DAYTON, Ohio — Don Donoher used to begin his Dayton practices with each player performing a shooting drill, stationed at a basket with a staff member. When Anthony Grant played for Donoher, team managers would take the ball he used during those sessions and discard it in a bin when he finished. The ball, like Grant himself, would be dripping wet with sweat.

That’s how hard Grant worked, even during what should have been a fairly stress-free shooting warmup. And that’s how Grant turned himself into the Flyers’ leading scorer and rebounder as a senior. He wasn’t a pure shooter, Donoher recalls, but he wrung every ounce of his talent to reach his fullest potential. “He was the best teammate you’d ever want to come upon,” Donoher says.

Like most in the Dayton community, Donoher was thrilled when Grant agreed to return to his alma mater as the head coach. Everyone knew they were getting a man of high integrity, someone who’d produced great success coaching at this level, a guy who understood in his bones what the program and the dedicated fan base were all about. It seemed like a perfect match.

But this? A top-five national ranking for Dayton in Grant’s third season at the helm, with an NCAA Tournament No. 2 seed (or better) and an undefeated run through the Atlantic 10 in sight? Well, no one could have predicted this. Even if the most optimistic Flyers fans could have dreamed it up, they wouldn’t have seen it coming this way, with Grant overseeing one of the most efficient, aesthetically pleasing offenses in the country.

“The thing that impresses me most about this team,” the 88-year-old Donoher says, “is the way they shoot.”

Donoher looked up the stats the other day. During his 25-year career as Flyers coach, a period that included a national runner-up finish in 1967 and an Elite Eight in 1984, his two best shooting teams connected on almost exactly 50 percent of their field goals. This season Dayton leads the nation with a 59.3 percent effective field-goal rate and a nearly historic 62 percent mark on two-point shots. The Flyers also rank second in the country in KenPom.com’s adjusted offensive efficiency metric, just behind Gonzaga.

This is a far cry from Grant’s days at Alabama, his previous college head coaching stop. The Crimson Tide averaged a No. 113 ranking in offensive efficiency during his six-year tenure. You could practically see the flop sweat of those teams trying to score, which was a major reason why Alabama made the NCAA Tournament only once before Grant was let go.

How did the 53-year-old Grant reshape his reputation as an offensive mastermind? The answer is layered and includes personnel, patience and experience. Ultimately, though, it’s not as complicated as it might seem.

“It’s like they’re playing the optimal way when they don’t really need to because they have really good talent,” basketball analyst Jordan Sperber says. “That’s kind of the secret to their offense.”

After being dismissed by Alabama, Grant reunited with former boss Billy Donovan in the summer of 2015. Donovan had just left Florida to take over the NBA’s Oklahoma City Thunder and brought Grant along as an assistant. They got to coach Kevin Durant for his last year in town and rebuilt the team around Russell Westbrook and his nightly triple-doubles the following season.

Those two years were Grant’s first exposure to the NBA style, and he learned a lot. When you watch Dayton play now, with its high ball screens and shooters in the corners, it’s tempting to say that Grant brought an NBA offense to college. That’s also not accurate, mostly because that would be almost impossible.

“Those are some of the things we talked about when he first got the (Dayton) job,” Donovan says. “It’s difficult to replicate an NBA offense in college because of the spacing, because of the longer 3-point line, because the lane is wider, the zoning rules. If he’s taken anything from the NBA, it’s probably defensively, on pick-and-roll coverages.”

The real roots of this Dayton offense stem from another college coach. Before his final season at Alabama, Grant hired Reggie Witherspoon as an assistant in an effort to help the offense. Witherspoon spent 14 years as the coach at Buffalo and is credited with developing the ball-screen continuity offense. It works just like it sounds, using repeated ball screens and then maneuvering off the defensive positioning to create spacing and good looks.

“Things were really dire for us at Buffalo,” says Witherspoon, who’s now the coach at Canisius. “We had just gotten into a new, better conference, and we were just trying to find ways to get open shots. We found something that we thought got us into a rhythm.”

