College football is just getting into gear, but that also means the start of basketball practice is just about a month away.
To help you pass the time while waiting for the first jump ball, Rivals.com will begin its 1-347 countdown today with the teams ranked from 301st to 347th. We'll rank teams in groups of 50 after today until we get to the teams in the top 50, which will get full-fledged breakdowns.
How many of these dregs are on A-10 team schedules?
I quickly scanned the list to see if Rhode Island plays any of these teams this season. Fortunately, none of them are on the Rams schedule for this upcoming year (URI however has played some of the listed teams in recent seasons).
Taking a quick look, I think the Dukes got 3 of these on the schedule. St. Francis PA is a tradition game and somewhat local (about 2 hours from Pittsburgh). We got Fairleigh Dickinson in the CBE Classic sub bracket (along with Binghamton and Western Carolina, after the Iowa away game). And the Dukes needed to schedule a traditional black college (Savannah St.) in the inaugural Chuck Cooper classic honoring the Duquesne's history of early integration. In case you are interested, here's a link to a short biography on Chuck Cooper - Link to Bio
Can there be any question why the SWAC always has a team in the play in game of the NCAA tourney, when 6 teams are worse than 300. My gosh, the conference only has about 10 teams total, and I am sure that at least 3 more will appear in the next listing.:beheader:
There is no way that they should just get an automatic berth and rating of 63 when the tournament seeding comes out. They should be reclassified to Div. II where they would have a realistic chance of winning a game.
340, 306, 315, 333, 299, 311, 338, 342, 335, 337 ... that's the SOS rankings for the ten member SWAC. The entire conference won a grand total of FIVE out-of-conference games last year. 5.
I think for the Atlantic 10 to be taken seriously and have a chance to surpass the lower BCS conferences in national perception and rpi ratings we need to have all 14 teams above the 200 mark. Right now I would accept 1 team in the 200-250 range with 4-5 in the 150-200 range, as long as there are at least 8 in the top 100 with 4-5 in the top 50.
I think for the Atlantic 10 to be taken seriously and have a chance to surpass the lower BCS conferences in national perception and rpi ratings we need to have all 14 teams above the 200 mark.
Right now I would accept 1 team in the 200-250 range with 4-5 in the 150-200 range, as long as there are at least 8 in the top 100 with 4-5 in the top 50.
On paper, the Atlantic 10 is looking good for 7th place in the Conference rankings, but probably no better than that. The A10 may challenge for 6th place, but to get there, the "A10 suck factor" will have to be exorcized during non-conference games this season.
We could probably field a JV team of 2nd and 3rd team All-State players from NJ and PA who are just regular students here and beat some of those teams...
No A-10 teams...still
Fordham is only team I suspect will be worse than #200 in the prediction and actuality. Hopefully, the Bonnies, Colonels, and Niners can do better this year.
It seems like lots of conferences have the 'suck factor'. I remember some old friends that were fans of some Great Midwest Conference teams that always talked about the suck factor dragging them and their conference down. They fixed their problem though.
As meta-prognostications (predictions of other people's predictions) go, looks pretty solid.
Though if I were making my own prognostication (not a meta-prognostication mind you), I'd anticipate Xavier's ancient firearms might be despoiled by cobwebs this year. . .
OK, I get the "cobwebs" part of the analogy, but you lost me on the "ancient firearms" bit. If Xavier is on the young side and they have a brand new coach, I'm a little lost here. Unless you mean ancient because they have been the flagship for so long, and even then, past flagships would disagree. Speaking of young firearms, an assistant coach for Xavier, Travis Steele tweeted that Brad Redford made 100 out of 113 3-point shots. I know it means nothing because of no defense in his face, but has any other team in the A-10 had a player that could shoot like that in practice. Did jimmy Baron put on shows like that? If basketball does not work out for Brad, maybe he could get together a basketball version of "Eddie Feiner's King and His Court" and put on shooting demonstrations at the halftime of NBA games or somethin'
Musketeers carried muskets. I consider muskets to be an ancient firearm, though perhaps less ancient than say an arquebus. But will agree that yes your Muskies are young and my Spiders are experienced.
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