The Atlantic 10 regular season is winding to a close but much is still to be decided. Four teams (Dayton, VCU, Saint Joseph’s, St. Bonaventure) have a legitimate shot at taking home the crown this season, and all (save Dayton) will be fighting for their NCAA Tournament lives in the coming weeks. Before things get too tense, let’s take a look at several of the young players who have made this season in the Atlantic 10 a special one.

Early All-Freshmen Leaders

All-conference awards will be announced in about three weeks. While a few of the preseason picks are on track, there have also been a few surprises. Several years ago, the conference was loaded with wings and combo forwards. This season marks a return to what the conference has always been known for — tough, smart guards. The pool of candidates for Freshman of the Year is decidedly guard-heavy, so expect the All-Freshmen Team to feature guards over bigs. One member of the group below is likely to take home Freshman of the Year honors, and they are listed from most to least likely to do so.

• Joseph Chartouny, Fordham, G: If these picks had been made on January 1, Chartouny would have won in a landslide after receiving three Freshman of the Week nods and an Honorable Mention in the season’s first seven weeks. Skill meets need is the best description of Chartouny and Fordham’s relationship. The freshman averages 9.9 points per game with a team-high 98 assists and a 2.1 assist-to-turnover ratio. He is the top assist man in the conference and ranks third in steals, sixth in assist-to-turnover ratio and ninth in defensive rebounds per game.
• Steve McElvene, Dayton, C: The redshirt freshman has become a fixture among the weekly honorable mentions (seven times through 14 weeks) while averaging 6.3 rebounds and 6.2 points per game. McElvene also leads the Flyers in offensive rebounds (46) and blocked shots (46). He is the highest-ranked freshmen among conference rebounding leaders, ranking second in blocked shots and 14th in offensive rebounds per game.

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

The “Rs” Are Out of Step

The table below shows that 12 of the conference’s 14 members have efficiency differences consistent with their conference records, but Rhode Island and Richmond have bucked that trend for different reasons. For the Rams, blame injuries, as Rhody’s roster has been a patchwork since E. C. Matthew’s season-ending injury 10 minutes into its opening game. Since then, three stalwarts — Hasan Martin, Kuran Iverson, and Jarvis Garrett — have missed at least one game each, leaving the Rams with a 5-5 record despite Dan Hurley’s efforts to add depth to the rotation. It may be time for Hurley to seriously consider throwing the switch on development for next season when he should have his nucleus of Matthews-Martin-Iverson healthy and conditioned for a serious run.

Richmond’s strange placement comes from a strong offense (as the table indicates, 111.2 points per 100 possessions) combined with a very weak defense that yields 109.8 points per 100 possessions. As the table above indicates, the bottom five squads — UMass, Duquesne, St. Louis, Fordham and La Salle — continue to separate away from the rest of the conference. Read the rest of this entry »

Four Thoughts About The Week of 1/18-1/24

1. The conference remains evenly divided between winners and losers. Individual team records and efficiency continue to be consistent. As the table below indicates, through the first 6-7 games of conference play teams with losing records show a negative efficiency difference (offensive efficiency – defensive efficiency is less than zero). Essentially the efficiency difference is reflected in the win-loss records, logical, indeed self-evident, but not always true for a conference like the Atlantic 10 which has a reputation for inconsistent and unpredictable outcomes. Through the first seven (more or less) conference games the members show the spread of winning and losing teams, point per possession scored vs allowed and the efficiency differential continues to be relatively symmetrical.
2. The bottom four teams are falling behind badly. George Mason, Fordham, La Salle, and Massachusetts show negative differences large enough to suggest they will not be competitive with the other 10 teams in the conference. Three of the five wins recorded by those four teams came against each other. Of the other two, only Dayton (beaten by La Salle) has a winning conference record. Fordham’s Jeff Neubauer and George Mason’s Dave Paulsen are in their rookie seasons. For Dr. John Giannini, a 12-year veteran at La Salle, and Derek Kellogg, whose tenure spans eight years at Massachusetts, the scrutiny will be less forgiving. Read the rest of this entry »

Now a couple weeks into conference play, a few early observations can be made in the Atlantic 10 race.

