PITTSBURGH — Tom Archdeacon walked into the media room at PPG Paints Arena on Friday afternoon. He covered Wright State in the Horizon League championship game on Tuesday in Indianapolis. Then he traveled to Cleveland to cover the Miami RedHawks in the Mid-American Conference tournament.

If Miami had advanced, Arch would have stayed in Cleveland. The RedHawks’ loss is a win for Dayton Flyers fans who read the Dayton Daily News. Arch, the road warrior, will be here with me as long as the Flyers are alive.

Dayton’s path forward increased in difficulty as No. 1 seed Saint Louis escaped a 21-point first-half hole and beat No. 9 seed George Washington 88-81 in the first quarterfinal Friday.

Saint Louis blew a nine-point lead of its own in the final five minutes but outscored George Washington 10-2 in the final 90 seconds after George Washington took a 79-78 lead on a 3-point play by Rafael Castro with 1 minute, 47 seconds remaining.

Saint Louis will play No. 4 seed Dayton or No. 13 seed St. Bonaventure at 1 p.m. Saturday in the semifinals.

If there was any doubt about the NCAA tournament at-large chances for Saint Louis, a win Friday should put them to rest.

On Friday morning, Saint Louis announced a long-term contract extension for second-year coach Josh Schertz, one of the hottest names in the annual coaching carousel.

“We’re thrilled about the ability to build a program with sustained success,” Saint Louis AD Chris May told SLU beat writer Stu Durando “It’s been a great first two years and we look forward to many, many more.”

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.”