SALT LAKE CITY — Less than two weeks ago, Dayton defeated Virginia Commonweath by overcoming a 17-point deficit. The Flyers never panicked. They defended. They got stops. They stayed composed when things seemed bleak. They made shots when it mattered.
In November, Dayton kicked off the Charleston Classic by defeating LSU. The Flyers trailed by 15 points with nine minutes left. But they defended maniacally down the stretch, started making shots offensively and came back to get one of those nonconference wins the NCAA Tournament selection committee always demands.
Advertisem*nt
The seventh-seeded Flyers seemingly shrugged their collective shoulders after Thursday’s 63-60 first-round win over 10th-seeded Nevada to advance to the round of 32 in the NCAA Tournament. The celebration at the final buzzer was wild. The jubilation of surviving and advancing in the Big Dance was palpable. But, while they stunned almost everyone with the ferocity and audacity of a huge rally, they didn’t surprise themselves.
“In those moments, that’s when we get the closest,” Dayton guard Koby Brea said. “I think we’ve been in those situations a couple of times this year, so when we do get in those situations we are comfortable. When we look at our captain, our coach, we see that he’s not worried. We see that he believes in us and that he believes in everyone from the last player on the bench. In those moments, we believe in each other and we trust each other.”
Dayton finished 8-of-19 from 3-point range against Nevada. (Rob Gray / USA Today)
On a Thursday largely devoid of truly great games, Dayton and Nevada provided perhaps the game of the day not named Kentucky and Oakland. But it wouldn’t have reached that point without the Flyers rising from the proverbial dead. In simple terms, they looked done. They weren’t playing well or making shots. They weren’t getting stops on the other end, leading to Nevada guard Kenan Blackshear getting almost anything he wanted.
With seven minutes remaining, Nevada led 56-39, almost penciling in Saturday’s potential second-round matchup against No. 2 seed Arizona, which defeated Long Beach State earlier in the day. But, in that timeout huddle, Dayton’s players took note of head coach Anthony Grant. While the Delta Center crowd buzzed with Nevada fans, while the Dayton assistants barked instructions, Grant was calm. He drew up what he wanted to run beyond the timeout, and he told his guys to take the game one possession at a time.
Advertisem*nt
What Grant knew was that his star, potential NBA first-round pick DaRon Holmes II, hadn’t played well to that point. What he also knew was that his team wasn’t shooting well and that the law of averages was bound to come to their side at some point. Of course, even by those metrics, not many could foreshadow Dayton scoring 24 of the final 28 points of the game. That part was insane. But Grant and his team knew they were capable of making a run to at least give themselves a chance in the final moments.
“You don’t know how you’re going to react until it happens,” Grant said. “The first time we went through that, I thought it helped our team. It was the kind of growing experience for our team to go through that kind of experience and still be able to come out victorious. When you do it once, let alone twice, it’s a confidence boost, right? Every season it’s about the experiences that you go through together. All of those experiences are to get us to the point of where we are in this tournament. As a team, sometimes we get sidetracked and sometimes we can get out of character. But I think the thing that this team has done on a consistent basis is show a level of grit and resiliency and character that has gotten us to this point.”
This is why Grant makes sure to schedule tough out-of-conference opponents so that his team has a level of experience that allows it to deal with any circ*mstance. This has bred a team that’s a tough out when it matters most. The Flyers have a superstar-level talent in Holmes, who was the best player on the floor Thursday in the biggest moments. They have tough, athletic guards who defend, handle the ball and knock down shots. Brea and Nate Santos are versatile players who shoot the ball and offer length and athleticism.
But Holmes is the barometer. He finished with 18 points and nine rebounds against Nevada even though he struggled for a good portion of the night. When he locked in on both ends, he took the game over and Nevada didn’t have any answers.
“There was never a doubt in our mind,” Holmes said. “We went down by a lot and we knew that we were down. There may have been times in the past where we may have gotten down on ourselves or argued on the floor. But at the end of the day, this team is different. We know that we have each other and that’s what matters. If you want to win big games, you have to stick together, and that’s what we did tonight.”
(Top photo of DaRon Holmes II: Rob Gray / USA Today)
Tony Jones is a Staff Writer at The Athletic covering the Utah Jazz and the NBA. A native of the East Coast and a journalism brat as a child, he has an addiction to hip-hop music and pickup basketball, and his Twitter page has been used for occasional debates concerning Biggie and Tupac. Follow Tony on Twitter @Tjonesonthenba
