City of Basketball Love

Josh Verlin (@jmverlin)
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Dayton already had a built-in advantage for Jaron McKie. 

A student of college basketball since his early days, McKie was well aware of the Flyers’ reputation as a program, with 20-win seasons a regularity and trips to the NCAA Tournament coming with some frequency. 

So when Dayton coach Anthony Grant made contact with McKie after Philly Live in June, the St. Joseph’s Prep senior didn’t need much of an education.

“I knew they were a high-level program that was usually top-30, top-25, I knew they went to the tournament almost every year,” McKie said. “I knew that independently, I knew college basketball a lot, I watch it a lot, I study it a lot.”

In just a few months, Grant and his staff formed a close bond with McKie, who went to Ohio for an official visit earlier in September and committed to the Flyers shortly thereafter. He announced that decision this past weekend on social media.

McKie’s choice came down to Dayton and Saint Joseph’s, two Atlantic 10 programs who’ve both had a history of success on the hardcourt. The Hawks pursued McKie hard during his years at St. Joe’s, hoping to add him to their stable of area talent, but the local factor worked against Billy Lange’s program.

“SJU was a little too close to home,” McKie said. “It was a 10, 15-minute drive. I wanted to get away, but not too far.

“Also,” he added, “the coaches at Dayton, I trusted them, I trusted them a lot. Just (the) little stuff, they would text me, ‘have a good day at school’ and stuff like that. Just the little things.”

He’s the second member of Dayton’s incoming 2025 recruiting class, along with St. Ignatius (Ohio) forward Damon Friery. 

The son of former Temple standout and NBA Sixth Man of the Year Aaron McKie, Jaron McKie has been a player to watch since his freshman year at the Prep. Now a 6-4 guard, he’s been one of the top shooters in the city the last few years, hitting 41.7% from deep during a junior year where he led the Hawks with 18.1 ppg, while increasing his ability to attack the rim off the bounce and create his own shot.

Aaron McKie noted his son’s improvement on the defensive end and rebounding the ball this summer, noting that he made sure his son wasn’t just thought of as a “one-trick pony” due to his shooting but a strong all-around guard. Jaron was ranked No. 86 by ESPN in their latest 2025 rankings. 

“That’s my boy, I’m proud of him,” Aaron McKie said. “I don’t tell him enough because I let him have his journey, I get out of the way, just like all my other kids; I get out of their way and let them do their thing. [...] I’m super-proud of him, I’m happy for him, and I don’t think he’s even scratched the surface on who he can be as a basketball player.”

Aaron McKie, who spent 10 years as a coach at Temple between being an assistant (2014-19) and head coach (2019-23), made sure Jaron was handling the recruiting process the right way, had his eye out for the right things.

“He was just like, make sure you’re surrounded with genuine people who are going to look out for you, make sure you can trust the adults in the system, make sure you’re in a good spot where you can focus on an education as well,” Jaron McKie said. “I feel like Dayton had all of those qualities.”

Though the older McKie played in the Atlantic 10 in his years at Temple, he never played against Dayton, which joined the league in 1995-96, a year after McKie was drafted into the NBA. 

Since then, the Flyers have been one of the conference’s premier programs. They’ve won 20-or-more games 14 times in the last 17 seasons, making six NCAA Tournaments in that span; it would have been a seventh, if not for COVID canceling the 2020 postseason. Under Grant, going into his eighth season at Dayton after stints at VCU and Alabama, the program has gone 221-149 (.674), winning 25 games and earning a March Madness berth last season. 

Dayton’s leading scorer from last year, DaRon Holmes II, was a first-round pick of the Denver Nuggets in June; the Flyers should still be strong this year, led by forward Nate Santos, Butler transfer Posh Alexander, Ohio State grad transfer Zed Key and more.

The program boasts one of the strongest fan bases in all of non-power conference hoops, the 13,409-seat University of Dayton Arena routinely selling out, without a pro team in the city to compete with.

When McKie was up there from Sep. 6-8, he got to understand what it means to play for the Flyers.

“(The coaches) talked about (the fan support) a lot — I knew they had some dedicated fans, but I didn’t know it was like that,” Jaron McKie said. “They were telling me the home games are already sold out. It’s pretty crazy down there. (The arena is) beautiful, I went inside, toured it, it’s really nice in there."

Within a few days of coming home, McKie said, he realized there was no point in putting off a decision he knew was coming. His commitment to Grant came by way of a text message, the coaching staff calling him to celebrate almost immediately.

With his decision out of the way, McKie can fully focus on his senior year, where he’ll team up with Jordan Ellerbee (FGCU) and Olin Chamberlain Jr. for one final season as the Hawks’ backcourt. With the addition of talented sophomore Mekhi Robertson Jr., the Prep has eyes on being in the mix for its first Catholic League title in two decades.

He’ll also get to be teammates with his brothers, freshmen twins Julian and Justin McKie, for the first time. 

“The recruiting process, it was a little stressful, but it was fun at the same time,” McKie said. “But now I can mainly focus on basketball [...] just go out there and enjoy myself.”

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