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NCAA Basketball Tournament 2012

March 6, 2012 by · Comments Off on NCAA Basketball Tournament 2012 

NCAA Basketball Tournament 2012, The Atlantic 10 Conference Tournament takes place March 6 and March 9-11, first on campus locations, then at the Boardwalk Hall in Atlantic City. The A10 utilizes the typical 12-team bracket. The top four teams get byes to the March 9 quarterfinals in Atlantic City, while the bottom eight teams face off on March 6 at the home of the higher seed.

Tuesday: No. 9 Duquesne at No. 8 UMass, No. 12 Charlotte at No. 5 St. Joseph’s, No. 10 Richmond at No. 7 La Salle, No. 11 George Washington at No. 6 Dayton.

Friday: No. 1 Temple vs. Duquesne/UMass, No. 4 St. Bonaventure vs. Charlotte/St. Joe’s, No. 2 St. Louis vs. Richmond/La Salle, No. 3 Xavier vs. Dayton/GWU.

Saturday: Semifinals

Sunday: Finals

Who The Numbers Like
St. Louis. Ken Pomeroy’s projections say Rick Majerus’ Billikens are the overwhelming favorite, with a 44.1 percent chance of taking home the conference’s automatic bid. Temple has a 19.9 percent chance, and everybody else is under nine percent. George Washington has a 0.07 percent chance; so do not put money on the 10-20 Colonials. SLU ranks a staggering 12th overall in Pomeroy’s rankings, 37th on offense (powered by great ball control and decent shooting) and 11th on defense (they force both bad shots and turnovers and they rebound well). They are certainly capable of slip-ups — in December, they lost to Loyola Marymount after whipping the likes of Washington and Oklahoma; just a week and a half ago, they fell at 7-24 Rhode Island — but despite that, they are the the most consistently sound team in the A10.

Who The Eyeballs Like
Temple. The Owls won the conference title by a game on the power of their 72-67 road win over SLU on Jan. 11. Temple began conference play 1-2 with losses to Dayton (at home) and Richmond (away), but they have won 13 of 14 since. They are far from invincible — they were taken to overtime by both La Salle and UMass in the last two weeks, and they suffered a 10-point loss at St. Joseph’s. But they shot incredibly well (56.6 percent) against a great SLU defense the first time around — Khalif Wyatt scored 22 points on 9-for-13 shooting — and head-to-head matchups do make an impression.

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