybe URI has a chance here, but in my opinion they aren’t a team that matches up well with us. KenPom has it at a 64% win probability and that feels right. Of course ref shenanigans and the potential to shoot terribly are always recipes for a road loss, but short of that I feel confident in walking out of Kingston with a W. That would essentially put the seal on 18–0 for us.
I’ll leave you with this image, which has been seared into my brain for eternity.
Until next time, Go Flyers! The quest for 18–0 continues.
