Steve Alford And Nevada Just Authored An All-Time Collapse Against Dayton

With 7:14 remaining in their first round matchup with Dayton, Nevada led 56-39 and appeared to be cruising to a victory. The Wolf Pack wound up losing 63-60 after authoring one of the craziest collapses in NCAA Tournament history.

Dayton closed the game on a 24-4 run sending Steve Alford and his squad packing after they utterly dominated most of the game. Just to explore how crazy it was: Dayton scored 24 points on its final 11 possessions of the game, while Nevada scored four points in the final 8:48 of game action. Nevada also only scored two points in the final 2:16. With 7:14 to go, Nevada’s win probability hit 99.5 percent.

Whoops.

Dayton looked absolutely dead in the water, then just seemed to wake up. Koby Brea made a 3-pointer with 4:23 to make it 56-50, that was followed by another three by Nate Santos to make it 56-53 with 3:40 left. Then Brea was at it again as he nailed another from beyond the arc with 2:45 left to tie the game at 56. That was really the game as Nevada would score two more baskets but never stopped Dayton’s momentum.

The Flyers hit eight 3-pointers and finished shooting 42.1 percent from deep. Brea had 15 points, while Daron Holmes II led the way with 18. Dayton’s best players disappeared down the stretch and Alford did nothing to change things up.

Ironically, the last time a team came back from down 17 or more in the NCAA Tournament it was … Nevada. The Wolf Pack came back from down 22 to beat Cincinnati in the 2018 tournament.