Davidson looks close to a lock, VCU and Dayton are certainly in the mix.  What about SLU??
If Dayton and VCU win out, and play each other in the Finals, that looks like our possible path to 3 or more teams.  Everything would have to break just about right though

Here's a look at each of them:[b][b][b]Davidson Wildcats[/b][/b][/b]
Heading into what promises to be an epic Atlantic 10 showdown at Dayton, Bob McKillop's team has won five in a row with an average margin of victory of nearly 18 pointsAt 25-4 with a neutral-floor win over Alabama and top-35 status in both the NET rankings and in strength of record, the Wildcats have built a robust at-large case themselves[b][b][b]VCU Rams[/b][/b][/b]
Playing their best defense of the entire Atlantic 10 season, the Rams posted a 74-51 win at home over previously red-hot St. Bonaventure, an impressive performance by VCU against a quality opponent. Mike Rhoades' team will finish the season at Saint Louis. A Quadrant 1 win over the Billikens holds the potential to get the Rams closer to the field than their current "first four out" status. 

 [b][b][b]Dayton Flyers[/b][/b][/b]
Anthony Grant's team won 55-53 at Richmond on a spectacular game-winning dunk by R.J. Blakney with 1.2 seconds remaining. The win went in the books as a high Quadrant 2 victory, Dayton shot up on the strength of record metric and here we are. Note additionally that in Atlantic 10 play the Flyers are outscoring the league by significantly wider margin than is Davidson. Dayton will host the Wildcats in a regular-season finale loaded with bubble implications
 

Last edited by The Dude (3/02/2022 11:41 pm)

Well, if GW (or Duques) runs the table at the Abe Pollin Palace and steals the autobid by beating VCU on a half-court shot at the buzzer that gets all kinds of attention from ESPN et al and is thanks to some sort of snafu with the game clock and there are no upsets in any other conference´s tournament, then three teams is a possibility. Otherwise, expect the A10 powers-that-be to say lots of things about how the NIT is a "good place to build" on and the like.

One challenge the league has is that the selection committee is slow, lazy, and terrible.  They always have the at large teams set before the Sunday afternoon A10 final with a contingency for any bid thieves - and they usually say the at large field is set before Saturday, when the semis are.

Therefore if Dayton and VCU meet in the finals, they probably just say winner gets in.  Knowing what I know about the committee, I’d bet good money that making it to the finals wouldn’t really help a team they had already decided before the semis was on the outside looking in. 


Davidson could even get screwed out of a bid by the late final.  I think most likely if Davidson makes the finals they are in, but if they lose to Dayton this week, I could see the lazy committee getting to Saturday night/Sunday morning and just saying they will give the spot to whoever wins the tourney.


My guess is:

1) if VCU loses to SLU, they are out no matter what.
2) if VCU wins and Dayton wins (and the three all make the semis, then I could see them just deciding before the A10 finals to make it a one bid league instead of waiting to see what happens between Davison and Dayton in the semis or VCU vs whoever. Possible they just decide Davidson is in no matter what and save a spot for whoever goes further out of VCU or Dayton.

3) if Davidson beats Dayton and VCU wins, I think Davidson is locked in and Dayton would be out even if they reach the finals simply because they’ll be deciding on Dayton before a rematch with Davidson in the semis. VCU would be a maybe, but again I could see them just deciding that since VCU (in their eyes) didn’t earn it before the Saturday, they are just out with no reconsidering based on the results.

Davidson I believe is locked in right now.  If they lose early there'll be some "bubble now?" but I bet they end up at worst an 11 seed.  

VCU and Dayton, if they win this weekend, and lose in the Finals, I think are also Dancing. If they lose early they are probably out, and the grayest area, can they win Saturday, reach the Semis, and get an at large bid.

 Palm has VCU in his last 4 IN and Davidson a 9 seed, Lunardi has Davidson a 10 seed.

FWIW, Lunardi has The Bonnies on his next 4 out list (with Dayton)

 

The Dude wrote:

Look at their resume and Dayton's resume.  Dayton is 2-2 Quad 1 Beat Kansas in a neutral venue.
and 6-3 Quad 2


 

The part of the resume you leave out is Dayton’s 3 Q4 losses.

