What is Going On With The A10?

[PM Thor]

Can someone explain this conference to me? La Salle beats GW at Foggy Bottom, Richmond beats Temple, Duquesne shelacks St. Joes, dayton somehow miracle of miracles pulls one out against Charlotte....

This seems to becoming the norm in this league. There is no consistency. The team that should win, at least on paper, doesn't.

This is bad, bad, bad for post season bids. The top teams HAVE to pull away from the lower tier teams, yet, they aren't doing it, and while it is making the league look competitive (which is fun for the conference title), it is not so good for NCAA tournament bids. Am I wrong?

The A10 is schizophrenic.

[cinskyline]

These scores aren't any surprise to me.

GW has been bad most of the year, and played down to the level of competition-- LaSalle.

Temple has been inconsistent all year.

We all know what Duquesne is capable of.

And Dayton has Charles Little back.

[AdamtheFlyer]

La Salle over GW is good for the league. Separating a clear bottom tier is just as important as a clear top tier. The league as a whole could use GW and Bona fading into complete oblivion. Give everyone some free wins, makes the other losses easy to take.

I think we will start to see some separation pretty soon. If Dayton avoids disaster at GW this weekend, they have a very good chance to be 8-4 heading into the X game. X has the ability on their own to separate themselves over the next 6 games. Rhody will keep winning, so should St Joes. Right there is your top tier. Charlotte, UMass, Mighty Dukes, Richmond, and Temple make up the second tier.

I guess it really comes down to X and UD to create the separation on their own leading to the game on the 24th. UD has Duquesne and Temple at home, and winnable road games against GW and La Salle. X has a tough 5 game stretch, 4 of which are against teams in the big jumble behind them.

[tojake]

Adam - I don't see Dayton easily being 7-4 going into the rematch. Not saying it won't happen, but not easily considering the way they struggled tonight against Charlotte. That team still needs to figure out how to win without CDub in the lineup. RI has a huge game tomorrow night at UMASS and we have no gimme tomorrow night in St. Louis considering our history there. But if we can come away with a W and an RI loss at Amherst, we should be able to hold serve on Sunday vs St. Joe's and could be in great shape going into next week.

[AdamtheFlyer]

It certainly won't be easy, and they have to play a lot better than they did tonight.

But the tougher 2 of the 4 games are at home. We should win those. la Salle is playing good ball right now, but Dayton is the better team. That should be a win. Losing at GW on Saturday would be an utter disaster. That should be a win.

Getting to 8-4 by the 24th is pretty favorable. Just have to execute. To be honest, getting to 11-5, or even 12-4 is looking pretty possible right now. With 8 games left, the tougher 4 are all at home. Again, just have to execute. Little is back, the secondary cast is playing as well as it has all year, and Wright will be back at some point, possibly the 24th. March 1st seems to be the worst case scenario, barring a setback.

[waggy]

I don't think these outcomes will hurt the conference in getting bids. The big 4: X, UMass, Rhody and UD still have great RPIs. The rest of the teams ratings are improving. The conference now has or almost has 9 teams with top 100 rpis, and it's conceivable that SLU could get there as well.

[Snipe]

12-4 is looking pretty possible right now.


I follow Dayton and mostly root for them.

You are insane.

[AdamtheFlyer]

I follow Dayton and mostly root for them.

You are insane.

I knew that long before you did.

But it still is obtainable, if they bring the effort against SLU on a nightly basis. Is it likely? No, I think 10-6 is the most likely outcome for them. I think they're more likely to be 12-4 than 8-8, though.

[Snipe]

I knew that long before you did.

But it still is obtainable, if they bring the effort against SLU on a nightly basis. Is it likely? No, I think 10-6 is the most likely outcome for them. I think they're more likely to be 12-4 than 8-8, though.

It is still obtainable if you win all of your remaining games. Christ.

9-7 is more likely than 12-4 if you want to go by that. The odds of Dayton winning out right now are unlikely. Very much so.

[dc_x]

For X, UD, URI, and UMass, I think the magic number for league wins is 10. For SJU it is 12. That amount of wins should result in at-large.

X and URI are in good shape to get to 10 wins. UD has a favorable schedule, but needs to start playing better.

I think UMass MUST WIN tonight at home vs. URI.

SJU's loss to Duquesne was a killer. They need to win in the Cintas to avoid going to 6-3.

[Pajama Joe]

Hopefully teams like RI, udump, SJ and Umass can come up with some decent wins down the road. We could get 5 or 6 teams in the tourny if those teams win some decent games. In the latest bracketology, RI and dump were part of the last four in, and SJ and Umass were part of the last four out.

Some of these teams start playing better, and the A10 has a hell of a year. But I guess I'd be alright getting 5 in, having dump miss out on the party.

[jdm2000]

I don't think I would have thought that 9 games in, there would be such a logjam in the conference. Given that everyone but X has at least three losses and seven games remaining, I could easily see 11-5 winning or sharing the title--though X can go far beyond that if we can play well on the road.