During Witherspoon’s lone season in Tuscaloosa, the Crimson Tide improved from the No. 128 offense on KenPom.com the previous season to No. 53. Ball-screen continuity has spread throughout college basketball, especially among teams that lack a dominant big man. Sperber, a former Division I video coordinator who breaks down the schemes of college teams on his web site, Hoop Vision, estimates that around 25 percent of D-1 teams use some variation of ball-screen continuity.

“(Grant) is running the most college offense there is,” Sperber says.

Sperber recently posted a 16-minute video detailing Dayton’s offense. The too-long, didn’t-watch summary: The Flyers employ constant movement through screens and dribble handoffs with a five-out look, using high-low passes and transition for easy scores. It’s not terribly different from the way Villanova played while winning two national championships in three years. And the results have been spectacular. The Flyers’ current 2-point shooting clip would rank as the fourth-highest in the modern era. Princeton’s 63.3 percent mark in 1996-97 stands as the high-water mark. Their effective field goal percentage, should it stay put, would rank as the fifth-best in the past 15 years. Two of the teams that eclipsed it, Villanova in 2018 and Florida in 2007, won the national title. And Dayton is doing it this year with an extended 3-point line that has taken a toll on a lot of teams’ shooting numbers.


Grant has built Dayton into a powerhouse in his third season in charge. (David Kohl/USA Today Sports)
Witherspoon still talks to Grant frequently and tries to watch Dayton play during his rare free time. He sees his offensive ideas put to perfect use, with several wrinkles attached.

“Anthony has done a great job adding different variations to it,” Witherspoon says. “They’ve obviously gotten very comfortable and instinctive running it. They’re so good at spacing, and because they get into it right out of transition, that really allows them to get rhythm open 3s or uncontested layups.

“It puts such a pressure on a defense when you do it that way. It also takes a lot of pressure off the offense, because you don’t feel like you have to invent something every time down the floor.”

There is some obvious NBA impact on Grant’s style of play, however, and that comes in shot selection. For years, NBA teams — most famously the Houston Rockets — have eliminated mid-range shots from their arsenal in favor of 3s and drives to the rim. Dayton follows this strategy as well as any college team. According to Synergy Sports data, the Flyers have taken just 5.3 percent of their field goal attempts on jumpers shorter than 17 feet. From the 17-foot range to the 3-point line, they have taken only 22 shots all season, or 4 percent of their possessions. Grant says his NBA experience impacted how his team plays now.

“Every coach wants to grow and improve,” he says. “I’m a fan of analytics. You try to pay attention and see what’s the most efficient way to play, offensively and defensively. Then you try to put your guys in position where they can be successful.

“We try to tell our players, here’s what’s good. Then you also have to work on things like taking care of the ball and getting a good shot. But we’ll say, here’s where we feel like you can be really, really good.”

A great scheme cooked up in the lab is all well and good. But it takes the right players to pull it off. This is probably the most important part of the Flyers’ success.

Archie Miller’s timing was impeccable when he left Dayton for Indiana in 2017. The Flyers had made four straight NCAA Tournament appearances, and the winningest class in school history — including Charles Cooke, Scoochie Smith and Kendall Pollard — was graduating. Dayton athletic director Neil Sullivan didn’t sugarcoat the situation when he flew to Miami to interview Grant for the job.

“I was pretty candid with him,” Sullivan says. “I told him, we’ve got good players, but we’ve got some work to do.”

Grant had a vision for how to reload the Flyers. Sullivan describes it like this: Build the roster one good decision at a time. That required some patience, from both men. Dayton went just 14-17 in Grant’s first season. In Year 2, Grant brought in four high-major transfers who would sit out that season. He also willingly brought in a recruit his first year that he knew would have to redshirt for academic reasons. That recruit was Obi Toppin.

“He was willing to have those guys sit out,” Sullivan says. “To have the discipline to do that is impressive. In sports, there is no long-term view anymore.”

