NEW YORK (AP) Tyler Burton scored 28 points in Richmond's 71-38 victory against Massachusetts on Tuesday in the opening round of the Atlantic 10 Conference Championship.

Victory in hand, the Spiders move on to the second round of the A-10 Championship, facing fifth-seeded George Mason on Wednesday afternoon at 2 p.m.

"It's March, you've got to come out and play every game," Burton said. "This is win or go home. So you've got to do what you've got to do to survive. Today we played well."

Burton also had six rebounds and three steals for the Spiders (15-17). Matt Grace shot 5 for 9, including 3-for-5 from beyond the arc to add 13 points. Jason Nelson went 3-of-7 from the field to finish with eight points.

The Minutemen (15-16) were led by RJ Luis, who recorded 12 points and eight rebounds. UMass also got six points from Wildens Leveque. T.J. Weeks also had four points.

"It really was just us needing to execute," Leveque added. "They played defense; give credit to them. They played really hard. But it was really just us executing the plays."

Richmond took the lead with 13:57 remaining in the first half and did not give it up. Burton led his team in scoring with 19 points in the first half to help put them up 31-18 at the break. Richmond extended its lead to 58-25 during the second half, fueled by a 14-0 scoring run.

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The Associated Press created this story using technology provided by Data Skrive and data from Sportradar.