Offline
Jon Rothstein@JonRothstein 49m
The Atlantic 10 is considering going to a 20-game conference schedule, per Atlantic 10 Commissioner Bernadette McGlade. McGlade: "With the inventory of non-conference games shrinking, we have to consider 20 games."
This is kind of meh. I enjoy playing teams from other conferences, but I get it from maximizing the number of bids. All the big conferences are going to a bigger schedule, so we are relegated to playing the low-major teams largely. The home-and-home against teams like UVA seem like a thing of the past. Even the South Carolina series we got requires us to go to their place twice versus them coming to Foggy Bottom just once. I think we should do something like what the C-USA did with having the best teams play each other more at the end of conference play rather than extend the conference season by 2 games.
Offline
This is not good news for the sport but it's also not the A10 that's causing this. If the Power 5 plus Big East conferences are going to 20 games, that's all the more reason to suggest that they don't really need to test themselves all that often during their 10 OOC games. So, they will schedule a few games against other major conference schools and the rest will be presumably easy "buy" games. Think of why Georgetown will not play GW and expand this. Most major conference schools have little to gain and plenty to lose going up against an A10 school.
So if the majors aren't going to avail themselves (or specifically, are providing fewer opportunities to do so), then the A10 can schedule more OOC games against schools from lower level conferences or similarly use up two more dates on conference games. Incidentally, this will also make things that much more difficult on A10 schools to generate Quad 1 opportunities in the NET system. It's going to be up to the committee to determine whether an A10 school with a 2-3 record in Quad 1 games is above or below a power conference school with a 5-11 record in Quad 1 games.
Offline
I actually like the idea for GW. We played 31 games this past season, 13 non conference and 18 conference. Going to 11 non-conference games should not impact our ability to scheduel the occasional big school that will play us. The non conference games were against Towson, Howard, American, Morgan State, UM-Kansas City, Evansville, Milwaukee, South Carolina, Boston University,Delaware, Harvard, Longwood and Vermont. With the exception of South Carolina, Boston University, Delaware, Harvard and Vermont, I would drop any 2 of the rest in a heartbeat for any 2 conference opponents. Maybe keep Howard and American due to the local factor, but again, In reality, South Carolina was the only "name" opponant on the list capable of drawing any interest outside of the handful of us minions. I would rather play 2 more meaningful (meaning conference) gamse against any A-10 team than the lower level opponants we are mostly relegated to playing.
Last edited by Long Suffering Fan (4/01/2020 10:44 pm)
Offline
I don't hate this, and think if it happens they should go back to divisions like they had 15 years ago. 19 games makes more sense for this: 2 7 team divisions - play each team in your division twice (home and away) and the other division once. Something like:
South:
GW
Richmond
VCU
GMU
Davidson
SLU
Dayton
North:
UMass
URI
SBU
Fordham
LaSalle
St. Joes
Duquense
Wouldn't be the easiest for GW, at least as currently constituted, but I think it makes sense geographically and would foster more rivalries. A10 Tournament could be set up along the lines of what it used to be, with N6 vs. S7 and N7 vs N6 in the first round, and then double byes for the first 2 teams in each division.
Offline
The MWC voted 7-4 to increase their league schedule to 20 games. This will mean round robin home and away games versus every other member as there are 11 teams. San Diego, UNLV, Nevada, and Air Force are thought to be the dissenters. Will not go into effect until another two years after the the initial MWC-A10 Challenge agreement is completed. Assumption is that the renewal clause for this conference challenge will not be acted on per San Diego Union-Tribune thus ending it after two seasons.
Offline
Now if this was a professional money making enterprise I’d be concerned. Um wait a minute. This is horrendous. First local schools no longer play each other now this. The Who did you
Play bullshit squared.
Glad 8-12 Northwestern gets in over a 18-2 Stephen F Austin.