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When the 5th-seeded VCU Rams (15-10, 10-5 A-10) and 7th-seeded UMass Minutewomen (14-6, 7-5 A-10) meet at 12 p.m. ET on Sunday with the Atlantic-10 Tournament title and an NCAA Tournament bid on the line, it will be an opportunity for the Minutewomen to make their first Big Dance and an opportunity for the Rams to make their first since 2009.
VCU upset the A-10 regular season champion Dayton Flyers on Saturday.
Meanwhile, UMass upset the 3rd-seeded Saint Louis Billikens on Saturday and the 2nd-seeded Fordham Rams on Friday.
VCU and UMass split in the regular season.
GREENVILLE, N.C. Trailing VCU by six going into the fourth quarter, East Carolina dug in defensively and held the Rams to a pair of points in the final 3:46, securing a 58-55 non-conference victory over the Atlantic 10 Conference preseason favorite Wednesday evening inside Williams Arena at Minges Coliseum.
The Pirates (2-3) wrapped up non-conference play while VCU (2-4) lost its second-straight contest on the road.
We got better tonight, head coach Kim McNeill said. It wasn t pretty for 40 minutes, but I really saw us focus on some of the things we ve been working on the last couple of weeks especially the last few days. Executing our offense. Running all the way through our stuff and creating easy opportunities for each other. We did a really good job of that tonight. We had some people step up and hit some big shots.