Dayton Flyers look to spark postseason run starting with A-10 tournament this week

DAYTON — The Dayton Flyers Men’s Basketball team is headed to New York City for the Atlantic 10 Tournament looking for a chance to extend their season and make the NCAA tournament.

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News Center 7′s John Bedell talked with head coach Anthony Grant and some players about how they hope to start a postseason run.

This time next week, the Flyers are hoping to be getting ready to play in the NCAA Tournament. But to do that, they’ll have to win their conference tournament first. Tuesday was UD’s final tune-up in Dayton before heading to Brooklyn in search of the Atlantic 10′s automatic bid into the NCAA Tournament.

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Before practice Tuesday afternoon, the Atlantic 10 released its annual end-of-the-year awards. Three Flyers were honored. Flyers Freshman guard Mike Sharavjamts was named to the Atlantic 10 all-rookie team.

“It’s pretty cool for me, like I’m feeling kind of happy, you know?” Sharavjamts said.

Dayton forwards Toumani Camara and DaRon Holmes II earned first-team Atlantic 10 and all-defensive team honors.

“We set ourselves some goals individually, sometimes throughout the year, throughout the season, and throughout your career,” Camara said. “And I think it’s good to be recognized by that. It feels good to see your work pay off.”

“It’s a blessing to see me and Toumani on first team, Holmes said. “To see us get the award and represent Dayton. It’s always a blessing to see that.”

Individual achievements aside, the Flyers still have a team goal of playing in the NCAA tournament within reach. To get there, UD have to win three games in the Atlantic 10 tournament.

“My take on tournaments (is) it’s always wide open,” Grant said. “It’s one game, you know. So you just never know what the circumstances are. So like I said, you’ve got to control the things you can control. We’re going to try to do that.”

The Flyers are not short on confidence before their A-10 quarterfinal matchup Thursday at 5:00 p.m. at the Barclays Center in Brooklyn.

“Everybody’s ready to prove everybody on what we can do, what we’re really capable of doing,” Camara said. “We believe we’re the best team in this conference.”

Holmes added, “So now it’s just about going out and doing it. So we have to have that chip on our shoulder to be able to go out and execute.”

Be sure to catch the return of the Orange Zone with special college basketball editions starting this Sunday, March 12 at 11:30 a.m. on Channel 7.

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