The phrase mid-major is thrown around a lot by those of us who watch this sport. At some point we got lazy and decided to classify every school outside of the ACC, Big East, Big 12, Big Ten, Pac-12 or SEC as mid-major programs. While leagues like Conference USA and the Mountain West would not have fit the mid-major description in the early-to-mid 2000s, their basketball reputations have taken a dive in recent years as schools have relocated. Meanwhile, the Atlantic 10 has produced 52 NCAA Tournament appearances since 2000, the most of any conference outside the Power Six. As the preseason pick to finish second in the league, Rhode Island, much like the league it plays in, finds itself in an uncomfortable mid-December position.

Rhode Island guard E.C. Matthews scored 31 points in Saturday’s loss to Houston, one point shy of tying a career high. (GoRhody.com)

Although projecting the fortunes of this program is one of the tougher queries in college basketball, we have written in this space that 2016-17 could finally be the Year of the Rams. Unfortunately, Rhode Island’s recent basketball history is riddled with disappointment. Despite accumulating six 20-win seasons since the 1998-99 season — including four in a row from 2008-11 — the Rams have not appeared in the NCAA Tournament over that span. A healthy combination of returnees E.C. Matthews and Hassan Martin, in addition to improving depth and a jam-packed non-conference schedule, led many pundits to believe in the preseason that Rhode Island’s breakthrough was imminent.

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With the start of the regular season now just a few days away, it’s time to examine the O26 programs we think will shine in 2016-17. The school atop this list should come as no surprise.

1. Gonzaga — West Coast. No Kyle Wiltjer (20.4 PPG) or Domantas Sabonis (17.6 PPG, 11.8 RPG) this year? No problem. Like a true power program, Gonzaga simply reloads, adding three high-major transfers — guard Jordan Mathews (California), forward Johnathan Williams III (Missouri) and point guard Nigel Williams-Goss (Washington) — along with several elite recruits to an already-talented lineup. Williams-Goss, a second team All-Pac-12 performer in 2014-15, should be a legitimate contender for WCC Player of the Year, while Mathews (41.6% 3FG in 2015-16), Williams (7.1 RPG in 2014-15), and McDonald’s All-American big man Zach Collins add scoring pop and defensive strength to the roster. With guard Josh Perkins (4.1 APG), rim-protector Przemek Karnowski (now healthy) and several other contributors back in the fold, Gonzaga’s ceiling appears higher than ever.

The stakes will be high when Gonzaga and Saint Mary’s meet up this season. (Ethan Miller/Getty Images North America)

2. Saint Mary’s — West Coast. Based purely on returning production, Saint Mary’s should probably top this list. The Gaels welcome back everyone from a unit that ranked 17th nationally in adjusted offensive efficiency, including All-WCC point guard Emmett Naar (121.6 Offensive Rating) and forward Dane Pineau (126.2 Offensive Rating), arguably the league’s two most effective players at their positions. But really, the offense is everywhere. Forwards Even Fitzner (8.7 PPG) and Calvin Hermanson (10.9 PPG) each shot better than 40 percent from behind the arc on 130-plus attempts. Joe Rahon (10.7 PPG, 4.5 PPG, 5.4 APG) is among the most versatile guards in the conference. Center Jock Landale — one of five Aussies on the roster — scored 8.0 PPG in just 14.5 minutes per game last season, and should see more of the court this year. This might be Randy Bennett’s best team yet in Moraga. Read the rest of this entry »

Rush the Court will be providing wall-to-wall coverage of each of the NCAA Tournament from each of the 13 sites this year. Follow our NCAA Tourney specific Twitter accounts at @RTCEastregion, @RTCMWregion,@RTCSouthregion and @RTCWestregion.

Three Key Takeaways.

