Joe Dzuback (@vbtnblog) is the RTC correspondent for the Atlantic 10 Conference.

Three Things We Learned in the First Weekend

1. Davidson won’t repeat as the regular season champion. The Wildcats are 1-4 away from the Belk Arena so far, including their 97-85 loss to St. Bonaventure on Saturday. With away games still to come versus Dayton, George Washington, VCU, Richmond and Fordham, along with tough home games against VCU, Saint Joseph’s and George Washington, Davidson could lose as many as eight conference games over the next two months.
   

   Despite his elite coaching prowess, it doesn’t look like Bob McKillop’s team will repeat at conference champs this time around. (Tim Cowie/DavidsonPhotos.com)

2. A strong defense, some unanticipated player development and a favorable conference schedule means Saint Joseph’s should follow its 6-1 December with a 7-2 January. The players appear to be “getting it” — meaning head coach Phil Martelli’s approach to the game — and it shows in the Hawks’ defense and team-oriented approach to offense. St. Joseph’s field goal shooting still needs to improve, but the team is already showing up in a number of midseason brackets. If all goes well this month, February’s schedule features a handful of more difficult games that will ultimately determine whether the team is a legitimate contender for the conference title.
3. It was a 69-63 loss, but Fordham’s players and fans are optimistic. The road venue was the Smith Center in Washington, D.C., and the Rams, down 15 at the half, managed to climb back in and stay within three possessions of the Colonials through the remainder of the game. The players are buying into what first year coach Jeff Neubauer is selling, as Fordham carried a 9-2 record into conference play and is on track to win between six to eight Atlantic 10 games. If the Rams hit inside that window, they will post their first winning season since 2006-07. A winning program in the New York City metropolitan area provides a huge boost to the conference’s overall profile, and correspondingly, Neubauer’s recruiting. Read the rest of this entry »

Joe Dzuback (@vbtnblog) is the RTC correspondent for the Atlantic 10 Conference.

Last Week… and This Week

Conference teams played 12 games over the abbreviated week, going a total of 7-5. A winning percentage of only 58 percent continues the conference’s declining winning percentage this month, but Atlantic 10 teams have 12 more games through New Year’s Eve to rebuild their momentum. Four more games featuring Power Six opponents, two of which offer the signature-type of wins that can help a team’s postseason resume, are still to play — see the Five Games to Catch This Week section below. We then turn quickly to conference play over the weekend, with five games on Saturday and two more Sunday, two of which should have long-term conference race implications.

Jack Gibbs has paced what has been an impressive showing by the A-10’s top tier guys this season. (USA TODAY Sports)

The All Non-Conference (OOC) Teams

KenPom observed that “players do jump from being decoys to go-to guys in one season, and some even regress the other way. Those are the exceptions. By and large, a player’s role on his team in one season is a good indicator of his role the following season.” Non-conference play suggests that the following players are the engines that drive their team’s performances. The question is whether they can maintain that status through conference play. For those on the All-Freshman and All-Surprise Teams, the question on the eve of conference play is whether the roles and momentum they have established so far will continue.

Non-Conference First Team

It should not surprise anyone that three of the names on the First Team at the midpoint of the season are known commodities who were named to the preseason All-First Team, while the other two were named to the All-Third Team. Their roles as outstanding players on their respective teams have not changed much from last season. Read the rest of this entry »

Though they returned 81 percent of the minutes and 86 percent of the points scored from last season, even the Atlantic 10 coaches were not optimistic about coach Phil Martelli’s Saint Joseph’s prospects this season. True, the coaches voted junior forward DeAndre’ Bembry, a projected first or high second round pick in the NBA Draft next June, as the preseason Player of the Year, but the talent behind him was thin — a ceiling low enough to project the Hawks no higher than seventh in their poll released on Media Day. So far, Bembry has not disappointed —  “plays with a great pace, incredibly tough to guard, 16-17 feet and in, an elite passer” as Virginia Tech coach Buzz Williams described after the Hawks defeated the Hokies, 79-52, at the Barclays Center Tuesday. Going into the Virginia Tech game, Bembry led the Joe’s in minutes played (367), points scored (159) and rebounds (79). Nipping at his heels was senior forward Isaiah Miles, who was second to Bembry in all three of those categories. Going into Tuesday’s game Miles had scored at least 10 points in all 10 of his games, matched his career-high 24 points versus Buffalo, logged double-doubles (points and rebounds) three times and was named to the All-Tournament Team for the Hall of Fame Classic in November for his play versus Florida and Old Dominion.

