Award-winning columnist Tom Archdeacon — an old-school storyteller in a brand-new venue — writes about sports, the city, southwest Ohio and anything else that catches his fancy… or yours.Home > Blogs > Through the Arch > Archives > 2008 > March > 27
Thursday, March 27, 2008
Who Will Replace Brian Roberts?
COLUMBUS — For all the promise that next basketball season may have for the Dayton Flyers — a healthy Chris Wright, the continuing emergence of Marcus Johnson, who’s edge and athleticism, I think, will make him a real star, hopefully a bulked up Devin Searcy that could give more of a much-needed inside presence, and maybe even some help with the addition of Dunbar’s Josh Benson — one huge question looms:
How do the Flyers replace senior guard Brian Roberts?
Who’s going to be that steadying force? The guy to hit the big shot when the game’s on the line? The guy most other teams can’t stop unless they throw two or three players at a time at him?
Wednesday night — when the Flyers season ended with a 74-63 loss to Ohio State in an NIT quarter-final game at sold-out Value City Arena — Roberts was UD’s only game-long counter puncher.
“He did a hell of a job all game long,” Flyers coach Brian Gregory said. “He played 36 minutes and never had a turnover.”
Roberts finished with 20 points, including 4 for 9 shooting from three-point range. Those treys made him the school’s all-time leader with 293 three-pointers, two more than Tony Stanley.
Roberts also passed Jim Paxson Jr. and moved into fourth place among Dayton’s all-time scorers with 1,962 points, just six behind third-place Henry Finkel.
When Wright was hurt this year, Roberts often carried the team. Sure there were spans of a few games — especially late in the season — where he seemed to zone out for a little bit, but you try carrying a team an entire year. There had to be some weariness, physically and mentally. And when he was double and triple teamed, he needed other Flyers to step up. Sometimes they did, many times they did not.
So with Roberts gone — and guard Andres Sandoval graduating, too — the Flyers have error-apparent London Warren, back-up transfer Mickey Perry, rarely-used freshman Stephen Thomas and the incoming Paul Williams from Detroit.
There’s also been talk that the Flyers have been looking at a junior college guard in Kansas. They have no available scholarships left, but it seems as if they’re trying to get rid of Brazilian transfer Thiago Cordeiro.
Wednesday night was the sixth game in a row he didn’t get off the bench. And in the past two months — except for 19 minutes against Duquesne — he’s averaged less than three minutes a game when he did play.
Last year — for different reasons — Desmond Adedeji got the same freeze out until he moved on. I’m not sure that’s what’s happening here — if it is, and it happens everywhere, this is one side of the game I don’t like — but Cordeiro’s departure would open a spot for a more seasoned guard.
Still it’s hard to imagine any of these guys replacing Roberts.
After Wednesday’s game, UD coach Brian Gregory sang the praises of his senior:
“Those will be some pretty big shoes to fill…. (Without him) we’ll be a different team next year. …There’s not gonna be a lot of Brian Robertses coming down the pike. You don’t just take someone and plug him into Brian’s position.
“In a coach’s career, if you get three or four special guys. you’ve got to consider yourself lucky. I worked (as a Michigan State assistant) with Mateen Cleaves, Eric Snow, Jason Richardson and Andre Hutson. They’re special guys, as well as special people.
“Now I’ve gotten to coach Brian Roberts and he’s the same. He’ll go down as one of the greatest players of all time in the program’s rich basketball history…He’s a unique player because of his ability to score off the dribble and off the pass. He doesn’t have to dominate the ball in order to dominate the game. Not many players can do that.”
For all that promise to pay off next season, the Flyers need to find a guard who can do that at least some of the time.
