VCU is back in the Atlantic 10 Tournament championship game for a fourth straight time, and the Rams got there with an impressive showing in the semifinals.

One day after holding on in the final minute to beat Duquesne in the quarterfinals, Terrence Hill Jr. scored 18 points on 8-of-10 shooting and Jadrian Tracey added 15 points to lead No. 2 seed VCU to a 77-64 victory over No. 3 Saint Joseph’s in Saturday’s semifinals at PPG Paints Arena.

VCU (26-7), which also has appeared in five of the past six A-10 title games — winning in 2023 and ’25 — will return to the PPG Paints Arena floor at 1 p.m. Sunday to face No. 4 Dayton with an NCAA Tournament automatic bid on the line.

“All due respect to everybody, these are the two flagship programs, right?” VCU coach Phil Martelli Jr. said. “You expect to see at least Dayton or VCU in the championship game every year. I just seems like it every year. We happen to be meeting against each other. A ton of respect for (Dayton coach Anthony Grant), for his group, for the way they’ve battled all year.”

Dayton upset top-seeded Saint Louis, 70-69, in the day’s first semifinal on Amael L’Etang’s basket just before the final buzzer.

Lazar Djokovic also scored in double figures for VCU, which beat Saint Joseph’s for the 10th consecutive time, dating to January 2018.

Austin Williford led Saint Joseph’s (22-11) with 17 points. Jaiden Glover-Toscano added 14, and Justice Ajogbor chipped in 11 for the Hawks.

VCU had its way in the first half, leading by as many as 25 points late. The Rams rode a 16-0 run to establish control. Ahmad Nowell’s 3-pointer 1 minute, 41 seconds before intermission gave VCU a commanding 44-19 advantage.

“All the credit goes to VCU,” said Saint Joseph’s coach Steve Donahue, who won A-10 Coach of the Year in his first season with the Hawks. “They were absolutely ready. Obviously, we’re disappointed in our performance. We haven’t played that poorly in a long time. They had a lot to do with it, but … really feel we could have given it a lot better effort.”

VCU, which held off Duquesne, 71-66, in the quarterfinals Friday, swept Dayton during the regular season.

The Rams claimed a 68-62 victory March 6 at Dayton’s UD Arena and a 99-73 rout of the Flyers on Feb. 6 at Siegel Center in Richmond, Va., when Dayton was without several starters, among them the 7-foot-1 L’Etang.

VCU also owns a 68-56 victory over Dayton in the 2023 A-10 Tournament championship game.

Martelli brushed aside Dayton’s mid-January slump, when the Flyers lost three straight conference games after a 5-0 start. He said Dayton is as dangerous a team as there is in the A-10,

“We know what they have,” he said. “They’ve got a bunch of weapons, too. We’re going to have to be ready, because it’s going to be a battle, for sure.”