Isaiah Miles has become the second option that the Joe’s have been searching for. (PHILLY.com)

Identified as the Hawks’ most efficient offensive player by KenPom‘s possession-based statistics with a 122.5 offensive rating and most effective offensive rebounder (9.1 percent, ranked #351), Miles set new career-highs for points scored and rebounds gathered in Tuesday win over Virginia Tech when he scored 36 points and grabbed 15 rebounds in 39 minutes of play. His year-over-year progress is unusual, from 2.3 points per game as a freshman to 10.7 points per game as a junior, but gave no hint that he would jump to his current 17.4 points per game this season. When did Martelli have an inkling Miles might have a game like this? “In August,” he said. “Really, in August. Because he lost a lot of weight.” Indeed, Miles, who tipped the scales at 226 pounds his junior year, lost 11 pounds during the offseason. Martelli took it as a sign of a more focused commitment Miles would have this season. “Seniors have two choices,” Martelli continued, “They can be ‘been there, done that’ and they can go through their 30 games. (Miles) leads this team in charges taken (combined). This game was decided on his two offensive put-backs at the end of the second half.” Read the rest of this entry »

Under Tom Pecora’s guidance, Fordham appeared to be making its way — very slowly — back into New York City’s college basketball conversation. The program hit rock bottom with a dismal 2-26 season in 2009-10 during the combined, abbreviated tenures of Dereck Whittenburg (1-4) and Jared Grasso (1-22). That disaster followed a 3-25 season the year prior, that one fully coached by Whittenburg. Pecora, then the coach at Hofstra, moved over to Rose Hill in the offseason with a promise to turn things around. He moved the needle immediately, winning seven games in his first season. Pecora went after New York City talent aggressively, bringing in Branden Frazier, Bryan Smith and Jon Severe. Three of the Rams’ next four seasons would end with exactly 10 Fordham wins, a measure of success too modest for Pecora to stick around. Fordham athletic director Dave Roach ended Pecora’s tenure last offseason, then peered outside of the metropolitan New York City coaching box to make an offer to Eastern Kentucky’s Jeff Neubauer. Neubauer did play point guard for La Salle’s legendary coach Speedy Morris in the early 1990s, but the closest Neubauer ever worked as coach to New York City was at Richmond under Jon Beilein.

Jeff Neubauer has Fordham playing at a level in which NYC hasn’t seen in a long time. (AP)

Flash forward to Tuesday evening. Neubauer and Fordham may have lost to Boston College, 64-55, in the featured game in the Atlantic 10/ACC doubleheader at the Barclays Center in Brooklyn, but Neubauer’s impact has been immediate and obvious. After opening the season with a 77-72 loss to Texas-Arlington, the Rams ran off nine straight wins, the program’s first nine-game win streak since the 1990-91 season and its first 9-1 start since 1970. Less obvious, but important for the Fordham fan-base (and New York media), was the Rams’ 3-0 record versus their metro area counterparts. Fordham beat Manhattan and St. John’s (a feat Pecora did accomplish in 2010-11), then capped it off with an 89-84 overtime win over Long Island University-Brooklyn to sweep the local rivals. Read the rest of this entry »

It’s been a rough first month of the season for Wichita State, as the preseason top-10 Shockers have struggled mightily in non-conference play. After ankle and hamstring injuries to point guard Fred VanVleet and five losses in their first 11 games, the Shockers aren’t even receiving any votes. VanVleet was absent for three of those defeats and Gregg Marshall‘s group managed to pick up two nice non-conference wins over UNLV and Utah once he returned, but their loss on the road to Seton Hall last weekend raised continued concerns about the Shockers’ postseason hopes. Wichita State has just one game to go before Missouri Valley play begins, so Marshall will need to right the ship quickly if his team wants to make its fifth straight NCAA Tournament. The solution, though, begins with identifying the problem. So, what’s the matter in Wichita?

Fred VanVleet will stay smiling as long as he stays healthy. (Fernando Salazar/The Wichita Eagle)

The obvious place to start is with the injuries to VanVleet, the Shockers’ on-floor captain of the ship. It’s easy to attribute three of the team’s losses to those injuries given that VanVleet didn’t play in those games, but Wichita State also lost twice this season with him in the lineup. Dating back to October, the senior has been dealing with injuries that have affected his ankle and hamstring. The result has been a clear lack of explosiveness that has contributed to a nearly 20 percent drop in his shooting percentage at the rim. According to hoop-math, VanVleet has converted on just 34.5 percent of his layups this season. Time to heal, though, appears to be the optimal solution. VanVleet scored 13 points in the Shockers’ dominant win over Nevada on Tuesday by forcing the issue and getting to the foul line 12 times. “That’s the most burst I’ve shown in a while,” he said afterward. His head coach agreed: “That’s the best he’s looked to me,” Marshall said. VanVleet hinted that his recovery is still a work in process, but it’s one that appears to finally be showing some improvement on the court.

