Dayton wants to ‘put best foot forward’, but Nevada is a tough test

Although times have changed, the Dayton Flyers of 2024, like the Flyers of 1984, find themselves seeking fame in Salt Lake City. Forty years after their first NCAA tournament appearance in the city, the Flyers will put their season on the line out in the Beehive State. No. 7 seed Dayton (24-7) plays No. 10 seed Nevada (26-7) at 4:30 p.m. Thursday at the Delta Center.

“We’re in a field where everybody’s a really good team,” Dayton coach Anthony Grant said Sunday. “We felt like we were one of those teams. Obviously, we’ll play a very good opponent in Nevada. For us, it’s about making sure that we we’re ready to put our best foot forward.”

There are many similarities between the current Flyers and the 1984 group.

• Star power: Dayton’s leading scorer in 1984 was Roosevelt Chapman, who entered that tournament as the leading scorer in school history and has maintained that position ever since. Dayton’s top player this season is DaRon Holmes II, who will also go down as one of the program’s all-time greats. He was named an Associated Press second-team All-American on Tuesday.

• NCAA history: Dayton ended a 10-year drought by making the tournament in 1984. It was a seven-year gap between appearances this time.

• Familiar name: Grant was a freshman in the 1983-84 season. He’s now in his seventh season as head coach.

Dayton played LSU and Oklahoma in Salt Lake City in 1984. This time, it plays a program from the Mountain West Conference. Nevada also played in the 1984 NCAA tournament and would have played Dayton in the Sweet 16 if it had not lost to Washington in the first round.

Instead, Dayton and Nevada will play for the first time Thursday. Here are seven things to know about the matchup:

1. Talented opponent: Nevada ranks 36th in the Ken Pomeroy ratings. That makes it the second highest-ranked team Dayton has played behind No. 2 Houston, which beat Dayton 69-55 in the Charleston Classic championship game . Cincinnati, which Dayton beat 82-68, is No. 37 and the highest-ranked team Dayton beat in the regular season. Dayton is No. 32.

Nevada will make its 11th NCAA tournament appearance and its second in a row. It had a No. 11 seed last year and lost 98-73 to fellow No. 11 seed Arizona State in the First Four at UD Arena. Nevada lost in the first round to Florida in its previous NCAA appearance in 2019.

Nevada’s last NCAA tournament victories came in 2018. It beat Texas 87-83 in overtime in the first round and then rallied from a 22-point second-half deficit to beat Cincinnati 75-73 in the second round. Its run ended with a 69-68 loss to Loyola Chicago in the Sweet 16.

This year, Nevada got off to a 15-1 start with only a loss on a neutral court to eventual Missouri Valley Conference tournament champion Drake. Its best victory in that stretch came in a neutral-court game to another NCAA tournament team, Texas Christian, a No. 9 seed.

Nevada started 3-4 in conference play with road losses to Wyoming, but won 10 of its last 11 games to finish second in the Mountain West with a 13-5 mark. An 85-78 loss to Colorado State in the quarterfinals of the conference tournament followed.

Like Dayton, which lost 65-57 to Duquesne in the Atlantic 10 Conference quarterfinals, Nevada lost to a team that had played a day earlier.

“Obviously, we’ve been playing really good basketball,” coach Steve Alford said after the game. “Very proud of our guys. I didn’t think we had it. The first half we were a little out of character. I think it favors the team that gets to play first, but I thought the second half if we could hang in there, we might be able to do something.”

Credit: AP

Credit: AP

2. Players to watch: Jarod Lucas, a 6-foot-3, fifth-year guard, leads the team with 17.6 points per game. He played his first three seasons at Oregon State and the last two at Nevada. He’s the team’s top 3-point threat (77 of 194, 39.7%).

• Kenan Blackshear, a 6-6 fifth-year point guard, averages 15.1 points. He played his first two seasons at Florida Atlantic. He leads the team with 4.9 assists per game.

• Nick Davidson, a 6-8 redshirt sophomore forward, averages 12.1 points and leads the team with 5.4 rebounds per game.

3. Strengths and weaknesses: Nevada ranks seventh in the country in Division I experience (3.19 years per player), according to KenPom. Dayton ranks 73rd (2.41).

Nevada ranks 34th in the nation in 3-point shooting percentage (36.5). Dayton ranks third (40.2).

Neither team leans on its bench. Nevada ranks 288th in bench minutes (25.7%). Dayton ranks 345th out of 362 teams (21.5).

4. Injury news: Nevada’s Hunter McIntosh will be a game-time decision because of a knee injury, Alford told Jon Rothstein, of CBS Sports. McIntosh averages 5.9 points per game and did not play in the Mountain West Conference tournament.

5. Odds: Dayton has a 51% chance of winning the game, according to KenPom.com. The website predicts a 72-71 score.

6. Connections: Holmes is friends with two Nevada players: 6-10 forward K.J. Hymes, a graduate student who averages 5.8 points and 3.0 rebounds; and his younger brother Isaac Hymes, a 6-9 freshman guard/forward who has appeared in one game this season. Both are from Phoenix, Ariz. Holmes is from Goodyear, Ariz.

Holmes and his brothers attended a basketball camp run by Kwame Hymes, the father of the brothers.

7. Coaching matchup: This will be the fifth time Grant and Alford have coached against each other. Grant is 3-1 against Alford.

• The first matchup took place on Nov. 29, 2008. Grant, in his third and final season at Virginia Commonwealth, coached his team to a 67-55 victory against Alford, who was then in his second season at New Mexico. The game took place in Cancun, Mexico.

• On March 21, 2011, the coaches met again in the second round of the NIT. Grant coached Alabama to a 74-67 victory against New Mexico in Tuscaloosa, Ala.

• On Dec. 28, 2013, with Alford now at UCLA, he coached the Bruins to a 75-67 victory against Grant and Alabama at Pauley Pavilion in Los Angeles.

• UCLA and Alabama met again the following season on Dec. 28, 2014, in Tuscaloosa, and Grant’s team won 56-50.

THURSDAY’S GAME

Dayton vs. Nevada, 4:30 p.m., TBS, 95.7, 1290