Dayton Does a Happy Dance at Home

Has an 11-seed ever had it so good?

When LSU, George Mason, and Virginia Commonwealth got to their respective Final Fours, they were road warriors in every sense of the term.

Dayton's odds of getting that far are 300:1, but gotta love their head start.

The Flyers and 99% of their fan contingent at the First Four will sleep in their own beds after tonight's game ... in Dayton:

And that percentage won't dip much for their next task: a first-round game against 6-seed Providence ... in Columbus.

Still, amidst the circumstances, Boise State did this one to itself.

The burning memory may be of this non-call on the game's final shot:

The reality is the Broncos shouldn't have had to shoot from there in the first place, much less hope for an official to blow the whistle on a play that's an offensive foul, anyway, even though it's stupidly called the other way virtually all of the time. So much for the so-called principle of verticality.

Boise State folded in crunch time because, even though its offensed flourished all game with back-cuts and crisp passing, it got dribble-happy. The Other Miller Brother in the Dance correctly anticipated that -- face it, point-guard ball bouncing is a silly staple of final-minute hoops -- and doubled the ball. So, as with seven of the Broncos' last eight possessions, he missed. Trying to put the game in the referees' hands only compounded the mistake.