Men's Basketball
Buckeyes Resume NIT Play, Host Dayton in Quarter Finals
By John Porentas

The Buckeyes continue NIT play tonight when they host in-state rival Dayton at Value City Arena at 9:00 PM in the quarterfinals of the tournament. The winner of the game will continue on to New York for the final four, the loser's season will end.

Dayton is led by Toledo native Brian Roberts. The 6-2 senior guard averages 18.4 points per game to lead the Flyers. Roberts is shooting an incredible 45.5 percent from three point range.

The Flyers' began the season by winning 17 of their first 18 games. That included impressive wins over Louisville 70-65 at Louisville and Pittsburgh 80-55 at UD Arena.

Dayton's season then took a turn for the worse. A rash on injuries to key players resulted in eight losses over the next 11 games. The Flyers began to get healthy again as the season concluded and they have now won six of their last seven, the lone loss being to highly regarded Xavier by a score of 74-65. In Dayton's last outing freshman forward Chris Wright returned to action after having not played since January 9 as a result of an ankle injury. Despite missing that playing time, the 6-8 Wright is Dayton's third-leading scorer at 10.3 points per game.

Dayton is coached by Brian Gregory. Gregory was a long-time assistant at Michigan State having been hired by Jud Heathcoat in 1990 and was later retained by Tom Izzo when Izzo took over the Spartan program. Gregory left MSU briefly to coach at Toledo with Stan Joplin when Joplin left Izzo's staff to take that job. Gregory then coached at Northwestern for a year before returning to Izzo and the MSU program. Gregory was designated Assistant Head Coach by Izzo and was on staff for three trips to the final four and one national championship. Izzo's influence on Gregory is reflected in Dayton's style of play.

"They're a lot like Michigan State," said OSU Head Coach Thad Matta.

"They run a lot of sets, are very structured in what they do.

"A lot like Neitzel, they'll try to get Roberts shots," Matta said.

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