DAYTON, Ohio – The point has been made. Yeah, Miami (do we even need to say which one by now?) belongs.
Travis Steele is speaking into the TV microphone. His RedHawks have just beaten SMU of the ACC 89-79, the first power conference team they have faced all this magical season. “We more than belong,” he is saying. The team that not everyone believes is moving on from the First Four to Philadelphia.
Next up: Tennessee.
⏮️ MISSED IT? Watch Miami (OH) claim the First Four win over SMU
Peter Suder, one of the team’s leaders, is sitting by his locker, trying to describe the situation. How a team ends up 32-1 on March 18, how a program forgotten in the shadows suddenly becomes a national debate topic, and must prove to others what it is already sure about itself.
“There was a lot of hate out there, a lot of doubters who didn’t think we could do it,” he says. “As a team, we just stay together, we block out all the outside noise, and we just go out there, play as hard as we can on a hardwood floor.
“We’ve got so many winners on this team that have been in so many different big moments (five high school state champions). We’ve got guys that want the shot, that want this moment.”
One of those is Eian Elmer, who once won a state championship in this very University of Dayton arena. He has just scored 23 points to take it to the Mustangs. “We're not really focused on proving whether we belong, honestly," he is saying at the press conference. "Everybody in the locker room thinks we do. Everybody in Oxford thinks we do.”
They had it all going for them this special night. The bubbling and efficient offense that distributed 20 assists on 29 field goals with only four turnovers. The fearlessness to put up 41 shots from beyond the arc – and make 16 of them. Steele is talking about the plan. “The message I gave our guys before the game was they should leave no doubt with who the more attacking team was. And I thought that was very evident from the jump ball all the way to the end of the game.”
Miami rained in 1️⃣6️⃣ threes against SMU 🥵☔️
— NCAA March Madness (@MarchMadnessMBB)
There was also the thunder of a massively partisan crowd, announced at 12,558. “It felt like maybe 40 or 50,000,” SMU coach Andy Enfield would say later. Suder is talking about what all those friendly voices meant. “They were our sixth man. It was everything, especially in a survive-and-advance type of game. Win or go home.”
The thing is, home is only 40 miles away.
Even the Miami swim team showed up in Speedos and swim caps midway through the second half, waving at an SMU free-throw shooter with bare arms. The MAC would not allow the RedHawks to do that at the conference tournament. The Dayton hosts said OK, but just once. Suder tries to put himself in the place of an opposing player getting ready to shoot a free throw, who suddenly looks up and sees 20 skinny guys in swimsuits. “I wouldn’t even know what to think.” SMU's Corey Washington missed his first attempt but made his second.
Miami brought a home-court advantage to Dayton 🤣
— NCAA March Madness (@MarchMadnessMBB)
Amid such March frenzy, Miami has sent its message.
That’s what guard Luke Skaljac, who scored 17 points, is explaining. “We know who we have inside the locker room. It was more just proving it to ourselves that we belong, which we believed all the way.”
Steele is talking about growing up in Indiana, when his mother occasionally allowed him to stay home from school to watch the tournament games. March has meant something to him since... forever. So Wednesday has been a dream. A very loud dream for a coach and a team that in many ways carried the hopes of their conference and mid-majors everywhere. For if Miami flamed out, what would everyone say about the next shiny record from their world?
“Just push your chips all in. Attack,” Steele says. “We deserved the moment. Our guys deserved to be in this position. They've earned that right. I think our guys have that real belief. And I've said that a lot, that's the most powerful thing you can have is belief.”
They have understood all about their margin for error in their journey, because there was none. That’s what Steele is reminding everyone.
“I mean, we had to basically be perfect in the whole regular season to get an at-large. But yet we're going to go win a game tonight, and we can advance far into the tournament. I would say that the reason people love March Madness is they love to see, quote-unquote, upsets. This wasn't an upset tonight at all, but people are going to say that it was. That's what the outside world is going to say.”
But the outside world also loves a Cinderella story, and this looks more like one now than it did when the week began. Remember what SMU’s coach Enfield had said the day before. “We would be Miami fans if we weren't playing them.”
OK, now that that’s settled, we have the survivors’ lineup from the First Four.
🗓️ KEEP UP: Click here for the men's basketball live scoreboard
Howard.
Miami.
Prairie View A&M.
Texas.
Who wants to pick out the trouble-maker?
History suggests one of them will be in the next couple of days. By seeding and definition, all Dayton survivors are underdogs in the first round. They’ve had their fun, so it’s time to go home.
Yeah, right.
Tell that to Purdue. Fairleigh Dickinson rolled over Texas Southern in the 2023 First Four, hopped on a bus for the 90-minute drive to Columbus, and two days later promptly showed the No. 1 seed Boilermakers to the exit, Zach Edey and all.
Tell that to Florida. Care to guess the last team to beat the Gators in the NCAA Tournament? Colorado, fresh off scoring 67 points against Virginia in the 2024 First Four. Two days later, the Buffaloes went for 102 against Florida, firing away at 63 percent in a 102-100 shootout.
🤯 THE MADNESS BEGINS: Last-second heroics and first-time glory opens up in the First Four
VCU fast-laned from the inaugural First Four to the Final Four in 2011. So did UCLA in the 2021 pandemic Tournament. La Salle went to the Sweet 16. So did Syracuse and Tennessee. Coming into this week, there have been 14 First Fours, and a graduate has gone on to win their next game in 12 of the 14 years.
And now here’s the Class of 2026.
Howard faces Michigan and Prairie View A&M against Florida, and as usual, the 1-vs.-16 seed games look awfully predictable. Florida is the defending national champion, Prairie View A&M is 19-17. Howard and Prairie View A&M each just pulled off its first NCAA Tournament victory ever. Michigan and Florida have 122 between them.
But nobody can say it can’t be done. Consult Matt Painter for further information.
“We always talk about the magic of March, and for you to be able to excel in the magic of March and advance, there is a spirit that March rewards,” Howard coach Kenneth Blakeney said Wednesday about looking down the business end of the Wolverines, “There's a joy and a passion that March rewards. That's what I want our guys to understand.”
As for Prairie View A&M, coach Bryon Smith pondered the task of what’s ahead – Florida in Tampa. “They've got a 6'11" monster down in Gainesville by the name of Rueben Chinyelu, and they've got probably four or five guys that are going to be playing on TNT or ESPN here in probably another eight, nine months.
“I forgot, what happened? Did we just win a game? That's how quickly you have to move on. You're already thinking about this deal right here (doing the Gator chomp with his arms).”
📊 WHO YA GOT? How the nation is picking the March Madness bracket
Texas gets the BYU Cougars, who are hobbled and 7-10 since mid-January. The Longhorns had the first last-second win of the tournament Tuesday night, and that might help the momentum. Coach Sean Miller was saying after the 68-66 win over North Carolina State, how the rigors of the SEC had put iron in them for such a moment.
“You're in a game like tonight, you call on all of the experiences of the last couple of months, and there's not one experience that's easy in the SEC,” he said. ”It's like we say it all the time, there's no pop quizzes. It's straight tests, 18 in a row.”
Yeah, Texas might be the one, if the Longhorns can get over their travel issues that had them not landing in Portland from Dayton until nearly dawn Wednesday. “We're all adults. We're grown men. We know what we signed up for,” Dailyn Swain said.
And then there’s Miami. Tennessee is a strong, physical SEC team, and it won't be easy. “I told our guys afterwards, I’m happy, but the job is not finished,” Steele says.
Now that they’ve had their one fling, is karma done with the RedHawks? We’ll see. The odds are against all the Dayton Four. But history isn’t, and neither is the Miami swim team.
