1987 Dayton grads attend 26th straight A-10 tournament

No. 2 seed Dayton survived a scare in the quarterfinals of the Atlantic 10 Conference tournament, beating No. 10 seed Massachusetts 75-72 at Capital One Arena and rewarding the Dayton fans in attendance. Among the Flyer faithful were two die-hard fans: Jeff and Suzy Kordenbrock. They’re 1987 UD graduates who had classes with Dayton coach Anthony Grant when he was a college student and now live in Maryland.

The Kordenbrocks have been to 26 Atlantic 10 tournaments in a row, not counting the 2020 tournament, which was cancelled because of the pandemic after the opening round. They started in 1996 when the event was held at the Philadelphia Civic Center and have seen games in Dayton, Cincinnati, Atlantic City, N.J., Brooklyn, N.Y., Pittsburgh, Pa., and Washington, D.C.

“It’s been a good tradition,” Jeff said Friday before Dayton’s 75-72 victory against Massachusetts in the quarterfinals.

The couple has seen Dayton win the tournament only once in all those years — 2003 at UD Arena — but like all Dayton fans, they go into every tournament with renewed hope.

“This year, it looks like we’re going to have to win it all to get in (the NCAA tournament),” Jeff said. “If they just play like they did back in Florida when they beat Kansas, they can do it. We’ve just got to keep going.”

Credit: David Jablonski

Credit: David Jablonski

First semifinal: No. 1 seed Davidson built a 20-point halftime lead and coasted to an 84-69 victory against No. 5 seed Saint Louis in the first semifinal Saturday.

The Wildcats (27-5) will play in the final game, at 1 p.m. Sunday, for the second time. They won the championship as the No. 3 seed in 2018, beating No. 1 seed Rhode Island 58-57 in the title game.

If Davidson wins the championship, it will be the first time since the 1997 (Saint Joseph’s) and 1998 (Xavier) tournaments, the No. 1 seed has won in back-to-back seasons. St. Bonaventure won the championship last season as the No. 1 seed. Prior to the Bonnies, the last No. 1 seed to win was Saint Louis in 2013.

Bubble watch: After Friday’s game, ESPN’s Joe Lunardi kept Dayton on the list of the “First Four Out” of the NCAA tournament at-large picture in his latest update. He grouped the Flyers with Virginia Tech, Oklahoma and Wake Forest. Wyoming, Michigan, Southern Methodist and Xavier were listed as the “Last Four In.”

Of those teams, only Dayton, Virginia Tech and SMU were alive in their conference tournaments heading into Saturday.

The A-10 has sent at least two teams to the NCAA tournament every season since 2005 when George Washington was the only team to receive a bid. Davidson has the best chance to make the field if it doesn’t win the A-10 tournament.

Eamon Brennan, of The Athletic, listed Dayton as a team with “work to do” in his latest Bubble Watch story on Saturday.

“The Flyers were one of the next four teams out when the day began,” Brennan wrote “and while they’ve ostensibly gotten help with a few bubble teams losing and no bid thieves thus far, they have so much ground to make up that the A-10 title — especially for a team generally playing good basketball, Friday evening excepted — is by far the most likely path.