Buddy Was Just Doing Buddy Things in Today’s Second Half (USA Today Images)

1. Oklahoma is legit, even without Buddy Hield at his best. I mentioned Friday that the Sooners were going to have to play better as a team if they were going to make it to the Sweet Sixteen, and they certainly did that today. Hield’s uncharacteristic airballed three-pointer at the start (he would airball yet another later in the game) was a good indication that he was somewhat off his game. The rest of the Sooners stepped up for him in a big way to give the team a 13-point halftime buffer that allowed them to withstand VCU’s second half charge. In the first half alone, Oklahoma logged nine offensive reboundsa nd Jordan Woodard and Isaiah Cousins combined for 22 points. Their first half performances were the reason that Oklahoma was able to survive Hield’s slow start
2. Heild proved in the second half why he is likely going to win the Naismith award. Despite being visibly off his game in the first half, Heild came out of the blocks running in the second. His oversized presence forced VCU to blanket him early, which allowed the rest of his team to get open looks. Then, when they needed him most, his second half performance was stellar. At 11:02 remaining, the game was tied at 59-all. From that point forward, Hield put the Sooners on his back in scoring 21 out of Oklahoma’s last 26 points, including several dizzying moves that left the crowd shaking their heads in amazement.
3. Hats off to VCU. The Rams overcame a horrific start to bring the game back to within reach in the second half, including taking a small lead at several points. Mo Alie-Cox had a great second half and finished with 10 points. Jequan Lewis had 22 and Melvin Johnson 23, but more importantly, Will Wade clearly has the program moving in the right direction after the departure of Shaka Smart last summer. 

Star of the Game. Buddy Hield, Oklahoma. Hield struggled mightily in the first half, but the senior NPOY candidate absolutely took the game over when Oklahoma needed him most in the second half. He had 29 points in the second stanza on his way to 33 for the game. His maturity and ability to make such a mid-game correction are what gives the Sooners a shot to make a very deep run in this year’s NCAA Tournament.

Quotable:

• “Yeah coach drew up some really good plays and my guards executed really, really well. They got me the ball in spots they knew were really good for me.” – Khadeem Lattin, on being a factor early in the game
• “Scoring 29 points, I didn’t know I had that, but I just knew I was scoring the ball a lot. Just glad that we got the win. – Buddy Hield, on his second half performance.
• Our teammates did a great job. I thought Isaiah getting down, driving and kicking in the paint, Jordan making plays, Khadeem catching lobs, everybody did what they needed to do to get open and get easy shots and good shots for us. – Hield, on the teamwork and balance of the starting lineup.

Sights & Sounds.

• At one point in the second half, Buddy Hield’s mother left her seat to pray and it apparently worked. 
• The raucous performance by the VCU pep band will be missed, especially the disrobing Superman act. You don’t want to go to war…. with the Raaaammmss….

What’s Next? The Sooners will advance to Friday’s Sweet Sixteen to play the winner of the #3 Texas A&M and #11 Northern Iowa game tonight.

Rush the Court will be providing wall-to-wall coverage of each of the NCAA Tournament from each of the 13 sites this year. Follow our NCAA Tourney specific Twitter accounts at @RTCEastregion, @RTCMWregion,@RTCSouthregion and @RTCWestregion.

Three Key Takeaways.

Mo Alie-Cox was a force to deal with. (Scott K. Brown Photography, Inc.)

1. VCU came out ready to play. The Rams hit the floor in warm-ups and you could tell they were ready to play. Oregon State, on the pother hand, were flat from pre-game warmups and that continued through most of the game. Despite a four minute window in the second half where the Beavers showed some life, VCU’s intensity dominated the game.
2. VCU dominated the inside despite a size disadvantage. Mo Alie-Cox simply took over the paint on both ends. He blocked shots, threw down dunks over Eubanks, and just out-muscled the taller Oregon State players.
3. A balanced attack. VCU effectively spread the court and played well as a team. JeQuan Lewis was consistent throughout and hit some key shots down the stretch, and Melvin Johnson was solid.

