Conference tournaments are about basketball but also so much more: the fans, parents, bands, cheerleaders, etc. The A-10 Tournament is taking place this week in Washington, DC, and we could not be more excited to be there in person! HoopsHD is covering all the angles so you can look forward to an abundance of access in the days ahead. Jon Teitel continues our coverage from DC with a recap of the semifinal doubleheader on Saturday.
I was able to squeeze in brunch with a friend who was visiting from out of town before heading to the arena. I was also able to catch up with some of the spirit squad members for each school that I interviewed last week, all of whom were nice in person. While the fan attendance skews heavily in VCU’s favor, both team’s bands were sounding loud/proud:
However, the best music of the day was the pregame anthem…on saxophone!
Let’s tip it off:
GAME #1: LOYOLA CHICAGO-VCU
I was expecting a great coaching matchup, as Loyola’s Drew Valentine/VCU’s Ryan Odom have each won 20+ games in 2024 and 2025 and made an NCAA tourney during the past 4 years:
CBS color commentator Dan Bonner was sitting courtside to do some scouting because he will be on the mike tomorrow for the title game:
Loyola hung around for the 1st 20 minutes, which was encouraging. SR G Sheldon Edwards Jr. only made 2 shots early on, but they were both from behind the arc:
His backcourt mate Des Watson scored 20 PTS in their previous game vs. VCU (a 19-PT loss in Chicago last January) but got off to a cold start today with 2-10 FG:
VCU has the conference POY in SR G Max Shulga, and he looked every bit the part with 7 PTS (including a layup and a 3 from the top of the key)/5 REB/0 TO early on:
His backcourt mate Phillip Russell Jr. (who scored 25 PTS in that January game) was 1 of the only hot shooters with 3-4 3PM en route to a team-high 10 1st half PTS as the Rams built a 36-27 halftime lead:
In the 2nd half Loyola C Miles Rubin was a 1-man comeback. He only took 2 shots during the prior game in January, but started heating up in the paint with an alley-oop, a jumper in the lane, a sweet spin/hook, and multiple put-backs at the rim to tie the game at 49-all with under 7 minutes left:
The partisan VCU crowd was feeling a little tense toward the end of the game, as their team is just 1-4 this year when trailing with 5 minutes left. However, Shulga made a couple more layups and grabbed a couple more rebounds to finish with a double-double (14 PTS/10 REB) as VCU rammed its way into the title game with a 62-55 win.
In the postgame press conference, since nobody else was asking about the bubble, I had to be the guy to see if Coach Odom had any doubt that he had 1 of the 68 best teams in the country if they lost the title game tomorrow. Usually that question will lead to a 4-minute-long answer where the coach presents his team’s entire resume in case the selection committee is listening, but Odom went the opposite way with a 4-word-short yet honest answer: “I have no idea”
GAME #2: ST. JOSEPH’S-GEORGE MASON
I missed most of the 1st half while downing some chicken fingers/fries for the 3rd day in a row…but after watching the Patriots go on a 25-7 run to start the game thanks in large part to GMU SR G Darius Maddox (15 PTS/6-7 FG), I confess that I did not feel any regret:
Of course, as I have learned the hard way all week long, #thehawkwillnever die, and Coach Billy Lange’s team made a late run to finish strong and cut the deficit to 37-28 at halftime:
GMU SR F Jalen Haynes scored 12 PTS in the 1st half but started the 2nd half in pain on the court after hurting his right hand:
St. Joe’s SO G Xzayvier Brown helped lead a furious comeback (finishing with 26 PTS/5-12 3PM) and the Hawks cut the lead to a single point early in the 2nd half:
However, the Patriots used some sensational 3-PT shooting (9-17 3PM) to win it 74-64 and live to fight another day.
In the postgame press conference…the rest of the media asked some pretty good questions, so I left early to go watch the Big 12 tourney title game (son of a bee-sting!).
That is a wrap for today, check back tomorrow for the alphabet soup title game featuring VCU vs. GMU.
The Hoops HD Selection Committee – Saturday, March 15th
Tonight was our third night of meetings for our panel’s Selection Committee – the stakes continue to get higher as we get closer and closer to Selection Sunday. When we left off yesterday, we had a couple of potential contingency spots to fill on our at-large board. Colorado State was the first team to steal a bid by winning the Mountain West, but Memphis advancing to the American conference championship assures us of a potential contingency spot to open up tomorrow should the Tigers win the American conference championship. Another spot opened up with UC-San Diego winning the Big West; they will not need an at-large bid to get into the field.
Our first major order of business was to discuss in detail each of the teams remaining on the Under Consideration board; nobody was voted off the board individually. After the discussion, each member of the Committee sent a list of 4 teams to Chad for our first round of voting. The teams nominated for the first two spots were San Diego State and Vanderbilt (who joined holdovers Boise State and Xavier from the previous round of voting). Each member ranked the four teams 1 through 4; Vanderbilt and San Diego State were added to the at-large board and Xavier/Boise State both returned to the Under Consideration board since they could not carry over for 2 consecutive rounds of voting.
For our final round of voting in terms of at-large tournament teams, each committee member nominated six teams from Under Consideration and the top four teams would again be ranked 1 through 4. This time, the top four vote-getters were Indiana, Xavier, Boise State and VCU (should they not win the A-10 Championship tomorrow). In the last round of voting, Indiana was the top vote getter and received the last solid at-large bid. Xavier was the last team added to the board; they are the American contingency team and will make the field IF Memphis wins tomorrow. If UAB wins the American, the Blazers will steal the automatic bid and Xavier would be the first team out of the NCAA Tournament field. As it is right now, our top 6 teams out would be: 1) VCU, 2) Boise State, 3) North Carolina, 4) UC-Irvine (who now would need an at-large bid), 5) Texas and 6) Ohio State.
Our next task was to seed the remainder of the auto bid winners, at-large teams as well as teams that are still eligible to win their respective auto bid (i.e. George Mason, Cornell). Each member would nominate 12 teams to Chad; the top 8 vote-getters would join the previous 4 holdover teams and would then be ranked 1 through 12 as we voted on the 9-line and the 10-line. We repeated the process until we filled out the seed list with 72 teams. This is because the WAC Championship was in progress as we finished filling out the master seed list.
Here is our current selection board:
For tomorrow, our first task will likely be to do a scrub of the seed list to account for any changes in terms of seed list rankings that committee members could entertain motions on. We will also fill out two contingency brackets – the first bracket will be if Memphis wins the American (where Xavier is the last team in and VCU is the first team out should they lose in the A-10 Championship). The second bracket will be if UAB wins the American (where Indiana is the last team in and Xavier is the first team out). Stay tuned tomorrow for our final result!