KANSAS 60, DAYTON 43

Game Over

This one didn't have a thrilling finish, but there were plenty of exciting moments.

Photo Gallery

Kansas Basketball: NCAA Second Round vs. Dayton

A photo gallery of Kansas' 60-43 win against the Dayton Flyers Sunday afternoon at the Metrodome in Minneapolis.

Dayton's athleticism kept it in the game in the first half, but Cole Aldrich's career-game guided Kansas to an easy victory.

Kansas has advanced to the Sweet Sixteen for the third-consecutive season.

Check back to Kansan.com for full coverage of this game later this evening.

KANSAS 55, DAYTON 36

3:49 left in the second half

If the NCAA recorded blocks in Wilt Chamberlain's playing days, then this would be the first triple-double in a long time. Instead, it's the first in school history.

Cole Aldrich has absolutely dominated Dayton's defense with his best game ever.

KANSAS 44, DAYTON 32

7:55 left in the second half

A potential upset has turned into a rout.

Dayton isn't hitting shots, and if you can't score you can't win. The Flyers went nearly six minutes without a basket while the Jayhawks built their lead to as much as 14.

Coach Gregory's team needs a few threes to get back in this game, but right now they're just 3-for-16 beyond the arc so don't count on a miracle.

KANSAS 40, DAYTON 30

10:15 left in the second half

Sherron Collins is Kansas' floor leader even when he's on the bench. Instead of taking a rest to catch his breath, Collins has been standing in the middle of the Jayhawks' bench and signaling plays right along with Kansas coach Bill Self.

Self might as well let him do that on the court if he's not going to sit down when he's taken out of the game.

KANSAS 33, DAYTON 27

14:58 left in the second half

In the wake of Kansas' absentee bench, Mario Little is putting together a solid game. Little has seven points on 3-of-4 shooting and he's buoyed Kansas a couple of times when it really needed a bucket to keep the pressure on Dayton.

The Flyers certainly aren't out of this game, but they really need to put together a run right now before the margin reaches double digits.

KANSAS 29, DAYTON 23

Halftime

Sherron Collins and Cole Aldrich: 23 points.

Dayton: 23 points.

Kansas' bench has been almost non-existent while its two stars have done the same thing they've done all season: dominate.

Aldrich scored a quick six points, prompting Dayton coach Brian Gregory to trap the big Minnesotan every time he caught the ball in the paint. That worked for 15 minutes, until Aldrich finally got another layup to drop.

Gregory's problem is that despite keeping Aldrich quiet for that long, he's still down six. The Flyers shot a miserable 22.5 percent from the field in the first half. Only 10 of Dayton's 40 shots came behind the three-point line, which means the Flyers are missing a bunch of easy shots and short jumpers. If they don't start hitting at a 40 percent clip or better then they won't have much chance to pull this one out.

KANSAS 25, DAYTON 21

3:42 left in the first half

Marcus Johnson, meet Gus Johnson.

Dayton's Johnson dove into CBS's Johnson to save a loose ball to Mickey Perry. While Marcus took his time getting off the media table, his teammates attacked the rim and Chris Wright putback Chris Johnson's miss to pull within two.

While Sherron Collins is doing everything for Kansas, Dayton is keeping it close with a total team effort. Six Flyers have scored and none have more than six points.

KANSAS 21, DAYTON 14

7:50 left in the first half

Coach Gregory put Wright back in the game, and the sophomore immediately made an impact with a gravity-defying leap around Cole Aldrich for a sweet dunk. Seriously, I have no idea how this guy was only second team All-Atlantic 10. He's a freak, and I mean that in the best possible way.

On Kansas' side, Mario Little hasn't seen a lot of time lately but I bet that will change today. He's already 2-for-2 from the floor and both were the best jump shots Kansas has taken today.

KANSAS 13, DAYTON 7

11:26 left in the first half

Kansas' spot-up shooters are in a serious slump.

Tyrel Reed, Brady Morningstar and Tyshawn Taylor are a combined 0-for-7. Morningstar has had one shot blocked and the rest of them haven't been too close. Same thing for Reed and Taylor.

