The Hawk

Issue date: 3/12/08 Section: Sports

Govens has struggled of late, and needs to pick it up in Atlantic City.

The greatest time of the year is upon us: late March, when the Madness begins.

The question running through every student's mind at Saint Joseph's is, "Are we going to make the NCAA tournament?"

Due to the Hawks' tough conference schedule and the slight slide they hit in their past 12 games, the Hawks are going to need to do some work in order to be dancing later this month.

That work will be in the Atlantic 10 Conference Tournament. The winner of each conference tournament across the country gets an automatic bid to the NCAA Tournament. Outside of Xavier, who is already is a tournament lock, three or four teams are looking to shore up their resume to try to gain a bid to compete for the National Championship; and the easiest way to do that is to win the A-10 Tournament.

If you take a step back and look at what the A-10 has to offer, you can see the potential this conference tournament has. Just look at how St. Joe's has fared in conference play this season and you can get a taste of what this conference tournament has in store.

Just over a week ago the Hawks defeated the No. 8 team in the country, Xavier, but also dropped games to A-10 bottom feeders, La Salle and Saint Louis. The A-10 is a unique conference that is anything but predictable.

There are legitimately six teams that could win it, and that's not even taking into account a lower-ranked team making a surprise run. Temple is the new hot team, while Rhode Island has dropped the ball completely since the start of conference play. Other wildcards like Dayton, UMass, and Richmond also present issues for any team that has to face them.

A positive for the Hawks is that for the second time in a row, the tournament will be hosted at Boardwalk Hall in Atlantic City. But the Hawks head to Boardwalk Hall knowing they need to play well to play their way into the NCAA Tournament.

St. Joe's doesn't have the easiest path to the conference championship game as the fifth seed. The top four seeds receive byes in the first round of the tournament. The Hawks landed themselves just outside that range when they dropped their final game at Dayton.

The road to the A-10 Championship will be wrought with a lineup of tough games based on the multitude of close conference games this season. A bright spot for the Hawks is that except for the four teams who received byes, St. Joe's has the next-easiest schedule on paper.

Continued...

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