That old saying finally is ringing true for Ralph Hill.

“I’d tell him his bread always lands jelly-side up,” Vickie Bradley, Hill’s mother, said with a chuckle. “I called it having favor in your life. When things are going wrong — when our bread falls — it lands jelly-side up so it’s not a complete disaster. It’s still salvageable.”

And that has never been truer for the Dayton Flyers’ 6-foot-6 sophomore than in the past few days.

This time last year, he found himself relegated to an end-of-the bench Siberia. In his freshman season, the Westerville North graduate played just 23 minutes. For 29 of the Flyers’ 36 games, he never left his seat.

But last Saturday, Hill felt the warmth of the crowd when, after making several impressive plays in crunch time against Xavier, he returned to the bench and got a standing ovation from many in the capacity crowd at UD Arena.

“I’ve got to be honest, it felt great,” he said. “It kinda sent chills to my spine.”

Afterward, as she does every game, Bradley — who raised her only child as a single parent and always has been his unbending backbone — waited with the other players’ families for the players to emerge from the dressing room.

“When he walked out, he looked like he might have grown an inch,” she said. “His chin was up. He had a glow about him. His countenance was lifted. There was a confidence. I was just so proud of him.”

That glow was still there Monday as Hill made his rounds on campus.

“Unless I wore a Dayton (basketball) sweatshirt or something, people didn’t really know me when I walked around here last year,” he said. “This year is a little different, and today has actually been a great day. A lot of people have come up to me and said ‘Great game.’ ”

As a senior at Westerville North, Hill came to Kettering for the Flyin’ to the Hoop tournament two years ago and put on a show. He had 28 points, nine rebounds and six steals in a victory over Flora Macdonald Academy of North Carolina.

A four-year varsity starter, he averaged 22.5 points as a senior, won Division I all-Ohio honors and was recruited by several colleges.

He chose Dayton, but once he arrived, his star suddenly faded and he almost never played.

“I’m not gonna lie, it was probably the hardest thing I’ve ever had to face next to losing my grandfather,” he said. “I went from being the star in high school — the No. 1 option on a team that had to have me to win — to being a guy that the team didn’t need at all.

“My mom would come to every game and afterward, I’d say. ‘Ma, I can’t do this anymore. It’s too tough.’ And she’d listen and let me vent and then … she’d say, ‘Look, you’re not always going to be successful. There are going to be trying times, so get your chin up and move on.’ ”

A manager in the technology department of JPMorgan Chase, she always has been proof of that, her son said.

“She’s a strong woman and 99 percent of what you see in me came from her,” Hill said. “She instilled the good traits. She’s the one who hammered it in that, yeah, you’re here to hoop it up, but the main reason you’re in school is to get a degree. That’s what will get you a job in life.”

Bradley, though, said she knew her son was hurting last season. She was, too.

“When you’re a parent, you feel your child’s pain, same as you do their joy,” she said. “I knew he felt he couldn’t do it anymore, but I made sure he got a good dose of mom kicking him in the right direction. I tried to remind him this is the way life is sometimes. It happens to all of us. Sometimes you have to be patient and wait your turn.”

For a while, Hill figured maybe he should just turn himself totally toward his studies — he’s a mechanical engineering major — and take a different approach.

“As bad as it sounds, I thought, ‘OK, at least I have front-row seats to the games,’ ” he said. “But when you’re a competitor, that doesn’t really work, so then I thought about going someplace else.”

Once again, though, his mother took a different stance.

“I didn’t want him chasing a basketball,” she said. “To me, Dayton is an awesome school academically and the basketball program had been awesome, too. … I always see the glass as half full.”

Hill said his teammates, especially his roommate Devin Oliver, convinced him to hang on. And when coach Brian Gregory left and Archie Miller was hired, Hill took a wait-and-see approach.

Because of, in part, his mother’s no-coddling attitude, he reevaluated his situation. “I wasn’t ready to play that much last season,” Hill said. “Offensively, I could play, but defensively I couldn’t accomplish (Gregory) wanted.”

The bottom line was he needed to get better.

Miller said Hill began to dedicate himself in practice; then, when forward Josh Benson was lost for the season because of a knee injury, he helped fill that void with his rebounding and interior defense.

Over the past three games, Hill has averaged 12.3 minutes, with eight points, 14 rebounds and two assists.

“I’m really happy for Ralph because he has earned this the hard way,” Miller said.

Hill said, “I hope this is just like my mom kept telling me, that everybody has a moment when it finally clicks. I never wanted the story to end up like, ‘OK, he didn’t play. He quit. He left because he wanted something easier.’ … I wanted my story to end better than that.”

He wanted make sure his bread really did land jelly-side up.

tarchdeacon@daytondailynews.com