Look, I’m a big fan of Dayton’s play in conference, but if you’re trying to get an at large bid you don’t lose to La Salle on the road in the last week and a half of play.

GW0509 wrote:

The Dude wrote:

Look at their resume and Dayton's resume.  Dayton is 2-2 Quad 1 Beat Kansas in a neutral venue.
and 6-3 Quad 2


 

The part of the resume you leave out is Dayton’s 3 Q4 losses.

Look, I’m a big fan of Dayton’s play in conference, but if you’re trying to get an at large bid you don’t lose to La Salle on the road in the last week and a half of play.

You beat me to it GW0509.

Legitimate question for The Dude:  Are you just always this disingenuous or do you amp it up for the board?  I used to be convinced the answer was the latter but the fact is you are so consistently misleading and deceptive (not to mention redundant), I am starting to think that maybe this is the real you.  You always seem to tell only part of a narrative, the part that fits the narrative you're peddling.  Why mention Dayton's 3 Q4 losses plus 1 Q3 loss when these facts totally fly in the face against the point you are repeatedly trying to jam down people's throats here?  Then, you get called out on it and your response is never along the lines of "thanks, I missed that" or "good point, I guess I was wrong."  Your response is to not respond.  You stay silent until you are ready to troll again.

And, so we are clear, this is not an attack.  This is an observation based on your behavior here.  An attack would be if I called you an asshole for doing this, which I am not doing.  I am calling you a troll which is a true statement, not an attack.

The Atlantic 10 is the 10th rated conference this season.  Our conference's best case scenario is around 6th as we have occasionally surpassed I believe either the Pac 12 or the SEC during an occasional down year (though that was in the Xavier-Temple days).  Our worst case is around 11th.  This year, we are ahead of the Missouri Valley which has been severely weakened since Wichita's departure and will be even more wounded once Loyola-ILL joins us.  We are behind the West Coast Conference, the Mountain West and the American.

The West Coast features Gonzaga (NET: 1), St Mary's (NET: 19), USF (NET: 26) and BYU (NET: 53).

The Mountain West features San Diego State (NET: 27), Colorado State (NET: 28), Boise State (NET: 30), and Wyoming (NET: 47).

If only half these teams make the field, then have at it with your arguments about mid-majors getting ripped off.  My guess is that at least 6 will be in, and perhaps as many as all 8.  These schools managed to do what the 6 A10 schools managed to do in 2013-14.  They played and defeated power conference teams, often on the road.  They avoided bad losses in their OOC.  Dayton did the first part of this as they have a number of quality OOC wins.  As I said in another post, one humiliating loss could be overlooked.  Two would raise eyebrows but might still be OK.  Three is simply too many.  And you're lobbying for Dayton after their 4th?  Dayton either wins the A10 tournament or plays in the NIT.  Couldn't be any simpler.

I do think that both Davidson and VCU have done enough.  Each has a true road game record of 9-1 and even though this gets somewhat baked into the NET calculations, the committee has often spoke of how tough it is to win on the road.  Personally, I would reward both though each has a tough road game on Saturday and would help themselves immensely by winning at Dayton and SLU respectively.

I'll end this by saying that everyone who visits this site must know by now how you feel about middling power conference schools getting a leg up on midmajors with better records.  Believe me, it's in our collective DNA to want to see more midmajors make the field.  You should know in case you don't that you are preaching to the choir on this point which you make again and again, on multiple threads.  However, it is not cut and dried as it appears. Let's go back to Michigan and Dayton (and with last night's loss, I suspect Michigan needs to win in Columbus on Sunday and then make a serious run in Indy to have a chance).  Michigan is 4-10 in Q1 and Dayton is 2-2.  Yes, 2-2 is a better record.  But playing 14 Q1 games represents a substantially more difficult schedule than playing 4.  Michigan is 8-1 in Q3 and 4, Dayton is 13-4.  Not only do the 4 losses kill Dayton but recognize that they may end up playing twice as many Q3 and Q4 games as Michigan.  Am not suggesting that I'd put either in front of the other, only that this isn't the slam-dunk obvious gripe that you're making it out to be.

