A-10 tournament notes: Dayton hopes November tournament experience pays off in March

Dayton entered the ESPN Events Invitational with a 1-3 record and had lost three straight games to UMass Lowell, Lipscomb and Austin Peay. It then beat Miami, Kansas and Belmont to turn its season around and put itself back on the path to earning an at-large bid in the NCAA tournament.

Three months later, the Flyers (22-9) are still chasing that bid. They earned the No. 2 seed in the Atlantic 10 Conference tournament and will play No. 7 George Washington or No. 10 Massachusetts in the quarterfinals at 6 p.m. Friday at Capital One Arena.

Dayton will lean on its Orlando experience this weekend.

“We’ve done it before early in the season when we didn’t have anything at all figured out like we do right now,” forward Toumani Camara said. “I think it will help us for sure.”

Coaching situation: Massachusetts entered its game against George Washington on Thursday night knowing it had to win to keep Matt McCall on the job for at least one more game. UMass announced March 1 it would part ways with McCall after this season. He’s 60-81 in five seasons.

UMass beat Fordham and George Mason to close the regular season after the announcement about McCall.

“It was an emotional week, let’s call it like it is,” McCall told the Daily Hampshire Gazette. “Our player are in a relatively good spot, all things considered. For me, I haven’t had a ton of time to digest anything. With what happened, something I want these guys to understand is adversity hits, you don’t just quit. You keep battling, you fight to the end.”

Fordham advances: No. 8 seed Fordham (16-15) beat No. 9 George Mason 54-49 in the first second-round game Thursday. Chuba Ohams led Fordham, which advanced to the quarterfinals for the first time since 2015, with 20 points.

Fordham will play No. 1 seed Davidson at noon Friday. Davidson beat Fordham 69-66 and 66-45 in the regular season.

George Mason (14-16) lost its last three games and saw a streak of three straight winning seasons end in coach Kim English’s first season.

Early A-10 results: The higher seeds both won opening-round games Wednesday.

• Jack Clark scored 20 points and Clifton Moore had 19 to lead to No. 12 La Salle past No. 13 Saint Joseph’s 63-56. La Salle (11-18) won its fourth straight game, while Saint Joseph’s (11-19) suffered its fourth straight losing season.

• In the second game, No. 11 Rhode Island beat No. 14 Duquesne 79-77. Antwan Walker, who had 17 points, was one of five players to score in double figures for Rhode Island (15-15). Duquesne (6-24) finished its worst season since 2006 (3-24) with 17 straight losses.

Bracket picture: With Xavier’s loss to Butler in the Big East tournament on Wednesday, it suddenly became popular for NCAA tournament experts to predict the Musketeers will end up in the First Four — with Dayton as an opponent.

That was USA Today’s guess in its updated bracket on Thursday. It featured No. 12 seed Dayton playing No. 12 seed Xavier at UD Arena The winner would play No. 5 seed Saint Mary’s in Milwaukee.

The prediction listed Dayton and Xavier among the “Last Four In,” so just on the right side of the at-large bubble, along with Southern Methodist, which beat Dayton in December, and Wyoming.

ESPN’s Joe Lunardi also brought up the possibility of Dayton and Xavier renewing their rivalry in the NCAA tournament, though he does not have Dayton in the field in his latest update.

“Trying to imagine a Xavier-Dayton “First Four” game at the UD Arena,” Lunardi wrote on Twitter on Wednesday, “with Wright State part of the opener. And Wake Forest also in town …”