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Happy New Year! Conference play gets underway today in the A10.
Games of interest:
A10
St. Louis @ Duquesne 7 PM ESPN+ - this should be a good contest. Duquesne has opened up as a 3 point home favorite, but their recent blowout loss against Marshall might lead to some picking SLU on the road.
St. Joe's @ Richmond 7 PM ESPN+ - Richmond ranks 35th on offense, while St. Joe's is 309th on defense. Being a road game for the Hawks, this could be a big blowout win for the Spiders. They are currently a 12.5 point home favorite.
Fordham @ VCU 7 PM ESPN+ - Fordham ranks 329th on offense, while VCU is 33rd on defense. VCU is currently a 19(!) point favorite, with an O/U of 123.5. It might not be a bad idea to take the under.
Rhode Island @ Brown 7 PM ESPN+ - the Rams just lost Dana Tate to transfer, but DC native/Georgetown transfer Antwan Walker should help them out. Brown is a middling Ivy team, so URI needs to win this one.
#20 Dayton @ La Salle 8:30 PM CBSSN - should be another great contest. The conference probably needs the Flyers to win and keep their top 25 ranking, but the Explorers have been sneaky good this year, including a nice win over a solid South Alabama team. Dayton is a 9.5 point road favorite, but if La Salle can make this an ugly low scoring affair with their pretty good defense, it could be a lot closer than many expect. Slowing down the Flyer offense is no easy task though.
OOC
American @ Colgate 7 PM - probably one of the few games where AU will be an underdog during conference season.
Longwood @ Winthrop 7 PM ESPN+ - Longwood will probably be a pretty sizable underdog in this one.
Vermont @ Dartmouth 7 PM ESPN+ - the Catamounts shouldn't have much trouble in this matchup.
Towson @ Charleston 7 PM - Charleston is a 5.5 point home favorite. Towson has started conference play 0-2, and it will require great shooting for the Tigers to avoid an 0-3 conference start.
Lafayette @ Boston U 7 PM - seems like a pick 'em. Boston U might have the edge as the home team, but the Leopards have looked a lot better than I expected them to coming into the year. They beat St. Joe's by 23 earlier in the year.
Seattle @ UMKC 8 PM - UMKC is favored by 3.5 points. Seattle isn't a great team, and having to travel over 1,800 miles might be tough for them.
Former GW Player Games
Elon @ Northeastern 7 PM - NE is a 14 point home favorite. After a few off games, Jordan went off for 33 points against James Madison in their previous contest.
Other Games
I think #4 Oregon at Colorado (9 PM) could be a good game as well for general viewing. It will come down to the Ducks Offense vs. the Buffs Defense. St. Mary's-San Francisco (11 PM) should also be a good one, as could UTEP-FIU (12 PM). The Miners have been dealing with a lot of tension between teammates, and a few players have left the team recently. They still have a lot of talent, but that's precisely why you don't fill a team with alphas who are looking for their shot first instead of deferring to their teammates. It worked for Musselman at Nevada somewhat, but he was able to get his players to buy in which is normally hard to do.
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The A10 slate begins with 7 teams inside the top 91. Pretty impressive.
Dayton is an amazing #9. I can't recall the last top 10 A10 KenPom team, seems like a very long time. Maybe a VCU team at a moment in time
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Fordham at VCU is on MASN and St.Joe's-Richmond is on NBC Sports Washington.
I mentioned this in the previous 'Other Games' thread, but will post it again here for those of you who missed it, Maryland twin post players Makhi and Makhel Mitchell transferred last week, they are local guys who attended McNamara and Wilson while in high school. It may be a long shot for GW to land them, but I'm sure Jamion Christian will make an attempt to get them. Their mother actually took to social media to rip Mark Turgeon for how he treated them, she has since deleted her tweets, but I found another link which screenshotted what she posted.
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Dayton absolutely destroyed LaSalle.
Related, Colorado beat #4 Oregon, Colorado was Dayton's sole loss, they look pretty legit though, 27th in KenPom, Dayton is now 8th.
