Dec. 27, 2011

By Graham Hays
ESPN.com

Are you better off than you were four years ago?

The past, let's say, 50 presidential election cycles suggest that will be a contentious question in the coming year in the perennial battleground state of Ohio. But at the University of Dayton, where red and blue comfortably coexist in the color scheme favored by the Flyers, there is no such conundrum when it comes to Justine Raterman's reign.

The only bad news for the basketball fans who rally at UD Arena throughout the winter months is that her term limit is ironclad.

"You would want your kid to grow up to be like Justine," Dayton coach Jim Jabir said. Legacies are commonly measured by championships and records.

To be sure, Raterman chases both as her final season enters its final months. The ups and downs of its nonconference schedule notwithstanding, Dayton retains the potential of a team picked as preseason co-favorites in the Atlantic 10, a conference championship it has never claimed. And Raterman remains on pace to finish as the school's third-leading career scorer, first among those in three decades of NCAA play, while making similar charges up the charts in rebounds and 3-pointers.

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