Quick Hits From the First Fortnight

Patricio Garino (left) and George Washington should still be in the mix for the A-10 crown. (Mike Lawrie/Getty Images)

• Home vs Road — Home teams have won 69 percent of conference games, going 13-8 through Sunday evening.
• Most Surprising Win — St. Bonaventure’s 97-85 over Davidson to open conference play at the Reilly Center, as the 12-point margin raised eyebrows all around the conference. Davidson has lost four games away from Belk Arena by an average of 19.3 points. The Bonnies’ offense produced 1.29 points per possession, better than that which was produced by Davidson’s other three conquerors: North Carolina (1.20), Pitt (1.27) and California (1.16).
• Most Impressive Road Win — On the strength of a 28-12 run, Virginia Commonwealth erased a 13-point deficit with seven minutes left at Saint Joseph’s to post an 85-82 win.
• Knucklehead Loss, Part 1 — George Washington‘s loss at St. Louis, 65-62, on the first Saturday of conference play. The defeat cost the Colonials their spot in both Top 25 polls, as the Billikens limited Pat Garino and Tyler Cavanaugh to a combined 20 points on 9-of-21 shooting. GW should still compete for the conference regular season title, but the loss opens the door for other challengers.
• Knucklehead Loss, Part 2 — Dayton‘s loss at La Salle, 61-57, last Saturday broke the Explorers’ seven-game death spiral and gave them their first conference win. La Salle lulled the Flyers into an ugly 59-possession game, so Dayton attempted a long range assault with poor results. Three Flyers (Scoochie Smith among them) combined to go 0-of-10 from beyond the arc (the rest of the squad was 7-of-15). And in committing 14 turnovers, Dayton handed away over 24 percent of its possessions. 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 »

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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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 »

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

As the Carousal Turns

After two quiet offseasons, three Atlantic 10 programs filled head coaching vacancies last spring. This matched the turnover rate from the 2012 offseason, the highest in over a decade. Two programs, Fordham and George Mason, released their veteran coaches, Tom Pecora (14 years, the last five on Rose Hill) and Paul Hewitt (18 years, the last four at GMU) respectively, in an effort to change the trajectories of their programs. Meanwhile, Virginia Commonwealth’s Shaka Smart left of his own accord for Austin to take the reins of the Longhorns’ program after Rick Barnes’ resignation. Changing their historic pattern of looking exclusively in the metropolitan New York coaching pool, Fordham athletic director Ed Roach turned westward and after a brief (and unsuccessful) courtship of Robert Morris’ Andy Toole, hired Eastern Kentucky head coach Jeff Neubauer. Neubauer, a collegiate point guard and 1993 graduate of La Salle, is no stranger to Northeastern basketball. Neubauer took his Colonials to five postseason tournaments (including two NCAA tournament appearances) during his 10-year tenure at Eastern Kentucky.

Former Bucknell head man Dave Paulsen is just one of many new coaches in the A10 this season. Paulsen will look to lead George Mason to a postseason berth. (The Daily Item)

George Mason athletic director Brad Edwards hired Bucknell head coach Dave Paulsen after a two-week search. Paulsen, a veteran head coach of 21 years, brings a 134-94 Division I record (highlighted by two NIT and two NCAA appearances) to a Patriots’ program that sorely misses the days of Jim Larranaga. Virginia Commonwealth athletic director Ed McLaughlin’s task was to find, in Smart’s successor, someone who would continue the momentum that the rising star head coach had established. His candidate pool came down to several former Smart assistants, and Tennessee-Chattanooga’s two-year head coach Wade Wilson fit the bill. Wilson’s variation of Smart’s HAVOC system (called CHAOS) carried the Mocs to two second place finishes in Southern Conference play (27-7) and a 40-25 overall record.

Predicted Order of Finish

Season previews have consistently identified three or four squads as the strongest contenders to earn the regular season title (and winning the conference tournament title, taking the NCAA automatic bid), but the conference-wide averages for returning points and minutes (above 70 percent in both cases) suggest that this season will not feature a dominant leader like from 2004-08. Expect another two or three team dogfight like the more recent conference seasons. It’ll be worth brushing up on the tie-breaker rules again this season. Projected conference record are shown in parenthesis; Atlantic 10 coaches poll rankings are shown in squared [] brackets. Read the rest of this entry »

Here we go… headfirst into another season heralded by our 2015-16 edition of Thirty Reasons We Love College Basketball, our annual compendium of YouTube clips from the previous season completely guaranteed to make you wish games were starting tonight rather than 30 days from now. Over the next month you’ll get one reason per day until we reach the new season on Friday, November 13. We’ve captured what we believe were the 30 most compelling moments from last season, some of which will bring back goosebumps and others of which will leave you shaking your head in astonishment. You can find all of this year’s released posts here.

#16 – Where Home Cookin’ Happens.

We also encourage you to re-visit the entire archive of this feature from the 2008-09, 2009-10, 2010-11, 2011-12, 2012-13, 2013-14 and 2014-15 preseasons.