Saint Louis has captured its first outright regular season title since 1957 and will head to the Atlantic 10 Conference Men’s Basketball Championship in Brooklyn, N.Y., as the No. 1 seed.
The Billikens (24-6, 13-3 A-10) receive a bye to the quarterfinals and will face either No. 8 Richmond or No. 9 Charlotte Friday at 11 a.m. (all times Central). Richmond and Charlotte play Thursday at the Barclays Center at 11 a.m. The SLU game on Friday will be televised in the St. Louis market. Channel information will be announced as soon as possible.
Should the Billikens advance, they will play in the semifinal round Saturday at 12:30 p.m. on CBS Sports Network. Sunday’s A-10 championship game is slated for noon on CBS.
VCU is the second seed and will also receive a bye into the quarterfinals. The Rams, in their first season in the A-10, finished 12-4 in league play. Temple clinched a bye Sunday to finish 11-5 in the A-10 and force a three-way tiebreaker with Butler and La Salle. Temple defeated Saint Louis during the regular season, giving the Owls the tiebreaker advantage and the No. 3 Seed. La Salle defeated Butler head-to-head and will be seeded fourth to claim the final bye.
No. 5 Butler, which also finished 11-5 in league play will face No. 12 Dayton Thursday. The Flyers finished 7-9 in conference play, tied with George Washington and St. Bonaventure. GW won the three-way tiebreaker, with head-to-head wins over both Dayton and SBU. The Butler-Dayton winner advances to Friday’s quarterfinals to face fourth-seeded La Salle.
Massachusetts and Xavier both finished at 9-7 in the A-10. UMass claims the sixth seed by head-to-head tiebreaker and will face 11th-seeded George Washington Thursday at 9:00 pm. The Colonials clinched a spot in the championship with an 81-80 overtime win over Dayton Saturday. The winner will face No. 3 Temple in Friday’s quarterfinals.
Richmond, Charlotte and Saint Joseph’s all finished 8-8. The Spiders, by virtue of their overtime win over VCU earlier in the season, win the three-way tiebreaker and will be the eighth seed. Charlotte defeated SJU on Saturday to claim the head-to-head tiebreaker, seeding the 49ers ninth and the Hawks 10th. Saint Joseph’s will face seventh-seeded Xavier on Thursday with the winner advancing to face No. 2 VCU in Friday’s quarterfinals.
