The Dayton Flyers would just not go away – even when they made mistakes to give Syracuse another chance, they quickly took that chance away with a defensive stop.

I do find fantastic irony in this event.  Some of you might have noted some of the posturing by Coach K from Duke around it was silly that the Atlantic 10 was getting 6 teams into the tournament when a stronger conference like the ACC might only get 5.

The posturing might have even worked – as North Carolina State got a surprising 6th bid for the ACC (and they demonstrated that they belonged as they won their play-in game and almost upset St. Louis – the A-10 regular season champion in the second round).

Bur here is the bigger irony.  Dayton was the 6th team from the A-10.  And so after mighty Duke lost to Atlantic Sun champion Mercer, the 6th best team from the A-10 ended the tourney early for a second protected seed ACC team.  The funniest part to me about this is the Flyers are the only one left from the A-10.  That’s right, the only Atlantic 10 team that is still playing is the one Coach K said it was silly that they should be getting in.  And meanwhile, the only ACC teams left do not include Duke or Syracuse – it is just conference champion Virginia and the UNC Tar Heels left to carry the ACC banner.

I guess there is a reason they play the games.  Regardless, congratulations to the 6th best team from the Atlantic 10 – the Flyers have shown through their upsets of Ohio State and Syracuse that regardless of some opinions of one of the best minds in college basketball, they belonged in the Dance – and are the ones who will be hoping to continue to write their Cinderella story.

Meanwhile – I have to chuckle.  The whole day has spent watching defensive battle after defensive battle.   So far, 4 of the 5 games that have gone final have ended with the losing team not getting past 53 points (and Texas only got to 65).   And while I know Oregon likes to run up and down, it makes me chuckle that Wisconsin – a team known for slowing down the game to a crawl is winning 67-63 with a full 10 minutes left to play.   Of course, it would be the Badgers game that turns into a shootout.