O26 At-Large Watch: Early Season Games With Late Season Impact

Posted by Tommy Lemoine on November 7th, 2016

With March still several months away, it’s impossible to know which non-conference match-ups will actually prove critical once Selection Sunday arrives. But we here at the Other 26 microsite can certainly take an educated guess. Here are 11 pre-January contests that we think may play a significant role in deciding which O26 contenders will be in position to earn at-large bids on March 12.

Princeton will have several opportunities for resume-defining wins. (goprincetontigers.com)

Princeton has several opportunities for resume-defining wins. (goprincetontigers.com)

  • Princeton at Brigham Young – November 14, 10:00 PM EST, ESPN2. BYU essentially struck out in non-conference play last season and wound up paying the price on Selection Sunday. The Cougars’ margin for error may be even slimmer this year. As it stands, Princeton (#39 RPI in 2015-16) is probably BYU’s best non-league opponent, making this Tip-Off Marathon home tilt critical for Dave Rose’s offensively gifted group. For the Tigers — who also play VCU, California and Monmouth in the season’s first two months — a victory at the Marriott Center would be a giant feather in their non-conference cap.
  • San Diego State at #14 Gonzaga – November 14, 11:59 PM EST, ESPN2. If the Mountain West has another down year, San Diego State could find itself with a very hollow resume come March even if it lives up to its preseason billing. The Aztecs simply don’t have many opportunities for quality non-conference wins. Luckily, the bulk of their roster back, and the addition of two power-conference transfers should enable one of the nation’s most effective defensive teams to become more impactful on offense. Which is to say that Steve Fisher’s group should be able to compete with a talented-but-unproven Gonzaga unit, especially early this season. A win in the Kennel would be huge.

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Atlantic 10 NCAA Tournament Reactions

Posted by Joe Dzuback (@vbtnblog) on March 15th, 2016

Shock at the NCAA Tournament’s exclusion of St. Bonaventure, the first regular season conference champion with an RPI better than #30 to be left out of the NCAA field since it was expanded to 64 teams, was not limited to members of the school’s community, fans of the conference, veteran bracketologists and a wide consensus of sportswriters. Atlantic 10 Commissioner Bernadette McGlade weighed in with a scathing critique of the committee’s judgement and a promise to “talk to the selection committee representatives and compare the stats of all of the at-large selections to understand why [the Bonnies] were not selected to hopefully avoid this disappointment in the future”.

The other three projected teams were included in the field of 68. Let’s take a look at each.

Dayton #7 seed, Midwest Region

After the seeds were assigned to their NCAA Tournament sites a Dayton supporter suggested (tongue firmly in cheek) that fans of his school and Xavier gather at a known St. Louis watering hole to catch their respective games and swap stories about the old Atlantic 10. Dayton drew Syracuse and a roster that has been ravaged by NCAA-mandated scholarship reductions. The Orange run a six-man rotation, which may explain why Syracuse’s record since Valentine’s Day is a paltry 2-5. Dayton can crack Jim Boeheim’s 2-3 zone with outside shooting (Cooke, Smith or Pierre) or utilize its bouncy forwards (Pierre, Pollard) flashing to the free throw line to convert or find open shooters. Archie Miller typically goes nine deep, so expect the Flyers’ high-energy rotation to wear the Orange down over the course of the game. Survive that and #2 seed Michigan State is up next, a team that many thought deserved a #1 seed. Should the Flyers survive the first weekend, challenges in the form of Seton Hall (or Utah) and ultimately one from a mix of Virginia (#1 seed), a Tubby Smith-coached Texas Tech (#8) or Iowa State (#5) await. Michigan State is without question the toughest draw for Dayton in this region. Read the rest of this entry »

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Thoughts on the Atlantic 10’s Postseason Teams

Posted by Joe Dzuback (@vbtnblog) on March 14th, 2016

As we head into the heart of March Madness with the NCAA Tournament starting this week, let’s quickly review some of the key takeaways from the Atlantic 10 Tournament over the weekend in Brooklyn.

