The season peaked with a 79-72 victory against Virginia Commonwealth on Senior Night on March 1 when Dayton clinched the outright A-10 title for the first time. That was the last victory in six seasons for coach Archie Miller.
“For us, one loss, a couple of down moments here at the end shouldn’t define our season,” Miller said after the loss to Davidson.
It didn’t. Nine years later, a team that included three players — Scoochie Smith, Kyle Davis and Kendall Pollard — who helped lead the program to four straight NCAA tournament appearances is well remembered.
No one will hold the 2016-17 A-10 tournament failure against that team because many other Dayton teams have suffered similar fates in the event, whether the location is Pittsburgh, Washington, D.C., Brooklyn, N.Y. or Atlantic City, N.J. Dayton won its only championship in 2003 at UD Arena.
Dayton’s depressing A-10 tournament history comes up every year at this time. Quarterfinal losses the last two seasons — 65-57 to Duquesne in 2024 and 73-68 in overtime to Saint Joseph’s in 2025 — haven’t helped. No one on the 2025-26 roster has experienced an A-10 tournament victory.
As always, though, the players enter the tournament, which returns to Pittsburgh this week for the first time in nine years, with high hopes.
“This is the team to do it,” said senior guard Javon Bennett on Friday after a 68-62 loss to VCU at UD Arena in the final game of the regular season. “We’ve got guys that are bought in, and we’ve been playing really well.”
No. 4 seed Dayton will open the A-10 tournament in the quarterfinals at 2 p.m. Friday at PPG Paints Arena against No. 12 seed La Salle (9-22, 5-13), No. 13 seed St. Bonaventure or No. 5 seed George Mason (23-8, 11-7).
The tournament starts Wednesday with two games: No. 12 seed La Salle (9-22, 5-13) vs. No. 13 St. Bonaventure (15-16, 4-14); and No. 11 Richmond (15-16, 6-13) vs. No. 14 Loyola Chicago (8-23, 4-14).
Here’s a breakdown of the 14-team field:
Credit: David Jablonski
Favorite: Saint Louis (27-4, 15-3) earned the No. 1 seed for the first time since 2014. It last won the tournament in 2019 as the No. 6 seed. It won its only other championship in 2013 as the No. 1 seed.
Saint Louis started the A-10 schedule with 12 straight victories but then lost three of its last six games. Its 85-67 loss at George Mason on Saturday was the most lopsided defeat in coach Josh Schertz’s 18 seasons as a head coach.
“If the scale is 10, 10 is my concern level,” Schertz said, according to a story by SLU beat writer Stu Durando. “Any time you get beat like that, the way we got beat, and you watch guys, I thought that was the first time all year … we let go of the rope. It probably hasn’t happened since last year against Wichita State where we got frustrated, got sad and stopped competing inside the game. That’s jarring to see this late in the season because that hasn’t been us all year.”
Saint Louis will play No. 8 seed Fordham (17-14, 8-10) or No. 9 George Washington (17-14, 8-10) at noon on Friday.
Credit: David Jablonski
Hottest team: No. 2 seed Virginia Commonwealth (24-7, 15) won 13 of its last 14 games after a 2-2 start in A-10 play. VCU shared the regular-season title with Saint Louis.
VCU will play in the quarterfinals at 5 p.m. Friday against No. 7 Duquesne (17-14, 9-9) or No. 10 Rhode Island (16-15, 7-11).
VCU is 24-9 in 12 A-10 tournament appearances with three championships (2025, 2023 and 2015). It is 9-3 in the quarterfinals.
Best NCAA hopes: Saint Louis, which is No. 27 in the NET, still has strong at-large hopes despite its late-season slump
VCU has a 60% chance to make the NCAA tournament field as an at-large team, according to ESPN, if it doesn’t win the A-10 tournament.
The A-10 hasn’t sent three teams to the NCAA tournament since 2018. That streak could end if neither VCU or Saint Louis win the A-10 tournament.
Credit: David Jablonski
Credit: David Jablonski
Dark horse: The hometown team, Duquesne (17-14, 9-9), was the last surprise winner of the tournament in 2024. It won the championship as the No. 6 seed that season.
