A-10 tournament notes: Veteran coach’s career ends with second-round loss

There are championship reminders everywhere you look at the site of the 2025 Atlantic 10 Conference tournament, which put its own trophy on display in the concourse. Fans can take selfies with the silver trophy as long as they don’t touch it. A worker standing nearby will warn fans if they get too close.

Eight different teams have won the A-10 tournament championship in the last eight years. Three of those past champions did not get close to the trophy. The 2017 champion (Rhode Island), 2022 champion (Richmond) and 2024 champion (Duquesne) all lost their first games.

The Friday quarterfinals will include the top eight seeds. Meanwhile, two teams that have never won the A-10 tournament, Fordham and La Salle, lost in the first two days.

No. 14 seed La Salle extended coach Fran Dunphy’s tenure by one day with a 78-71 victory Wednesday against No. 11 Massachusetts but lost 75-70 to No. 6 Saint Joseph’s in the second round Thursday. The Hawks advanced to play the No. 3 seed Dayton Flyers on Friday night.

Dunphy started his head coaching career at Penn and then spent 16 seasons in the A-10 — 13 with Temple and three with La Salle. He now will take on a role as special assistant to the president at La Salle. In his final game as head coach, the Explorers cut a 20-point deficit to three in the final minutes.

“We don’t need to talk that much about me or stuff like that,” Dunphy said in his postgame press conference. “I’m just so bad at all this. I just appreciate the fact that I had a chance to do what I did and to be connected with three great institutions and coach for as long as I did. It was fun. It was a tremendous ride, and the competitive piece was awesome.”

Saint Joseph’s coach Billy Lange embraced Dunphy after the game in the handshake line.

“I just love the guy,” Lange said. “I think he’s everything that a coach should be about. He cares about the community. He cares about his players. He’s committed to their development. He’s an ambassador. He wants other people to do well.”

Bubble watch: Dayton’s NCAA tournament hopes largely rest on winning the A-10 tournament or at the very least winning its first two games in Washington. Jerry Palm, of CBS Sports, listed Dayton among the “First Four Out” of the tournament on Friday.

If the Flyers don’t win the championship and fall short of earning an at-large bid, they could have plenty of company with the three other major programs in Ohio all on the bubble this week.

Xavier lost 89-87 to Marquette on Thursday in the Big East quarterfinals. On Friday, Jim Root, of The Athletic, wrote, “Xavier is as bubbly as it gets, and the wait until Sunday will be excruciating.”

Of Ohio State, Root wrote, “Ohio State is in real trouble after dropping its Big Ten tournament opener to Iowa.”

Meanwhile, Cincinnati’s slim hopes took a big hit with a 76-56 loss to Iowa State on Wednesday.

The last time Dayton, Xavier, Cincinnati and Ohio State all failed to make the NCAA tournament was 1981.

Credit: David Jablonski

Credit: David Jablonski

Star power: Davidson failed to reach the quarterfinals for the third straight season under coach Matt McKillop after advancing to the championship game in his dad Bob McKillop’s final season in 2022. The No. 12 seed Wildcats lost 83-75 to No. 5 Saint Louis on Thursday.

Earlier in the week, Davidson created a bigger headline by announcing NBA star Stephen Curry, a 2010 Davidson graduate, will serve as assistant general manager for the program along with former Davidson soccer player Matt Berman. He and other Davidson graduates also donated money to create an eight-figure fund to support the program.

“It’s really exciting,” Matt McKillop said Thursday, “and maybe that’s why we felt really good coming into this. There’s a lot of good things happening. We didn’t get that win on the court, but we got a win with something like Stephen Curry and Matt Berman being named Assistant GMs and what their fund will do. It will help us, absolutely.”

Last game: The loss by UMass on Wednesday brought an end to the men’s basketball program’s time in the A-10. UMass will compete in the Mid-American Conference next season.

UMass, a charter member of the A-10, won five straight A-10 tournaments from 1992-96 and never won the championship again. It’s moving to the MAC to try to boost the fortunes of its football program.

“We as an institution have a commitment to give all our sports, not just men’s basketball, the right to succeed and compete in a fair way,” UMass coach Frank Martin said. “Our school leaders made a hard decision and it’s sad, but it’s the new norm.

“Anyone that thinks that five years from now this is going to look the same as it looks today is out of their minds. This is just the beginning, this change that’s coming across college athletics. Who knows what conferences are going to be five years from now.”

Touching tribute: Famed sports author John Feinstein, who died on Thursday at 69, rooted for Fordham as a kid but had a soft spot for Dayton. In 1996, he told Dayton Daily News sports writer Gary Nuhn he sat near Sonia Donoher, the wife of Dayton coach Don Donoher, during a game between Dayton and Fordham in the NIT in 1968 at Madison Square Garden in New York City.

After the game, Sonia told Feinstein, then 12, “You really know your basketball.” Later in the tournament, she arranged for Feinstein to meet Dayton star Don May.

Years later, after Feinstein had gained fame as a writer for the Washington Post, Sonia sent Feinstein a note congratulating him on his career.

Feinstein was supposed to cover the A-10 tournament this week and requested a credential. At the tournament on Thursday, Drew Dickerson, the longtime communications director for the A-10, left Feinstein’s credential at his seat.

“We will miss having him courtside and trading stories in the media room,” Dickerson wrote on X. “(The Washington Post) and college basketball lost a great one today.”