St. Joseph's Celebrated (USA Today Images)

St. Joseph’s Celebrated Its A-10 Title on Sunday in Brooklyn (USA Today Images)

At least six Atlantic 10 teams are still playing basketball, although only three will do so in the NCAA Tournament. It was clear as January turned to February that four A-10 teams were playing in a league of their own — Dayton, Saint Joseph’s, Virginia Commonwealth and St. Bonaventure. All four were dialed in during conference play, fighting among themselves to determine which would take or share the regular season title. After Selection Sunday, the three teams included in the field of 68 drew seeds ranging from #7 (Dayton) to #8 (Saint Joseph’s) to #10 (VCU). The shocker of Selection Sunday might have been the snub of the Bonnies, a team projected to make the field in 71 of the 80 brackets included in Bracket Matrix. Meanwhile, Davidson and George Washington joined a disappointed St. Bonaventure club in scooping NIT bids. Beyond those six, look for Fordham and/or Richmond to play in the CBI, CIT or Vegas 16. Rhode Island is, as coach Dan Hurley admitted after the Rams lost to Massachusetts Thursday, too banged up to be effective. Its season is over. Here are some thoughts on those teams still playing:

  • Dayton and VCU won’t sneak up on anyone this season. They may represent the conference’s name brands but each has significant flaws this season. VCU lacks multiple scoring threats, especially when their offense is initiated from the half-court. Senior guard Melvin Johnson and center Mo Alie-Cox can score — but only when someone besides Johnson is hot from the outside does the Rams’ offense look dangerous. Dayton won two games last year and ran all the way to the Elite Eight in 2014. This season’s ennui may stem from a variety of minor injuries, a concussion protocol implemented at the worst time and a fall semester suspension. On paper this team looks better than last season, but the Flyers have really struggled since Valentine’s Day.

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Checking In On…The Atlantic 10

Posted by Joe Dzuback (@vbtnblog) on February 24th, 2016

First It Got Crazy, Then It Didn’t

Reviewing the scores from last Wednesday, it looked as if the shake-up at the top of the conference would continue for another week. VCU had dropped two games the week before and put itself a loss behind Dayton, the coaches’ preseason pick for the conference title. The City of Brotherly Love was unkind to a pair of visiting teams on that night, however, as Dayton lost to Saint Joseph’s 79-70, and up the road, La Salle (1-10 in the A-10) earned its second conference win of the season over St. Bonaventure. The Flyers’ loss dropped them into a three-way tie for first with the victorious Hawks and struggling VCU.

As the A-10 contenders come down the stretch, Archie Miller and crew is once again right in the thick of things. (Getty)

Archie Miller and his crew are once again right in the thick of things heading down the stretch. (Getty)

St. Bonaventure had been in the midst of a 9-3 tear through the conference, but saw its at-large dream grow more distant with the loss to the Explorers (#224 in the RPI). Fast forward to Saturday, where two frontrunners again suffered crippling losses. Dayton fell 79-72 at home to those Bonnies, while Saint Joseph’s had its eight-game road winning streak snapped at Davidson, 99-93. At the end of a chaotic week, the conference standings had somehow remained nearly the same as the week before. VCU was back in first place, while Dayton and Saint Joseph’s fell back into a two-way tie for second place, a loss behind the Rams. St. Bonaventure did slide up the standings page, moving into sole possession of the fourth slot, as George Washington slipped to fifth.

If the standings were status quo ante, the prospects for NCAA bids were not. St. Bonaventure, whose at-large hopes appeared grim on Wednesday, added a signature win to their resume in winning at Dayton over the weekend. Their RPI bumped to #34. Bracketologists will argue about the eye test and ugly losses (see: La Salle) when it comes to the Bonnies’ profile, but the RPI figure has definitely earned them a serious look as the season winds down. Right now, bracketologists Jerry Palm, Chris Dobbertean and Joe Lunardi project the same three teams, Dayton, VCU and Saint Joseph’s, in the field of 68, but disagree on the seed. Dobbertean and Lunardi have both St. Bonaventure and GWU in their First Four Out, while Palm lists only the Bonnies among the first four on the outside of the cutline.  Read the rest of this entry »

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Checking In On… the Atlantic 10

Posted by nvr1983 on January 27th, 2016

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. A10-1Through 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 »
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Checking In On…The Atlantic 10

