For mid-major conferences (and make no bones about it, that’s exactly what the Mountain West is whether you like that term or not), the non-conference schedule is when rivals get together, lock arms and march in unison against all comers. San Diego State fans may hate UNLV (and vice versa) from January to March, but at this time of the year, Aztecs are rooting for Rebels (and Lobos and Broncos and Rams and the like) to maximize the overall strength of the conference. It’s sort of like Thanksgiving dinner in a dysfunctional family. Early on, everybody’s working together to make a great dinner. The turkey’s in the oven; the pumpkin pie is cooling on the windowsill; Aunt Bertha’s working on the mashed potatoes; Uncle Fred’s passing out liquid cheer by the pint-full; the kids are playing quietly on the floor. Good times. That’s the non-conference slate. Everybody is still on speaking terms. Hours later, people have eaten too much; perhaps a little too much of that cheer got consumed. The kids are screaming at high pitch. An argument has started over, well, nobody really remembers what. Past grievances begin to be aired. That’s the conference schedule. Everybody hates each other again and even if they can’t remember exactly why, surely somewhere there’s a good reason.

But so far, in the early stages of this Mountain West season, that kitchen seems filled with a few too many cooks who don’t exactly have their eyes on the dish. There’s some smoke coming out of the oven. The gravy’s boiled over. One of those bratty kids knocked the pie off the window sill and the dog got up on the counter and into the mashed potatoes. It’s all going to hell and dinner hasn’t even been served yet. To turn this metaphor back into basketball, here we are three weeks into the season and these are the five best non-conference wins among the 11 Mountain West conference teams (with current KenPom rankings of the opponents in parentheses).

• UNLV by three over Indiana (#25)
• Colorado State by six at Northern Iowa (#45)
• San Diego State by 14 over California (#52)
• UNLV by two over Cal Poly (#99)
• Boise State by seven over UC Irvine (#112)

That’s it. We’ve got to include some wins over two Big West teams as ingredients for our big feast. As the saying goes, you can’t make a silk purse out of a sow’s ear (to completely mix metaphors), and you can’t make multiple NCAA Tournament bids out of a conference that looks poised to leave non-conference play without many great wins. That said, there are still some chances out there. Boise will get a home crack at Oregon next weekend. San Diego State won at Kansas a couple years back and will host the Jayhawks this season. UNLV still has Oregon, Wichita State, Arizona State and Arizona on their schedule. New Mexico travels to Purdue this weekend followed by Northern Iowa at home next weekend. And there are other chances. But to make a long story short, the margin for error with this conference is already getting awfully thin.

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

Feast Week Feedback

With St. Bonaventure’s 77-73 win over Canisius last Tuesday, the Atlantic 10 pushed its non-conference record to 44-11, pushing its winning percentage over 80 percent for the second time this season. Senior guard Marcus Posley scored 37 points, including the two free throws that broke the tie that put the Bonnies up for good. So started Feast Week, but unfortunately momentum stalled as A-10 teams tallied a good but not spectacular 21-10 record in games spanning the Thanksgiving Holiday. Still, the league’s composite record on Monday, November 30, is 58-20 (0.774) — terrific by any measure. Should the conference keep up this pace through December, the Atlantic 10 should have at least six NCAA Tournament candidates with several others drawing attention for other postseason tournaments.

The big-time effort that Marcus Posley produced was just one of many standout performances from A-10 players during Feast Week. (AP)

Seven conference teams (highlighted in the table in yellow below) participated in tournaments that concluded last week. Four of those teams (Dayton, George Washington, Massachusetts and Rhode Island) finished second. Richmond finished third, losing its semifinal game but beating star-studded California in the third place game. Duquesne placed fifth in the Gulf Coast Showcase, dropping its first game to Pepperdine but salvaging wins versus Wisconsin-Milwaukee and Western Kentucky. Like most of these Feast Week tournaments, the Brooklyn Hoops Classic relied on preliminary rounds played on campuses, usually prior to the semifinal and final rounds. The tournament field was held to five teams and they played a round-robin with a single round played at two “tournament site” locations. St. Louis beat three of the participating schools — North Florida, St. Francis-Brooklyn and Hartford. They also lost to Louisville by 20 points at the Barclays Center in Brooklyn.

