INSTANT REACTION: #9 Davidson Stuns #1 Dayton in A10 Quaterfinals

I’m back again for another instant reaction for all you crazy college basketball fans out there! If you guys didn’t see my latest article last night, I wrote an Instant Reaction about TCU upsetting Kansas and I’m back today for Davidson upsetting Dayton. This was a complete shocker to me and probably for everyone who follows the A10, the reason was because the Dayton Flyers were the number one seed in this tournament with a 15-3 conference record. While the Davidson Wildcats were the lowly 9th seed with a poor 8-10 record in conference play. These two teams only faced each other one time prior to today and that game saw Dayton come away with an 89-82 in Overtime win at Davidson so you know the Wildcats were out for revenge and boy did they get some.

Davidson absolutely controlled the first half as it took a dominating 12 point lead into the half at 37-25. The Wildcats took a 4-2 lead, led by as many as 16 in the first half and held the lead ALL the way until Dayton’s Schoochie Smith hit a game-tying 3-pointer with 3:34 remaining to start an 8-2 run for the Flyers to go ahead 65-62.

Then we fast forward all the way to when Davidson’s Jon Axel Gudmundsson tied the game at 65-all with 1 1/2 minutes left on his only 3-pointer of the game followed by Dayton then missing a 3. Davidson’s Jack Gibbs then made a contested 3-pointer in the left-hand corner and also followed a dunk by Dayton’s Scoochie Smith with a stepback 3-pointer while being fouled for a chance at a four-point play. He missed the free throw but the Flyers missed their next two shots in the final seconds before the Wildcats’ Peyton Aldridge finished the scoring with two free throws.

The Wildcats were led by Jack Gibbs and Peyton Aldridge, who are the top two scorers in the Atlantic 10. They finished with 34 and 14 points, respectively, including Gibbs making five 3-pointers and Aldridge grabbing nine rebounds. Gibbs also reached 2,000 points mark, the fourth player in school history to do so. Charles Cooke led four Flyers in double figures with 14 points but was unable to come back for the win.

Big Picture:

Jack Gibbs finished with a career-high 34 points, 3 rebounds, 3 assists, and one steal and hit two MASSIVE 3-pointers in the final minutes to solidify ninth-seeded Davidson’s 73-67 upset over top-seeded Dayton in the quarterfinals of the Atlantic 10 Tournament. Gibbs channeled his inner Steph Curry (if you don’t know Curry also went to Davidson) and went 5-11 from deep and 12-22 from the floor overall. Holding that lead to the number one seed is always challenging especially to Dayton who has so many high scoring threats. If Gibbs didn’t go Curry mode then Davidson probably wouldn’t be advancing as Dayton would have came back in my opinion. Major and I mean major props to Mr. Gibbs.

The Wildcats now await the winner of No. 4 seed Rhode Island and No. 5 seed St. Bonaventure on Saturday in the semifinals.