Tournament dreams continued to dance in the heads of three Philly teams Tuesday night while March Madness likely ended for another.
La Salle, Saint Joseph’s and Villanova all won the opening games of their conference tournaments. Pennsylvania lost a must-win season finale against Princeton that would have tied them for the Ivy League title and forced a one-game playoff with Harvard for the league’s automatic bid to the NCAA Tournament.
La Salle beat Richmond 80-72 in the opening round of the Atlantic 10 Tournament. The Explorers had four players in double-digits including a team-high 17 points from guard Ramon Galloway -- he added eight assists and seven rebounds as well.
St. Joe’s also won in the opening round of the A-10 Tourney, beating Charlotte 80-64 thanks two five players in double-digits including 23 from guard Carl Jones.
Both the Explorers (vs. Saint Louis) and Hawks (vs. Saint Bonaventure) will continue their march this weekend at the A-10 Tourney in Atlantic City. As it stands right now both teams would need a deep run to be considered for the NCAA Tourney.
Villanova likely needs to run the table for a shot at the NCAAs, luckily they have Maalik Wayns.
The junior guard had his third-straight strong game since returning from a knee injury, scoring 28 points as the Wildcats beat Rutgers 70-49 on Tuesday night in the first round of the Big East tournament at Madison Square Garden.
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Jay Wright’s Wildcats will attempt to stay alive as they face South Florida Wednesday night at 9.
Penn was the odd team out of the Dance. Despite needing to beat Princeton to stay alive, the Quakers came out flat, fell behind by 17 points early in the first half and never got over the hump as they lost 62-52.
Zack Rosen had 19 points on 8-of-24 shooting from the field for Penn. Miles Cartwright added 11 for the Quakers, who were held to 38.6 percent shooting from the field (22 of 57).
The two other Philly squads could already be in the tourney. Temple will likely make the tourney no matter what they do in the A-10 Tourney while Drexel will continue to sweat it out on the bubble after losing in the CAA Final Monday.
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