Sullivan had already been to Davidson, three hours north, earlier in the day to watch the Dayton volleyball team win an Atlantic 10 Conference tournament semifinal match. The UD volleyball team plays again at noon today at Davidson in the championship game.
Meanwhile, the Dayton men’s basketball team prepares for a game against No. 6 Houston at 8:30 p.m. tonight in the Charleston Classic final. Anyone who has an early flight home on Monday, like me, won’t get much sleep tonight after this one.
Here are a few things to know about the matchup:
* Dayton has a 15% chance of winning this game, according to KenPom.com.
* Dayton is a 12½-point underdog.
* Dayton coach Anthony Grant is 2-0 against Houston with victories in 2007 and 2008 when he was at VCU and Tom Penders was the coach at Houston.
* This is the first game between Grant and Houston coach Kelvin Sampson.
* This is Sampson’s first game against Dayton. He has coached at Washington State, Oklahoma, Indiana and now Houston.
I ran into Dayton people all day Saturday. First I walked about a mile and a half to visit my cousin Ben Williams, who’s a photographer in Charleston. His parents and my parents both had their wedding receptions at UD Arena.
My day also consisted of a long walk around Charleston, down to the Battery on the south side of the city, where I saw every type of boat sailing by and a few dolphins close to shore. I’ve probably walked seven to eight miles since Thursday.
While watching the Ohio State football game later in the afternoon, I talked to Mike Waggoner, of the Dayton Agonis Club, where I spoke once a few years back. He and all the Flyer fans would have had a great time no matter what happened at TD Arena, but the victories over LSU and St. John’s put everyone in a great mood. It was a much different vibe a year ago when the Flyers finished 0-3 at the Battle 4 Atlantis.
This is one of the best fan turnouts by Dayton at a November tournament I’ve seen. Some of that may have to do with the fact that unlike the Maui Invitational, the Battle 4 Atlantis and other events, the Charleston Classic doesn’t take place over Thanksgiving. Sullivan and I talked about how we’re rarely home for that holiday because of these events, but we’ll be home this year.
A victory tonight by Dayton would likely earn it a spot in the top 25. I have a vote, and it would be a pretty easy choice to rank the Flyers on Monday morning. At the same, I might also have to rank Northwestern, which beat Dayton. Head-to-head results are important. Northwestern used a 22-2 run to open the game to beat another A-10 team, Rhode Island, on Saturday.
In other news, my book “The Epicenter of College Basketball: A History of UD Arena” is now on sale at UDArenaBook.com. Help me clean out my garage at home, which is full of boxes of books, and buy one or two or three.
Credit: David Jablonski
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