Read the rest of this entry »

Joe Dzuback (@vbtnblog) is the RTC correspondent for the Atlantic 10 Conference.

Breaking Down the Non-Conference Season

As KenPom’s eighth-ranked conference, the Atlantic 10 is securely in the top 25 percent of Division I basketball, well above the next conference (the WCC) and at the head of the Basketball-First group of conferences that typically expect at least two NCAA Tournament bids every season. The A-10 has drawn at least three bids every season since 2007 and this year should be no different. The non-conference composite record again shows that the league is capable of competing with the elite conferences while dominating (to varying degrees) the other 24.

(Note: The conference is 4-0 versus non-Division I teams. No conference members have games scheduled with teams from the Big West, the Mountain West, the Summit and the WAC).

The conference’s overall winning percentage sits at 68 percent going into the Christmas break, with its splits reflected by the level of the competition. The A-10 has a winning record against five of the top seven conferences, but poor showings against the ACC (3-10) and Big East (2-6) account for most of the losses against the elite leagues. The Colonial Athletic (6-6) and the Missouri Valley (2-4) conferences account for 10 of the 11 losses to its peer conferences. And the conference won 90 percent of its games scheduled with the bottom nine leagues, but the OVC strangely enough accounts for two of those three losses. While a solid finish to the non-conference season will help and the Selection Committee has emphasized that conference comparisons are not part of its selection calculus, the league’s overall record should help A-10 members when conference play resumes in January.

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Joe Dzuback (@vbtnblog) is the RTC correspondent for the Atlantic 10 Conference.

Is the Atlantic 10 Fading?

Did Feast Week foretell a conference-wide stumble? After compiling a 36-10 (0.783) record through the season’s first 10 days, Atlantic 10 teams cooled off to a still solid 21-10 (0.677) record during the height of the early season invitational tournament events. Rolling into Finals Week (an academic, not an ESPN-inspired, reference), the conference’s December results of 29-19 (0.604) show another decline. The best win in December so far — Dayton‘s 72-67 win at Vanderbilt on December 9 — stands nearly alone among the consensus top seven conferences (AAC, ACC, Big East, Big 12, Big Ten, Pac-12 and SEC). This month’s games have established that the A-10’s better squads are better than the top seven’s stragglers — George Washington has beaten Penn State (Big Ten) and Rutgers (Big Ten); Fordham demolished St. John’s (Big East); and there have been a number of near-misses. The sheer number of double-figure losses are numerous and troubling for those contemplating four or more bids come March, however. December losses that the Selection Committee may have trouble ignoring should those teams find themselves on the bubble include Richmond’s loss at Florida (12/1), Massachusetts’ loss to Mississippi on a neutral court (12/5), and Davidson’s big loss to North Carolina (12/6).

Mike Lonergan and George Washington have been the class of the A-10 so far. (USA TODAY Sports)

Their Season So Far

Five of the conference’s better postseason prospects …

• George Washington (#21 AP, 9-1) — The conference’s first team in a Top 25 poll this season (the Colonials are #22 in the USA Today/Coaches Poll) gained some national press when they knocked off ACC preseason favorite Virginia, 73-68, in their second game back on November 13. A five-point loss to #23 Cincinnati in the Barclays Center Classic championship finals remains their only blemish. The Colonials’ resume is heavily sprinkled with teams from the top seven conferences –Tennessee (SEC), Seton Hall (Big East), Penn State, Rutgers (Big Ten) and South Florida (AAC) — all wins. Virginia and Cincinnati are favored to hear the call come Selection Sunday; Tennessee and Seton Hall may find themselves in the conversation by the end of February. With St. Peter’s (NEC) and two more lower division top eight conference teams (Central Florida — AAC and DePaul — Big East) still to play, coach Mike Lonergan’s squad should start their conference slate with a 12-1 record … and a target on their back.

