There's been a good bit of chatter about how A-10 contraction would be to the benefit of the conference, specifically among the Dayton-type fans of the world. And to keep the Daytons and VCUs around for the next batch of expansion, fewer mouths to feed isn't a terrible idea. 

GW is an OG member and has done a good bit of service to the league, but the administration and Men's Basketball Coaching Staffs would do well to stay off the bottom of the league for the next few years. Memories are short in college hoops, and over the last, say five years, GW is right there with La Salle and, until the last couple of years, Fordham, as ideal candidates for the chopping block. 

Fordham was strong this year and still claims the NYC media market, but schools like GW and La Salle can be cast off much more comfortably with SJU and George Mason still around to keep the media map intact. If UMass can get its football program off the ground and join a football conference as a football member (which they rejected when the MAC offered years ago, and were recently turned down by C-USA), that's not necessarily addition by subtraction, but it's manageable with Rhody still in that New England neighborhood.

I think that fork in the road is still some years away, but it can't be totally ignored.

Duquesne in the CBI - I didn't realize there was still a CBI post season tourney. I thought COVID destroyed everything except for the NCAA and NIT tourney's? The others were garbage anyway.

GW0509 wrote:

The Belk Report, a Davidson fan Twitter account, had some pretty good tweets last night comparing the A10 and the MWC.  Not getting enough Q1 opportunities, while true, does not mean that the A10 can never be a 3+ bid league again; or at the very least a multiple NIT bid league again.  The conference as a whole needs to find opportunities to schedule good Q2 and Q3 games in the OOC and win.  That way, the conference portion of the season will mostly be comprised of Q2 and Q3 games. I've copied the thread below:

The first thing that stands out is that scheduling harder is definitively OUT. The 5 MW teams in the NCAAT convo this season combined for 2 Q1 wins in the non-con. They didn't even schedule that many! Utah State, Boise, and Nevada combined had 3 Q1 opps in the non-con.

BUT, scheduling cupcakes is not getting you in either. San Diego State had just 1 Q4 game in the non-con, Nevada had 3, Utah State had 2, and Boise had 4.

What it appears the trick is, is to load up on Q2 and Q3 opportunities. Keep Q1 and Q4 games to a minimum and hammer those Q2/Q3 games. You also have to beat up on those Q2/Q3 teams to raise your efficiency numbers like Utah State did.

A good east coast A10 schedule would be:
Charleston/Hostra (Away)
UVM (home)
Iona (home)
Colgate (home)
P6 game (Neutral/Away)
Good Ivy Team (Home)
MTE (3 games)
Good Big South Team (Home)
Good Sun Belt Team (Home)
Good SoCon Team (Home)
Good Horizon League Team (Home)

The answer is to fire Bernadette and hire a commish who has his or her brain focused on growing NCAA bids by any means necessary.

Alum1 wrote:

If Dayton turned down an NIT bid, call me disappointed. Few schools can claim a fan base that would have filled the gym for an NIT game, and few cities respect the game more. I’m wondering if they said no because they knew they’d have to play on the road given the First Four is in Dayton on the same dates scheduled for the NIT first round games. If so then maybe I can understand not wanting to trek to some place like North Texas, Alcorn State or Liberty. That would be the “Fuck it” call to make.

The First Four issue hadn’t occurred to me, but it makes sense. Just ask 2015-16 Florida.

The NIT field is comprised of 11 schools who won their conference regular season but failed to win their conference tournament, plus an additional 13 schools from the Power 5 or Big East conferences.  This leaves 25% of the slots to midmajors receiving an at-large bid.  Some of these 13 are very questionable, schools who won more Q1 games than the smaller guys because they were afforded so many more opportunities to play in such games.  Why the NIT would get sucked into rewarding schools based on Q1 wins is beyond me (aside from the obvious, money).  

I wonder how many of these schools even want to be playing in the NIT (and by that, I mean will really be motivated to play well)?  I've spoken or emailed/texted with friends who follow several of these schools, including Florida, Michigan, Rutgers, Oregon, Villanova, Virginia Tech and Wisconsin.  I recognize that the voice of the fan may be quite different than that of the team, but from a fan's perspective, nobody seems too thrilled about playing in this event (though a couple joked that if their team reached the finals, they would have to suck it up and get on a plane to Vegas).

Here's an idea (which will never be adopted)...why not exclude the majors from participating in the NIT?  If they can't reach the field of 68, their season is finished.  To be fair, we'd also have to exclude non-majors from reaching the Dance as an at large.  The smaller guys still get to go by winning their conference tournament.  This lessens the chance of a GW reaching the dance, but as we are seeing, those odds are becoming more and more remote anyway.  The benefit is it turns the NIT into a high quality tournament for midmajors on down as opposed to an event where 40% of the participants are showing up disappointed that they were unable to make the field of 68.

