I sat at my computer Tuesday night listening to the Maryland-Dayton game as the clock ticked down. When Keith Waleskowski sank two free throws I knew the game was over and we had beaten our second Top-12 team in three days. The funny thing was, I had only a smile on my face. I wasn’t jumping up and down like I did last year at the Kentucky game or when we beat DePaul a number of years ago to get into the NCAAs. I wasn’t even as excited as when we beat Xavier in 1990 to win the MCC crown. It seemed like a big win, but not huge as the others had. Was it just because of the fact that it is so early in the season and that it really doesn’t guarantee us anything?What really struck me was when the phone rang 30 seconds after that final buzzer and Paul, a friend of mine, proclaimed that this was the biggest win in Flyer history. He was on his way out the door to go down a few with other Flyer fans and enjoy the moment. It started me thinking about the relative importance of a single win. Will this game make a difference in the long run, or was it just a good excuse for Paul to kill a few brain cells?

Amazingly enough, we have been fairly successful against Top-10 teams (25% winning percentage) and very successful against teams rated between 11 and 20 (44% winning percentage). This is even more interesting due to the fact that we were rarely rated in the Top-25 when we played these teams. We have had 56 wins against Top-20 teams over the years. Could any of these have been more important than the one against Maryland?

On March 1, 1953, Seton Hall came to the UD Fieldhouse with the #1 ranking to play the Flyers in what was for them a down year. This was during the golden years of the Dayton program but the 1952-1953 Flyers were destined to finish the season 16-13 with no post-season bid. The three previous seasons found the Flyers winning 79 games and the following three gave us 75 wins. Winning was not unusual, yet this 71-65 win has had the old timers talking for as long as I can remember. The fact that the following three years were extremely successful might lead one to believe that this victory was a springboard for future success, yet that probably isn’t true.The big reason that the Flyers improved to 25 wins the following year was the addition of 7’0″ Bill Uhl. Uhl was already enrolled at UD when the big win occurred so conquering #1 did nothing to change the team significantly. Quite possibly the greatest team ever at UD was the 1955-1956 Flyers led by Jim Paxson, Sr. and Uhl. That team, which was ranked #2 for most of the season, went 25-4 — losing three times to Louisville including the semifinals of the NIT. This was also the team that defeated Adoph Rupp and Kentucky in the UKIT. One could argue that the UK victory was one of the greatest wins in the history of the school, but two of the next three years found the Flyers short of the twenty win plateau.

The 1950’s were without a doubt the high point of basketball at the University of Dayton, but you would be hard-pressed to prove that the win over Seton Hall was the reason. Uhl, Paxson, and Don Meineke were the reasons that we won all of those games and they all came before that March day.Tom Blackburn’s dream was to win the National Invitation Tournament. For years Dayton had spurned the NCAA Tournament to play in New York and the NIT. In the early 1950’s, there was greater prestige in winning the NIT, but that had begun to fade when the Flyers accepted their 10th invitation in the spring of 1962. Five times Dayton had won their way to the Finals and five times they returned to Dayton disappointed. This was not the best of Dayton teams, but as they entered the tournament they were on a seven-game winning streak and the winning continued.On March 24, 1962, the Flyers found themselves in the Finals once again against a familiar foe, the hometown St. John’s Redmen. Neither team was ranked, but that did not diminish the excitement for Blackburn and the rest of the Flyers. It was yet another opportunity to get the monkey off their collective backs. Little did anyone know at the time, but this would be Blackburn’s last trip to New York for the NIT.Dayton won the seesaw battle behind the Hatton brothers, Gordy and Tom, Gary Roggenburk, and Bill Chmielewski. The picture appeared rosy for UD as tourney MVP Chmielewski was only a sophomore and the sky was the limit. The next several months proved differently and Chmielewski found out that he was to become a father and dropped out of school to support the family. One has to wonder what would have happened if he had stayed and teamed with Hank Finkel in 1964-1965. But the fact of the matter is that the Flyers stumbled the next two years on their way to a collective 31 wins. The victory might have helped getting Finkel to the Midwest from his home in New Jersey, but the true resurgence in UD basketball had to wait until Dan May joined Finkel in 1965.

If there were ever a game that could have moved Dayton into the big time it would have been the National Semifinal game against North Carolina on March 24, 1967. Dayton made the tournament on the heels of four double-digit scoring juniors in May, Bobby Joe Hooper, Rudy Waterman, and Glinder Torain. The unranked Flyers defeated #6 Western Kentucky in overtime, #8 Tennessee by one point, and the unranked Virginia Tech Hokies in overtime to make it to the Final Four. Unfortunately for Dayton, the Final Four was not the major media event that it has become and the resulting publicity just never materialized.

May and his fellow Flyers took on #4 North Carolina and the future Hall of Fame coach Dean Smith with little fanfare. May hit his first 13 shots that day as UD trounced NC by 14. There wasn’t a great deal of time to celebrate as the next day UD went up against Lew Alcindor and the UCLA Bruins for the national championship. With the title on the line and a national TV audience tuned in, the worst scenario occurred and the Flyers were out of the game within five minutes.The following year brought more misfortune and the preseason #6 Flyers lost two of their first three games and were 7-9 after a loss to Louisville on March 23. They regrouped however and won the next 14 games to bring a watered -own NIT Championship back to Dayton.

