By Paul Gotham
BUFFALO, NY – Devin Oliver rode an emotional roller coaster from last Friday afternoon to Sunday evening.
The senior forward had the chance to help the Dayton Flyers advance to the Atlantic 10 semi-finals.
Instead trailing by two with four seconds remaining his 3-point attempt from the top of the arc found iron, caromed wide, and the Flyers fell to St. Joseph’s 70-67.
With it possibly went Dayton (23-10/10-6) and Oliver’s chance at a spot in the NCAA Tournament.
But the NCAA Tournament Committee looked favorably upon UD’s body of work, and the Flyers received a second chance. No one knows the value of this opportunity more than Oliver.
“More than anything it’s been a sigh of relief,” Oliver said Wednesday during media day at the First Niagara Center. “If we hadn’t gotten in, I kinda would have felt like that was on my shoulders. I know it’s a total team effort, but that shot felt like it should have dropped.”
Dayton earned an 11-seed in the South Region.
“To hear our name be called I completely stopped thinking about it,” Oliver continued. “We just got to look forward to tomorrow.”
The Flyers will square off against the No. 6-seed Ohio State Buckeyes.
“We felt like we could make it a little bit further than the Atlantic 10 tournament,” Oliver continued. “We just want to come out and do what we’ve always done, play our game and just advance. That’s the ultimate goal.”
The game pits a pair of teams from the same state, but with differing public perceptions: Dayton the school from outside the power conferences who hasn’t been to the Final Four since 1967, and Ohio State from the Big Ten who reached the national final in 2007 and semi-final in 2012.
“We can’t really get too much into Ohio State-Dayton, big brother-little brother and all that stuff. We’re two teams, two groups of competitors. We’re trying to advance.”
Dayton hits 46.6 percent from the floor including 37.8 from behind the arc (top 50 in the nation).
“We haven’t watched an extensive amount of film just yet, but Ohio State is known for their defense, getting on to shooters, running them off the line, and then the next player stepping up and helping,” Oliver explained. “So I think it’s just important for us to take good shots. If you can drive the ball and kick it to get an even better shot, then that will only help out our team.”
A 12:15 tip time is scheduled Thursday.
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