Throwback Thursday: The 2006 Atlantic 10 Tournament

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2006 was a bit of a watershed year for the Atlantic 10 Tournament. This would be the 20th season of the conference (originally started out as the Eastern 8), and the conference tournament would be held at USBank Arena in downtown Cincinnati. Charlotte and Saint Louis were newcomers to the Atlantic 10 for this season, and as expected the 49ers were a serious contender for the league crown.

However, this season saw GW run the table with a perfect 16-0 record in conference play. They would get the top seed only a year after winning the 2005 A-10 Championship (also played at USBank Arena). Temple had a much quieter outing than the previous season – in 2005, John Chaney suspended himself for the remainder of the season after he had sent in Nehemiah Ingram as a “goon” to send a message to Saint Joseph’s player John Bryant in a late season Temple-Saint Joe’s matchup at the Liacouras Center. Feeling that Bryant and other SJU players were getting away with illegal screens in that game, Ingram committed a hard foul late in the game that caused Bryant to break his arm and prematurely end his season.

9th-seeded Temple would defeat Rhode Island 74-45 in a nondescript opener, and Saint Joe’s would beat Dayton 67-55 in the next game. Dayton was the last team to qualify for the tournament; they finished ahead of Duquesne and St. Bonaventure in the conference standings.

In the nighttime doubleheader, 10th-seeded Xavier avenged their season-ending loss at UMass with a 75-66 win over the Minutemen. Noteworthy here is that this was the first win for Xavier after senior PG Dedrick Finn was dismissed from the team by head coach Sean Miller. A few hearty souls stayed around to watch 6th-seeded Fordham defeat Richmond 45-37 in the last of the opening-round games.

The 4 teams that ended up getting byes into the quarterfinals were the aforementioned GW Colonials along with the #2 Charlotte 49ers, #3 LaSalle Explorers and #4 Saint Louis Billikens. Remarkably, neither of the 4 teams would advance to the semifinals. Temple beat GW 68-53 with relative ease, and Saint Joe’s upended SLU 56-37 in the 2nd game of the afternoon doubleheader. A partisan Xavier crowd watched the Musketeers defeat Charlotte 59-55 in the first night game – this doomed whatever at-large hopes the 49ers had and relegated them to the NIT. Another remarkable result was Fordham beating La Salle 64-62 in the nightcap; this was the first time the Rams made it to the A-10 semifinal round in what was then their 12th season in the conference.

The semifinal round began with a weird delay – a bird managed to fly into a ceiling fan at USBank Arena and was killed on contact. The Saint Joe’s-Temple game was delayed for 15 minutes after the floor was cleared and the fan was cleaned up. This time, the Hawks would beat Temple 73-59 to avenge the injury to Bryant from a season earlier. Xavier would avenge their earlier loss to Fordham in the season with a 70-59 victory. This would be the 3rd straight season that Xavier and Saint Joe’s would play each other in the Atlantic 10 Tournament – the Hawks won in 2005, but Xavier blasted the Hawks in 2004 to put an abrupt end to what was a perfect regular season for the Hawks.

The championship game was a very close one, and a blocked shot on the game’s final play preserved a 62-61 win for Xavier – this was their 3rd and final Atlantic 10 title. As for the NCAA Tournament, Xavier got the auto bid and a #14 seed in the West (Oakland) region, but lost to Gonzaga in a game where the Muskies had a serious opportunity for a historic upset. GW would end up as a #8 seed in the South (Atlanta) region – they beat UNC-Wilmington in overtime in the first round before falling to Duke in front of a partisan crowd in Greensboro. Saint Joe’s, Temple and Charlotte would all play in the NIT – the Hawks advanced the furthest with a Round of 16 appearance before losing to Hofstra.