The next three years brought first round exits from the NCAA and NIT followed by two 13-13 seasons. The win against North Carolina brought us headlines for one day, but again didn’t seem to have a lasting effect.It wasn’t until the 1973-1974 season that the opportunity for an important game became available. As #2 Notre Dame came to the UD Arena on March 4, 1974, the Flyers had to be wondering what they would have to do to get themselves into the NCAA Tournament. They were 18-7, unranked and in desperate need of a win. The evening turned into one of the most joyous ever in the Arena and the “Sit down, Digger” chorus rose to new heights. When Johnny Davis, Mike Sylvester, and Donald Smith walked off the floor that night, they were 97-82 victors.The victory shot us into the tournament and a second round match-up against #2 defending National Champion, UCLA. In a game that many of the Flyer Faithful list as their all-time favorite, Dayton lasted three overtimes before finally falling 111-100. If one more Sylvester or Smith shot had found net instead of iron that night, the last 25 years of Flyer basketball might have been different. Instead, the following three years found the Flyers to be no more than a .500 team at 40-40. Once again, a big victory seemingly doomed the team to mediocrity.

In February 18, 1984, Ed Young became a hero. Never before and never again would he reach the heights that he reached that day. In a game that many at home turned off and many in the stands left, the Flyers made an unbelievable comeback in the last minute to upend #3 DePaul on a bank shot from the sophomore Young as time expired. How could anyone forget Don Donoher as he left the Arena that day, high-fiving his son in the stands as he ran to the locker room? Few remember that DePaul took us apart four days later 79-59. Everyone remembers the last -econd win and the fact that it probably ensured us of an invitation to the NCAA Tournament with five games yet to play.

That victory got us to a second round game against highflying #7 Oklahoma and Wayman Tisdale. Roosevelt Chapman had the game of his life that day in leading the Flyers to the upset 89-85. UD was not derailed until they ran into eventual National Champion Georgetown as one of the Elite Eight teams. The following year also found UD in the national spotlight, but once again they lost to eventual champion Villanova in the first round of the tournament. The following years were bleak as Don Donoher evidentially lost too many games for the UD Administration’s liking and was eventually fired in 1989.

Jim O’Brien was hired later that year with the belief that he could lead us to new heights. After 20 games that year, it seemed to be more of the same and UD found itself 11-9 in a mediocre conference and going nowhere. Negele Knight they took it upon himself to almost single-handedly bring about a change in the history of UD basketball. UD won their next nine games and needed one more win on March 10, 1990, against Xavier at the Arena to win the MCC Championship.

In one of the most exciting games that the Arena has seen, UD triumphed 98-89. Six days later, we met Illinois in the first round of the NCAAs. Forty minutes of heart pounding action later, round two was waiting in the form of #7 Arkansas. The victory was not without is causalities as super sixth man Norm Grevey was clothes-lined under the basket and as a result unavailable for the Arkansas match-up. Had he been available, UD might not have suffered the last-second loss to the eventual Final Four Razorbacks. The next several years were the bleakest in the program’s long history as O’Brien lost his job and the team lost its conference.The years that followed brought a few high spots but many more low ones. It wasn’t until the evening of November 29, 1999, that the fans had a great deal to cheer about. Two years prior, the Ryan Perryman-led Flyers had made it to the NIT, but everything went downhill quickly after that including eventual NCAA probation.

However, on this night, things would be different. With the #12 Kentucky Wildcats offering home-away-from-home Cincinnati as a neutral site for a basketball game, the sacrificial lambs from Dayton arrived.Two hours later, an ESPN audience witnessed what 15,000 UK fans could not believe. The University of Dayton had defeated Tubby Smith’s Cats 68-66. This was the fourth of eight straight wins that the Flyers were to collect in a season that ushered them into the NCAA Tournament for the first time in a decade.

An air of confidence was beginning to creep into the minds of the Flyers. Although they lost a heartbreaker in the last seconds against Purdue, it appeared that they had arrived. Shortly thereafter, during the first weekend of the spring recruiting season, three young men visited the campus. All three agreed to become part of the program later that week. The question has to be asked: would these things have happened if that last UK three-pointer had found its mark?All of this brings us to the before mentioned Maryland game. It appears that I wasn’t the only one that didn’t jump up and down. It might have been the fact that Tony’s mom had just died, but for some reason the players were somewhat subdued after the final buzzer. Have they gotten used to winning the big games? Do they really believe that they can play with these nationally ranked teams? Will we look back upon this game as the one that got us in the Top-25 for the first time since 1974? Will this be the beginning of several hundred consecutive weeks in the Top-25? Will this be the one big victory that isn’t quickly forgotten by a series of unsuccessful seasons?

Only time will tell.