Rebuilding Flyers still good follow

Standout freshmen, milestones make up-and-down season worthy.

DAYTON — The pain of a rebuilding year has hurt fans of the Dayton Flyers maybe more than they suspected.

Judging by the comments on social media, fans conditioned to counting down the days to Selection Sunday at this time of year find themselves writing off the 2017-18 team.

One fan wrote simply on Twitter this week, “I hate basketball.”

Another fan summed up the season Wednesday with this: “Dayton Basketball 2018: At least we weren’t swept by Duquesne.”

Of course, Dayton did get swept by a worse team, Massachusetts. The up-and-down nature of the season has frustrated everyone. It probably won’t change this late in the season. That doesn’t mean there aren’t reasons to keep following the Flyers. Here are four:

1. Scoring milestone: Darrell Davis increased

his career points total to 912 on Wednesday in an 88-73 victory over Duquesne. He ranks 60th in school history. If he continues at his current pace of 16.6 points per game, he will become the 48th player in school history to score 1,000 points on Feb. 28 at La Salle.

2. Freshman shooter: Jordan Davis made 44 of 103 3-pointers (42.7 percent) in the first 23 games. If he continues on that pace, he will make at least 15 more 3-pointers and finish with the thirdmost made 3-pointers by a freshman in school history.

Brooks Hall made 67 of 170 (39.4) in 1999-00. Tony Stanley made 66 of 187 (35.3) in 1997-98. Shawn Haughn (58 of 140, 41.4, 1993-94) and Ramod Marshall (50 of 120, 41.7, 2000-01) round out the current top four.

3. Shooting chart: Josh Cunningham is shooting 67.9 percent from the field. That would be the third-best mark in school history behind Sean Finn (70.7 in 2002-03) and Chris Daniels (68.8 in 199596).

4. Young point guard: Jalen Crutcher, averaging 8.5 points, 3.0 rebounds and 4.1 assists, is having one of the best all-around freshman seasons by a Flyer in the past 10 years.

The only recent freshman performance that compares came from Dyshawn Pierre in 2012-13. He averaged 8.8 points, 5.1 rebounds and 2.0 assists.