The 1996 Atlantic 10 men's basketball tournament was played from March 6 to March 9, 1996. The tournament was played at the

Philadelphia Civic Center The Philadelphia Convention Hall and Civic Center – more commonly known simply as the Philadelphia Civic Center – was a convention center complex located in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. It developed out of a series of buildings dedicated to ...

Philadelphia Philadelphia, often called Philly, is the largest city in the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, the sixth-largest city in the U.S., the second-largest city in both the Northeast megalopolis and Mid-Atlantic regions after New York City. Sinc ...

Pennsylvania Pennsylvania (; ( Pennsylvania Dutch: )), officially the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, is a state spanning the Mid-Atlantic, Northeastern, Appalachian, and Great Lakes regions of the United States. It borders Delaware to its southeast, ...

. The winner was named champion of the

Atlantic 10 Conference The Atlantic 10 Conference (A-10) is a collegiate athletic conference whose schools compete in the National Collegiate Athletic Association's (NCAA) Division I. The A-10's member schools are located in states mostly on the United States Eastern ...

and received an automatic bid to the

1996 NCAA Men's Division I Basketball Tournament The 1996 NCAA Division I men's basketball tournament involved 64 schools playing in single-elimination play to determine the national champion of men's NCAA Division I college basketball. It began on March 14, 1996, and ended with the championsh ...

. The

University of Massachusetts The University of Massachusetts is the five-campus public university system and the only public research system in the Commonwealth of Massachusetts. The university system includes five campuses (Amherst, Boston, Dartmouth, Lowell, and a medica ...

won the tournament for the fifth year in a row. Massachusetts eventually reached the semifinals of the NCAA tournament.

George Washington George Washington (February 22, 1732, 1799) was an American military officer, statesman, and Founding Father who served as the first president of the United States from 1789 to 1797. Appointed by the Continental Congress as commander of th ...

Temple A temple (from the Latin ) is a building reserved for spiritual rituals and activities such as prayer and sacrifice. Religions which erect temples include Christianity (whose temples are typically called churches), Hinduism (whose temples ...

, and Virginia Tech Hokies men's basketball, Virginia Tech also received bids to the tournament. Carmelo Travieso of Massachusetts was named the tournament's Most Outstanding Player. Future NBA players Marcus Camby (Massachusetts), Marc Jackson (Temple), and Tyson Wheeler (Rhode Island) were among those also named to the All-Championship Team. The top two teams in each division received a first-round bye.

Bracket

All games played at

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