Nine Games to Catch This Week

The party is on as eight Atlantic 10 teams will face eight elite conference opponents (and a Missouri Valley Conference power in Northern Iowa) over the next seven days. Elite conference opponents represent 33 percent of the composite non-conference schedule, which is at the high end of the range for the past several seasons. Read the rest of this entry »

As you’d expect late in a tie game, veteran Saint Joseph’s coach Phil Martelli drew up a play that heavily involved his best player. After all, junior DeAndre Bembry — whom Florida coach Mike White had just called the day before “their pro” — was the Atlantic 10’s top scorer last season, while also leading the Hawks in rebounds, assists, and steals. But after inbounding the ball, Bembry never came close to touching it, as Martelli’s carefully designed play descended into chaos. The end result, however, made Bembry one of the happiest people in Mohegan Sun Arena, as sophomore teammate Shavar Newkirk found a way to hit an awkward 15-footer with one second remaining to give Saint Joseph’s a 66-64 victory over Old Dominion a week ago Sunday. The win moved the Hawks to 4-1 on the young season, setting up an intriguing matchup with local rival and national power Villanova tonight.

Arguably the Atlantic 10’s premier player, Bembry, with the help of teammates, have the Hawks off to a solid start. (Photo by Mike Lawrie/Getty Images)

“We’re winning, so as long as we’re winning, everything is positive,” Bembry said after the win. “I haven’t played my best the last few games, but I’m trying to figure out ways to push through it and help the team win. If I have to play horrible all year and we win, so be it. That’s the thing about last year, we didn’t win. So any way we can win, I’ll take it.” Indeed, Bembry had a heck of an individual season in 2014-15, as the All-Atlantic 10 first teamer was the first ever Saint Joseph’s player to win the conference scoring title. Along the way, his athleticism and well-rounded game left opposing coaches in awe and NBA scouts curious, often conjuring up next-level buzzwords like “versatile” and “wingspan.” (“He’s a lot quicker and athletic than he looked on tape,” White added last Saturday, even after Bembry managed just 10 points on 2-of-11 shooting in a loss to Florida.) Read the rest of this entry »

There simply aren’t many teams in college basketball with a better trio of wins to this point than Monmouth, power conference or otherwise. The Hawks, picked to finish sixth in the MAAC, have already toppled UCLA in Pauley Pavilion, upset #17 Notre Dame in the AdvoCare Invitational and staved off USC to place third in the event. From a mid-major perspective, King Rice’s bunch simply owned the month of November. And yet, despite the spate of upsets and already-exceeded expectations, Monmouth’s achievements on the court have taken a backseat to its swagger directly off of it. You already know what we are talking about here: that bow-and-arrow-shooting, touchdown-tossing, feather-flapping, best-show-in-town bench mob of theirs. Not only have the antics been picked up by myriad blogs and news outlets around the country, they earned split-screen airtime during the team’s semifinal and third-place games over the weekend. But while the bench’s hilariousness and popularity is obvious and undeniable (the crew’s Twitter handle, @MonmouthBench, now has over 3,300 followers), its tangible connection to Monmouth’s on-court success deserves a deeper look. After all, what could be a better reflection of team culture than a bunch of no-names performing choreographed, multi-act celebration routines?

Daniel Pillari, Greg Noack and Monmouth’s bench had some fun in November (Getty Images)

Make no mistake – the Hawks have talent, and their winning ways are not altogether shocking. Diminutive point guard Justin Robinson, a 5’8” preseason first-team all-conference pick, ranks sixth nationally in scoring (24.4 PPG) and racked up 77 combined points over the holiday weekend on his way to being named the AdvoCare Invitational MVP. Junior Je’lon Hornbeak, once a four-star recruit, has been an immediate contributor since transferring from Oklahoma. So too has freshman Micah Seaborn, another highly-touted prospect who went for 20 points against USC on Sunday, including 4-of-8 shooting from behind the arc. Deon Jones (7.0 PPG, 7.2 RPG), Collin Stewart (11.0 PPG) and Chris Brady (7.2 PPG) are all upperclassmen who have developed into solid players during their time in West Long Branch. This team is built to compete. Yet, Rice, a former North Carolina point guard under Dean Smith, seemed to suggest before the season that the toughness-based culture change he sought to create in 2012 has only now come to fruition because of his decision to loosen things up. “I think I understand the position probably more than when I first started, I learned everything doesn’t have to be my way or the highway type of deal,” he told the Asbury Park Press in mid-November.