Duquesne won five straight games in February but then lost four straight games before ending the regular season with a 79-77 victory at home against Richmond. In that game, Duquesne became the fourth team in NCAA Division I history to rally from a deficit of 30 or more points.
Duquesne trailed 40-10 with six minutes left in the first half and faced an 11-point deficit with three minutes remaining in the game. It outscored Richmond 13-0 the rest of the way and won the game on a tip-in at the buzzer by David Dixon.
“We got blitzed,” head coach Dru Joyce III said in a story on the Duquesne website. “That first half we got rocked, but our attention in the timeouts was still good. When you have the ball in your hands in a tie game you couldn’t ask to be in a better position, with a chance to win the game on your home floor. The big key was to get the last shot. Credit to Dave. That was a big-time effort.”
Duquesne plays Rhode Island in the second round at 5 p.m. Thursday. Duquesne beat Rhode Island 76-61 on Feb. 1 in Pittsburgh and lost 64-52 at Rhode Island on March 4.
Coldest team: St. Bonaventure lost six of its last seven games. This will be coach Mark Schmidt’s final A-10 tournament. He announced Saturday he will retire after the season.
Schmidt is 339-254 in 19 seasons. St. Bonaventure is 17-13 in the A-10 tournament during his tenure with two championships (2012 and 2021).
Upset potential: No. 6 seed Davidson (19-12, 10-8) will play No. 2 seed Saint Joseph’s in the quarterfinals at 7:30 p.m. Friday if it beats Richmond or Loyola Chicago at 7:30 p.m. Thursday.
Davidson lost 70-67 at home to Saint Joseph’s in the second-to-last game of the regular season. Davidson rallied from a 15-point deficit in the second half to take the lead, but the Hawks took control with a late 5-0 run.
Player to watch: Saint Joseph’s guard Jaiden Glover-Toscano is the top scorer in A-10 play from a top-four seed. He averages 16.3 points per game. He averaged 19.5 points in two games last week while making 7 of 14 3-pointers.
Seed success: Five different seeds — every seed except the No. 2 — have won the championship in the last 11 tournaments.
Eight different programs have won the championship in the same span: No. 1 VCU (2025); No. 6 Duquesne (2024); No. 1 VCU (2023); No. 6 Richmond (2022); No. 1 St. Bonaventure (2021); No. 6 Saint Louis (2019); No. 3 Davidson (2018); No. 4 Rhode Island (2017); No. 4 Saint Joseph’s (2016); No. 5 VCU (2015); and No. 4 Saint Joseph’s (2014).
Back in Pittsburgh: In coach Dan Hurley’s second-to-last season at Rhode Island, the No. 4 seed Rams won the tournament in 2017 when it was last held in Pittsburgh.
Rhode Island beat No. 5 seed St. Bonaventure 74-63 in the quarterfinals, No. 9 Davidson 84-60 in the semifinals and No. 2 VCU 70-63 in the championship game.
Rhode Island junior guard E.C. Matthews averaged 19.3 points in the three games. He was named the most outstanding player of the tournament.
The A-10 tournament will return to the Barclays Center in Brooklyn, N.Y., in 2027 and 2028. It has taken place there eight times if you count the 2020 tournament, which was canceled after the first round.
History lesson: Four teams have never won the A-10 tournament: Fordham; George Mason; La Salle; and Loyola Chicago, which will make its fourth appearance.
• Of the former champions, Dayton (23 years) and George Washington (20 years) have the longest droughts (23 years).
Massachusetts had a 30-year drought after last season but left the A-10 for the Mid-American Conference.
• Duquesne had the longest drought until it beat VCU for the title in 2024. It had not won the tournament since 1977 when the A-10 was known as the Eastern Collegiate Basketball League.
• No team has repeated as champion since Temple from three straight titles from 2008-10. No current A-10 program has repeated as champion.
NEXT GAME
Who: Dayton vs. George Mason, La Salle or St. Bonaventure in A-10 tournament
When: 2 p.m., Friday
Where: PPG Paints Arena in Pittsburgh
TV: USA Network
Radio: 95.7-FM, 1290-AM
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