The Basketball Tournament

Dayton Regional First Round

#2 Golden Eagles vs #7 Ohio 1804

Date: Sunday, July 24, 2022
Time: 8pm Central
Location: University of Dayton Arena, Dayton, Ohio
Television: Uh, no.
Streaming: ESPN3/WatchESPN
Live Stats: TheTournament.com should have them at the top of the page when we get around to game time.
Twitter Updates: @thetournament & twitter.com/GoldenEaglesTBT

Hello and welcome back to the important part of The Basketball Tournament, aka the part that includes former Marquette. In what will be the final game of the first round of this year’s winner-take-all 64 team tournament, YOUR Golden Eagles are taking on Ohio 1804 in the first round of the Dayton Regional.

The Golden Eagles’ roster is pretty much exactly what you have come to expect from the past few years as we’ve already talked about on these digital pages. Somehow, though, this is still nowhere near the roster that we thought we were going to get.

Maurice Acker
Sacar Anim
Vander Blue
Dwight Buycks
Elgin Cook
Travis Diener
Luke Fischer
Darius Johnson-Odom
Derrick Wilson
Jamil Wilson
Jarvis Williams

Somehow we went from “Deonte Burton and Kaleb Wesson are on the team” to “only Deonte Burton is on the team” to “Deonte Burton and Diamond Stone are on the team” to “neither of those guys are on the team, BUT Jamil Wilson is!” Very weird stuff, but roster instability is a time honored tradition for TBT. You can say you’re going to have Guy X and Guy Y on the roster, but often times game time rolls around and they’re nowhere to be seen. At least that’s not happening here.

Nothing against Burton, Stone, or Wesson here, but based on how Jamil Wilson’s previous TBT runs have gone, I think Golden Eagles is coming out ahead here. Not only does the team get the benefit of a proven TBT commodity as opposed to three guys who don’t have a track record playing with this group, but said commodity is a guy who has been one of if not the best TBT player over the past few years. Wilson’s ability to alter the game at multiple levels has been crucial to Golden Eagles coming out on the winning side of the Elam Ending time and time again, and I’m more than happy to get to see him do that again this summer.

Ohio 1804 is, ostensibly, a team of alumni from Ohio University. However, only three guys spent their entire collegiate career as a Bobcat, and only seven of the 10 guys on the team played at Ohio at all.

At a glance from their time in college, I think we can narrow down the list of primary options for this second year TBT squad to four guys. Antonio Campbell is a big man who averaged 11 points and seven rebounds per game in four years at Ohio and shot a pretty healthy 35% from long range, too. Ryan Taylor averaged 13.0 points, 2.7 rebounds, and 1.3 assists per game spread across tenures at Ohio, Evansville, and Northwestern. Listed at 6’6” and 195 pounds in college when he wrapped up in 2019, he also shot 36% from long range for his collegiate career. FUN FACT: Taylor is one of two guys with an obvious Wisconsin connection on this roster, as he attended St. John’s/Northwestern Military Academy in Delafield. The other one is Jaylen Key, who lists Milwaukee as his hometown and Homestead High School as his alma mater.

The third definitive option for Ohio 1804 is Teyvion Kirk, who finished up his collegiate career in 2021. With time spent at both Ohio and Illinois-Chicago, the 6’4”, 185 pounder might be this team’s best option at point guard after averaging 14.5 points, 6.1 rebounds, and 3.5 assists per game while in college. However, Kirk shot just 28% on threes, so that’s a notable weakness. There’s also Troy Simms, who split his college hoops between New Mexico and Kent State. He averaged 11.4 points, 3.3 rebounds, and 1.8 assists per game, and shot nearly 38% from behind the arc.

Finally, I want to highlight Stevie Taylor for a split second. He played for Ohio University between 2012 and 2015, but that’s not the important part here. The 5’10” guard hails from Gahanna and attended Lincoln High School. That’s the same home town and high school as incoming Marquette freshman Sean Jones, so it’s neat to see the universe align like this.

This will be Golden Eagles’ 28th TBT game in their seventh appearance in the event. In the previous six tournaments, the MU alumni team is 22-5 all time and they have won at least three games in every tournament and advanced to at least the quarterfinals. That includes the 4-0 record needed to win the million dollar prize in 2020.

The winner of this game will advance to Tuesday’s second round. The opponent in that game will be the winner of the #3/#6 game between Red Scare, the Dayton alumni team, and CitiTeam.

Your schedule for the rest of the day today, with all times Central:

West Virginia Regional

11am: #2 Bucketneers vs #7 Fully Loaded, ESPN3
1pm: #3 WoCo Showtime vs #6 War Ready, ESPN3
4pm: #4 Herd That vs #5 Founding Fathers, ESPN3
6pm: #1 Best Virginia vs #8 Virginia Dream, ESPN2

Dayton Regional

12pm: #1 Money Team vs #8 Athletics Miami, ESPN
2pm: #3 Red Scare vs #6 CitiTeam, ESPN3
6pm: #4 Men of Mackey vs #5 Mid American Unity, ESPN3
8pm: #2 Golden Eagles vs #7 Ohio 1804, ESPN3