The four of us went to a sold-out UD Arena last night to watch the Flyers stick it to the 6th ranked Pittsburgh Panthers, 80-55. In all of my years of attending UD basketball games, this was by far the most resounding victory I’ve seen against a top-ranked team. The fact that Dayton beat Pittsburgh by 25 points, and outplayed them in every facet of the game, exceeded my expectations.
I must admit that I really enjoy opening my browser to the sports headlines and seeing Dayton mentioned in the first line item:
Thanks to my good buddy, Steve Weiss, we had fantastic seats in the second row at center court. I captured a few candid photos with my Treo cell phone.
As usual at a Flyers basketball game, Barry was acting as the head cheerleader, doing everything possible to encourage his hometown team to victory. Pittsburgh appears to be a “streetball team” and the referees made numerous traveling calls on their key players during the early portions of the game. This obviously took them out of their comfort zone.
Len and I both agreed that the omen for a Flyers victory occurred early in the first half when we saw 6′-10″ Kurt Huelsman dunk the basketball against an opponent for the first time this season. We also knew the game was going Dayton’s way when Charles Little, who ordinarily is a 40% free throw shooter, went 4 for 4 from the charity stripe.
Since Barry and Leonard were savoring the victory, we actually stayed until the final buzzer… Great game Flyers!
