“We’re down,” Cheeks said, “and I said, ‘I’m just going to play as hard as I can until the buzzer’s going off.’ I see people’s expressions. The bench was a little down. As we started fighting back up, the energy started rising. I didn’t really play too much of a part on the offensive side, but getting stops on the defensive side was giving us energy. We kept chopping down. My heart just keeps on racing. And I’m like, ‘We might be back in this game.’”
Forward Isaac Jack provided two baskets early in the second half but watched the comeback from the bench.
“It was surreal,” Jack said. “Everything was going in. Everyone was clicking. Everybody had that energy. It just felt like we were coming back.”
Dayton trailed 56-39 after a 3-pointer by Nevada’s Jarod Lucas with 7 minutes, 39 seconds to play on March 21 at the Delta Center in Salt Lake City.
“I remember him hitting that shot, and I think there was a timeout around that point,” Dayton forward Nate Santos said. “We were all sitting there, and I looked up at the score. Coach (Anthony) Grant was like, ‘Guys take it a possession at a time. Let’s just try to build something.’ That’s exactly what we did. We executed it to perfection. Once we cut it to 10, I was like, ‘Oh yeah, they messed up.’ Because there were so many games we had come back from behind. We made huge runs so I knew we were capable of it.”
Dayton forward Jaiun Simon watched the game from the stands behind the bench because he was injured. He heard the fans criticizing the team before the comeback.
“They were saying a lot of stuff,” Simon said. “I just tried to stay on my guys’ side.”
“We need a 3 and a stop,” Simon remembers thinking over and over.
“It just kept happening,” he said.
Dayton tied the game with a 17-0 run and won the game with a 4-0 run in the final minute. It was the fifth largest deficit overcome in NCAA tournament history. Dayton had a 1.5% chance of winning when it trailed by 17, according to KenPom.com.
How did the Flyers mount the comeback that led to their first NCAA tournament victory in nine years? Here’s a look back at many of the key moments in the game, through a review of the television broadcast. The full game is available on YouTube.
Credit: David Jablonski
FIRST HALF
Dayton 3, Nevada 0 (19:22): Koby Brea, a fourth-year Dayton guard nicknamed “Fuego,” caught a pass at the top of the 3-point circle with 10 seconds left on the shot clock. He was a couple steps behind the line but didn’t hesitate and rattled the shot in off the back of the rim.
“Brea, deep 3 on the way,” said Larry Hansgen, the voice of the Flyers, on the WHIO broadcast. “Fuego! That is a good sign!”
Brea made 5 of 8 3s in the game and scored 15 points in a team-high 38 minutes. He made 4 of 8 in the second round in a 78-68 loss to Arizona, finishing the season shooting just under 50% (100 of 201, 49.8%). No one else in the country shot better than 46.5%.
Brea’s NCAA tournament performance capped a comeback from offseason surgeries.
“Last year, I played with stress fractures in both my tibias,” Brea said a day before the game. “They put rods in both of my legs just to give some support. I was out for about five to six months. Got back on the court right before the season started. I’d be lying if I said I didn’t think this was possible. Honestly, this whole year, just kind of reminiscing about everything I had gone through, just to be in this position is a blessing.”
Credit: David Jablonski
Credit: David Jablonski
Dayton 5, Nevada 0 (19:06): Nevada’s Nick Davidson, pressured by Dayton guards Kobe Elvis and Cheeks, threw an errant pass while trying to in-bound the ball after the Brea 3. Brea intercepted the pass near halfcourt. Brea passed the ball to Elvis, who gives it back to Brea. The ball then went back to Elvis.
Dayton junior forward DaRon Holmes, who had gotten back on defense, sprinted toward the hoop and found himself unguarded. Elvis hit him with a pass in stride. Holmes took one dribble before throwing down a dunk.
“Kaboom!” Hansgen said.
Holmes led Dayton with 18 points on 5-of-8 shooting. He made 8 of 9 free throws. He averaged 20.4 points in his final season in college basketball, living up to the hype as Dayton’s highest-ranked recruit in this century and playing his way into the NBA Draft, where he was the No. 22 pick in June.
Dayton 7, Nevada 2 (17:08): Holmes sealed off his defender, K.J. Hymes. Cheeks threw him a perfect pass from the top of the 3-point arc. Holmes dunked for the second time.
Holmes dunked 71 times in the season and set a UD record with 242 dunks in his career.
“That’s excellent patience,” TBS analyst Brendon Haywood said. “Holmes sealed low, understood he didn’t have the angle. Quick ball reversal, and he reversed his position. Easy work inside.”
Dayton 11, Nevada 11 (14:58): Dayton’s five-point lead didn’t last long. After missing its first three shots, Nevada made five shots in a row, tying the game with a 9-2 run. Kenan Blackshear spun away from a double team and made a game-tying mid-range jumper from the baseline. He scored 15 points, joining Lucas (17) and Davidson (15) in double figures.
Dayton 17, Nevada 14 (10:37): Nevada took its first lead at the 12:36 mark on a free throw by Davidson. Dayton answered with back-to-back baskets by sophomore guard Javon Bennett and Holmes. The basket by Holmes, on a fadeaway jumper in the paint gave him eight points in the first nine minutes.