Star of the Game. Mo Alie-Cox, VCU. Alie-Cox dominated inside on both there offensive and defensive ends. He had three monster rejections and 20 points to go along with 8 rebounds, 7-of-8 from the field and 6-of-6 from the line. Read the rest of this entry »

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

A Wild Finish to an Unusual Season

Is Dayton Poised For Yet Another Postseason Run? (USA Today Images)

The Atlantic 10 had no fewer than four teams share or outright hold the top spot in the standings during the last five weeks of the regular season. VCU (8-0) entered February with a one-loss lead over Dayton (8-1) and Saint Joseph’s (7-1), but the toughest tests for Will Wade’s team were deferred to the last month of conference play. A 1-2 start to the month dropped the Rams into a tie for second place with the recovered Hawks, two wins behind the preseason favorite Flyers. Having snatched the baton, Dayton could not hold it. Two losses in the third week of February dropped Archie Miller’s squad into second place, again behind VCU. Things then became even more complicated as the league’s top five teams — VCU, Dayton, Saint Joseph’s, St. Bonaventure and George Washington — finished the season with a virtual round robin. By the beginning of March, Saint Joseph’s and VCU were tied at the top with identical 13-3 records, one game ahead of Dayton (12-4) and St. Bonaventure (12-4). Heading into the final day of the regular season, Dayton pulled VCU back to the pack with a 68-67 overtime win, while St. Joseph’s, which had lost another game to the Bonnies, absorbed a 78-70 loss to Duquesne to spare the conference a four-way co-championship. Instead, Dayton, VCU and St. Bonaventure shared the crown. Read the rest of this entry »

For the first time in recent memory, Gonzaga is in jeopardy of missing the NCAA Tournament. Throughout a season in which the Zags began in the top 10, they have experienced a variety of miscues (home losses) and misfortunes (Przemek Karnowski’s injury) that have resulted in a spot squarely on the bubble. Their ups and downs this year will lead the upcoming HBO documentary following Mark Few’s team around this month to look less like Ballers and more like Game of Thrones (For those without a friend’s HBO Go password, find some new friends.)

Kyle Wiltjer’s Team Has Not Had the Season It Expected. (Otto Greule Jr/Getty Images)

In eight games against the KenPom top 60, Gonzaga has gone 1-7 with four of those losses coming at The Kennel. Conversely, the Bulldogs are a perfect 20-0 in the rest of their games. In determining their status on the bubble, the Zags are in a difficult spot because of a combination of zero signature wins without any corresponding bad losses. Gonzaga’s national brand name makes it unique in how it can schedule, but most other mid-major programs don’t get the chance to notch resume-building wins nearly as often as their power conference peers. Michigan, one of the Zags’ primary competitors on the bubble, will play 13 games against the top 60 this season, including six opportunities at home (five games against Big Ten teams). A different mid-major on the bubble cannot use multiple opportunities late in the season to enhance its resume — it can only avoid bad losses.

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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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As with any beloved family member, the longer Shaka Smart stayed in Richmond, the harder he was going to be to replace. And contrary to what many outside the area may think, VCU’s strong basketball tradition didn’t start with the charismatic and personable young coach, but it made him a seemingly impossible act to follow. A 2011 trip to the Final Four is the most notable element of Smart’s impressive coaching resume, but he also won at least 26 games in all six seasons at the helm, going to the NCAA Tournament in each of the last five years (VCU is one of 11 schools nationally with such a streak). In the school’s first three years since moving up to the Atlantic 10, Smart led the Rams to 12 conference wins each season and the Rams never received a seed lower than #7 in the NCAA Tournament.

Once an assistant under Shaka Smart, the young Will Wade is beginning to plant the seeds towards his own legacy at VCU. (Getty)

VCU did its best to keep Smart from leaving. To call his departure inevitable is probably inaccurate, but they certainly knew it was a distinct possibility all along. After Smart bolted for the resource-rich program at Texas, it didn’t take long for VCU to appoint Will Wade to replace him. Wade, like Smart, is a young, energetic, new-age leader who never played at a high level. At 33 years old, he is currently the fourth-youngest Division I coach, but, unlike Smart, this young head coach brought two years of D-I head coaching experience with him, leading Chattanooga to a 27-7 Southern Conference record over two seasons from 2013-15. Wade was also an assistant for four years under Smart (including the Final Four campaign) prior to that, and was a key member of the Harvard dynasty in the Ivy League before joining the VCU staff.

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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 »