Dayton plays a First Four game -- yes, a real NCAA tournament game -- on its home floor Wednesday night vs. Boise State.
"At first I thought it was a typo," Boise State coach Leon Rice said.
Rice was joking. At least partly.
The winner goes to Columbus as the No. 11 seed in the East region to play Providence Friday night. First, though, comes the First Four finale -- in front of a sold-out, pro-Dayton crowd.
"We know we're playing a really, really good team," Rice said. "And so I think it was just nothing beyond that. It was like, 'Great, we're in the NCAA Tournament (and) we get to go play Dayton, and it just happens to be in Dayton.' So I don't think we made an issue out of it. I think the media has made a big issue out of it, but college basketball players want to play basketball and we get an opportunity to play basketball here."
Dayton is 16-0 on its home floor this season and has won 21 straight at home, the seventh-longest home streak in the country. The Flyers got to the Elite Eight last year and are 25-8 this year despite being down to six scholarship players and having no player on the roster over 6'6.
Boise State is also 25-8 and has won 15 of its last 17.
"It's been a year of milestones, a year of firsts," Rice said. "We (went) to New Mexico where we've never won before and won there. We went to Utah State where Boise State had never ever won before, 0-18 I believe, and we were able to pull one off there. We went to UNLV on (Jerry Tarkanian) night, when they had 15,000 fans and lot of emotion, and our guys overcame that and got the win there. And then topped it off with San Diego State, where they had won 29 straight.
"I think that really helped our guys understand that this is another one of these kind of environments, another one of these great opportunities."
Boise State played in the First Four two years ago, losing to LaSalle. The Broncos have never won an NCAA tournament game.
To change that Wednesday, they'll need to slow Dayton senior and leading scorer Jordan Sibert, an Ohio State transfer. In addition to Sibert's 17.1 points per game, Kendall Pollard (14.0 ppg) and Dyshawn Pierre (13.3 ppg) score in double figures for the Flyers.
At home this season Dayton shot .495 from the field and averaged 73.2 points per game, more than three percentage points and five full points above its season average.
Senior guard Derrick Marks leads Boise State at 19.3 points per game. 6'8 sophomore James Webb III is the only other regular in double figures at 11.3 and leads the Broncos at 7.9 rebounds per game.
