The Boise State Broncos and Dayton Flyers will square off in Dayton, Ohio, on Wednesday night in the final play-in game before the first round of the 2015 NCAA Tournament begins on Thursday.
In perhaps the mostly highly anticipated play-in game, Dayton will have the luxury of facing Boise State on their home court, where they are 16-0 this season. However, this matchup provides different circumstances given the fact that it's the NCAA Tournament and because Boise State has had a knack for winning big road games this year against San Diego State, New Mexico, UNLV and Utah State.
The Flyers (25-8) finished second in the Atlantic 10 both in the regular season and conference tournament, while the Broncos (25-8) finished second in the Mountain West Conference regular season standings, but were ousted in the tournament semifinals against the Wyoming Cowboys, who eventually won and earned themselves an NCAA bid.
Both teams are hungry after suffering tough losses in their conference tournaments and then having been subjected to the committee's decision for their bid to the big dance. Let's take a look at each teams' notable statistics heading into tonight.
Dayton | Boise State |
RPI - .5885 (32nd overall) | RPI - .5762 (44th overall) |
SOS - 113 | SOS - 130 |
PPG - 68.2 (153rd overall) | PPG - 70.8 (86th overall) |
FG% - .463 (52nd overall) | FG% - .458 (72nd overall) |
Points Allowed Per Game - 60.9 (44th overall) | Points Allowed Per Game - 60.3 (35th overall) |
Turnovers Per Game - 11.5 (70th overall) | Turnovers Per Game - 10.3 (15th overall) |
Season Rank - 32 | Season Rank - 40 |
The last time a team played a game on their home court during the NCAA Tournament was back in 1987 when both Syracuse and Arizona did, according to STATS. Dayton had a game on their home court during the 1985 NCAA Tournament, but lost to the eventual champion Villanova Wildcats.
"When we're playing a home game, we have about as good of a home-court advantage as anyone does in college basketball," Dayton coach Archie Miller said, via The Associated Press. "But I'll also tell you that anyone who is billing this as a home game or a walk-through, I just think they're really underappreciating how good Boise State is."
"If we were playing a regular-season game at home versus Boise State, you'd be sick to your stomach because you know what you're in for."
Check out the live stream for tonight's game here as well as the radio broadcast here.