For Dayton, I can't figure out why Chris Wright has been out of the game for so long. He picked up an early foul, but that's no reason to sit your best player for more than six minutes. He's finally back on the court and Dayton needs to feed him the ball.

KANSAS 6, DAYTON 2

15:56 left in the first half

So far Dayton is playing man-to-man and Cole Aldrich has six points. One was a fluky layup off Brady Morningstar's blocked three-pointer, but it's still clear the Flyers can't handle Aldrich in the paint. Dayton coach Brian Gregory has two choices, either switch to a zone defense or watch Aldrich post career-high numbers en route to kicking the Flyers out of the tournament.

1:30 p.m.

Prediction time.

If not for a few meaningless free throws at the end of yesterday's game, my 82-70 prediction would have been right on the money. As it stands it was just gives me confidence for today's game.

Kansas is a trendy team to pick for an upset. The Jayhawks are young and have almost no postseason experience. Not only that, but Kansas has on a few occasions shown the undesirable ability to simply not show up for games (Massachusetts, Texas Tech and Baylor to name a few).

No one knows exactly how Kansas will react in the pressure-cooker of tournament play, so some thought it would fall to North Dakota State. I've seen even more upset picks for today's game, with pundits valuing Dayton's athleticism and underdog-mindset over Kansas' talent.

I don't buy it.

Most of the time I expect a zone to nullify Cole Aldrich, but not in his home state. Not in front of all his friends and family and in the stadium he's dreamt of playing in since he was a kid.

Aldrich won't be stopped today, and his production will be enough for Kansas to get past this über-athletic squad.

Mark me down for a 77-69 Kansas victory.

1:05 p.m.

I knew absolutely nothing about Dayton when we arrived in Minneapolis. I figured West Virginia would win and play Kansas, but the Flyers were too much for Huggy Bear's bunch.

The one thing that jumps out at you about Dayton is just how amazingly-athletic these guys are. I expected a half-court, slow down type of team that wins games in the 50s, but Dayton comes by its nickname naturally as these guys could fly out of the gym if there weren't a roof.

Forward Chris Wright had a few monster slams against West Virginia. His teammates said Wright dropped the hammer on the Mountaineers, and anyone in attendance would be hard-pressed to disagree.

Size will be a key today as the Flyers don't have a true center to stand up against Cole Aldrich. But teams like Nebraska and Baylor have made up for that lack of size with a well-run zone defense.

I suspect we'll see some type of sagging zone defense to try to eliminate Aldrich's size and take advantage of Dayton's athleticism.

12:45 p.m.

Long before a game ever starts, I like to look for clues about what's going to happen.

Sometimes it's observing a team's attitude during warm-ups or keeping track of how many three-pointers a player hits in a row off the dribble. Most of the time these turn out to be completely meaningless, but it's still an entertaining way to prepare for the game.

Today, I've got a couple of good ones.

The first one occurred yesterday after the locker room press conferences. We were standing out in the hallway waiting for coach Bill Self when Tyshawn Taylor stepped out of the locker room.

All of us were done with our player interviews, so nobody asked him anything. That is, until we noticed he was going through all the prepared player lunches and taking out the four-pack of Oreos. Taylor was literally a kid in the candy store, pulling open each little container and plucking its sweets.

We were baffled. Someone finally asked him if the other players would notice, and without hesitating he responded, "They didn't yesterday."

I have no idea what this means as far as Taylor's play on the court is concerned, because apparently he does it often. I just love the idea of a Division I basketball player in the NCAA tournament eating all of his teammates' candy.

The second "clue" into today's game came from the pregame music.

There are a lot of songs you can play to get pumped up for a basketball game, but I don't consider "Margaritaville" one of them. Tyrel Reed would disagree.

As Jimmy Buffet's ode to alcohol belted over the loud speakers, Reed started dancing and singing along loudly. After the song finished, Reed hit his first four shots.

Will that translate into a big game? I don't have a clue, but hopefully you found that as entertaining as I did.

For full NCAA tournament coverage, including free live streaming of games, please go to ncaa.com.