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Atlantic 10 Basketball: Dayton, VCU and St. Bonnie’s tie for regular season crown

By John Parker

Mar 5, 2016; Dayton, OH, USA; Dayton Flyers forward Dyshawn Pierre (21) celebrates with teammates after cutting down the net after winning a shared title of the Atlantic 10 Conference after defeating the Virginia Commonwealth Rams at the University of Dayton Arena. The Flyers won 68-67. Mandatory Credit: Aaron Doster-USA TODAY Sports
Mar 5, 2016; Dayton, OH, USA; Dayton Flyers forward Dyshawn Pierre (21) celebrates with teammates after cutting down the net after winning a shared title of the Atlantic 10 Conference after defeating the Virginia Commonwealth Rams at the University of Dayton Arena. The Flyers won 68-67. Mandatory Credit: Aaron Doster-USA TODAY Sports /
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Wins by Dayton and St. Bonaventure combined with losses by St. Joseph’s and VCU created a three-way tie for the Atlantic 10 basketball regular season championship.

There’s officially a three-way tie for the Atlantic 10 regular season title following Saturday’s action.

Related Story: VCU Rams clinch share of Atlantic 10 title

In the afternoon session of games, St. Joe’s blew its opportunity for a potential share of the title. Hours later, St. Bonaventure capitalized on a weak opponent while Dayton topped VCU in overtime to open the door for a shared title.

St. Joseph’s entered the night 13-4 in Atlantic 10 play and in a three-way tie for second place, a game back of 14-3 VCU. With a Senior Day home game against a Duquesne team that went 5-12 in the A-10 on the schedule, any headline involving a tie for the A-10 regular season title seemed likely to involve St. Joe’s.

But instead, the Dukes stunned the Hawks and came away with a 78-70 road victory. After Saturday’s results, St. Joe’s will be the four-seed in the upcoming Atlantic 10 Tournament.

In mid-February, St. Bonaventure’s late push to put together an at-large worthy resume to the NCAA Tournament seemed to end with a loss at La Salle. Even ending Dayton’s 20-game win streak in Atlantic 10 home games seemed like it would only serve to bring St. Bonaventure to a closer spot on the outside looking in.

Since then, the Bonnies have picked up a home win over St. Joes and handled their weaker opponents, including Saturday afternoon’s opponent St. Louis. The end result is that the team assured itself one of the conference’s four double-byes into the quarterfinals and positioned itself for a share of the A-10 title. The Bonnies had to wait for overtime to finish in the game of the night in the Atlantic 10, but after Dayton finished off VCU the Bonnies became A-10 champions for the first time in school history.

VCU locked up a share of first place in the A-10 on Wednesday with a 70-60 win over Davidson, so Saturday’s game against Dayton was purely about Atlantic 10 Tournament seeding and improving its NCAA Tournament resume. But the Rams were unable to take advantage of its season finale at Dayton, which boasts the best tournament resume in the Atlantic 10.

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The teams traded baskets — and missed baskets — through regulation and into overtime. Eventually, awful shooting sunk VCU 68-67. The Rams hit just 34.3 percent of their shots from the field and 25 percent from long range.

To make matters worse, VCU missed 13 of its 27 free throws. 19 offensive rebounds and an almost equally poor shooting night from Dayton allowed the Rams to stay in the game.

By beating VCU, Dayton ensured itself a share of the Atlantic 10 regular season title. Thanks to St. Joe’s losing, Dayton got one of the longshot scenarios it needed to secure the top seed in the Atlantic 10 Tournament.

Heading into the day, VCU looked to have a stranglehold on the top seed in the tournament. Not only would the Rams be on the top line if both St. Joe’s and St. Bonaventure handled their inferior opponents, but even if St. Bonaventure were stunned by St. Louis.

St. Joe’s needed to lose in order for Dayton to jump to a 1-seed. The odds of Dayton beating a talented VCU team and St. Joe’s dropping a win to one of the bottom teams in the conference seemed small, but everything went perfectly for the Flyers.

After the final day of the Atlantic 10 regular season Dayton becomes the 1-seed in the Atlantic 10 Tournament, VCU drops to the 2-seed, St. Bonaventure earns the 3-seed and St. Joseph’s falls to the 4-seed.

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Atlantic 10 Tournament play begins on Wednesday when 12-seed George Mason takes on 13-seed St. Louis and 11-seed Duquesne faces 14-seed La Salle.