March 10, 2013

2013 Men's Basketball Bracket

NEWPORT NEWS, Va.--Saint Louis has claimed the top seed for the 2013 Atlantic 10 Men's Basketball Championship, which begins Thursday at Barclays Center in Brooklyn, N.Y. The Billikens captured their first A-10 regular season title outright with a 13-3 conference record and will receive a bye to the quarterfinals.

VCU is the second seed and will also receive a bye into the quarterfinals. The Rams, in their first season in the A-10, finished 12-4 in league play. Temple clinched a bye Sunday to finish 11-5 in the A-10 and force a three-way tiebreaker with Butler and La Salle. Temple defeated Saint Louis during the regular season, giving the Owls the tiebreaker advantage and the No. 3 Seed. La Salle defeated Butler head-to-head and will be seeded fourth to claim the final bye.

No. 5 Butler, which also finished 11-5 in league play will face No. 12 Dayton Thursday at 2:30 pm. The Flyers finished 7-9 in conference play, tied with George Washington and St. Bonaventure. GW won the three-way tiebreaker, with head-to-head wins over both Dayton and SBU. The Butler-Dayton winner advances to Friday's quarterfinals to face fourth-seeded La Salle at 2:30 pm.

Massachusetts and Xavier both finished at 9-7 in the A-10. UMass claims the sixth seed by head-to-head tiebreaker and will face 11^th-seeded George Washington Thursday at 9:00 pm. The Colonials clinched a spot in the championship with an 81-80 overtime win over Dayton Saturday.  The winner will face No. 3 Temple in Friday's quarterfinals at 9:00 pm.

Richmond, Charlotte and Saint Joseph's all finished 8-8. The Spiders, by virtue of their overtime win over VCU earlier in the season, win the three-way tiebreaker and will be the eighth seed. Charlotte defeated SJU on Saturday to claim the head-to-head tiebreaker, seeding the 49ers ninth and the Hawks 10^th. Saint Joseph's will face seventh-seeded Xavier at 6:30 pm on Thursday with the winner advancing to face No. 2 VCU in Friday's quarterfinals, also at 6:30 pm.

No. 8 Richmond and No. 9 Charlotte open the championship at noon in the first game of Thursday's opening round. The winner will advance to face top-seeded Saint Louis at noon on Friday.

Every game of the championship will air on live television. The first round will be carried by NBC Sports Network and the quarterfinals will air on regional and local television. Those clearances will be announced this week once finalized and those games will also be streamed free through Atlantic10.com's All-Access Player. CBS Sports Network will carry the semifinals and CBS will again air the championship game as part of the network's Selection Sunday coverage.

Tickets for the championship can be purchased through Ticketmaster, Atlantic10.com, BarclaysCenter.com or at the Barclays Center Box Office.