Flyers ready to 'ramp up' focus on defense
Coach also looking for improvement in rebounding.
Defense and DAYTON — rebounding continue to be the main concerns for Dayton Flyers women’s basketball coach Shauna Green.
Dayton (1-2) returns to action at 7 p.m. today against Toledo (2-1) at UD Arena and will try bounce back from back-to-back losses to Mary- land (4-0) and Northeast- ern (3-0).
“Today’s going to be pretty much all defense in our practice,” Green said Monday at the Cronin Center. “We have to get some stops when we need them. Saturday, you saw that. We needed a couple key stops, and we couldn’t get them. The defense and the rebounding is my frustration right now. That’s going to be our point of emphasis. It has been. But we’re going to ramp it up some.”
No. 7 Maryland (4-0) beat Dayton 82-71 on Nov. 11 in College Park. Md. The Terrapins shot 55.9 percent from the field and beat the Flyers 39-30 on the boards.
Dayton made it competitive in the last three quarters but was unable to overcome a 23-point deficit. The final score looks better consider- ing Maryland beat another Atlantic 10 team, George Washington, 69-30 in its next game and then routed No. 10 South Carolina 85-61.
“I thought the Maryland game we competed,” Green said. “We played tough. We scored points. They’re big. They’re a really good team. I thought we showed some glimpses of what we can be. For us, it’s consistency on both ends of the floor.”
In an 84-79 loss to Northeastern on Saturday at UD Arena, Dayton’s defense per- formed better. Northeastern shot 35.4 percent from the field. The Flyers were outrebounded 50-44.
“We’ll learn from it,” Green said. “We’ll watch it today as a team and then get back to work. That’s our approach because with this schedule there’s not an easy game you know you’re going to win. Toledo’s coming in on Wednesday. An extremely well-coached team, just a great program. We don’t look beyond that, but after that, you have to go to Green Bay (1-2), go to South Carolina (2-1), so it’s tough. We’re focusing on one day at a time and trying to improve.”