It has become a familiar scene this season.

Jim Jabir emerges from the post-game dressing munching on a cookie.

“I’ve never eaten so many cookies in my life,” the University of Dayton women’s basketball coach said with a smile after his No. 14 ranked team had overwhelmed Temple, 67-47, Sunday at UD Arena. “Every week, every game people make us cookies and cakes. I’m on a sugar high all the time now.”

Brittany Wilson, the Flyers’ redshirt senior forward, said there were five or six plates of cookies in the dressing room Sunday: “Fans make them for us.”

And then there is Ashley’s Pastry Shop in Oakwood that has really tapped into the team’s sweet tooth, said Jabir: “The lady there is amazing. She made a cake for my 400th win and she sent over a ton of sugar cookies with ‘UD’ and ‘14’ on them for our national ranking.”

To say folks around here are sweet on the 24-1 Flyers is an understatement.

As this record-setting season has progressed, a real love affair has developed.

The Flyers women are the team in town everyone wants to embrace. They are good and play hard and have a noticeable team chemistry, having mixed four standout players from the Miami Valley with talent from elsewhere in Ohio, three other states and France.

Although they are the sixth youngest team in the nation — they lost seven seniors and four starters from last season — they have a perfect 12-0 record in the Atlantic 10 Conference and are one of just four NCAA Division I teams with just one loss.

And off the court they are just as impressive. They do everything they can to connect to the public.

Some 90 minutes before Sunday’s game, two of the starters, Andrea Hoover and Ally Malott, were up in the Arena’s Flight Deck Lounge giving a talk to area grade school teams from places like Bradford, Russia and Tipp City, all of whom got to tour of the Flyers’ dressing room, as well.

As soon as the game ended, Jabir went over to the scorer’s table, picked up a microphone, looked up at the crowd of 3,055 and thanked everyone for coming.

And soon after that the players — even though they were, as Jabir noted, “sore and tired and had their families waiting,” — all took seats along press row and signed autographs for 90 minutes.

As she looked at the long line of kids that snaked up from the floor through the stands and part way around an Arena walkway, senior point guard Sam MacKay nodded: “Look at all those kids and families … that’s who we are. I look up there and see people we’ve given clinics to and visited their schools and people who have come to our games. How can you not sit here and sign autographs for people who have given us so much? It truly is a family with us.

“The 12,000 people that fill the stands for the guys’ games — and it’s awesome to sit in there and watch that — but that’s not part of a family,” she continued. “People come because it’s tradition. For us, a lot of this crowd has a personal connection.”

And that connection is growing.

Sunday there was a small traffic jam on Edwin C. Moses Blvd before the game and some 10 minutes before tip-off, there was still a long line of people at the ticket window.

“Every once in awhile, before the start of the game, I’d look up at the crowd coming in and I’d ask Shauna Green (his assistant coach), ‘Can you believe this?’ ” said Jabir.

He said when he came to UD a decade ago the crowd for the women’s games was a little different: “ It was the janitor, my family and some parents — literally. There wasn’t anybody here.”

Although she became a Flyer freshman some six years after that, MacKay said the buzz then over women’s basketball was nothing like it is now. “I can remember going to grocery stores my freshman year begging people to come to our Michigan State game. I had to convince people we were worth seeing.”

There is no debate about that now.

Sunday, the Flyers — who wore pink breast cancer awareness uniforms that were auctioned off after the game — had five players scored in double figures. Hoover had 14 points, four steals and four4 assists; Malott and Olivia Applewhite each had 12 points; Amber Deane had 11 points and MacKay had 10 points and seven assists.

“I don’t know if we’re an NCAA-caliber team now, but we got closer to it today,” Jabir said.

He got no argument from the Bradford sixth-grade girls team, which attended its first Flyers’ game.

“They were awesome,” said Karmen Knepp. “I’m gonna ask my parents if I can come more often.”

Asked who their favorite Flyers were, the Bradford girls began rattling off numbers: “24 … 14 … 11 … 4 … 2.”

“All of them,” Maddy Gambill finally said. “We liked all of them.”

Another team that was just as taken by the Flyers was the Chaminade Julienne eighth-grade girls, who showed up in their blue informs with Lady Eagles printed across the fronts of their jerseys.

During the autograph session, they all sat behind MacKay, who is their new hero.

After watching them come to all the UD games this season, she returned the favor and went to their game against a team from Florence, Ky., last Friday.

“She went over and spoke to the Kentucky team, too, and afterward their coach called me and parents e-mailed, me telling me how touched they were,” said CJ coach Dave Schneider. “They called her a real class act.”

Once the autograph session had finally ended, there was one more task for the Flyers. They moved to the middle of Blackburn Court, where they were joined by the CJ players for a group photo.

As you watched the younger girls mix in with the Flyers women — some players wrapping arms around each other, all seeming to truly appreciate the other’s presence — one word came to mind. The same one Jim Jabir mentioned earlier:

“Sweet.”