Posted by Joe Dzuback (@vbtnblog) on January 20th, 2016

Three Thoughts About The Week That Was

  1. The conference is, with two exceptions, behaving. A glance at the offensive (points per possession scored) and defensive efficiencies (points per possession allowed) for the first two weeks of conference play shows that teams with losing records (Richmond excepted), show a negative efficiency difference (points per possession scored is less than points per possession allowed). Through the first five conference games the spread of winning and losing teams, point per possession scored vs allowed, and the efficiency differential is relatively symmetrical (Richmond again excepted). This is not typical for this point in the conference race. What we do know is that luck (good and bad) has had a small impact and that freshmen and transfers continue to have an impact on scoring and defense through the first two months (and 16+ games) of the season. Table01160118
  2. Virginia Commonwealth is building its case for an NCAA bid. With a crushing 88-54 home win over Fordham Wednesday night, followed by a crucial 94-89 overtime win at Richmond Saturday, the Rams have improved to 13-5 overall and extended their conference-best record to 5-0. The Rams have a one-game cushion over Dayton, Saint Joseph’s, and St. Bonaventure. If chalk prevails, Will Wade‘s squad will not be seriously challenged until February. The schedule-makers have been kind to VCU, as their toughest tests to this point have been Saint Joseph’s (85-82 winners on 1/5) at home and a height-challenged St. Bonaventure (1/23) team in Olean. The real work begins with a game at Davidson (1/29) and a home date with George Washington (2/6). It builds to the closing fortnight as their last three opponents, George Washington (2/27, away), Davidson (3/2, home) and Dayton (3/5, away), should be fellow contenders for the regular season title. Credit senior Mel Johnson and fifth year senior Kory Billbury, who have combined for 43 percent of the team’s three-pointers. Junior center Mo Alie-Cox and JuCo transfer Ahmed Hamdy Mohamed have also formed a nice tag team in the low post in dominating the offensive boards. Alie-Cox and Mohamed have connected on 55 percent of their two-point attempts. This inside-outside combination is efficient enough to negate the loss of junior wing Jordan Burgess, who has been sidelined with a broken finger since early January. Burgess should be back before the end of the season, so there will be time to work him back into the rotation before the conference tournament in Brooklyn. Read the rest of this entry »
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Checking In On… the Atlantic 10

Posted by Joe Dzuback (@vbtnblog) on January 13th, 2016

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

NEW YORK, NY - MARCH 14: Patricio Garino #13 and George Washington dropped a surprising game to, but should be right in the mix for the A-10 crown. (Mike Lawrie/Getty Images)

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 »
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Checking in on… the Atlantic 10

Posted by Joe Dzuback (@vbtnblog) on November 24th, 2015

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 A10. (AP Photo/John Minchillo)

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 »

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Other 26 Previews: Atlantic 10 Conference

Posted by Joseph Dzuback on November 12th, 2015

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)

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 »

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Atlantic 10 Postseason Previews

Posted by Joe Dzuback (@vbtnblog) on March 17th, 2015

Joe Dzuback is the RTC correspondent for the Atlantic 10 Conference. You can also find his musings online at Villanova by the Numbers or on Twitter @vbtnblog.

Sunday, Sunday

As expected, the Atlantic 10 sent six teams to the postseason: three to the NCAA Tournament — Davidson, Dayton and Virginia Commonwealth — the other three to the NIT — George Washington, Richmond and Rhode Island. VCU benefited the most, not just with the championship and accompanying automatic bid, but in seemingly finding some of the answers that Shaka Smart has been searching for much of the season.

Archie Miller might be the most important returnee of the entire A10 conference. (AP)

Will the home court advantage give a slightly tired Dayton team the boost it needs? (AP)

NCAA Bound

Dayton head coach Archie Miller was reluctant to admit that the cumulative effect of a 33-game schedule may have played a role in his Flyers’ blowout loss to Virginia Commonwealth in the Atlantic 10 Tournament championship game on Sunday. “These guys, they have battled hard all year so it’s kind of hard to say we are finally tired. I don’t think we played tired.” He later tacitly acknowledged that sophomore point guard Scoochie Smith, who carried a good deal of the offensive burden through Dayton’s three-game run in Brooklyn, may have been feeling it. “He may be the one guy I look and say from a legs perspective he had some really good looks and was short on all of them, so hopefully we get Scoochie back.” The Selection Committee essentially said to the Flyers, “You get to open the Tournament at home! On three days rest” — a classic good news/bad news punch line. Their opponent, Boise State, will traverse a time zone to make the game. Smith, along with consistent play-makers Kendall Pollard and senior Jordan Sibert, should win this game, and after another two-day layoff and a bus ride to Columbus, will face #6 Providence, another uptempo team with a short bench. Read the rest of this entry »

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