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

The Best Kept Secret in Division I

Counting the four games played Monday night, the Atlantic 10 conference has compiled a 40-11 (0.784) record against their opponents through the first two weeks of the season. Every conference schedules its share of cupcakes and the A-10 is no exception, as nearly 38 percent of the slate — with a 15-0 record in those games — comes from conferences ranked in the lower third of Division I and Division II basketball. Versus the seven elite conferences and the A-10’s four fellow basketball-first conferences, league teams have played 25 percent of their schedule and compiled a 10-6 (0.625) record. Results are particularly impressive versus the SEC (2-0), ACC (3-3) and the Big 12 (1-0) Conferences. Distracted by the plethora of upsets, the World Wide Leader gave George Washington’s 73-68 win over then #6 Virginia a little less than a full news cycle before moving on to other upsets.

The Atlantic 10 has started the season off well so far. This week gets a lot tougher for Dan Hurley and Rhode Island – as well as the rest of the A-10. (AP Photo/John Minchillo)

Lacking an early season tournament win — Virginia Commonwealth, the conference flagship since Shaka Smart brought the Rams into the league in 2012-13, took two close losses, the first to Duke by eight points and the second to Wisconsin by one point. Saint Joseph’s split its Hall of Fame slate last weekend, dropping a semifinal game to Florida on Saturday before bouncing back versus Old Dominion in the consolation game Sunday. Dave Paulsen took his George Mason squad to the finals of the Charleston Classic, beating Mississippi and Oklahoma State before losing in the finals, 83-66, to #12 Virginia. Read the rest of this entry »

Nate Kotisso (@natekotisso) is a Big 12 correspondent for Rush The Court. Last night, he covered Fresno State-Rice from Houston.

It’s been awhile since the Fresno State Bulldogs made the NCAA Tournament. 14 years, in fact. To give you a sense of how long it’s been, the coach that last got them there (in 2001), the legendary Jerry Tarkanian, passed away earlier this year. Since Tarkanian retired, the program has undergone two coaching changes, NCAA sanctions and a change in conference affiliation. Between 2003 and 2008, Fresno State’s home arena, the Save Mart Center, averaged around 11,700 fans per game. From the 2008-09 season into the present, the Bulldogs have played host to an average of 4,000 fewer fans per game (average attendance in that span is a little more than 7,200). As a result, the Fresno State athletic department has gotten creative with how to fill those empty seats. Two years ago, former Bulldog and current Indiana Pacer superstar Paul George agreed to buy every ticket at Save Mart Center for the Bulldogs’ home opener so fans could get in for free. This season FSU ran a promotion that delivered a free ticket to last week’s game against Lamar to anyone who could prove they followed any of the athletic department’s social media accounts.

In his fifth season at Fresno, head coach Rodney Terry may be field his most talented Bulldog team yet. (Photo: Fresno Bee Staff)

In 2011, Rodney Terry was hired as Fresno State’s head coach. Terry was well-known for his recruiting efforts at Texas, where he was able to secure commitments from the likes of current NBA players Cory Joseph and Tristan Thompson, as well as current Miami (FL) guard Sheldon McClellan (who is averaging 19.8 ppg as a senior this season). It made sense that it would take a few years to get the Fresno State program back on its feet, and it finally feels like the Bulldogs are beginning to walk on their own in Terry’s fifth season.

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A funny thing happens when a head coach leaves, his legacy left implanted into the university, the program and every single one of his players. In college basketball, where head coaches matter more for long-term success than do the players, a shockwave ripples through when such a shift occurs. Since his hire by VCU in spring 2009, Shaka Smart poured his heart and soul into the program, taking the reins from predecessor Anthony Grant and capitalizing on the team’s streak of consecutive 20-win seasons. Smart then led VCU — through injuries, roster turnover and conference realignment — to five NCAA Tournament appearances over five seasons, including a 2011 run to the Final Four. Last March, on an otherwise uneventful day in Richmond, the man who had turned VCU basketball into a hot name in college basketball, bolted. The head coaching position offered by Texas, a major state school with a seemingly endless supply of resources, proved too lucrative and rife with possibilities to turn down. But while Smart packed his bags and headed west, the heart and soul of the storied program remained in place.