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Some strong teams in A10 but seems like the league is unbalanced based on some of the 1st game scores. A top tier and An equal amount of poor teams (I include GW in the latter).
The head to head match ups on the top tier will go a long way to deciding how many teams get in.
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Rhode Island lost to Brown, which needless to say is a terrible loss for them and the A10.
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A 14 point Duquesne win over St. Louis got my attention. Eric Williams is the latest Duke to leave but Marcus Weathers, a transfer from Miami, OH, has more than adequately replaced him (26 points on 8-10 shooting in this game). Sincere Carry had 5 boards and 8 assists last night and another Akron transfer, 5' 8" Tavian Dunn-Martin, hit 5 three pointers and scored 21 off the bench. The Bills bring back French and Goodwin but the rest of their lineup is unrecognizable for the most part. Each team only had 2 losses coming into the game so I'd have to believe that Duquesne, despite a very soft OOC schedule, could be a factor for a double bye this season.
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Duquesne coach is a pro who coached LeBron in high school and has worked his way up through experience..
He would have been a good hire for us before Mojo. Despite family ties to Duquesne, I imagine he would
have been happy to take the GW job, which at the time, before our recent sad decline, was way better than Duquesne.
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PKGW, at least GW will have some very winnable games against the likes of Fordham and St.Joe's, and maybe UMass. Earlier in the OOC, it was looking as if GW would be in last place by themselves.
Davidson has been the most disappointing A-10 team in the OOC. Davidson was picked to finish 1st or 2nd(ahead of Dayton) by most outlets, but ended up going 6-6 in non-conference play. They didn't pick up any good wins and lost to Wake Forest and Charlotte(2 games in which they were the favored to win). On paper, Davidson looked like they could be a top 25 team, I'm not sure what the issue is with them?
Georgetown at Seton Hall 9 on FS1 - Georgetown played without Matt McClung( AU guard Sa'eed Nelson accidently poked him in the eye last weekend) in their first Big East game at Providence and got blown out. I'm not sure what McClung's status is tonight, but if he's out, Georgetown will probably get blown out again. Georgetown had played well after the 4 players left the team due to the remaining rotation players/starters playing big minutes. Georgetown couldn't afford to have any of the 6 rotation players getting injured because there doesn't appear to be a "cupcake" among the other 9 Big East teams.
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SIU Edwardsville also upset Belmont by 10 on the road yesterday. I believe the Cougars (ranked 346) were 22.5 point underdogs, so that's a massive upset - probably the second biggest this season after the Florida A&M-Iowa State game a week ago. Houston Baptist, the last winless team in D1, finally won against Central Arkansas in OT. UMKC needed triple overtime to beat Seattle. Each team had three players foul out. Maine also beat Columbia on a buzzer beater three.
Good call Thomas on the Mitchell twins. It would be great for frontcourt depth, though there is always some baggage to take on when recruiting twins. If one is playing more than the other, that won't fly in many cases. The one playing less will want to leave, and that will force the other twin to leave as well. I think that shouldn't be a problem given our thin frontcourt issues, but I'd imagine they want to stay at a higher level. Has GW ever had twins on a team?
Marvin Price is transferring from Ohio. He didn't do much in Athens, but I liked what I saw from him in HS. We also recruited him at one point.
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Thomas...agree that Fordham, UMass and St. Joes are winable conference games for GW. Sadly, these may be the only winable games. I think the conference is fairly balanced, with the exceptions being Dayton and VCU on the top, and St. Joes and GW at the bottom. (Maybe Fordham is a bottom feeder again also). The other 9-10 teams can probably stay with each other. All in all, have to be pleased with the conference's uptick this season.