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Even if you consider yourself a college basketball fan, there’s a good chance you don’t know the name Frank Rogers. If you have ever heard the name, you’ve got a great memory and it probably came up for a reason that Rogers would rather have you forget. In mid-December last season, San Jose State head coach Dave Wojcik indefinitely suspended five of his players. Two of those players returned after missing three games; Rogers — at the time of his suspension a 6’9” junior who was the team’s third-leading scorer — was among the other three who did not. During the ensuing offseason, he wasn’t listed on the team’s roster. After a season in which San Jose State suffered the indignity of a winless conference season and a year where its only two wins were over non-Division I opponents, it appeared from the outside that Rogers and the program had gone their separate ways. If you figured he was a guy you’d never hear from again, you probably weren’t alone.

After Being Dismissed From His Program In January, Frank Rogers Has Rebounded. (Terrell Lloyd)

Flash forward to the Spartans’ second game of the season where it hosted a good Montana team coming off a 20-win season. After San Jose State took a 12-point lead into the half, the Grizzlies had fought all the way to within a point with under two minutes remaining. It looked like an all too familiar scene for the Spartans. A Brandon Clarke three was awry, but there was that guy – Frank Rogers – pulling down a big offensive board and finding his way to the basket for the hoop and harm to give his team some breathing room. On the next defensive possession, he challenged a Martin Breunig layup attempt at the rim before securing the missed attempt. By the time Princeton Onwas threw down a dunk in transition a minute later to put the finishing touches on a breakthrough win, Rogers had tallied 16 points, 10 boards, a couple assists, a steal and a block, and laid down the newest chapter in his story of personal redemption.

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Last week we were bemoaning the fact that the conference’s early season struggles had put it clearly behind the eight-ball. For example, in naming our top five non-conference wins, we had to include UNLV’s win over Cal Poly and Boise State’s win over UC Irvine. This week, however, following the Runnin’ Rebels defeat of Oregon, not only does the Mountain West have another fine scalp, the league has also got a team in those same Rebels with the makings of a legitimate at-large resume. Now, there’s a long, long way between here and Selection Sunday, but at least we can say there is some hope that the Mountain West is something more than a conference-tourney-winner take all one-bid league. And along the way, we’re ready to vault UNLV right into the role of the conference favorite.

UNLV’s Most Recent Resume Win Has Dave Rice And Co. As Conference Favorites.

 Power Rankings

1. UNLV (7-1) – A technically neutral-site win over Oregon on Friday night gives the Runnin’ Rebels the two best non-conference wins in the Mountain West, arguably three of the top five and put them on the national top 25 radar. What’s more, that game against Oregon showed a lot of the things that have been missing around Vegas in recent years. First, there was far more ball movement that the nine assists on 26 made field goals would have you believe. Second, there was camaraderie and chemistry, all the signs of a group of teammates that actually get along with each other. And third, there were productive coaching adjustments and coherent offensive strategies against changing defenses. Ongoing doubts about Dave Rice’s ability to pull it all together for this team are still reasonable, but there is plenty of reason for hope. And with a trip to Wichita State tonight followed on down the line by dates with Arizona State and Arizona, we’ll continue to get chances to test that hope. Exciting times for the Rebs. Read the rest of this entry »

The George Washington non-conference revenge tour continued last night with the Colonials’ 72-64 victory over Seton Hall, as defeats to the Pirates along with Virginia and Penn State in the 2014-15 season still linger in head coach Mike Lonergan’s mind. “Last year we played Penn State, Seton Hall, Rutgers, and Virginia all on the road, and I told the guys before the game, you know, we’ve got a chance to get them all back.” After being picked to finished fourth in the Atlantic 10 in the preseason, Lonergan’s club has stormed out of the gates. George Washington now sits at a healthy 7-1 with wins over power conference teams such as Tennessee and Seton Hall along with a major resume-building upset over Virginia.

Joe McDonald picked up George Washington’s offense against Seton Hall. (GW Athletics/Mitchell Layton)

Although the Colonials put two players, Patricio Garino and Kevin Larsen, on the preseason all-Atlantic 10 second team, it’s been a balanced offensive attack that has driven their success. Coming into Wednesday’s contest, three players were averaging double figures — Garino, Larsen, and Wake Forest transfer Tyler Cavanaugh. Garino is a lanky swingman who has shown an improved three-point shot, while Larsen is a bruising big man who does most of his work in the paint. Cavanaugh, though, is the team’s most versatile scoring option. At 6’9″, he spends most of his time operating down low with Larsen, but after connecting on two of his four three-point attempts against the Pirates, the junior is now also shooting 35 percent from behind the arc. His ability to space the floor is an important component of an offense that often operates late in the shot clock (GW ranks 280th in offensive possession length, according to KenPom) when isolations become routine.

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