The story of the Dayton Flyers is a story that deserves to be told. A program that has been swimming upstream throughout the past three decades since an Elite Eight run in 1984 has shown that it is made of sterner stuff in 2014. Dayton’s story will be unspooled for 48 more hours, since Archie Miller’s team will play in the round of 32 following a dismissal of sixth-seeded Ohio State in the first game of the round of 64.
While the focus of the college basketball community migrates to the Atlantic 10 portion of Ohio, and away from that state’s Big Ten team, it’s worth underscoring an unoriginal yet central point about this thing we call March Madness: The organism that never lives more fully than it does today (in the round of 64) is so endlessly captivating because of its volatility.
Why must this familiar statement be emphasized once again? The statement seems so obvious, and its truth is so nakedly apparent on one level. What’s worth unpacking is that this notion of “volatility” goes beyond the busted brackets and the triumphs of the lower seeds. “Volatility” touches on something much deeper about college basketball in this one-and-one format, a postseason structure that runs counter to the best-of-seven series you see in the NBA playoffs.
What did Dayton-Ohio State teach us? A snarky answer would be that jump shooting is difficult. Neither team could find any rhythm in that specific facet of James Naismith’s game.
Seriously — what did this game teach us?
The obvious answers: First, Dayton is persistent, more so than in past seasons. This is a tribute to the Flyers themselves, but also Archie Miller, a coach who — like his brother at Arizona, Sean Miller — seems headed for coaching stardom.
Another evident answer: Aaron Craft remained the same player he was in 2013, and he might have even regressed to a slight extent this season. His defense was still quite good. His hustle never waned, a testament to his well-above-average intangible qualities. Great competitors continue to pour out their whole selves even when shots aren’t falling and adversity covers the landscape. This is why Craft deserves to be commended at the end of a legitimately great career.
However, for all of his positive attributes as a player, Craft never polished his jump shot this season. He didn’t become a markedly better late-game foul shooter. He turned the ball over too many times, one instance being the end of OSU’s Big Ten Tournament semifinal against Michigan. In this game, Craft did keep his team in the hunt until the end with a couple of tough clutch layups, but the turnovers he surrendered during the course of the proceedings (five of them), combined with a baffling intentional foul, cancelled out the good work he did.
Long story short, Ohio State needed a better Aaron Craft in 2014, but it merely received the same one it had last season.
Yet, only now do we arrive at the biggest lesson Dayton-Ohio State taught us as college basketball fans and observers: Games often acquire so many different personalties, tones and textures.
In the first several minutes of this contest, neither side could defend very well. Later in the first half, the Flyers and Buckeyes did what most pundits expected them to do: labor on offense while digging in on defense. Both teams struggled at times with the turnover bug in the second half before trading scores in the final few minutes of regulation.
In one sense, you never saw the same Dayton or (especially) Ohio State team for more than a few minutes at a time on Thursday afternoon in Buffalo. Bad Ohio State showed up for awhile. Surprisingly Good Ohio State (making shots) made an appearance. Tough But Limited Ohio State (the normal version of this team in 2014) played a chunk of this game.
Dayton’s performance could be segmented into Jump Shooting Dayton (which missed lots of open looks), Get To The Rim Dayton (which won the game for the Flyers) and Turnover Dayton (which almost lost the game midway through the second half). With both teams trading personalities, it was hard to keep up with all the transformations you saw on the floor. The end result, though, was a dead-even game in which neither side could attain any separation.
Remember this as you continue to watch the NCAA tournament — it’s something that applies to the Big Dance every year: “Volatility” is not just the 11 seed beating a 6 seed. It’s manifested in the ways individual games evolve and change. A defensive battle at the under-16 media timeout is a shootout by the time the under-12 media timeout arrives.
“Volatility” is also a reflection of how teams change from the conference tournaments to the big tournament. Dayton lost to (tenth-seeded) Saint Joseph’s in the Atlantic 10 Tournament, while Ohio State nearly beat (second-seeded) Michigan in the Big Ten Tournament. Those results would suggest a comfortable Buckeye victory, but of course, such linear associative thinking just doesn’t hold up very often in March.
This is the tournament we know and love. This is the frailty of competition which makes for so many memorable moments.
Enjoy the rest of the Dance.