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DMV Piranha, the last time I checked the Mitchell twins wanted to transfer to Georgetown, but I'm not sure if Georgetown wants them. Georgetown already has 2 freshmen who are back-to-the-basket post players, so the Mitchell twins may not be a fit for them. I'm assuming GW would be a possibility for the Mitchell twins if wanted to be a package deal, attend a local school and Georgetown wasn't an option. If they wanted to split up and attend different schools, GW should still go after the "lesser" of the 2. Makhi was considered a 4 star recruit, Makhel was a 3 star. GW is listed as one of their 'Schools of Interest', but I don't recall GW ever recruiting/offering them.
LSF, George Mason lost by about 30 at TCU earlier in the week, it was only their 2nd loss this season, but they did resemble a team destined to finish in the bottom 4 of the A-10!! George Mason's first conference game will be at home against VCU on Saturday, so they could be in store for another crushing loss. I think GW's winnable conference games are Fordham, UMass, St.Joe's and maybe La Salle(the same as last year!!), but GW can be competitive and possibly knock off that middle tier of teams which include George Mason and St.Louis. Dayton, VCU, Davidson, Richmond and maybe Rhode Island are the games GW will have no chance in. Those teams have too much size, athleticism and shooting for GW, in my opinion. I still think Davidson can be elite in conference play despite how poorly they played in non-conference play
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Maryland is up 73-41 on Indiana .
Great slate of games today, lots of good matchups
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Great game between Notre Dame and Syracuse. ND won 88-87. We could use ND's big man.
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I know UNC has a couple of key guys out, but man this is the worst Tar Heel team I've ever seen. GT isn't any good (they lost to Ball State by 18 at home earlier this year), and UNC just lost by 13 to them at home, 96-83. The ACC has been pretty terrible this year, but you just know that they'll get a ton of bids as usual.
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Look what Baylor did to Shaka's Texas today.
Texas has a 67 KenPom, looks like yet another Bubble season, at best.
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Tell ya which ACC team does NOT suck:
America's most underrated Coach, Leonard Hamilton's #12 KenPom, 13-2 Florida St Seminoles!
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Karl Hobbs could be back to the Dance.
Watch out for a bubble Rutgers team!
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BC(or anyone else who saw the end of Notre Dame-Syracuse), did you think that Notre Dame fouled the Syracuse guard who hit the 3 at the buzzer?? For those of you who didn't see the end of that game, Notre Dame hit a free throw to put them up by 4 with seconds left, Syracuse came down, missed a couple three pointers, but kept getting the offensive rebounds, on the final attempt, the Syracuse guard hit the 3 at the buzzer and may have been fouled or flopped!! It was close because he did flop, but there may have been contact on his follow through motion. For some reason, 2 Notre Dame players ran towards the Syracuse guard and contested his shot as if they were up by 3 or less, and the game was on the line!!
DMVPiranha, I think Cole Anthony is the only guy missing, Bacot(the other 5-star freshman) returned a few games ago. A poster(FQ??) mentioned that North Carolina has several starters/rotation players who aren't your typical North Carolina 5-star recruits, I think he wrote that 1 or 2 of their guys transferred up from mid-majors. Maybe some elite recruits were scared off by the grade fixing scandal involving North Carolina, this is quite a fall from grace for North Carolina. Georgia Tech will likely be a bottom-tier ACC as you indicated.
The Dude, one of Rutgers key players(Geo Baker) suffered an injury and may be out for a while. It's unfortunate because it looks like they have a team capable of making the NCAA tournament. AGAIN, Maryland started out the game looking sluggish and then were able to just "flip on the intensity switch" late in the 1st half, and dominate Indiana!! Maryland has done this in just about every game this year, and it works most of the time because of their high level of talent, but the sluggish starts will cost them against quality teams(like their next game against Ohio State), and maybe against a 12 or 13 seed in the 1st round of the NCAA tournament who gets off to a hot start. You're right about Shaka Smart, he's going to find himself on the bubble again this year because they'll have an 9-9 or 8-10 conference record with decent metric numbers due to the conference they play in.
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Thomas, I though it was a flop with no foul, with replays it looked as if there was a possibility that fingertips might have touched, but since I'm a Mike Brey fan, they really just missed like ships passing in the night.