Tonight at 7:15 p.m. ET the Sweet 16 will get underway with two potential Cinderellas, the No. 11 Dayton Flyers and the No. 10 Stanford Cardinal vying to dance their way to the Elite Eight. Watch the game on CBS or live stream it free by clicking this link. Dayton fans can tune in to the radio broadcast on 97.5 FM, while Stanford faithful can hear all the action on KZSU Stanford 90.1.
While both teams qualify for fairy tale status as double-digit seeds, the Flyers fit the classic mid-major bracket buster. Center Matt Kavanaugh summed it up best. "Every year there's that one team in the like final eight, Final Four that no one expected to be there, and that's been our mantra like 'Why can't that be us this year?"
They've pulled off two major upsets already, against powerhouse programs Ohio State and Syracuse, and won't have to deal with arguably the best player in the country, Andrew Wiggins, whose Jayhawks were knocked off in a shocker by Stanford.
Stanford is no joke either, though, and absolutely came into the Tournament as an underrated team. Josh Huestis revealed a mentality set by head coach Johnny Dawkins that should make their success a little less surprising.
"Coach (Johnny Dawkins) always tells us that there are only a handful of teams that come into this tournament thinking they have a chance to win," Huestis said. "The rest of them are just happy to be here. We pride ourselves on being a team that believes we can win this whole thing."
Dayton guard Jordan Sibert is shooting 51 percent from the field in this tourney, and has already proven capable of attacking a strong zone defense (vs. Syracuse). Still, Stanford is able to vary up its defensive looks, and Dawkins thinks stout D has been the key to the Cardinal's big run.
"What we've done very well the last several games is we defended at a high, high level every possession," Dawkins said. "We always talk about the importance of defending every possession. It's one thing to say that -- it's another thing to go out and execute it."
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