The Nevada Men’s Basketball team will face the Dayton Flyers at the Delta Center in Salt Lake City, Utah, on Thursday, March 21 at 1:30 p.m. A victory would produce a matchup vs #2 Arizona or #15 Long Beach State on Saturday, March 23, time TBA.
The game can be seen on TBS. Brad Nessler, Brendan Haywood and Dana Jacobson have the call. https://www.tbs.com/watchtbs
The game can also be heard on radio at KNEV 95.5 FM with John Ramey and former Wolf Pack coach Len Stevens on the call.
“it’s time to go, time to get ready,
but it’s gonna be fun.”Nevada’s KJ Hymes
Nevada (26-7) is the #10 seed, a significant drop from most projections, and faces the #7 seeded Dayton Flyers (24-7) from the Atlantic-10 conference in the first round.
The Wolf Pack and Flyers have never met, although they were scheduled to play in 2020 in a game that was canceled due to the COVID-19 pandemic.
On paper, this is an even matchup.
The Flyers have elite talent in junior forward DaRon Holmes II. The 6’-10” 220 lb. forward was just named an AP second-team All-American, averaging 20.4 points per game, 8.4 rebounds, 2.6 assists and 2.1 blocks per game. Holmes is also shooting a phenomenal 54.5% from the field, including 38.5% from beyond the arc. To top it off, the likely NBA pick was also named the Atlantic 10’s Defensive Player of the Year.
Holmes is also good friends with the Pack’s K.J. Hymes, having played high school and prep basketball against one another in the Phoenix area.
“I’ve known DaRon for a long time,” Hymes said with a wide smile. “He’s an All-American and you don’t have to say much after that. Since that name popped up on the board, you know, Dayton, it’s been like it’s time to go, time to get ready, but it’s gonna be fun.”
But the Flyers don’t rely on just their All-American. Nate Santos is Holmes’ partner at forward, chipping in 12 points per game and 6.4 rebounds, and can shoot it averaging 42.7% from deep. The Flyers are third in the nation in three-point shooting percentage overall at 40.2%, so it’s a potent inside and outside challenge to stop.
Hymes and Nevada’s Nick Davidson will be the primary duo called upon to try to slow down Holmes. Still, it’s likely after his strongest performance of the season in the loss to Colorado State in the Mountain West tournament that Tylan Pope will also draw some of the assignment.
Pope looked ready to play on Wednesday when the team met with the media.
“I just plan on going in with a lot of physicality,” he said. “I know I can guard him. I know what it takes.”
However, Nevada earned its spot in this year’s field of 64 because it also brings some problems for the Flyers to deal with.
The Pack has premier defenders in Tre’ Coleman and Daniel Foster, who will do all they can to chop into those sky-high shooting percentages.
Dayton isn’t a particularly good defensive team, ranking 87th in KenPom defense, the fourth worst of any team in the tournament. Nevada, conversely, ranks 36th.
Dayton also ranks 171st in the nation in terms of defensive rebounding, so crashing the offensive glass for second-chance opportunities should be a focus for the Wolf Pack.
The Flyers are also not a ball-hounding threat, and Nevada protects the ball well, averaging just 10 turnovers per game, and distributes the ball well with an assist/turnover ratio of 1.51—good for 30th in the country.
The Pack will have to commit to defending out to the arc and try to contain Holmes. The payoff could be a team that lacks enough resistance on the defensive end if Nevada patiently moves the ball on offense for high-efficiency opportunities against a suspect defense.
While the Flyers on paper are impressive, defense wins championships. It’s only a first game, of course, but I think Kenan Blackshear will be a nightmare matchup for Dayton’s smaller guards, who are all under 6’-3” and not at the skill level of San Diego State University’s Lamont Butler.
Jarod Lucas is one of the best pure shooters in the Mountain West and the entire country. He should also benefit significantly from the lack of size guarding him and the difficulty Dayton will have trying to double him and deal with Blackshear.
PICK: Nevada 82-77
Notes:
- The Mountain West was universally regarded as disrespected by the NCAA tournament committee based on their tournament seedings. Nearly all projections were that the division would be single-digit seeds.
- Instead, Colorado State and Boise State found themselves as #10 seeds in the play-in round 68 (which I don’t even count as being in the tournament yet).
- League champion Utah State got in as a #8, SDSU was rewarded as they should have been based on their recent tournament history with a #5 seed, while Mountain West tournament champion New Mexico received a #11 seed, and as it turned out that despite most, me included, assumed after their conference tournament quarterfinal victory that they were in, it turns out that without the tournament crown, they’d have been left out entirely.
- Gonzaga head man Mark Few, when asked about Boise State being in a play-in game, said, “That’s one of the worst screw jobs I’ve ever seen.”
- So, in an interesting twist of fate, the teams that battled so fiercely all season are all fiercely rooting for one another to send a message to the committee.
- Colorado State did their part on Tuesday night, pummeling Virginia 67-42 to earn a date with #7 Texas on Thursday.
