Saint Joe's Beats Top Seeded Dayton. Will Play VCU For A10 Championship Sunday.

#2 VCU will face #4 Saint Joseph's in the Atlantic 10 Championship game on Sunday.

March 12, 2016
Peter Solari Follow @4PeteSakeNY
 

Brooklyn, NY - Fourth-seeded Saint Joseph's continued their run through the Atlantic 10 tournament in Brooklyn on Saturday, knocking off the league's top team, Dayton. The Hawks will face second-seeded VCU in the championship game on Sunday. The defending champion Rams advanced to the finals with another another dominating tournament win in the semifinals, this time at the expense of sixth-seeded Davidson.  Here are the scores and recaps from all of Saturday's A10 action, brought to you by The Score, as well as the updated tournament bracket from Wikipedia:

Game recap - The Score

Game recap - The Score

Official site of the Atlantic 10

Isaiah Miles led Saint Joe's with 26 points and nine rebounds, while Aaron Brown chipped in 16 and Papa Ndao added 14. A10 Player of the Year, DeAndre Bembry was overshadowed by his teammates, but still had a very solid game with nine points, seven rebounds, and eight assists. DyShawn Pierre led the way for Dayton with 22 points.

Kyle Billbury had 17 points and seven rebounds and VCU used a balanced attack to run Davidson out of the Barclays Center. Mo Alie-Cox added 13 points and four rebounds for the Rams, including a monster alley-oop  from JeQuan Lewis, that shook the Barclays Center. Lewis also scored 11 points for VCU. Brian Sullivan led the way for Davidson with 15 points and Jordan Barham contributed 13. 

Tip-off for the championship game between VCU and Saint Joe's is set for 1 PM Sunday at Barclays Center. The game will be televised nationally on CBS. The game is a rematch of the 2014 A10 final, won by the Hawks 65-61. Ironically, both schools were seeded the same in that tournament, as they are now.

Unlike their longtime rivals from George Mason, VCU has shown no signs of slowing down since leaving the Colonial Athletic Association. The two schools were near the top of the CAA standings for years. Not much has changed for the Rams. Since arriving in the A10 in the 2013 season, the Rams have been quite dominant. Sunday will be their fourth A10 championship game, in as many seasons in the league. It's really quite incredible. On the contrary, Mason is zero for three in A10 tournament games and has never finished higher than 12th in the standings. 

The most interesting development in this year's A10 tournament, has been the emergence of Saint Bonaventure as a bubble team. They came to Brooklyn looking pretty solid for an at-large bid, however, with their loss to Davidson on Friday, Dayton, VCU, and Saint Joe's are squarely ahead of the Bonnies, and in a league that's projected to get anywhere from three to five bids, nothing is certain for the fourth-best team. In their latest projections, ESPN's Joe Lunardi and CBS Sports' Jerry Palm both included Saint Bonaventure in their fields of 68, but it's a close call, and they're anything but a lock at this point. The Monday Morning Quarterback will examine Saint Bonaventure's resume in our final "bubble watch" before selection Sunday, keep your eyes out for that.