Some huge upsets tonight, Villanova which lost to Columbia  beats #14 Cincy, Clemson  beats #4 Kentucky and Michigan wins at #11 Wisconsin 

Dayton KenPom 32, VCU 41 
Both looking like very strong candidates for at large bids for March Madness in 2025

Dayton has banked the win over #2 NET team UCONN already to boot

Other interesting takeaways from the NET

Gonzaga is #3 ahead of Duke and Kentucky 4 and 5, Mark Few rolls on for a Quarter of a Century of greatness

Rhode Island, Loyola Chicago and The Bonnies are a combined 28-1 with good NETs so 3 other programs to keep an eye on in the league,

and Saint Joe's has booked a Quad 1 on a Neutral  Court over an excellent Texas Tech team
Saint Joe's also booked a Quad 2 win over Villanova which could turn into a Quad 1 win, but they will need to get their Comp #s up to be in the mix

VCU is going to have to find a few Quad 1 wins, like vs Dayton or road games in the league play etc

The A10 has had a fantastic OOC 

Last edited by The Dude (12/10/2024 1:48 pm)

The A10 has not had a fantastic OOC.  As subjective a statement as this is, I don't see how anyone could reasonably make this case.   Irrationally?  Sure.  But not reasonably.

Subtracting out the 11-0 record that the A10 enjoys against non-D1 competition, the A10's winning percentage is 3.5% less than last year's winning percentage, a season that saw one at large team make the NCAA Tournament (Dayton) along with the conference tournament champion (Duquesne).  What are the conference's big wins?  Dayton over UCONN though this was part of a three game Husky losing streak.  St. Joe's beat Villanova but so did Columbia.  They also beat Texas Tech but have some bad losses to counter this.  URI beat a 4 loss Providence team.  Fordham beat Seton Hall but then again, Seton Hall knocked off VCU.  There simply aren't many opportunities at great wins and within these chances, the A10 has really been an average performing conference.

The A10 was the 8th rated conference last season and are again 8th as of today.  Last year, the conference had three schools with a top 100 NET ranking (with one of those, SLU, at #99) and only one of those was invited on the basis of some very strong wins.  There are presently 6 in the Top 100 but these will likely go down as conference play serves to suppress rather than uplift rankings in most cases.  Aside from Dayton at #38, I would not be surprised if any of the others (SBU at 58, URI at 66, VCU at 68, Loyola at 73, and Mason at 87) fell off quite a bit.

Alum1 wrote:

Decent night for the A10 - Dayton tanks #6 Marquette and The Bonnie’s dump the way overrated Friars. Only unexpected blight was the Spiders losing at home to Belmont. Ouch.

In other news, looks like the Max Edwards express is completely off the rails. Played only 10 minutes with zero points in win over Towson. Maybe he's hurt?

Talk about a player whose game declined each year.    Strongly suspect he will not be at Duquesne next season.
 

Long Suffering Fan wrote:

Alum1 wrote:

Decent night for the A10 - Dayton tanks #6 Marquette and The Bonnie’s dump the way overrated Friars. Only unexpected blight was the Spiders losing at home to Belmont. Ouch.

In other news, looks like the Max Edwards express is completely off the rails. Played only 10 minutes with zero points in win over Towson. Maybe he's hurt?

Talk about a player whose game declined each year.    Strongly suspect he will not be at Duquesne next season.
 

 
Yes, agree completely. Another sad story of someone with a huge gulf between his own view of himself and the reality of his talent and capabilities.

Some recent performances by former GW players:
- Bray is averaging 16.3 ppg in his last three games for Bethune-Cookman (they faced Minnesota, Virginia, and West Virginia). I only saw a bit of the UVA game. It took the Cavs 32 minutes before they were able to create any separation. I'm sure their fans can't wait to begin a new era where they actually get to see faster paced offense. The ACC isn't very good. It's hard to say whether VT or UVA is worse this year.

- Noel Brown had 16 points and 8 rebounds for the Bonnies in their win against Providence. Kim English still sucks against A10 competition. You never want a player to transfer to a rival but Noel was the one case where the fit seemed so good that I couldn't get too upset. Bona just does a great job with bigs.

- JoeBam had 25 points and 9 rebounds for VCU in a good win over Colorado State. CSU is a bit down this year in the Mountain West, and I wonder if Niko Medved gets a look at the Minnesota this offseason. VCU's offense has struggled at times to put the ball in the basket, so Bamisile being around to give them a bit of juice has been big for them.

As for Max, I find his situation a bit similar to Bray's. On a team at the A10 level, both players are better served as third or fourth options like they were in their first year at GW. Edwards came into last season as the expected #2 option on the team and I think that was just too big of an ask. URI and Duquesne were expecting both players to be primary options which they just aren't if you're expecting decent efficiency. As for the fit, Duquesne plays too slow for Max's style and runs an offense that doesn't make any sense. Their offense looks like a game of pickup basketball. Defensively, I think they are actually okay.

In other news, UAB blew a 27 point lead yesterday and eventually lost to Arkansas State in overtime. ASU is pretty good, but UAB is representative of a really down AAC this year. I think the fact that they finished 7th in our MTE probably showed that already but they were expected to compete with Memphis for the conference title and potentially get an at-large bid before the year.

SLU also lost at Illinois State. They started the game slow against ISU (like GW) but unfortunately dug themselves into a deeper hole compared to GW and weren't able to pull it out in the end. Loyola was also handed their first loss against San Francisco, another missed opportunity for the league.
 

I do think there is a certain sense of entitlement that factors into someone like Max's journey.

He starts out enrolling at a P5 school in Kansas State.  Rivals had him a s a 4 star; ON3 had him a point away from being a 4 star (3 star with a grade of 89).

K-State gives up on him, perhaps due to injury, perhaps due to what they've seen from him in practice, perhaps due to recruiting over him, or perhaps some combination.

He joins GW, becomes an immediate starter, and becomes the A10's Newcomer of the Year.  He can now see that he's in line to be JB's #2 last season and then GW becomes his team to lead after JB departs.  Only, the emergence of Jun causes CC to shift gears.  Subsequently, Max becomes less integral to the team last season though his stats are similar to the year prior.  He appears less interested, less focused, wonders why a guy was good enough to play for K State is being passed over.

Max leaves GW with an inflated sense of self.  Suitors are not lining up for his services.  He joins a new coach at Duquesne, a lateral move despite the Dukes' A10 Championship.  With all of the changes, Max is likely believing that he has a new A10 team where he may serve as the alpha dog.

While I've only seen Max play once this year, it's not hard to envision the sulking and bad body language when things aren't going his way.  It's harsh to make these statements after considering what a determined player Max was when he wanted to be.  The key though is "when he wanted to be".  During his first GW season, he gave the team great defensive rebounding where it was desperately needed because he wanted to give the team what it needed.  Am sure he felt that this would be made up to him, only it wasn't.  And deservedly so.  Sometimes, you're not the best even if you think you are or worse, feel like others should see you in this light.

jf wrote:

   Then, there's also the whole idea that technically at least, this is supposed to also be
about college and academics.
    

At least we are not hearing about his other "America's greatest coach" Steve Pikiell (Rutgers). Probably because Big Ten Rutgers has a NET ranking of 85, is 7-4 with 5 of those 7 wins coming from Q-4 teams!