“I’d say for a large part of the game (Holmes) was the only one that was able to put the ball in the basket for us,” Brea said after the game. “We struggled a little bit.”
“We know what type of player we have in Deuce,” Santos said after the game. “We stick with him. We believe in him.”
Dayton 25, Nevada 18 (5:06): One possession after picking up his third foul, Dayton sophomore forward Isaac Jack got on the board, catching a pass in the paint with two defenders on him and fighting for position to score on a layup.
Jack, a backup to Holmes all season, had scored a total of six points in his previous six games but scored six in eight minutes in this game on 3-of-4 shooting.
Dayton led by seven points for the second time. The good feelings for the Flyer Faithful would fade fast in the final minutes of the first half.
Nevada 34, Dayton 25 (0:00): Blackshear made a mid-range jumper from the baseline in front of Elvis as time expired. The basket capped a 16-0 run by Nevada in the last 4:41.
In the last five minutes, Dayton missed all four of its shot attempts and committed three turnovers. In the same stretch, Nevada made all six of its shot attempts, including three 3-pointers.
Credit: David Jablonski
Credit: David Jablonski
SECOND HALF
Nevada 56, Dayton 39 (7:39): After Dayton’s last missed field-goal attempt of the game, an airball by Holmes on a short hook shot with 8:09 to play, Lucas made a step-back 3 in front of Holmes with the shot clock winding down. Lucas threw up his hands in celebration as he got back on defense.
“An impossible shot,” Haywood said. “Those are the types of shots that flat out take the life out of you.”
Dayton had life because it faced this type of death earlier in the season. In November at the Charleston Classic, it trailed LSU 60-45 with 9:07 left and won 70-67. Twelve days before playing Nevada, Dayton trailed Virginia Commonwealth by 17 in the first half and won 91-86 in overtime at UD Arena.
Now Dayton faced the same deficit — only the clock was not on its side.
After the shot by Lucas, there was no hint of a comeback. Nevada had held a double-digit lead for nearly 10 minutes. On social media, Dayton fans fretted about what looked to be a massive letdown after the first NCAA tournament game for the program since 2017.
Here’s a small sampling of the comments made after Nevada took its largest lead.
• “Dayton should seriously consider stepping down to D3 for a couple years.”
• “Shouldn’t have even got on the plane if this is the effort y’all were gonna give. Just defeated.”
• “Pitiful and embarrassing performance.”
Nevada 56, Dayton 40 (7:14): Holmes drew a foul on a shot attempt under the basket on the possession after the 3 by Lucas. A media timeout stopped play before he stepped to the line. Then the comeback began.
“In those moments, that’s when we get the closest,” Brea said after the game.
“There was never a doubt in our mind,” Holmes said.
“We’ve got to be the most resilient group of guys on the planet,” Cheeks said.
Holmes missed the first free throw but made the second to start a 17-0 run. It was his first point since he made 2 of 2 free throws 10 minutes earlier.
On the next possession, Nevada’s Tylan Pope, who made 2 of 10 3s on the season, missed a wide-open 3 from the corner.
“Probably not the shot they wanted,” Kessler said, “but they have the luxury of a 16-point lead.”
Nevada 56, Dayton 43 (6:27): Seconds after Brad Nessler, the play-by-play man on the TBS broadcast, said, “If Dayton’s going to make a push, it’s going to have to come pretty darn soon,” quick ball movement on the perimeter — Holmes to Cheeks to Elvis to Brea — led to an open 3 for Brea.
“Let’s go,” former Flyer Keith Waleskowski said on the WHIO broadcast. “Keep chipping away.”
Nevada 56, Dayton 45 (6:14): After the 3 by Brea, Dayton’s full-court press led to an errant in-bounds pass by Nevada. Cheeks won a race to the loose ball and passed the ball to Holmes, who pushed the pace up the court. Holmes passed to Brea behind the 3-point line. Brea then threw the ball back to Holmes, who backed down the defender and banked in a difficult hook shot in the paint.
After that basket, Pope made another mistake for Nevada, committing an offensive foul with a hard shove of Elvis while setting a pick. It was the third straight empty possession by the Wolfpack since they took the 17-point lead.
Nevada 56, Dayton 47 (5:13): Holmes made an aggressive move toward the basket after catching a pass in the paint, drawing a foul. He makes both free throws.
“Really, really poor offense the last seven minutes,” Nevada coach Steve Alford said after the game. “Very poor defense. When you do that on this stage, you’re probably not going to win very many games.”
Nevada 56, Dayton 50 (4:24): Brea pulled up for a 3-pointer from about 5 feet behind the line in front of the Dayton bench.
“You can feel that momentum turning,” Haywood said.
After the game, Brea said his teammates told him, “We don’t care if you shoot it contested. We need you to shoot the ball.”
“When I have that kind of confidence from my teammates,” Brea said, “that trust and belief, I feel like the only thing I can do is just pay it back to them.”
