It’s important to recognize that my sons and I are supporters of basketball programs at both Wright State and the University of Dayton. We attend six or seven home games at each school every year… However, UD fans tend to be the snooty folks from Oakwood who think that the Flyers can do no wrong. The two schools used to play each other in the early 1990’s in what became known as the “Gem City Jam“. However, after losing to the Raiders one too many times, the Flyers stopped scheduling the annual game with WSU to instead play exciting games against “powerhouses” such as Austin Peay, Grambling State, South Carolina State, etc. The Flyer faithful always justified the reason for not playing the Raiders was due to the poor quality of the WSU program…. Well, guess what? For the first time in many years the WSU Raiders are higher ranked in the RPI than the UD Flyers (see snippet from RealtimeRPI below).
In addition, it appears that Wright State is a lock for the NIT tournament this year, and if they win the next two games at the Nutt House, they’re a shoe-in for the “big show” (note: We’ll be attending the Horizon League playoffs at the Nutter Center on Friday, and the Flyers last home game on Saturday).
My family also follows both teams (we have graduates from most local schools in the family, LOL), but to give UD credit, I remember they initially dropped the jam because of scheduling policies in their conference (teams were penalized for playing bad teams) and Wright State struggled a lot
I think that if WSU would go ahead and play at UD, like they are willing (UD just doesn’t want to sign a home-home series), and WIN, they could pressure Dayton into a home-home series and we can end this what if . . .
Right now, both schools are being stubborne, and the fans suffer