While the season has been 31 games long, it all boils down to the next three for the Dayton Flyers.

By securing a win over visiting George Washington, Dayton kept its dwindling NCAA Tournament hopes alive and advanced to the quarterfinals of the Atlantic 10 Tournament.

The Flyers will now play Xavier tonight at 6:30 p.m. and look to keep their run through the A-10 alive.

Head coach Brian Gregory and his team will bring a new approach to the situation; it is a new season for them, three days and three games long.

"It's new life for everybody," Gregory said. "The scales are set back to even and you do as much as you can to put more on your side."

While Dayton's seventh place finish in the A-10 regular season was disappointing for the players, coaches and fans, this weekend is an opportunity to erase all of those things from everyone's memory.

The tournament, however, presents a new challenge for the players and coaches, as well. Not only will the players have just a day to recover from games, but they also have just a day to prepare for a new team. That can be difficult because teams in the A-10 exhibit a wide variety of styles.

"Some teams do certain things more than others," Gregory said. "So you prepare for something like dribble penetration that every team in the league does to some extent."

According to Gregory, the players' itineraries between games will consist of three main things: eating, sleeping and stretching.

"You cut down practices," he said. "You keep them as fresh as possible. Fresh legs and a fresh mind are important."

Resting and preparation alone will not be enough to win the tournament, however. Dayton will have to play better than they have in many games in order to make a run. There were some things that happened in their game Tuesday that could indicate they are on the right track.

The Flyers, just 7-11 in games decided by 10 points or less going into Tuesday's game, came up with a win in a game that was tied at 53 midway through the second half. They outplayed their opponents down the stretch (scoring on their final seven possessions), something that has not happened often this year.

"We just really hunkered down at the end and stuck to the game plan," senior Kurt Huelsman said. "We just kept our poise, kept our composure."

Gregory thought winning in a close game was important as well.

"We did something tonight that we've struggled at over the last couple months," he said. "During grind it out time we were able to grind it out."

Another good sign from Tuesday's game was the play of Marcus Johnson, who led Dayton with 16 points.

"That's the Marcus Johnson we're going to need the rest of the year," Gregory said. "He was aggressive with the ball and did some good things defensively."

Now Dayton will look to Atlantic City, where they will play Xavier for the third time this season. If the team is able to win this game, it will play the winner of the Richmond and Massachusetts on Saturday at 3:30 p.m. Should the Flyers get through that game, they would play for the championship at 1 p.m. Sunday against a team that makes it out of the foursome of Temple, St. Bonaventure, Rhode Island and St. Louis.

For the seniors, it will be their fourth and final chance in Atlantic City. They are not planning on letting it go easily.

"You got to earn another 40 minutes and you got to earn another game coming up," Huelsman said. "There's nothing else."