A-10 tweaks format of men’s basketball tournament

Four semifinalists will have an off day after quarterfinals

The Atlantic 10 Conference men’s basketball tournament will have a different schedule than normal in 2023.

The tournament will start on Tuesday instead of Wednesday with the second round moving from Thursday to Wednesday and the quarterfinals taking place on Thursday instead of Friday. With Loyola joining the conference, there will be three games involving the six bottom seeds in the first round instead of two games involving the bottom four seeds.

The final four teams, all of which receive double byes to the quarterfinals as usual, will have an off day Friday before playing in the semifinals, which will remain on Saturday. The championship game will take place on Selection Sunday as always.

The tweaks to the format were approved by the A-10′s 15 athletic director’s at the league’s fall meetings, which concluded Monday.

The A-10 tournament returns to the Barclays Center in Brooklyn, N.Y., next March. The tournament was scheduled to take place there in 2021 but was moved to Richmond and Dayton because of the pandemic. Two games were held there in 2020 before the tournament was cancelled because of the pandemic.

There were two other pieces of news from the A-10 meetings:

• Starting in the 2023-24 season, A-10 women’s basketball teams will play an 18-game schedule instead of a 16-game schedule. The men’s teams have played an 18-game schedule since the 2014-15 season.

• The league also plans to seek a neutral site for its indoor track and field championships. With Loyola joining the league, there are more than 900 male and female athletes competing in the indoor championships, and the league wants “a a larger, first-class indoor track facility.”

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