Free Quebec wrote:

GWRising wrote:

Is this the Committee's or the A-10's fault? The A-10 is not a power conference and as a result it should never have its championship on Sunday. Some of us have preached this for years to deaf ears. The League should model itself after the old BE and finish on Saturday night. That would mean play-in games on Tuesday instead of Wednesday but you could finish the league games by Friday evening the week before.
 

I would say it’s both. The A-10 used to play it’s final Saturday at 6 IIRC, before the Big East final on ESPN.  Then CBS came with money to get us to play Sunday and the league jumped at the money.  So the A-10 took the money but hurt us with the committee (I think there have been one or two years where we would have had an extra team in had the tourney been earlier). 

But it’s also the committee’s fault. They are slow and I don’t believe most of the committee comes in with anywhere near the knowledge of the teams as most big fans.  They used to talk more about the eye test, but how much do those members really watch? 

Bernadette McGlade is on it this year (which, since she is recused from discussions of A-10 teams, has a downside which is that a majority of members voting on A-10 teams’ inclusion or seeding will be from big money leagues).  But how many times has Bernadette seen Murray St or BYU play? For that matter, has she really seen much or Wake Forest or does she stay up to watch Oregon play at 11PM on the East Coast?  She’s busy with the A-10 (and not just basketball) so I’m guessing her knowledge of these teams is limited to metrics on paper, general national media narrative, and maybe snippets of watching games the last week or two.

Same for all the ADs - how many times do you think Iowa St’s AD has watched teams outside of the Big12 beyond a few marquee match ups? 


With the amount of money the NCAA makes, they could pay 7-10 neutral people $50k (or more if they really wanted it to be full time)  to follow the season, watch lots of games, and convene at the end to pick the field.  That’ll never happen because the big money boyz wants disproportionate representation (6 of the 12 seats are taken by the 6 big money leagues), but if the NCAA ever trusted its selection committee to people who were focused on that job, and that job alone, not only would the committee do a better job, but they’d be much more nimble about incorporating results from the last couple of days of the season instead of essentially blowing off Saturday/Sunday results because they move too slowly and aren’t capable of dealing with it.

They rigged a system to ensure every last big $ program possible is jammed in. As recently as a few years ago bubble chatter used to be about OOC wins or record in league. They don't want 26-2 teams from small leagues or 23-7 A1O they want 16-14 Michigan's

Bonnies.. Lundari's next 4 out list.  

That might come as a surprise but they have a pretty intriguing resume
3 Quad 1 wins, Neutral court wins over Marquette and Boise St and an away win over SLU

Big game tonight vs Richmond, not sure there's a path for them short of winning the Conf Tourney, but Lunardi's seems to think long shot.  You put this win in the mix and 2 more A10 wins and just maybe.  They really needed that Quad 1 win at VCU the last weekend and instead they got blown out




 

The Dude wrote:

More than 2 is a clear path to explain.  Dayton beats Davidson this weekend, both Dayton and VCU go the Finals of the A10 tourney. The winner gets the auto bid loser is deemed to have done just enough to get in = 3.

Davidson + the A10 Tourney winner = 2. 

Davidson wins the tourney and the bubble teams all lose early, worst case and least likely scenario = 1

 

Man, that will be a cold depressing day if/when the A-10 becomes a one-bid league. Bernadette McGlade should be fired if she ever allows that to happen. Actually, she should probably be fired anyway for putting the league in this position.

I wonder if Bernadette feels personally responsible for how many bids the A-10 gets. That's part of her job, right, to get more bids? Everything in this league revolves around bids: player and coaching talent, salaries, TV ratings. You name it.

Right and the answers aren't so easy.  Say we decide to go to 14 conference games to get more OOC games.  Problem is, the P5 schools are all playing more conference games so we'd end up playing maybe more OVC, MVC, CAA teams.  Could that get us the quality wins we need to look more impressive for at-large bids?  Remains to be seen.