Dayton Flyers
Overall rank: #41
Conference rank: #3 Atlantic-10
The Dayton women's basketball program had the luxury of competing in one of the tougher women's conferences in the nation, as seven of the 14 schools in the conference finished with 20 wins or more and eight had records above .500 in league play. Under ninth-year coach Jim Jabir, the Flyers have gone to new heights with the program as he has become the all-time winningest coach in Flyers history. Dayton has posted 20 wins or more now in four consecutive seasons, and Jabir has also made history for nearly a decade as the first male coach for the program. It promises to be another tough season for Dayton, with the hopes of another NCAA tournament appearance not far behind.
2010-11: 21-12, 9-5
2010-11 Postseason: NCAA (lost to Penn State in first round, 75-66)
Coach: Jim Jabir (136-115 at Dayton, 356-338 overall)
Who's Out: Kristin Daugherty has graduated, leaving behind a scoring average of 12.7 points per game to go with 4.1 rebounds a game, 64 assists and 21 steals. Daugherty was electric from behind the 3-point line with a 50 percent success rate (48-for-96) and she was the second-leading overall shooter (139-for-298, 46.6 percent). With Daugherty's graduation, the Flyers also lost fourth-leading scorer Kari Daugherty, a 6-1 sophomore guard who elected not to return for her junior season. Only two other seniors were on the roster, guards Aundrea Lindsey and Ebony Gainey.
Who's In: Jabir brought in two recruits who should be well known to basketball fans around the hoop-crazy Dayton/Cincinnati area. Ally Malott, a 6-4 forward (Middletown, Ohio) and 5-9 guard Andrea Hoover (Bellbrook, Ohio) are the newcomers to a team that has some of its leading scorers back and will look for new contributors as the season goes on.
Who to Watch: It may be a cliché to say Justine Raterman is the straw that stirs the drink, but in this case she is. With an average of 16.1 points and 7.3 rebounds per game, Raterman tied or was solo as the team's leading scorer in 16 of the 33 games played. She has a chance to climb up the scoring list this season. Raterman became just the eighth player to cross the 1,000-point mark in just her junior season and the 20th player overall. Raterman had a chance to take part in the World University Games this summer but declined the invite to rest and recover from injuries.
Final Projection: Dayton has all the tools to make another solid run to the top, but it needs to build more scoring around Raterman. The loss of the Daugherty sisters won't help, but the team does return other threats in senior guard Patrice Lalor and junior forward Brittany Wilson, who were among the top five scorers of a year ago. Temple is projected as the league's top team, but Xavier isn't far behind so there will be two wild matches in southwestern Ohio for Atlantic-10 fans to watch each year.
Dayton opens November with four games involving play against teams in Ohio or Kentucky (Northern Kentucky, Bowling Green, Toledo, Cincinnati). If the Flyers can knock off Illinois on Dec. 20, they will have beaten a Big 10 school for the third year in a row (Purdue in 2009, Minnesota in 2010). Dayton gets an early look at Temple when A-10 play starts (Jan. 15 matchup) but it will not see Xavier until February with two games in three weeks.
Projected postseason tournament: NCAA
Projected Starting Five:
Justine Raterman, Senior, Forward, 16.1 points per game
Patrice Lalor, Senior, Guard, led team with 118 assists
Elle Queen, Senior, Forward, 5.3 points per game
Casey Nance, Senior, Center, 103 defensive rebounds last year
Brittany Wilson, Junior, Forward, 5.9 points per game
