Atlantic-10 conference tournament preview

This is part 27 of a 32-part series previewing every conference tournament in the country.  We'll detail what you need to keep track of in each tournament and the various stakes for each team.

The standings:
Dayton 15-3
VCU 14-4
Richmond 13-5
Rhode Island 13-5
St Bonaventure 11-7
George Washington 10-8
George Mason 9-9
LaSalle 9-9
Davidson 8-10
Fordham 7-11
St Louis 6-12
UMass 4-14
St Joseph's 4-14
Duquesne 3-15

Tournament format:
They're playing in Pittsburgh this year.  All teams go.  Wednesday March 8 to Sunday March 12.

The matchups:
1) Dayton vs. 8/9) LaSalle/Davidson
4) Rhode Island vs. 5/12/13) St Bonaventure/UMass/St Joseph's
3) Richmond vs. 6/11/14) George Washington/St Louis/Duquesne
2) VCU vs. 7/10) George Mason/Fordham

The stakes:
I think both VCU and Dayton are home free to bids.  The seed won't exactly be high, but I can't imagine excluding either team from the tournament at this stage.  Their profiles have both mostly avoided disaster, even if they're a bit light.  The middle of the A-10 is kind of a jumbled mess, so dominating the conference doesn't have the value it's had in years past.  It'll cost Dayton and VCU about 3 or so seed lines over what they would probably usually expect.

Rhode Island is your token bubble team.  Obviously they've got to get to the semis to have a chance, and then it's probably a signature win chance against Dayton.  Probably a pretty clear example of win-and-in, lose-and-out that you'll find this week.  URI needs more quality wins; there's one right there.

Richmond's a NIT bubble team; I don't think anyone else is good enough to get to the NIT.  This leaves GMU, GWU, LaSalle, Davidson, and Bonventure all for the CBI/CIT, if they care.