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2008 ATLANTIC 10 BASKETBALL Tournament
MARCH 12-15
BOARDWALK HALL – ATLANTIC CITY, NJ
The question that needs to be answered by anyone making picks for the Atlantic 10 Conference Tournament is, can anyone knock off Xavier? If you use the Regular season to answer that question, you’d say Temple. Temple beat Xavier in mid January by 20 points, a home Game for Temple. But other than that win, Temple really doesn’t have any other signature wins. Temple is 16-12 overall, 9-5 in the Conference with two Games remaining as of this writing. Xavier has lost just 3 other times all year, to Tennessee, Arizona State and Miami Ohio. Three of their 4 losses were in December and they haven’t lost since the Temple Game, January 15th.
Who else is there in the Atlantic 10? Just about the entire league is a Game or two above .500 or much worse. Rhode Island and UMASS both knocked off Syracuse this year. But Xavier beat both of those teams on the road. Most teams in the Atlantic 10 lack big wins. Their Schedule strength isn’t anything to write home about.
Dayton looked like they would be everyone’s pick at one point to do some damage. On January 12th, they were 14-1 with wins over Louisville on the road, and Pitt. But since January 12th, they have lost 8 over their last 12 Games. As we mention over and over in Our Tournament write ups, when you’re handicapping College Basketball and looking to make your own picks come Tourney time, you need to pay more attention to what teams have done lately, not what they did two months ago.
UMASS and La Salle are both 4-1 straight up and against the spread their last 5 Games but we’re not ready to pick either of those teams to upset Xavier in the Tournament. Cold teams would be Rhode Island and Duquesne, both 1-4 straight up and against the spread their last 5 Games as of this writing on March 3rd.
Our top 3 picks for the Atlantic 10 Conference Tournament are Xavier and Temple, and perhaps a dark horse in Charlotte. Charlotte played the 3rd toughest non Conference Schedule behind Xavier and Temple and beat some very good basketball teams this year such as knocking off Clemson on the road. But they have also lost some Conference Games lately against teams they should have beaten.
Ultimately, we see a Temple vs. Xavier final. We hope that’s the match up we get as we’d be all over Xavier in a huge revenge Game. If you’re making your own Picks for this Tournament, we wish you luck. If you’d rather let someone else do the work, Bettorsworld has you covered. Our Key Release Crew is once again offering Free Tournament Picks or we also have the very economical Consensus Club offering the strongest picks on the board from the very best sports services in the country.
2008 ATLANTIC 10 BASKETBALL Tournament Schedule
March 12-15, 2008
OPENING ROUND
Wednesday, March 12 TIME COVERAGE TV
Game 1: #8 vs. #9 12:00pm
Game 2: #5 vs. #12 2:30pm*
Game 3: #7 vs. #10 6:30pm
Game 4: #6 vs. #11 9:00pm*
QUARTERFINAL ROUND
Thursday, March 13 TIME COVERAGE TV
Game 5 12:00pm
Game 6 2:30pm*
Game 7 6:30pm
Game 8 9:00pm*
SEMIFINAL ROUND
Friday, March 14 TIME COVERAGE TV
Game 9 6:30pm
Game 10 9:00pm*
CHAMPIONSHIP
Saturday, March 15 TIME COVERAGE TV
Game 11 6:00pm
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