From her first season leading the Flyers, Dayton head coach Tamika Williams-Jeter challenged her team to come out of what she referred to as a cocoon. Having started this journey with a clean slate, Jeters brings back several returners who remain hungry to find opportunity and a program which has high expectations and aspirations.
In Williams-Jeter's three seasons, Dayton has improved its performance in and out of conference play each season.
While many key contributors have since graduated, all of the core returned, something Williams-Jeter credits to the program's strong leaders. A talented group of newcomers arrive as well with expectations aimed towards taking that next step.
“For this year to be what we want it to be, we had to get to a point as a program where iron sharpens iron," she detailed. "I think that’s where we are, just the start of it. Now we’re in the gym and we are not sure which five-on-five team is going to win. We’ve never really had that. Now it’s competitive. I think that’s what makes the gym really good, when you have players that go after each other every day and compete and are good enough and talented enough to bring it every day.”
From that first season, the only player that remains is walk-on Eleanor Monyek, who followed Williams-Jeter from Wittenberg and Lear. When the latter was asked to recall her first season, she could not help but crack a smile.
The standards and expectations have risen and Williams-Jeter believes the team she and her coaching staff assembled is her most talented.
All of it leads to the belief that this season could be a special one.
“The energy is higher, competitiveness is higher, maturity has really shown this year,” Williams-Jeter checked off. “You have people that actually want to put the work in and actually want to go all out and give effort, play with grit and heart and it shows. We all bring what we bring every day.”
Coach- Tamika Williams-Jeter - 4th season
Last year- Dayton made a six-win improvement from the 2023-24 campaign and won five more A-10 contests, going 18-13 and 11-7 in conference play. The Flyers won their final three games of the regular season and earned a bye into the Atlantic 10 Championship’s second round. There, Dayton triumphed over La Salle before falling to Davidson in the quarter finals.
They’ll miss- Arianna Smith (12.2 ppg/10 rpg/61.5% FG), Ivy Wolf (15.4 ppg/41.4% FG/85.4% FT’s/73 3’s), Rikki Harris (7 ppg/47 stls)
Impact returners- Nicole Stephens (6.5 ppg/91 assts/25 starts), Olivia Leung (5 ppg/two-time A-10 Rookie of the Week) Nayo Lear (4.7 ppg/9 starts)
Newcomers of note- Fatima Ibrahim (6.6 ppg/6.1 rebs/2.2 blocks/61.2% FG/Summit League Defensive Player of the Year), Jordyn Poole (Purdue), M.G. Talle (team’s lone freshman)
Reasons to be optimistic: Williams-Jeter believes that with the transfer portal and incoming freshmen, there is not an exact formula anymore, rather getting great kids who can play basketball and compete at a high level.
She ran down her returning players in Ajok Madol and Olivia Leung, both have whom have added approximately 10 pounds of muscle and look like different players.
In Leung’s case she rolled her ankle and then got hurt again after coming back, but put together a freshman season where her efforts won a non-conference game against Providence and her ability to have a quick trigger improved this off-season.
Williams-Jeter even cautioned that she has a little bit of her UConn teammate Diana Taurasi in her, in that she is overly confident in her ability. If one were to go to the practice gym, a “Kobe” at the free-throw line is not an uncommon occurrence.
“Last week in practice we ran a play and she runs the floor with her left hand and Shantavia Dawkins who is a strong athletic kid standing in the middle of the paint and she just floors her, boom,” Williams-Jeter recalled. “Shantavia looks like ‘what’s going on,’ she was trying to take a charge and Liv finishes the layup. I know Liv couldn’t do that last year, she couldn’t stand in a stance, she couldn’t take contact, she definitely was not going to finish through contact, but she knew how to draw a foul. That's a kid who can really fill it from the three-point line, direct line drives and has really become a better defender because of a want. We’ll get a lot of production from her this year because everything we’ve told her she’s bought into. The coaches sat down and said she had to get stronger and she did. She put on five pounds before we even left for the summer, she’s just that kind of kid."
In terms of the overall roster, the team’s lone freshman in M.G. Talle has impressed. The team’s starting point guard, Nicole Stephens, calls her the team’s Napheesa Collier and Williams-Jeter promises that she is both really good and fun to watch. Another newbie in Purdue’s Jordyn Poole has also impressed with her ability to go get a basket at any time and can score at all three levels. Fatima Ibrahim is another transfer who won the Summit League’s Defensive Player of the Year award a season ago, which provides a post advantage both as a paint protector and shot blocker.
Another key returner is Molly O’Riordan who played in 28 contests and averaged over 10 minutes a game, getting crucial experience which could serve both her and the Flyers well this season. Williams-Jeter calls her the team’s Nikola Jokic, a high-performing player who can shoot and spread the defense.
“Not a lot of teams have as many kids that returned as we did,” Williams-Jeter summarized. “It’s a credit to our team, players run programs and culture is built by what players follow.
X Factor- Nayo Lear has been a constant on Williams-Jeter's teams and now it is her turn as a leader and her growth both on and off the court have shown that she is more than capable of handling that challenge.
It has been learning lessons provided from the fourth-year coach which have stayed with Lear as has the challenge given to be both a great person and basketball player.
“I love Nayo Lear,” Williams-Jeter exclaimed. “I love everything she represents; I love her growth. When you take over a program and its high tradition, high-winning program, high expectations and we’re starting from the bottom...Eleanor Monyek is our walk-on who came with me from Wittenberg and the next one was this kid taking a chance on a first-time really Division I head coach who kind of knew what she wanted, kind of didn’t and had to ride the wave with me. I’m not sure Nayo liked me much her first year because her grades weren’t where I thought they should be, but now she’s the smartest person on the team and she’s probably going to work for the FBI. She’s a two-way player now, high confidence, consistent, she’s a leader. Nayo’s everything to me. You grow together and she’s seen me in my best and worst times. We continue to believe in each other and for me that’s lifelong. I’ll do anything for Nayo, that what she means to me.”
Circle the date- Dayton desired to challenge itself in the non-conference and immediately travel to face an Illinois State team which made it to the Fab 4 of the WNIT a season. A Nov. 16 tilt against Belmont will also present a challenge as the Bruins made it to the WBIT finals and are the Missouri Valley Conference’s preseason conference favorite.
Bottom line: There is a lot of belief that fills UD Arena and Williams-Jeter is right there, fully optimistic that this team’s journey into becoming butterflies is well on its way.
“I’m excited about this team, it’s definitely the most talented team I’ve had since I’ve been here,” she concluded. “We did lose a lot of experience losing four of our five starters, but I feel like with the talent level and versatility, that production will be spread out which is nice. To get a preseason ranking the way we did is great; I appreciate that the coaches have some respect. We’re just ready for games to get started at this point.”