The beloved Dayton Flyers kept on rolling through the NIT as they held on for the victory tonight against Ole Miss 68-63 at The Garden. Dayton (and their growing on me black uniforms) certainly didn't make it easy on themselves in the end as usual, but clutch free throw shooting from Chris Johnson and a key miss from Murphy Holloway at the line with 35 seconds left, paved the way for the victory. Next up for Dayton is last year's National Champion North Carolina and the getting-crazier-by-the-season Roy WILL-UM for the right to call themselves the Not In Tournament Champion/Tallest Midget. Thursday's game will be the 8th time Dayton has played in the NIT Final. The last time was 1968, and their last NIT Finals win was 1962.
Not only have the Flyers provided The Beard a nice reprieve from the panic of the seeming collapse of the Blackhawks, the worst "playoff run" ever witnessed by any Bulls team in history, and the dragging on of spring training, but there are more cumulative effects for Dayton beyond just wins and losses. This NIT run has denied Gregory at least one open coaching job at the University of Iowa according to this report, and has also possibly left himself as the default candidate for the DePaul vacancy - even though Gregory isn't nearly worth $3 million per season incidentally.
Sure I won't forget that no matter what happens, this season is a disappointment for The Flyers. Dayton was supposed to win the A-10 this year, and nothing will change that. Still, if this is in fact to be the last season of Brian Gregory manning the Dayton sidelines, a victory over North Carolina in the NIT Final, would be a better than average send off for him and a nice way to make lemonade out of this lemon of a season.
Bottom line is this senior class is the winnings class in UD history. They need to go out winners and nothing would be better then beating UNC and Roy. On Thursday we could be looking at the last NIT champion. According to this link the field is most likely going to expand soon.
ReplyDeletehttp://www.usatoday.com/sports/college/mensbasketball/2010-03-30-ncaa-tournament-expansion_N.htm
Anytime you do something that hasn't been done since 1968, or possibly 1962, you belong in that conversation at the very least.
ReplyDeleteYou are absolutely correct that this is most likely the last NIT because they are going to stupidly expand the field to 96 next season. I am so against this. The tournament is fine the way it is. The only reason it's happening is because A. Money and B. Coaches don't want to get other coaches fired, so with 96 they can say that everyone had a great season because they made the tournament. Just imagine how ridiculous it will be when you have a 2 page bracket to fill out next year.
I hope we disembowel UNC Thursday night...