ATLANTA -- Mike Thomas, then the varsity boy's basketball coach at Kalamazoo Central High School in Michigan, once made a promise to the bigger programs which came late in the recruiting process for his top player in the 2010 class, 6-foot-5 wing Devin Oliver: "They're going to be sorry."
After receiving offers from the likes of Butler and Iowa at the time, Oliver hit a two-inch growth spurt and started hearing from the Michigans and Southern Cals of the college basketball world before committing to Dayton in 2009 during the early signing period.
Thomas could not have known that his warning would eventually hold up against the man who worked so hard to bring Oliver's talents to Dayton's campus.
Oliver was the final piece to Brian Gregory's highly-regarded 2010 class for the Flyers, one that also included four-star point guard Juwan Staten and three-star shooting guard Brandon Spearman, one that was meant to help build off the young head coach's '09 appearance in the NCAA Tournament's second round. But one season later Gregory accepted the Georgia Tech job, moved to Atlanta and watched as a brand new arena was built around his rebuilding program.
Fast forward three seasons and Oliver is now a 6-foot-7 senior and just one of three former Gregory players still on the Dayton roster -- the 2010 class having splintered with Staten now a standout at West Virginia (averaging 20 points, 7.3 assists, 5.7 rebounds per game) and Spearman coming off the bench at Hawaii -- as the Flyers took down their former coach and his Yellow Jackets, 82-72, in the still-new McCamish Pavilion on Wednesday night.
Oliver played 33 minutes, scored a career-high 20 points and persisted to fill up the statsheet (four rebounds, three assists, two steals) as the swarming Atlantic-10 underdog pulled away. It was the best game of his collegiate career and it came at a fitting time, with one of the few Division I coaches who believed in his abilities before all the big schools came calling in attendance, standing just a few feet away. He just happened to be the opposing coach. Oliver's career has not panned out as Thomas once promised -- he's averaging double figures for the first time in his career this season -- but this was a performance to hang a hat on.
When it was all over, the present Flyers coach, Archie Miller, could look down at the box score sitting next to his microphone and see a 4-0 record.
Gregory could not.
"We didn't come down here to lose. Nobody in that locker room didn't talk about anything but doing their job and giving ourselves a chance to win," said Miller, who took over the Flyers' program following Gregory's departure. "I thought we believed we came down here to compete and play. We have a lot of good players. Hopefully tonight brings us closer to being a good team."
Make no mistake: This was a difficult loss for the Georgia Tech program to swallow. Sentiment aside -- center Daniel Miller acknowledged in the postgame that the team wanted to help Gregory take down his old team -- the Yellow Jackets entered Wednesday night feeling less rebuilding than rebuilt. The pieces were starting to come together. Following respective wins over Presbyterian, Delaware State and rival Georgia, the team's defense tanked top-20 in efficiency, the backcourt of Marcus Georges-Hunt and Tennessee transfer Trae Golden was performing at a high level and the post duo of Miller and former five-star recruit Robert Carter looked formidable.
That was until Oliver & Company forced 19 turnovers, six coming from Golden, who played his worst game as a Yellow Jacket. The Flyers poured in 33 points off those turnovers.
It's nearly impossible to be a Brian Gregory-molded defense when said defense can not even set up.
"I think a key stat in the game was the turnover situation. I'm disappointed in that. We've done a good job not only in practice but in some of the games in taking care of the ball," Gregory said. "When you have those empty possessions and also baskets on the other end, it puts your defense in a tough situation."
Added Golden: "I think that when you give up transition buckets, not only is it two points but it's kind of -- you know, look at our offense when we're getting transition buckets. It's a quick turnaround and it gets the game going in your momentum. So it's something we definitely try to focus on because we are so effective in the halfcourt."
Gregory has done a tangible job of implementing change since his arrival in March 2011, and the roster and playing style are starting to mimic his best days at Dayton. His most successful teams in his eight seasons there came on the strength of defense -- the NCAA run and the 2010 NIT Championship were spurred on by two top-25 defenses giving up fewer than 94 points per 100 possessions -- and that's what this team could become. Maybe even this year. But the offensive issues, namely outside shooting and ball-handling concerns (judging specifically by the Dayton loss), will only put more and more pressure on that end of the floor as the competition level increases.
It may not be back to Square One offensively, but Dayton certainly laid down a pressure-based blueprint for others to at least consider.
"With how they were playing the other perimeter players, if we weren't pressuring the ball, then they were going to have their way with us," Miller said.
Perhaps this was simply a speed bump in the process. Perhaps the job Miller has done with the Flyers was a bit undervalued coming into Wednesday's matchup, given Dayton's lackluster start to the season. As the schedule unfolds for both programs -- Dayton is off to the Maui Invitational to face Gonzaga while Georgia Tech awaits non-conference foes Ole Miss and Illinois over the next two weeks -- this result will be viewed in greater context.
As for now, Georgia Tech is a talented team with some serious question marks offensively and Dayton looks better than advertised.
"That's where we're at," Gregory said of his offense's tendency to force plays. "There's a maturity piece in there that we have to get a lot better at. You can't make up a seven-point deficit in one play. No matter how good the play is, it only counts as two or three."
There's plenty of work to be done on both sides, for both coaches, but on this night, of all the nights, Gregory was forced to look across the scorer's table and see a better team. It was wearing his former colors. It featured some of his former players. Dayton simply outplayed a bigger, more highly-touted Georgia Tech roster. The Flyers traveled 500-plus miles to hand the ACC hopeful its first loss.
And at least for those 40 minutes of play, Devin Oliver, the last of Gregory's top recruits to the small private university, brought new meaning to Mike Thomas' word of caution out of Kalamazoo Central.