Shaka Smart’s imprint on the VCU program will be forever entrenched – but Will Wade is off to a solid start. (AP)

Newly minted head coach Will Wade, Smart’s first hire at VCU, returned to the school, carrying with him a keen sense of familiarity with Smart’s patented HAVOC system. So, while the program suffered quite a bit of turmoil amid lost recruits, graduating seniors and a new conductor on the sidelines, the system that spawned all of that success remained the same.

Friday night provided what would be the ultimate test of the system’s durability: a clash with defending National Champion Duke. While a win was the optimal outcome, the bigger achievement here was the Ram’s overwhelming sense of renewed hope. HAVOC tempered the uptempo, highly efficient Duke offense and enabled VCU to play the role of the aggressor throughout much of the game (despite a size difference at every position). Coach K agreed with this sentiment after his team turned the ball over 14 times. “Those kids were strong, it was tough to run an offense against them. […] Every time you get the ball, there’s something they put on you.” Offensively, the Rams found driving lanes, cutters and open shots almost at will, as evidenced by their 46 percent shooting for the game. Maybe on paper Wade’s team had failed by conventional win-loss metrics; but by any other standard, the loss was a significant measure of success. “We didn’t just beat a team, we beat a program. They have a program at VCU,” Krzyzewski stated assuredly after his team’s win.

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Alec Peters is the engine that drives an impressive Valpo squad. (Valparaiso Athletics)

Valparaiso’s Q-rating is also helped by the fact that mere mention of the school’s name sends the casual fan’s brain back to 1998, when current Valpo coach Bryce Drew — then coached by his father — hit one of the most memorable shots in NCAA Tournament history, beating Mississippi on “The Shot” (it ended up winning an ESPY for Play of the Year). Drew has been asked approximately 125,342 times about that March 1998 afternoon, and has smiled when responding to each and every query. He even hopes that number dramatically rises in the next few months because it would mean the Crusaders are winning big games. Read the rest of this entry »

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

Impressions From the First Week

Mike Lonergan and George Washington picked up one of the bigger wins the A-10 has garnered in recent memory last week. (AP Photo/Alex Brandon)

• Best Win For a Program — George Washington over #6 Virginia. As one of the tip-off games for ESPN’s annual Marathon of Hoops, the George Washington’s win guaranteed that the Colonials — and by association the entire conference — had a full day’s worth of free national publicity. At the very least expect head coach Mike Lonergan’s program to gather a few well deserved votes in next week’s national polls. The Colonials have 27 or so more games to play before Selection Sunday, but if their frontcourt complement of Kevin Larsen, Tyler Cavanaugh and Yuta Wantanabe, along with all-purpose wing Pat Garino, can dominate opponents as well as they did the Cavaliers, expect this squad to be in the thick of the conference race and very much a part of the NCAA conversation. Should Virginia regain its RPI footing, the bonus will extend to the Colonials, and by association, everyone they play on their A-10 slate.
• Best Win For the Conference — Tie. Davidson over Central Florida and Dayton over Alabama. True, most computer systems rate the Knights and Tide in the mid-100’s and a consensus of previews project them to finish somewhere in the middle third of their respective conferences, but these programs are both in conferences with higher national profiles than the Atlantic 10, which means these wins can only help the league’s overall profile. Dayton’s win over Alabama by 32 points may prove to be a bold statement about the relative health of the Flyers’ program in the absence of Dyshawn Pierre. Along with George Washington, expect both of these teams to be in the hunt for conference honors.

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It started before the ball had even been tipped last night at the Smith Center in Washington, DC. George Washington students rang out in chants proclaiming their opponent, Virginia, as “overrated.” It’s always weird when fans look to minimize an opponent rather than build them up to make their team look as strong as possible in victory, but that’s a discussion for another time. And certainly the Colonials’ coaches and players didn’t see it that way.

George Washington Students RTC After Their Team’s 73-68 Win over Virginia Monday night.

During the postgame press conference, senior Patricio Garino made it clear that, even though he believes that his team is on the level of a national power like Virginia, he has all of the respect in the world for the Cavaliers. The Colonials certainly looked it in their huge 73-68 victory, a win that already puts Mike Lonergan‘s squad in great position to earn an NCAA Tournament berth next March. Garino, a lanky 6’6″ forward who was successful in playing the four against the Cavaliers’ larger defenders, scored 18 points on the night. Junior Tyler Cavanaugh , also with 18 points, got the chance to prove he could play with the ACC’s elite after transferring out of the conference (Wake Forest) in July 2014. Read the rest of this entry »