VCU Wins 2026 Atlantic 10 Tournament, SLU Earns At-Large Bid to Big Dance

A tip for any teams facing the VCU Rams in this year’s NCAA Tournament; if you can’t follow through, they will punish you.

Dayton learned that lesson the hard way in the early goings of this year’s Atlantic 10 Championship Game Sunday afternoon. Despite a few solid defensive stretches throughout the game, holding the Rams scoreless for multiple stretches of 2 minutes or more, the Flyers struggled to turn defense to offense, scoring just 4 points off 5 total VCU turnovers and 11 in the fast break.

As for VCU, even when the Rams weren’t turning Dayton over, they smothered the Flyers defensively, frequently getting touches on the ball and limiting Dayton’s lanes to the basket. In terms of responsive hoops, the Rams hit several key shots to deflate Flyers runs that were few and far between, including a very early shot by Terrence Hill Jr. After the Flyers had closed the gap from down 10-5 to 10-10 midway through the first, a swell of energy ran through the Dayton fans in attendance. Hill, pulling up from way beyond the arc next to the Dayton bench hash mark, hit a silencer to put the Rams up 13-10.

Dayton trailed for the rest of the game.

With a 7-0 run to close out the first half, VCU led the Flyers 40-23 at the break. Like the two games played in the days leading up to the Championship, VCU’s shooting was impeccable. The Rams hit 6 of their first 8 shots from beyond the arc in the first half, entering the break 8-14 from three.

“Yeah, they just hit shots, and when it's going like that for them, we've just got to be able to stop the momentum,” Dayton’s Javon Bennett said after the game. “I think we did a good job in the second half kind of fighting back, but yeah.”

VCU’s offense slowed down considerably in the second half, shooting 25% from the field as opposed to 53% in the first, but Dayton struggled to capitalize on long Rams scoring droughts. The Flyers held VCU scoreless from the 13:50 mark of the half to the 10:28 mark. In that span, Dayton scored just two points off free throws. Dayton then held VCU without a field goal for the final 8 minutes of the game, but by then, the Rams’ 15-point lead was insurmountable.

Nyk Lewis recorded a team-high 17 points for the Rams off 5-10 shooting from the field, 4-5 from deep. Following the win, teammate Terrence Hill highlighted the freshman’s development into a conference star in such a short period of time.

“He's a dog, bro. We see it every day. I've been guarding him all summer,” Hill said. “I just saw it as soon as I met him. I never met a kid that works out so much, works on his game.”

Hill scored 14 points and recorded 2 assists. Javon Bennett led all Dayton scorers with 14 points.

With the win, VCU wins their third Atlantic 10 Tournament title in four years. Each of those three titles have been won by a different head coach; Mike Rhoades in 2023, Ryan Odom in 2025, and now Phil Martelli Jr. in 2026. According to Martelli,

VCU also becomes the first team to win back-to-back A10 Tournament titles since Temple three-peated from 2008-2010 under the leadership of Fran Dunphy. Martelli reflected on what it means to contribute to a new standard of excellence in the conference.

“You sit there and talk about [Fran] Dunphy who won three in a row at Temple. Other than my father, I don't know if there's a man I admire more than Fran Dunphy. So to be in that conversation with those people, it doesn't even make sense. Those guys are legends. I'm a mediocre coach that has really good players. They're legends. [John] Calipari, [John] Chaney, go down that list, and we're going to have a chance to be in that lore.”

Martelli’s father, Phil Martelli Sr., coached the St. Joe’s Hawks to three Atlantic 10 titles and an Elite 8 appearance in his tenure from 1995 to 2019.

With the Atlantic 10’s automatic bid locked down, VCU received an 11-seed in the South Region of this year’s NCAA Tournament. Before their seeding was finalized, Martelli talked about prepping his team for the upcoming week after winning three games in just as many days.

“We'll have to have a good week,” Martelli said. “We talked to them early in the week about focusing and refocusing. That will be the message, probably not tonight, I won't hit them hard with anything. But sometime tomorrow, we'll talk about refocusing and what that looks like.”

They will face 6-seed North Carolina in the first round.

Elsewhere in the conference, Saint Louis earned an at-large bid as the 9-seed in the Midwest Region. They take on Georgia in the first round. George Mason, Dayton, Davidson, George Washington, and St. Joe’s all earned bid to the 2026 NIT.