Women’s Basketball: Green Preaches Process In Midst Of Losses

By: Steve Miller – Sports Editor

Win or lose, Shauna Green’s vision remains focused steadily on the road ahead. It’s “the process.” The process is what drives Dayton women’s basketball and their ambitious second-year head coach to always be learning and improving, from failures and successes the same, on the undulating road to championship play.

But unfortunately, it’s been the failures that have dominated the process as of late. At UD Arena Wednesday morning, the No. 23 Green Bay Phoenix dispatched their stingy defense on the Flyers and cruised to a 75-64 victory. It was Dayton’s third loss in four games.

“We had pretty good bookends, the start and the finish of the game, but we have to put 40 [minutes] together,” Green said, explaining the anatomy of the loss. “I thought in the second and third [quarters] we kind of floated away and didn’t execute.”
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The Flyers hung with Green Bay for much of the first quarter, and finished down just 16-12. Ten of those points came from sophomore guard Jayla Scaife, who was the lone offensive catalyst in the opening minutes as UD’s signature offense struggled to adjust to the Phoenix’s tight defense.

“She came out great, she came out on fire and her shot looked good,” said Green of her young guard.

But early fouls called against Scaife limited her minutes from there on out. She ended up fouling out in the fourth having played 26 minutes and failed to record another point after the first.

“I think the foul trouble really hurt us because she’s that jump shooter, she’s that scoring threat,” Green said. “And against the number one defensive team in the country, you’ve got to have that aggressive mindset.”

With Scaife on the sideline, Green Bay began to pull away. They outscored the Flyers by nine in the second quarter and five in the third. A fourth-quarter rally by Dayton was able to cut the deficit to eight, but never any closer.

Senior guards Jenna Burdette and JaVonna Layfield, the only two fourth-year Flyers on the team, searched for answers after the game.

“How we played in the first and fourth quarter, we have to do that for all 40 minutes. We can’t  just do it for 20 minutes of the game,” Layfield said, visibly frustrated with what had transpired.

“We just haven’t put a full game together all year,” added Burdette, bluntly revealing the the dissatisfaction on the team.

The Flyers’ 5-3 record indicates a strong team, but one that has work to be done in “the process.”

“We’ve lost to three top-30 RPI teams. We’ve lost to three good teams,” Green said. “But still, we need to be better. We need to be better daily and just continue to improve.”

UD’s other two losses came at the hands of Quinnipiac, a 2017 Sweet Sixteen team, and Toledo, whose Rating Percentage Index (RPI) score of 35 is the fourth-best Dayton will see this season. For a program looking to get over the hump in the NCAA Tournament and cement themselves on the national stage, these three losses early season litmus tests are disappointing. But in Green’s eyes, the pieces are still coming together, and the process is still playing out.

“We talked about this at Quinnipiac, the same thing. We’re just not putting a full game together. It is a process, and we’re a work in progress,” she said.

“The positive is that we finished strong…We came back and we could have cut it to six,” Green continued, reflecting on Wednesday’s fourth quarter. “They have to find in them, really, what is going to flip the switch in order to play that consistently one possession at a time.”

That ideal cohesion may not be flourishing yet on the court, but at least the team is on the same page in the textbook. Burdette reflected Green’s sentiments.

“We just have to keep, what we say, ‘the process’ going,” said the point guard, who is also Dayton’s leading scorer. “Not taking plays off, and making sure we don’t have to say anything about our effort level. It has to be there all four quarters.”
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The process, though, doesn’t get much easier before conference play begins. Dayton is entering an 11-day break before another game as students take final exams. Then, James Madison comes to town before the Flyers head down to the New Orleans Shootout Dec. 20. There, they’ll face South Florida, who sits at No. 15 on the RPI–just one spot below Quinnipiac.

The opponents may change, but the process never does. And the Flyers know they have to stick with it if they do want to get over that hump and beat some of the nation’s premier teams.

“Just getting better,” Layfield said of how the team will spend their next 11 days. “Day after day, possession after possession just getting better.”

Photos Courtesy Griffin Quinn/Sports Editor