After the 3, Cheeks nearly got a steal, coming from behind to knock the ball away from Tre Coleman, but Lucas jumped on the loose ball and called a timeout.
Nevada’s troubles continued after the break. Blackshear lost possession as he tried to attack Holmes in the paint. The ball bounced out of bounds.
Nevada 56, Dayton 53 (3:40): Kessler alerted viewers that Nevada was 24-0 on the season when it led at halftime. Then Elvis dribbled into the paint and passed the ball to Santos in the corner. He made a high-arcing shot in front of the Dayton bench.
It was the first field goal of the game for Santos, Dayton’s second-leading scorer on the season with 11.7 points per game. He missed his first five shots.
“If there was ever a time for Santos to start getting hot ... ” Haywood said.
Credit: David Jablonski
Credit: David Jablonski
Nevada 56, Dayton 56 (2:45): Following a missed 3, an offensive rebound and another missed 3 by Nevada, Elvis pushed the pace in transition. He dribbled into the paint and passed to Brea behind the 3-point line. The pass was high. Brea caught it with one hand but still swished the shot.
“Fuego!” Hansgen and Waleskowski shouted at the same time.
“We’re tied at 56!” Hansgen yelled.
It was the third 3 by Dayton on three straight possessions in a two-minute stretch. The TBS camera focused on Makai Grant, the son of the Dayton head coach, holding up three fingers as he celebrated in the stands with two other UD walk-ons, Will Maxwell and Evan Dickey, and Simon.
Nevada 58, Dayton 56 (2:16): Lucas ended the 17-0 Dayton run with a fall-away jumper in front of Elvis.
“Man, that is a tough shot,” Haywood said.
On its previous six possessions, Nevada had committed three turnovers and missed four shots.
Dayton 59, Nevada 58 (2:01): On a pick-and-roll, two defenders stayed with Brea, leaving Holmes open. Holmes caught the ball in the paint and attempted to dunk against Nevada’s Daniel Foster.
Holmes didn’t make the dunk, but the ball hit the rim and then the backboard before falling through the net. It briefly stuck to the bottom of the net — something that happened on that basket throughout the game — before falling into Holmes’ hand. He drew a foul as well and made the free throw to give Dayton its first lead since the first half.
After the basket, the TV broadcast showed Dayton fan Tom Eggemeier, of Menlo Park, Calif., and his son Will, who’s now a freshman walk-on at Boston College, jumping up and down with their hands in the air and then playfully hitting each other in celebration. Will’s hoodie read, “Dayton Against the World.”
Dayton got another stop after the 3-point play by Holmes. At that point, it had scored on nine straight possessions and made six straight field-goal attempts and four straight free throws. A turnover by Elvis, who dribbled into the paint and tried to drop a pass behind his head to Holmes, ended that streak.
Nevada 60, Dayton 59 (1:13): Nevada responded with a jump shot by Blackshear against Cheeks. The Wolfpack took the lead for the final time.
Dayton 61, Nevada 60 (:34): Another example of quick ball movement on the perimeter — Holmes to Cheeks to Elvis — led to a layup by Santos. It was Dayton’s seventh straight made shot in the final eight minutes. Elvis made up for his turnover with a strong pass to Santos, who took one dribble before using his body to muscle the defender out of the way and create space for the shot.
“Santos going strong,” Kessler said. “He puts his shoulder right into the defender’s chest.”
Santos reacted with a fist pump before getting back on defense.
After a timeout, Nevada’s Davidson lost the ball in the paint as he dribbled at Holmes. Santos gathered the loose ball. Nevada, needing to stop the clock, fouled Santos as he dribbled the other way.
Dayton 63, Nevada 50 (:15): Santos made both free throws. Dayton called a timeout after the second free throw to get its defense ready.
On Nevada’s final possession, Elvis did a good job preventing Davidson’s top 3-point threat, Lucas, from getting the ball. Davidson attempted a 3 in front of Holmes with 6 seconds remaining. Holmes made contact with Davidson after the shot. Davidson fell to the ground. No foul was called.
Coleman grabbed the offensive rebound for Nevada and passed to Blackshear, who had made 5 of 27 3-pointers on the season. He threw up an airball at the buzzer.
Asked to explain what happened after the game, Blackshear said, “Just a meltdown really.”
The celebration began for Dayton.
“Dayton has won!” Hansgen said. “The Dayton Flyers come from 17 down with seven minutes to play, and they advance to the second round of the NCAA tournament.”
After the handshake line, Grant’s entire coaching staff embraced him for an extended hug. It was Grant’s first NCAA tournament victory since his first game in the tournament as a head coach at VCU in 2007.
“What a battle,” Grant said at the postgame press conference. “Just really proud of our guys. They never quit and showed tremendous resiliency. They’ve done that a few times this year when the chips weren’t in our favor. They found a way.
I’m extremely proud of the fight, the grit, the determination that our group showed tonight. That’s a good basketball team that we beat. They’ve had a great year. But our guys never gave up. I’m proud of the way they believed in each other and believed in what we’re doing.”
Credit: David Jablonski
About the Author
