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The good news is that Boise State is in the NCAA Tournament, but the bad news is that the Bronco’s will be playing the Dayton Flyers in the first round, but on the Flyers home court.
This play in game will decide who will face off against Providence in the East Region on Friday. This game is causing quite a stir around the college basketball world. Dayton has held the "first round" of the tournament for the past couple of years and was surprised when looking at the bracket to see Boise State playing a road game. Dayton is 16-0 at home this year so this is a sizable advantage for the Flyers.
The committee had to of seen this coming and could have made changes to seeding to avoid this. Kentucky would never be placed in the same region where the Elite Eight is held in Lexington. So how is this fair to any other team? With Dayton being so close to be in the tournament, why not just swap them out for another 11 seed to balance things out.
Boise comes into this game with a 25-8 record and finished conference play with a record of 14-4. They witnessed their seven game win streak snapped in overtime to Wyoming in overtime, who happens to be the twelve seed in the same region.
Boise is actually looking for their first ever NCAA Tournament win as they are 0-6 with their last tournament appearance coming in 2013 which they lost, and also was in the First Four round.
Dayton is coming into the game after losing the Atlantic-10 Championship to VCU in Brooklyn. Dayton has been to the tournament 15 times and made it to one final four. The Flyers made some noise last year beating Ohio State, Syracuse, and Stanford before falling to top seeded Florida in the Elite Eight.
In addition to having home court advantage they are a sound tournament team.
WHERE TO WATCH: TruTV at 9:10 PM EST
PLAYERS TO WATCH:
Boise State: Nick Duncan. Nick, if you can score in double digits and hit half of your three’s, you give this team a chance.
Dayton: Jordan Sibert. Score in double digits and stay out of foul trouble and you could be playing the Friars.
PREDICTION: This is actually a very hard one to pick. Dayton will win 68-60 because of their stingy defense (only allowing 60.8 a game) and home court advantage which is weird to say in a tournament game.