Wednesday, March 12th, 12:00 p.m. (et).

FACTS & STATS: Site: Boardwalk Hall (10,500) -- Atlantic City, New Jersey. Television: Local. Home Record: Saint Louis 11-5, Dayton 14-3. Away Record: Saint Louis 3-9, Dayton 6-6. Neutral Record: Saint Louis 2-0, Dayton 0-0. Conference Record: Saint Louis 7-9, Dayton 8-8. Series Record: Dayton leads, 21-18.

GAME NOTES: The Atlantic 10 Conference rolls the dice in Atlantic City this week as the league heads to Boardwalk Hall for the 32nd annual tournament, beginning with a matchup between Saint Louis and Dayton. The ninth-seeded Billikens are just 2-2 in this tournament since coming over from Conference USA a few years ago. The squad lost two in a row and three of the last four games to close out the 2007-08 regular season, the most recent setback coming against Duquesne on the road by 27 points on Saturday. As for the eighth- seeded Flyers, they went from being a nationally-ranked program to stumbling through much of the A-10 schedule. Dayton made a positive push down the stretch though, with three wins in as many tries, the last of them being a 79-67 victory versus Saint Joseph's at home on Saturday. With respect to the all-time series between these two schools on the hardwood, Dayton holds a 21-18 advantage, winning three straight over Saint Louis. One of those games went to overtime, but the other was as lopsided a game as the Billikens have ever seen, losing by a score of 63-36 at the end of January. The winner of this contest moves on to face top-seeded Xavier in the quarterfinals on Thursday.

As if making only 10 field goals in the first half of Saturday's game were not bad enough, the Billikens then converted a woeful 22.6 percent from the floor after the break in the lopsided loss to Duquesne. Kevin Lisch ended up with a team-best 20 points and Danny Brown contributed 12 off the bench, although the latter shot just 5-of-13 from the floor and both turned the ball over four times. In a vote of the conference coaches, Lisch was named to the All- Atlantic 10 Conference Third Team and was again on the all-conference defensive team as well for his efforts in 2007-08. Lisch led the team in scoring with 14.7 ppg and was also tops in terms of assists (96) and steals (37). Tommie Liddell contributed 12.0 ppg as the only other double-digit scorer for the group, but as long as the squad can hold opponents to just 61.5 ppg, they seem to be in contention more often than not.

The Dayton defense clamped down in the first half versus the Hawks over the weekend, limiting the visitors to a mere 24 points, which was enough to get the Flyers over the hump and into the win column yet again. Marcus Johnson led five players in double figures with his 17 points, followed by Brian Roberts with 15 points and six assists. Jimmy Binnie and Andres Sandoval each tallied 12 points and Charles Little another 11 off the bench. Roberts, who is among the top five scorers in Dayton history with just under 1,900 points, was named to the All-Atlantic 10 Conference First Team as he started all 29 games for the squad. He led the group with his 19.0 ppg and was also first with 107 assists, all while shooting 46 percent from three-point range. However, as great as Roberts has been this year, not having another active double-digit scorer has to be taking its toll. Nevertheless, the Flyers are still outscoring opponents by almost five ppg entering this tournament.

Sporting defenses that generally take center stage, this could be one of those meetings that never gets out of the 50's, but don't think that Roberts won't try to do it all himself for Dayton.

Predicted Outcome

Dayton 63, Saint Louis 59