2026 A-10 Tournament Diary: Day 2 in Pittsburgh

Flyers play St. Bonaventure at 2 p.m. Friday
A view of PPG Paints Arena from the Epiphany Roman Catholic Church on Friday, March 13, 2026, in Pittsburgh. David Jablonski/Staff

Credit: David Jablonski

Credit: David Jablonski

A view of PPG Paints Arena from the Epiphany Roman Catholic Church on Friday, March 13, 2026, in Pittsburgh. David Jablonski/Staff

EDITOR’S NOTE: David Jablonski will update this story as long as Dayton is playing in the Atlantic 10 tournament this week.

11:23 A.M.

PITTSBURGH — The Epiphany Roman Catholic Church stands next to PPG Paints Arena. I don’t know if you’ll find another professional sports arena so close to a church in the United States.

The church was built in 1902, so it’s been around 108 years longer than PPG Paints Arena, the home of the Pittsburgh Penguins and, this week, the Atlantic 10 Conference tournament.

Fans of the Dayton Flyers might want to stop for the Fish Fry at Epiphany on Friday and save some time to pray for their team, though I think we know God’s stance on the Flyers in the A-10 tournament.

No. 4 seed Dayton plays No. 13 St. Bonaventure at 2 p.m. Friday in the second quarterfinal of the day. The Bonnies upset No. 5 George Mason 63-57 on Thursday, becoming the first 13 seed to win two games in the A-10 tournament.

St. Bonaventure lost six of its last seven regular-season games, but the margin of defeat was six or fewer points in four of those games. It lost another game 91-82 in overtime at George Washington. A 71-58 loss at George Mason was the only double-digit defeat in that stretch.

In short, St. Bonaventure is capable of beating Dayton and keeping head coach Mark Schmidt’s tenure alive for another day. Schmidt announced Saturday he will retire after the season, his 19th.

“We had a lot of similar games in the regular season that we weren’t able to close out,” said St. Bonaventure guard Dasonte Brown, who scored 20 points against George Mason, on Thursday. “So today is the perfect day to be able to close those games out, and I think all those regular season games prepared us greatly. I think the confidence level is the same. We knew what we could do since October. We’re just finally putting the pieces together at the right time.”

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