THE Dayton Flyers keep on rolling into the Sweet Sixteen after upsetting another Brand Name program with a 55-53 win over Syracuse in Buffalo. Bill Raftery was jazzed.
(You're going to want to listen to that.)
Raft's artistry aside, it was an ugly game—55-53, you know?—but Dayton held on with some timely shooting as Syracuse struggled to match. Syracuse shot 39 percent and Dayton bested them by only two percentage points. One of the biggest shots for the Flyers came from Jordan Sibert, who hit a huge three-pointer with 48 seconds left to put Dayton up 52-46.
Syracuse, however, did not hit any threes, shooting 0-10 from beyond the arc. The 10th came freshman Tyler Ennis who, having played all 40 minutes of the game, pulled up at the buzzer for the hopeful game-winner and caught only iron. As you might guess, the shot chart is not pretty.
Ugly.
Syracuse has now lost 6 games in the NCAA Tournament to teams seeded 11 or lower, which is a tournament record they now with Oklahoma and UCLA.