The No. 4 seed Flyers (23-10) will play No. 2 seed Virginia Commonwealth (26-7) in the championship game at 1 p.m. Sunday.
Dayton is 0-4 against VCU in the A-10 tournament with losses in the championship game in 2015 and 2023, a second-round loss in 2018 and a quarterfinal loss in 2021.
VCU has three A-10 tournament championships since joining the A-10 in the 2012-13 season. Dayton has one title since joining the league in the 1995-96 season.
VCU improved to 10-0 in A-10 semifinals with a dominant performance in a 77-64 victory against Saint Joseph’s on Saturday.
VCU is 3-6 in A-10 championship games.
VCU swept Dayton in the regular season, winning 99-73 at the Siegel Center and 68-62 at UD Arena.
“Obviously tremendous amount of respect (for Dayton),” VCU coach Phil Martelli Jr. said. “All due respect to everybody, these are the two flagship programs, right? You expect to see at least Dayton or VCU in the championship game every year. It just seems like it every year. We happen to be meeting against each other.
“A ton of respect for Anthony (Grant]), for his group, for the way they’ve battled all year. And I told the guys, I think it was the first time we played them at home. They just had a bad week and lost a couple of games in January. Otherwise, they would have been right there either tying for first place or winning it outright. So we know what they have. They’ve got a bunch of weapons, too. We’re going to have to be ready, because it’s going to be a battle, for sure. It seems like three months ago. We played them last Friday night. It seems like forever ago.”
Credit: David Jablonski
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