The three game losing streak after one of the best non-conference results in recent years was truly a drag, for the fans, coaches, and players of the Dayton basketball program. One shake up in the lineup (and a Hail Mary) against the visiting Loyola-Chicago Ramblers followed by an impressive performance on the road against one of the hottest teams in the A-10 in Duquesne sees the Dayton Flyers back at .500 in the A10 and looking like their old selves from November.
The lineup shake up, of course, was adding 7 foot 1 inch freshman Amael Le’Tang at center for Zed Key. To be fair, Key is also nursing a small injury, so this move most likely coincided with the injury, but nonetheless it has propelled the Flyers to wins in their last 2 games. The Frenchman was a bright spot off the bench in the early part of the season, surprising many fans and analysts on how much of a positive impact both offensively and defensively Le’Tang was right away for Dayton.
Le’Tang in his last two games as a starter has combined for 27 points (9-12 from 2 combined and 1-3 from 3 in the Duquesne game), 3 assists, and 9 rebounds. Not to mention, he has only had 1 personal foul in each game, which is hard for a big man to do in the modern game. His offensive rating was 107 against Duquesne and 137 against Loyola-Chicago. It’s clear now that as the season has gone along, so has the increase of skill and development of Le’Tang.

The starting lineup change has also probably had something to do with the effect that Le’Tang brings on the defensive level compared to other Flyers. One way I like to look at how players really impact the game is through their box plus/minus, as well as their offensive and defensive box plus/minus. For those of you not familiar with this metric, B +/- measures a player’s contribution while on the floor per 100 possessions. Basically, it keeps track of the net changes in scoring while the player is in the game. Below is the Dayton offensive, defensive, and overall box plus/minus through the Duquesne game on January 21.

As you can see, Le’Tang is about the same effectiveness offensively as Zed Key, but contributes more defensively, which leads to a +0.7 in overall BPM. As I stated in a previous article after the loss to George Washington, Dayton’s best way to win is to be a defense first team that generates offense from their defensive pressure and turnovers. The new starting lineup of Smith, Cheek, Bennett, Santos, and Le’Tang has 3 of 5 players in the positive of DBPM. Smith is barely a negative while Santos greatly struggles on the defensive end.
Along with the addition of Le’Tang to the starting lineup, the other reason Dayton has won these last two games is the return of Enoch Cheeks. Cheeks has been lights out for the Flyers and was the leading scorer in the past 2 games (26 vs Loyola, 23 vs Duquesne). Coincidently, Dayton is 7-0 in games where Cheeks is Dayton’s leading scorer, including wins over Connecticut and Northwestern. Looking at the Box Plus/Minus, Cheeks is Dayton’s best offensive and defensive weapon as he leads the team in both offensive and defensive box plus/minus. Safe to say, if the offensive and defensive game plan revolves more around Cheeks, the Flyers have a better chance to win games.
Personally, I would like to see some other Flyers crack more minutes. This also means that Dayton will need to get healthy as Zed Key and Posh Alexander are nursing some injuries, including Alexander being out the last 3 games. I would like to see Posh take over for Santos in the starting lineup and use Santos as a premier 6th man off the bench, similar to the role that Koby Brea played for the Flyers a season ago. Posh is the second best defender on the Flyers roster, and he also provides a decent offensive option, specifically from 2 point range. Posh is shooting 51.4% from 2 this season with many of his points coming from being able to drive the lane and being able to get to the rim. Anthony Grant’s offense is revolved around getting to the rim and finding effective 2 point shots (the Flyers are 54th in the country in effective field goal percentage and 5th in the A10). But, as I said before, Dayton is at its best when they are defense first, offense second. This would be perfect for Posh if Dayton sticks to a defense first mentality.
Santos coming off the bench to be the primary three point threat while having to play against the opponent’s bench players might just bring up both his offensive and defensive efficiency. I compare this to Koby Brea’s role last season, who in comparison had a defensive box plus/minus of 1.2, which is better than Santos, but overall it helped the Flyers to bring an offensive three point specialist off the bench. Again, this only works out if Posh is healthy.

Moving forward, Dayton has a chance to climb back into the NCAA tournament at-large discussion, with some huge quad 2 games coming up at St. Bonaventure and Saint Louis. However, the Flyers cannot drop another quad 3 or 4 game or the at-large discussion is over, and they must win the Atlantic 10 tournament to secure the auto-bid. With the way the coaching staff has shaken things up the past few games and the emergence of Enoch Cheeks and Amael Le’Tang, Dayton might just be starting to play its best basketball at the right time. And anyone who watches college basketball knows that anything can happen if a team gets hot at the right time.
Featured and article photos provided by Hunter Hensel (@henselmedia_)