Atlantic-10 Tournament Championship
#9 Dayton Flyers vs. #3 Richmond Spiders, Boardwalk Hall, Atlantic City, NJ
Sunday, March 13, 2011, 1:00 pm Eastern, TV: CBS
Opening Line: Richmond -4
Current Line: Richmond -4
Opening Total: 128
Current Total: 126.5
Money Line: Richmond -200 / Dayton +170
After falling short in the 2010 Atlantic-10 Conference tournament championship game, the third-seeded Richmond Spiders (26-7) will get an opportunity to redeem themselves by winning this year’s title in Atlantic City when they face the ninth-seeded Dayton Flyers (22-12) on Sunday. The Spiders (-4) lost last year’s championship to top seed Temple 56-52 but got some revenge when the beat the second-seeded Owls 58-54 in the semifinals on Saturday.
Richmond also won at Dayton 70-61 back on January 25 in the only meeting between the teams during the regular season. The Spiders have won their last six games both straight-up and against the spread, and they are expected to be one of three Atlantic-10 teams to get invitations to the NCAA tournament. They can obviously guarantee themselves the conference’s automatic bid with a win over the Flyers, who have won three straight following a three-game skid.
Dayton’s big win in the conference tournament was an upset of top seed Xavier in the quarterfinals on Friday. The Flyers beat the Musketeers 68-67 as 8-point underdogs and then squeaked by #12 St. Joseph’s 64-61 in the semifinals on Saturday. Dayton’s Chris Johnson and Chris Wright combined to score 36 points and grab 19 rebounds against the Hawks.
However, the only thing really going in the Flyers’ favor here in the title game is that the underdog is 9-2-1 against the spread in the last 12 meetings with Richmond. They likely will not get into the Big Dance without one more victory. The Spiders were 2.5-point road dogs in the earlier meeting but held Dayton to 34.4 percent shooting from the field and got a game-high 26 points from Kevin Anderson to pull off the win on 10 of 18 shooting, including 4 of 6 from 3-point range.
Anderson led Richmond to the victory against Temple as well, scoring a game-high 22 points on 8 of 17 shooting. He has averaged nearly 19 points during the team’s six-game winning streak and will be the leading candidate for MVP of the tournament if the Spiders win the championship.
A low-scoring game might be the best bet when you consider the trends that have followed each team recently. The UNDER is 6-2 in the last eight games overall for the Flyers and has also cashed in Richmond’s last five overall along with seven of the team’s past eight. In addition, the total has gone UNDER in the last two meetings after going OVER in the previous five.
Now that you have read this Atlantic-10 tournament betting preview featuring Richmond & Dayton, check out the NCAA basketball odds on this and all the games to compare the best lines at multiple sportsbooks.
