Atlantic 10 Updates Men’s, Women’s Basketball Tournament Schedules

On Thursday, the Atlantic 10 announced that its men’s and women’s basketball tournaments will be held on different dates than originally scheduled.

The majority of the men’s tournament will take place earlier than expected, from March 3-6, with the championship game scheduled for March 14 in Dayton.

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The preliminary rounds of the men’s tournament will be hosted by VCU and Richmond, with games either being played at VCU’s Siegel Center (First Round and Semifinals) or Richmond’s Robins Center (Second Round and Quarterfinals). The championship game in Dayton will tip off at 1 p.m. and will be televised on CBS Sports.

The majority of the women’s tournament has been pushed back to March 10-14, and will still take place in Richmond, Virginia.

The moves come after the conference saw high amounts of cancellations during the season due to COVID-19. The new dates of the tournaments will now allow for teams to make up games that were missed earlier on. Specifically, the conference decided to move the majority of the men’s tournament up in case of cancellations occurring during the tournament.

Duquesne’s men’s team is currently 6-5 in conference play this season, good for the No. 7 spot in the conference. After winning three straight games and turning its season around, Duquesne has now not played in three straight scheduled games. The Dukes have had six conference games postponed so far this season, and an additional three non-conference matchups cancelled.

Duquesne’s women’s team is currently 2-5 in conference play on the year, sitting in second-to-last place in the Atlantic 10. It has seen eight of its conference matchups postponed so far this season, including a stretch of six games in a row that were postponed.

The seeding policy for the 2021 Atlantic 10 tournament was also recently approved by the conference. The policy is as follows:

“Teams above 60 percent of the median number of conference games played by all 14 teams will be seeded by conference winning percentage. Teams below that 60 percent threshold will be seeded using the NCAA NET ranking, relative to all A-10 teams. Additionally, teams below the 60 percent threshold will not be eligible for the regular season title.”