Dayton Flyers Out-Dance Syracuse Orangemen

(AP Photo/Bill Wippert)

#11 Seed Dayton Flyers are going to the sweet sixteen after handling the #3 Syracuse Orangemen.  Syracuse did good to keep it close and be in it at the end.  The Flyers, going to their first sweet sixteen since 1984, played as if they were the better team trying not to get over confident and blow the lead.  They almost did as Syracuse missed the last 3pt. shot that would've won them the game. 

Just so happens I saw a Flyers fan today sporting a Dayton Hoodie. The guy was so excited standing in the doorway of a bar, getting his breath from watching the game.  He'd told me that Dayton was leading Syracuse by something like 13 points and I couldn't believe it.  Little did I know that the game had just started and the Flyers had jumped all over the Orangemen before letting them back in it by the half-time.  I know as I write this post, that Dayton Hooded fan is acting a drunken fool, as surely as Orville and Wilbur Wright were drunk with the flying bug.

You do know that the Wright Brothers are from Dayton, Ohio and were famous for inventing the first flying machine?  Well if you didn't know, now you know.  And you owe it all to a dancing Dayton Flyers basketball squad that's taken flight and making their dreams a reality.  Seems Dayton has a history of folks achieving their dreams; just check out the upward achievements of the Wright Brothers who went from selling and renting the newly crazed bicycles in 1892 to inventing and flying the first motorized airplane in 1903.

Mascot Rudy Flyer

Final Score
Dayton 55
Syracuse 53


University of Dayton - We lead and we serve because we believe that the more people we help to develop compassionate hearts and critical minds, the better our world will be.