Video: ESPN takes note of UD’s Chris Wright

If you haven’t seen a Dayton Flyers basketball game yet this season, you’re missing out.

When the team is hot, it’s a dunk fest. And while the success of the Flyers is truly a team effort (10 players have 10 minutes or more of playing time), sophomore Chris Wright certainly stands out.

ESPN thinks so, too:

These days Wright is a YouTube sensation, a high flier with some 20 entries detailing his “monstrous” slam dunks and “nasty” alley-oops as the leading scorer for the University of Dayton.

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His mother won’t like this sort of attention-grabbing statistic, but the fact is hard to deny: With Wright in the lineup, the Flyers are 35-4 over the last two seasons. They have slid right behind rival Xavier in the Atlantic 10 standings and are in serious contention for their first NCAA bid since 2004.

That is indeed some powerful energy.

Here’s a highlight reel of his dunks from his days at Trotwood High School:

At 21-2, the University of Dayton Flyers are still not ranked nationally, but that could change with a win this Sunday against Charlotte. The big test, though, comes Feb. 11 when they play Xavier at home. ESPN does a good job of explaining the difficulty for Dayton to get noticed:

It is the price of doing business in the Atlantic 10, a conference that annually has to shout and scream to claim its place among the nation’s elite. Xavier, with two runs to the Elite Eight in the last four years, has finally passed the smell test, afforded credibility from the start of the season.

Everyone else still is screaming in the wind.

After surviving La Salle, 63-61, on Wednesday night, Wright and his Dayton teammates are 21-2, one of just four teams in the country with 21 or more wins. The Flyers beat Marquette, boast a more-than-respectable RPI of 31 and have won seven games in a row.

And yet, until the Flyers play Xavier on Feb. 11 (ESPN Classic, 7 ET), the jury will remain out on the team’s legitimacy. This week Dayton received 69 votes in the ESPN coaches’ poll, tops among “others receiving votes,” but still on the outside looking in when it comes to the top 25.

Fair? Perhaps not. But it is the reality for a talented team sitting outside the “Big Six” conferences.