Syracuse may be an unfamiliar opponent for Dayton, but the Orange is no stranger to Vee Sanford.

On Thursday, the Flyers’ senior point guard banked in a game-winning runner to lift Dayton to an improbable win over Ohio State in the second round of the NCAA Tournament.

Four years ago, when Sanford was a seldom-used freshman for Georgetown, he hit a nearly identical shot with just over 10 minutes remaining to give the Hoyas the lead for good over Syracuse in the quarterfinals of the Big East tournament.

“That was a big moment for me,” Sanford said. “Playing against them my freshman year at the Garden.

“It helped me learn about the rivalry between Syracuse and Georgetown.”

Sanford said he transferred from Georgetown after his sophomore year because of a glut of talent already on the Hoyas roster, and to be closer to home in Lexington, Ky. It seemed the rivalry with SU was done for Sanford.

Until now. On Saturday, Sanford will have a chance to relive a small slice of that rivalry when Dayton plays his former rival in the third round of the NCAA Tournament at 7:10 p.m.

Sanford enters the Round of 32 matchup averaging 9.9 points in 21.9 minutes per game.

“It’s just a good feeling knowing that I have a bigger role than I did when I was at Georgetown,” Sanford said. “I feel like I learned a lot there. I grew as an individual at Georgetown.”

But he was stuck behind a bunch of other players, and not getting much time on the court.

In his freshman year with the Hoyas, he logged just 33 points in 130 minutes.

“I think they just ended up getting some really good guards up there,” said Brandon Salsman, his high school coach. “Markel Starks had come in and it wasn’t going to fit. And that just happens sometimes in college.”

But Sanford did have one lasting memory, and it came against Syracuse.

He had yet to log a point against the Orange in more than two games, when his layup propelled the Hoyas into the Big East semifinals.

Vincent Sanford, Vee’s dad, said he watched the video online of Sanford’s shot against Syracuse before this year’s tournament even started.

“I would have never imagined that,” Vincent said. “Before the bracket came out, that he’d have an opportunity to play against Syracuse again.“

And now he is, and it’s because of the shot that Sanford hit on Thursday that will forever go down in Dayton basketball lore.

Vincent said he was in class, teaching, when his son hit the shot. He had the game up on his computer, but decided he needed to turn away for the last play. He didn’t see it live.

A minute later one of his students broke the news to him.

“He said, ‘They won.’ And I said ‘Who won?’” Vincent recalled. “’and he said. ‘They won. And your son hit the shot.’”

Vincent said the first thing he did was thank God. It had been a tough year for Vee with the death of his grandmother, a loss that Vincent said hit Vee pretty hard.

And it had been a tough career for Vee, waiting three full years before he could finally get a real chance to show what he was capable of on the court.

But when that shot went in, and Vee found himself at the bottom of a pile of red Dayton jerseys, everything made sense.

Everything was OK, and a date with Syracuse was arranged.

Said Vee: “It goes above me. Us as a family and as a team, it’s all about how hard we worked and how we’ve bounced back through our hard times.

“So it goes on above me.”

—Asst. sports editor Trevor Hass contributed reporting to this story

Published on March 22, 2014 at 2:34 pm

Contact Sam: sblum@syr.edu | @SamBlum3