Richmond wins Atlantic 10 title, secures NCAA bid

ATLANTIC CITY, N.J. — There is no more speculation, the University of Richmond is headed back to the NCAA Tournament for the second-consecutive year.

Richmond won the Atlantic 10 Conference's automatic bid by defeating the University of Dayton, 67-54, Sunday afternoon at Boardwalk Hall in Atlantic City, N.J. and cut down the nets as tradition by the winning team.

"I didn't know how to celebrate," senior Kevin Anderson said. "All I knew to do was smile."

Anderson, who was named the tournament's most outstanding player, led the way for Richmond with 23 points. He scored 21 points in the quarterfinal win over Rhode Island and 22 points in the semi-final win over Temple. He has played at least 38 minutes in all three games.

The first round of the NCAA games will be on Thursday and Friday but regardless of when Richmond plays next, Anderson said he will be ready.

"It's the best time of the season right here," Anderson said. "We just champions right now. We [are] so on a emotionally high right now. The tournament is the biggest thing and if you're a competitor and love basketball like I do and the team does, you're ready to play. I could go again if the tournament started in 20 minutes."

Last year, Richmond lost this game to Temple University, but received an at-large bid to the NCAA Tournament. But this year, Richmond upset No. 24 Temple in the semifinal to get to a chance to win the title.

Richmond came out strong and led by as many as 15 during the first half en route to its first A-10 title.It got the lead right away as senior Dan Geriot hit a three pointer and even although Dayton would tie it at three, Richmond would then go on a 8-0 run to take a 11-3 lead with 14:28 left in the half.

That big early lead gave Richmond a buffer for when Dayton went on a run. It cut Richmond's lead down to 10 at the half and got it down to as little as five with 18:49 left in the game. But Richmond then went on an 8-0 run, sparked by Anderson's clutch three pointer and finished off by five straight points by senior Kevin Smith, to once again give it a comfortable lead.

The Flyers played a tough defense that limited Richmond's ability to drive to the basket and forced Richmond to take 15 three-pointers during the first half. Richmond was able to capitalize on that early as it made 7 of its first 11 attempts during the half but went cold at the end and missed three of its next four.

That shooting was a far cry from Richmond's early tournament shooting, as it went 12 for 51 in those two wins. But one constant has been Richmond's strong defense. It limited its three opponents to an average of 51 points per game, including a low of 45 against Rhode Island.

"All of us to the coaching staff down to the managers and the players knew what was at stake and what we wanted to accomplish in Atlantic City," Harper said when asked about the team's defense. "It was evident in our hard work and how we played every night."

Tough defense is not always enough to beat Dayton though. Dayton is a team that uses offensive rebounds to get easy put-back points but Richmond allowed 11 offensive rebounds but only gave up nine second-chance points. The Spiders were able to outrebound the Flyers, another constant from this weekend for Richmond.

"That's something that is not normally a tremendous strength of ours," Mooney said. "We've done it well in different games before but this tournament was probably the most consistent we've ever rebounded. Part of it is when Darrius [Garrett, who finished with nine rebounds] is in the game we go from a average team to above-average or good rebounding team."

With 30 seconds left in the game, Mooney took out Anderson to a standing ovation. As Anderson got to the bench, Mooney gave him a big hug and Mooney did the same with Harper and Smith.

Richmond will find out when and where exactly it will play next in a few hours when the brackets are revealed. Taking the good feelings of winning the A-10 title, Anderson is ready for more.

"We are at the top right now as A-10 champions but we've done something but we haven't done enough," Anderson said. "We are satisfied but we want some more."

Contact staff writer Andrew Prezioso at andrew.prezioso@richmond.edu