Another A10 team having a fantastic OOC are the Bonnies

10-1 with wins over Providence and a really good Northern Iowa team
the only loss was nailbiter vs a top 20 Utah St team

Rhode Island also an impressive 10-1 with 5 wins in Quads 2 & 3

REALLY good OOC for The A10 this year, outstanding in total
 

Last edited by The Dude (12/17/2024 12:23 pm)

The conference isn't radically different from a year ago.  The A10 was the 8th rated conference in the country last year and is so far again this year only without the Pac 12 as competition.  Dayton is again poised to receive an at large which is a good thing for them since they just don't ever seem to win the conference tournament (it's been something along the lines of 20 years...no kidding).  After that, VCU has a strong KenPom but a weak Net.  The Bonnies are 55 in the NET but 82 in KenPom.  URI and Loyola have lost two games between them yet neither is sniffing an at large.

URI and the Bonnies have each defeated a 5 loss Providence team.  URI has no other credible wins and their loss was at Brown.  Northern Iowa (who lost to SBU), described for no other reason than to fit an agenda as "a really good team", is 7-4.  

The fact is that the A10 are not getting very many games to hang their hat on so a loss like SBU's to Utah State or Loyola's to San Francisco stand out as lost opportunities against quality teams from comparable conferences.  If the season ended today, I'm convinced the A10 reps at the dance would be Dayton and whoever won the conference tournament (if not Dayton).

The best thing that could happen for the conference as a whole is to again become very top heavy with the first 4 teams all going say 13-5 or better.  The more likely scenario is that the mid-tier teams will earn their share of upsets and the low-tier teams will also get their occasional upsets, making it that much more difficult for A10 teams who did not/could not distinguish themselves during OOC play to earn at large bids come March. 
 

The great OOC for the A10 continues with a big win for Dayton over UNLV

The Bonnies won on the road 64-45 to improve to 11-1 as well

 

Seems like the Doug Gottlieb experiment is unsurprisingly not going too well at UWGB. The Phoenix lost to D2 Michigan Tech yesterday. If Anthony Roy wasn't on the team (and he is at that level only because of issues off the court) Green Bay might be winless on the year.

Bethune-Cookman upset South Florida by 8. Bray had 18 points, 5 rebounds, and 5 assists for the Wildcats.

Good on Alabama for playing at North Dakota. That's what makes CBB so great. Treysen Eaglestaff just earned himself a big payday for his 40 point performance last night

Oklahoma lucked out in their win over Michigan to stay undefeated as Fears was fouled on a made three in the closing seconds. The Sooners are good, but I'm still not fully buying that they can keep playing at this level the rest of the way.

Georgetown beating Creighton by 24 really surprised me. Sorber is a really good player. I think it may be more of a sign that Creighton is just not very good than Georgetown being good but the Hoyas are certainly improved.

In A10 action, La Salle slipped by FDU by 5. The Explorers have a freshman in Deuce Jones who seems to have had a great year thus far.

Temple edged Davidson by 1. Boy would that be a fun conference matchup in the future (although I know TU is never going to come back). The Owls won on an Elijah Gray bucket. Gray was at Fordham last year. It was also Temple's 2000th program win.

Richmond continues to disappoint, falling to William & Mary by 6 on the road. Neither team could get any stops apparently.

UMass beat Northeastern 77-72. The Minutemen probably could have won by more if they did better at the FT line.

St. Joe's easily defeated American 84-57. Lincoln Ball started, but went 0-6 from the field. The Hawks were without X Brown. GW could not have played worse against AU. Hopefully it's the worst performance of the year for the Revs.

SLU lost to Wofford at home 74-71. Honestly, Wofford is not that bad of a squad but SLU has very much underperformed. They seem to have issues defending. Wofford ran the same curl action over and over again and St Louis couldn't stop it.

Loyola beat Canisius by 12. The Ramblers are dealing with a lot of injuries, but Canisius is trash this year. Unsurprising when you hire a retread like Jim Christian. It's a tossup between Canisius and New Hampshire (who hired Nathan Davis) for worst hire of the offseason.

VCU lost to New Mexico 78-71. JoeBam had 12. It's these kind of performances that are hurting the A10. Every time they face a Mountain West team, they always fall short. It's not easy to win on the road, but the result could have been much different had the Rams made more FTs.
 

Dayton misses a big opportunity losing to Cincy but St Joes picks up a nice win against ACC Va Tech

Miami lost to Mount St. Mary’s today.

@sam_vecenie

Miami (FL) basketball has now won 4 of its last 22 games, with its only wins being over Fairleigh Dickinson, Binghamton, Coppin State, and Presbyterian. That's zero top-250 wins in its last 22 games going back to last season.

Feels like it's time for Larranaga at this point.