Those decisions have led to this year’s veteran team full of guys who can all handle, pass and shoot. Grant starts two point guards in Jalen Crutcher and Rodney Chatman. Michigan transfer Ibi Watson is a versatile wing scorer. Senior bigs Ryan Mikesell and Trey Landers can grab the ball off the rim defensively, start a fast break and shoot 3s.

“It helps tremendously to have skill out there at all five positions,” Grant says.

Then of course there is the otherworldly talent of Toppin. Breaking news here, sure, but much of the offensive success starts with him. Playing the 5 at 6-foot-9, Toppin can outsprint opposing big men down the court for easy dunks. Ambidextrous and explosive, he is such an elite finisher that teammates know if they throw it in his neighborhood, the likelihood is high he will score. His shooting percentage at the rim is 81.5 percent, and his next dunk will be his 90th on the season. Dayton ranks in the 94th percentile of all teams in transition, scoring 1.14 points per game in those situations, per Synergy.

Toppin is also lethal on ball screens, as he can roll to the basket, pop out for 3 or use his underrated passing skills to find open shooters off the short roll. He can also fake a dribble handoff and bulldoze inside or just simply execute an old-school post-up. He’s the prototypical modern small-ball center, in other words.

“Those players don’t exist,” Sperber says. “They exist at, like, five years into their NBA career. Maybe.”

Dayton will almost always look to get out in transition after a defensive rebound but will then go into its ball-screen continuity if it’s not there. The ball is always moving. The Flyers’ assist rate of 61.1 percent is 13th best in the country. They rarely settle for bad shots.

“Sometimes you see college teams moving so fast that they can’t even capitalize on their opportunities,” Richmond coach Chris Mooney says. “Whereas NBA guys seem to have the best change of pace and pace where they need it. This seems to be where they really excel. They run their stuff very confidently. And they have to be getting more dunks than just about any team in the country.”

Here’s an example of how the continual ball-screen action, movement and versatility leads to success, even when a possession shouldn’t work. Against Kansas in the Maui Invitational, Dayton’s halfcourt set begins with Landers passing to Mikesell and then setting a side ball screen for him.



Mikesell falls down but manages to get the ball to Toppin.



Toppin then gives the ball to Crutcher and sets another side ball screen for him. Crutcher sees the defender giving him the baseline drive, so he rejects the screen.



Finally, as the defense converges on Crutcher’s drive, he finds Chatman in the opposite corner for an open 3, which Chatman buries.



All five players touched the ball until they found the best shot. That’s Dayton basketball in a nutshell.

“For any team to use this approach to the game and do it this efficiently is tremendous,” Witherspoon says. “It’s remarkable. Fun to watch. I hope people in Dayton appreciate what they’re looking at this year.”

Dayton has one of the most dedicated and loyal fan bases in college basketball. Its coaches haven’t always returned the same level of love.

Oliver Purnell bolted for Clemson after leading the Flyers to a No. 4 seed in the 2003 NCAA Tournament. His successor, Brian Gregory, left for Georgia Tech after winning the 2011 NIT title. Miller turned six successful seasons into a job at a Big Ten blue blood.

Understandably, then, Sullivan was looking for someone who wanted to be at Dayton after Miller left. Grant was an obvious choice. But Sullivan told him during the interview process, “The fact that you’re an alum will matter for about 15 minutes.” Winning still matters most.

Grant says he wasn’t looking to leave the NBA and wasn’t sure that Dayton would be interested in him when Miller exited. But when Sullivan approached him, he couldn’t say no.

“For me this is a dream,” he says. “Not many people get to go back and lead their alma mater. I’m very, very content. As a coach, you realize what’s really important at the end of day in terms of your journey and what you’re trying to accomplish.”

Grant called Donoher for his advice when considering the job. Donoher had a simple answer. “Come on!” Donoher figured the guy he knew as a player would be the perfect person to lead the program. Even if neither he nor anyone else knew it would look quite like this.

“I can’t say any of these players resemble Anthony as a player,” Donoher says. “But they all resemble his personality on the floor. They get along, they’re unselfish and that just radiates. Personality-wise, it’s like they’ve got five Anthony Grants on the floor.”