At any rate, I am restarting the blogging experience, and I am going to try and change the name to Spack on Sports. I think the alliteration is much more enticing, and it can go along with my column title in the Flyer News. Also, this blog will be able to serve as a fulfillment of the assignments I will undoubtedly get in my New Topics in Journalism class this semester. Again, I hope to post every weekday with some on the weekends as well. At any rate, nobody really cares about this rambling, it is just to reintroduce myself. Now to the important stuff.
I find myself at a very special time in sports as I reenter the blogosphere: the heart of the college basketball seasons. Most teams in division 1 are wrapping up their nonconference schedules and getting into the truly important part of the season, conference play. While for teams in the major conferences the beginning of conference play means their strength of schedule will skyrocket, it means just the opposite for most mid-majors. The non-conference schedule represents most midmajors' chance to notch an impressive win for the tournament committee come March.
That brings me to my University of Dayton Flyers, who most people have probably heard of, especially after their tournament appearance and first-round win last year. I'll be honest: after the success from last season and losing basically nobody (some people liked Charles Little's play, I wasn't one of them), the tournament was an afterthought for me. All I was thinking was "They could get to the Sweet 16, or even the Elite Eight, they're that good!" Not so fast. As UD enters into A-10 play this weekend, the NCAA Tournament is all but a guarantee.
The point of UD's nonconference schedule was for them to get one or two big wins. Coming into the season, Dayton had five games that had potential to be considered big wins: Creighton, Georgia Tech, Villanova, at George Mason and at New Mexico. In those five games, Dayton went 3-2. The unfortunate thing is the two losses are to Villanova and New Mexico, the two most important games they have played. Of the three wins, none of them are certain to be big ones come of the end of the season. Creighton almost certainly will not. The Blue Jays are 6-8 and 1-2 in the MVC so far, so they will most likely not even make the postseason this year. Georgia Tech is still ranked 17th in the nation, but I'm not sold on them. The Jackets are young and 0-1 in the ACC right now. If they end up with a .500 or worse record in the ACC, you can scratch them off the big-win list. George Mason doesn't look great either. They are 8-6, but 3-0 in the CAA. If the Patriots manage to get hot and win the Colonial, it could look like a good win for the Flyers at the end of the season.
Put simply, Dayton is 11-3 (most likely 12 wins after the Ball State game tonight) and doesn't have a single good win or bad loss going into A-10 play. Joe Lunardi has them slated as an 11 seed--one of the last several teams to get in. I don't think they would get in if it was picked today.
This means that UD has to impress in the conference. With as well as the A-10 has been playing, that is no guarantee either. I would say to get a 10 seed or better in the tournament, UD needs to go at least 14-2 in the conference. They have to get through games at Saint Louis, at Duquesne, at Richmond and at Temple, not to mention two games against Xavier. Duquesne, Richmond and Temple have all gotten impressive wins in the nonconference. UD does not appear to be the clear favorite they were at the beginning of the season, and that makes me nervous.
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