According to a Dayton newspaper it was Dayton's decision based on injuries and not having the home court. I see Rutgers tonight found out how good Hofstra is. Tough loss for former our coaches.

It is foolish to make any declarative statements based solely on the outcome of a single game.  

GW was not better than Dayton this season despite the fact that GW won the lone meeting.  Jacksonville was not a better team than VCU.  We can only point to hundreds of upsets and make the same statement about these matchups.

Rutgers, I believe, was 3-8 without Mag.  Even with Mag, they very well might have lost to Hofstra.  They obviously felt their win over Michigan put them in the field of 68.  They were crushed to have been excluded.  This was going to go 1 of 2 ways:  either Rutgers was going to take out their frustrations on the NIT field, or they were not going to be in great shape to play.  Play 10 times on a neutral court and I am reasonably confident that Rutgers beats Hofstra at least 6 of those times.

Not sure how Liberty-Villanova falls under this "analysis" as nobody considered Nova a bubble team this season.  Liberty was even at home and seeded higher.

Last night in the NIT, bubble power school teams Michigan, Wisconsin, and Vanderbilt defeated Toledo, Bradley and Yale respectively.  Claiming that the best smaller schools are equal matches to bubble power schools is just an absurd statement with no factual basis whatsoever.  Unless of course you're basing this on the outcome of a single game.

GWRising wrote:

What happened to Rutgers last night was similar to when we beat Florida in NIT. The P5 schools who are disappointed by not getting in the NCAA tournament don't always show well in the NIT. There are countless examples of this. Meanwhile MMs with a chip on their shoulder usually do well.

That said, not only must Rutgers be disappointed with the outcome last evening but they must have been doubly pissed off if they caught much of the Pitt-Mississippi State game last evening. That was some bad basketball and both Rutgers and Hofstra looked better last night. But that's all water under the bridge now.

Can’t agree with the analysis of the Florida game.

First, we were the ones who were disappointed not to be in the NCAA.  All reporting at the time was that it wasn’t until Mitola’a game winner vs Hofstra that the team really embraced playing in it.

Second, Florida was the second game. Almost always, the phenomenon of the team not trying is in the first game, but as with and hofstra, teams tend to be over it and ready to go in game 2.

Third, I was at the game and Florida certainly put in the effort.  Dorian Finney-Smith didn’t sit it out, nor did they give a lot of extra minutes to young bench guys.  They played to win, we were just better (which isn’t a surprise given that we had 3 nba guys on our team).   I think it’s REALLY sells our team short to suggest Florida in game 2 didn’t care, when the reality is we were better than them. 


Also, for anyone inclined to bet on games, my tip is UC Irvine +7.5 over Oregon.(and maybe even moneyline).  3 Oregon starters are opting out or hurt, and it seems likely they will give nominal players a lot of time.  Maybe the bet doesn’t work because the oregon subs shine when they actually get to play, but that feels like a very tasty line to me.

Free Quebec wrote:

GWRising wrote:

What happened to Rutgers last night was similar to when we beat Florida in NIT. The P5 schools who are disappointed by not getting in the NCAA tournament don't always show well in the NIT. There are countless examples of this. Meanwhile MMs with a chip on their shoulder usually do well.

That said, not only must Rutgers be disappointed with the outcome last evening but they must have been doubly pissed off if they caught much of the Pitt-Mississippi State game last evening. That was some bad basketball and both Rutgers and Hofstra looked better last night. But that's all water under the bridge now.

Can’t agree with the analysis of the Florida game.

First, we were the ones who were disappointed not to be in the NCAA. All reporting at the time was that it wasn’t until Mitola’a game winner vs Hofstra that the team really embraced playing in it.

Second, Florida was the second game. Almost always, the phenomenon of the team not trying is in the first game, but as with and hofstra, teams tend to be over it and ready to go in game 2.

Third, I was at the game and Florida certainly put in the effort. Dorian Finney-Smith didn’t sit it out, nor did they give a lot of extra minutes to young bench guys. They played to win, we were just better (which isn’t a surprise given that we had 3 nba guys on our team). I think it’s REALLY sells our team short to suggest Florida in game 2 didn’t care, when the reality is we were better than them.


Also, for anyone inclined to bet on games, my tip is UC Irvine +7.5 over Oregon.(and maybe even moneyline). 3 Oregon starters are opting out or hurt, and it seems likely they will give nominal players a lot of time. Maybe the bet doesn’t work because the oregon subs shine when they actually get to play, but that feels like a very tasty line to me.

You are right ... it does really sell our team short to suggest Florida didn't care. Only problem is that isn't what I said. Try reading more carefully ... The P5 schools who are disappointed by not getting in the NCAA tournament don't always show well in the NIT. 

So what you're saying Rising is that Rutgers/Florida cared plenty but just didn't play well?  That the teams who feel snubbed by the committee care a great deal about the NIT but often play poorly in it, after they've been snubbed?