Grant excited to see former Flyer Toppin in NBA Finals

Grant hopes Obi Toppin, the best player from his first eight seasons as Dayton head coach, follows in their footsteps, though just getting to this point is an accomplishment.

“I’m really happy,” said Grant on Thursday about Toppin. “It’s really hard to make the finals, and just seeing the impact that he’s had all the way through the playoffs, for him to get to this point and to get a chance to experience this, I’m excited for that and what the series could bring.”

In Game 1 on Thursday, Toppin scored 17 points to help lead the Pacers to a 111-110 victory on the road against the Oklahoma City Thunder. Pacers guard Tyrese Haliburton’s jump shot with 0.3 seconds remaining completed a nine-point comeback in the final three minutes.

Toppin set a postseason high by making 5 of 8 3-pointers. He played 25 minutes for the second straight game in the playoffs. He was on the court for the last three minutes.

“I think it was a huge confidence booster for him, especially in Game 1,” Pacers center Myles Turner said.

Game 2 is Sunday. Game 3 will be Wednesday in Indianapolis.

Grant hopes he’ll be able to attend a game at some point.

“We’ll see how it plays out,” Grant said.

Toppin announced his commitment to Dayton on May 16, 2017. He was the second recruit signed by Grant, who was hired that March. Jalen Crutcher was the first.

Toppin redshirted his first season and averaged 14.4 points and 5.6 rebounds as a redshirt freshman in the 2018-19 season.

In the 2019-20 season, Toppin won all the major national player of the year awards and became the first Dayton player to win the A-10 Player of the Year Award. He helped lead Dayton to a 29-2 season and a No. 3 national ranking. Toppin averaged 20.0 points in his final season at UD and finished his career with 1,096 points.

The coaches who were part of the staff in that 2019-20 season can’t help but reflect on it five years later, especially with Toppin achieving the sort of postseason run everyone expected from Dayton that year before the pandemic robbed it of the chance.

Anthony Solomon, an assistant on Grant’s staff that year and now a college scout for the Phoenix Suns, said everyone who coached Toppin then is living through him now because of how much they loved him as an individual.

“He’s had all these accolades, all these achievements,” Solomon said, “and just watching him from my seat, I felt like he was great at sharing those achievements and giving credit to his teammates.”

Solomon started to get an idea of Toppin’s potential during the season Toppin sat out as an academic redshirt. He got a steal and a breakaway dunk in practice, and Solomon thought, “His athleticism has gone to another level.”

Early the following season at the Battle 4 Atlantis, where Dayton played Butler, Virginia and Oklahoma, Solomon saw Toppin’s ability to finish shots with skill. Then Toppin developed a 3-point shot in his final season at Dayton.

Throughout his time with the Flyers, Toppin electrified crowds with high-flying dunks. He set school records, since eclipsed by DaRon Holmes II for dunks in a season and in a career.

“I’ve been coaching for a while,” said Darren Hertz, an assistant during the Toppin years and now the head coach at Wittenberg, “but Obi changed my mind about dunking. And the reason I say that is I guess maybe I was a little old school. Like a dunk is great, but it’s still just two points. Let’s get back on defense.

“Obi literally changed my mind on that. I think people who’ve watched him and know him can maybe relate to what I’m saying. An Obi Toppin dunk was worth more than two points. It just ignited the crowd. It would either stop a run for another team and completely devastate them, or it was a momentum-building thing for us, where you saw the Flyers go on a 10-0 run or 12-2 run. It was just something different.”

Credit: AP

Credit: AP