It's now team to preview the Atlantic 10 Tournament, the conference tournament nearest to my heart. Sad I can't make it to Brooklyn this week, but I think the new location both elevate the conference and could benefited my beloved UMASS Minutemen. My thoughts on Derek Kellog are well known, but all I'll say is for where this team is seeded they have a nice draw to be able to make a deep run.
Bracket: Thursday's Games:
1)St. Louis 8)Richmond vs 9)Charlotte
2)VCU 7)Xavier vs 10)St. Joesphs
3)Temple 6)UMASS vs 11)GW
4)LaSalle 5)Butler vs 12)Dayton
Let's get real the only Thursday game that matters is UMASS/GW. UMASS actually dropped this game at home on the day they retired Marcus Camby's jersey. I truly believe that star point guard Chazz Williams playing in his hometown of Brooklyn will not let us loss this game despite how inept Coach Kellog is.
Having been to this tournament before I can also tell you Xavier and St. Joesph travel the best so that will be a great first round game but Xavier is mentally tougher and will pull it out.
Quaterfinals: St. Louis over Richmond Xavier over VCU UMASS over Temple Butler over LaS
While this no doubt how I hope this round plays out they are not exactly homer picks. St. Louis is a defensive machine and will roll to a win. Butler is best equipped to prepare for teams on short rest and will edge by LaSalle. Now to the fun part of the bracket Xavier will beat VCU who hasn't won a game when it's failed to force 15 turnovers. They can hit you with a 15-0 run at anytime but Xavier was up on them by 18 to weeks ago before a concussion suffered by starting point guard Dee Daniels changed the game. Daniels is now healthy and Xavier will handle the press enough to pull the upset. The 82-81 home loss to Temple was the UMASS game I attended live this season. We match up with Temple better than anyone in the conference and beat them in this round last year. If Kellog actually bothers to guard Khaliff Wyatt UMASS will pull the upset.
Semifinals: St. Louis over Butler UMASS over Xavier
St. Louis forced 26 turnovers in an early season win over Butler and matches up great with Butler's guards. Give me St. Louis by a wide margin. We beat Xavier last week thanks to a Freddie Riley shooting barrage and should be able to repeat the feat.
Finals: St. Louis over UMASS
I'll pick this with my head, St. Louis is worst possible match up and we need them to get upset to have a shot at the auto bid. The regular season match up was marred by the ACL injury to Jesse Morgan but it didn't hide the fact that SLU can kill us on the offensive glass and contain our guards. I hope we can make it a game late and I can excited about the possibility of making the tournament.
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