The time has come for the UMass men’s basketball team, as it begins its trek through one final Atlantic 10 Conference tournament on Wednesday afternoon.

The No. 11 Minutemen (12-19 overall, 7-11 A-10) will take on No. 14 La Salle in the first round of the bracket at 4:30 p.m. on USA Network, with the winner turning around to play Thursday against No. 6 Saint Joseph’s at 7:30 p.m. After a couple of years in Brooklyn, N.Y., this year’s A-10 tournament has moved to Washington, D.C.’s Capital One Arena.

UMass has played La Salle twice this season, and in each meeting the Minutemen thumped the Explorers comfortably. The first matchup came back on Jan. 19, when UMass used 22 points and seven assists from Jaylen Curry, as well as a 49-point second half to earn a 82-60 victory at Mullins Center. The Minutemen then backed that up with a 78-55 win on Super-Bowl Sunday behind 34 Rahsool Diggins points.

Perhaps UMass got the best draw it could facing a team it beat twice before potentially playing No. 6 Saint Joseph’s, a team it only played once way back on Dec. 31 (a 81-72 loss). And not to look too far ahead, but if the Minutemen did manage two wins, they would play No. 3 Dayton, which they beat 76-72 earlier this season.

But the path UMass has to an A-10 title doesn’t mean anything if it can’t play better basketball than it has of late. The regular season finale against Loyola Chicago was the latest lopsided defeat the Minutemen have received of late (74-51), as they head into postseason play losers of six of their last seven. And in the 21st century, UMass hasn’t been great in conference postseason play. The Minutemen haven’t made it to the A-10 semifinals since 2013, when they lost 71-62 to VCU.

UMass is hopeful that Daniel Rivera can return for the A-10 tournament, as he continues to recover from a knee injury that has kept him out of the lineup for the final three games. He will provide a big boost to the Minutemen’s offense, as well as rebounding where nobody aside from Daniel Hankins-Sanford has recorded more than six rebounds in the three games that Rivera has missed.

Head coach Frank Martin said Rivera definitely wants to play Wednesday, and he is out of the brace he was in and walking around fine. His status is still up in the air.

Breaking down the bracket/NCAA Tournament hopes

VCU, George Mason, Dayton and Loyola Chicago all earned double byes as the conference’s top four seeds. The Rams claimed a share of their fourth Atlantic 10 regular season title while the Patriots earned the other share of it for the first time since joining the A-10 in 2011.

VCU will play the winner of No. 8 St. Bonaventure and No. 9 Duquesne in Friday’s quarterfinals while George Mason plays the winner of No. 7 George Washington and No. 10 Rhode Island/No. 15 Fordham. The third-seeded Flyers take on either No. 6 Saint Joseph’s or No. 11 UMass/No. 14 La Salle, and the fourth-seeded Ramblers battle the winner of No. 5 Saint Louis and No. 12 Davidson/No. 13 Richmond.

If the entire A-10 tournament plays out chalk (which almost never happens), it’ll be VCU and Loyola Chicago in one semifinal and George Mason and Dayton in the other. For the conference’s sake, the best case scenario is VCU making the conference championship and losing to one of the other top three seeds. That would almost definitely put two A-10 teams in the NCAA Tournament.

After years of receiving what felt like a guaranteed two bids, the 2023 tournament included just one from the Atlantic 10 – conference-champ VCU. Last year, Duquesne defeated Dayton in the A-10 quarterfinals en route to a surprising run that ended in a conference title and Round of 64 win in the big dance. But if the Dukes hadn’t pulled off the upset and Dayton won the league, it would have been back-to-back one-bid seasons for a conference that has historically sent multiple teams to March Madness.

That could be the case again if either VCU wins the tournament or falls short to an inferior opponent early in the bracket.

Looking ahead to what’s next

In the spirit of a new beginning for UMass basketball, let’s take a look at how the Mid-American Conference (MAC) tournament bracket is set up. Although most leagues give every team a shot, only the top eight teams qualify for the conference tournament in the MAC.

The team-to-beat for the past several years has been Akron, and that’s the case again this March as the Zips are No. 1 and look to win their third MAC championship in the last four years. Their road to defending their conference crown starts on Thursday against No. 8 Bowling Green before playing the winner of No. 4 Toledo and No. 5 Ohio on Friday.

No. 2 Miami (Ohio) plays No. 7 Eastern Michigan and the winner of that contest will battle either No. 3 Kent State or No. 6 Western Michigan. The MAC title game is slated for Saturday night at 7:30 p.m. on ESPN2. The entire tournament takes place at Rocket Arena in Cleveland.